Page 62 of What a Highlander’s Got to Do

It was not fair.

“I say. Isobel? Are you listening?” Catriona’s sharp question sliced through her reverie.

“What? Of course,” she snapped, though she, indeed, had not been.

Catriona sat up and stared at her. It was that annoying, too-knowing look she had.

“Are you thinking about him again?”

Heat rose, a scalding heat, on her cheeks. “No.” It was a pitiful denial and Catriona knew it.

“Isobel, you must stop mooning over that stable lad. We’ve been over and over this.”

She snorted. She didn’t mean to, and it caught Catriona’s attention. Sharpened it.

“What does that mean?”

“What?”

“That noise. You know you made it.”

“Did I?”

“Stop prevaricating. Tell me what is going on.”

“It’s him,” Isobel muttered, as though that explained it all.

Cat crossed her arms and waited silently for Isobel to continue. How she hated when Cat did that. It was impossible to resist.

“He’s not a stable boy.” Blast. She hadn’t intended to say that.

But it was too late. Catriona had heard. “What? How on earth would you know? Unless . . .”

Isobel sighed. “Aye. I apparently did see him in Hyde Park. He is in London.”

“And he’s no’ a stable lad.”

“Nae.” The bastard.

“So . . . what is he?”

Isobel plopped back on the bed and covered her face with her arm. “You willna believe me.”

“I might.”

She peeked out and whispered, “He’s Viscount Stirling.”

Cat’s eyes went wide. Her cheeks pooched out and she crowed with laughter. “He isna!”

“Aye.”

“The verra handsome Viscount Stirling? The verra eligible Viscount Stirling?”

“Do stop.”

When did you find out?”

“Last night, at the ball. Oh, Cat.” She sat up and grabbed her friend’s shoulders. “It was mortifying. He knew who I was all the time. Even when he . . .”