To Tame a Highland Warrior

I could, I know I could! she almost shouted. “But you have those other kind of feelings quite frequently, don’t you?” she snipped.

“As often as I can.”

“There you go with your hair, again. What is it with you and your hair?” When he didn’t reply she said childishly, “I hate you, Roderick.” She could have kicked herself the moment she said it. She prided herself on being an intelligent woman, yet around Grimm she regressed into a petty child. She was going to have to dredge up something more effective than the same puerile response if she intended to spar with him.

“No you doona, lass.” He uttered a harsh curse and stepped forward, doffing the shadows impatiently. “That’s the third time you’ve said that to me, and I’m getting bloody sick of hearing it.”

Jillian held her breath as he moved closer, staring down at her with a strained expression. “You wish you could hate me, Jillian St. Clair, and Christ knows you should hate me, but you just can’t quite bring yourself to hate me all that much, can you? I know, because I’ve looked in your eyes, Jillian, and where a great big nothing should be if you hated me, there’s a fiery thing with curious eyes.”

He turned in a swirl of shadows and descended from the roof, moving with lupine grace. At the bottom of the steps, he paused in a puddle of moonlight and tilted his head back. The pale moon cast his bitter expression into stark relief. “Doona ever say those words to me again, Jillian. I mean it—fair warning. Not ever.”

Cobblestones crunched beneath his boots as he disappeared into the gardens, comforting her that he was, indeed, of this world.

She pondered his words for a long time after he’d gone, and she was left alone with the bruised sky on the parapet. Three times he’d called her by name—not brat or lass, but Jillian. And although his final words had been delivered in a cool monotone, she had seen—unless the moon was playing tricks with her vision—a hint of anguish in his eyes.

The longer she considered it, the more convinced she became. Logic insisted that love and hate could masquerade behind the same façade. It became an issue of simply peeling back that mask to peer beneath it and determine which emotion truly drove the man in the shadow. A glimmer of understanding pierced the gloom that surrounded her.

Go with your heart, her mother had counseled her hundreds of times. The heart speaks clearly even when the mind insists otherwise.

“Mama, I miss you,” Jillian whispered as the last stain of purple twilight melted into a raven horizon. But despite the distance, Elizabeth St. Clair’s strength was inside her, in her blood. She was a Sacheron and a St. Clair—a formidable combination.

Indifferent to her, was he? It was time to see about that.

CHAPTER 10

“WELL, THAT’S IT, THEN—THEY’RE OFF,” HATCHARD MUTTERED, watching the men depart. He finger-combed his short red beard thoughtfully. He stood with Kaley on the front steps of Caithness, watching three horses fade into swirls of dust down the winding road.

“Why did they have to choose Durrkesh?” Kaley asked irritably. “If they wanted to go catting about, they could very well have gone to the village right here.” She waved at the small town clustered protectively near the walls of Caithness that spilled into the valley beyond.

Hatchard shot her a caustic glance. “Although this may come as a grave shock to your … shall we say … accommodating nature, not everyone thinks about catting all the time, Missus Twillow.”

“Don’t be ‘Missus Twillowing’ me, Remmy,” she snapped. “I’ll not be believing you’ve lived nearly forty years without doing a bit of catting yourself. But I must say, I find it appalling that they’re off catting when they were brought here for Jillian.”

“If you’d listen for a change, Kaley, you might hear what I’ve been telling you. They went to Durrkesh because Ramsay suggested they go—not for catting, but to acquire wares that can only be purchased in the city. You told me we’ve run short of peppercorns and cinnamon, and you won’t be finding those wares here.” He gestured to the village and allowed a significant pause to pass before adding, “I also heard one might find saffron at the city fair this year.”

“Saffron! Bless the saints, we haven’t had saffron since last spring.”

“You’ve kept me perennially aware of the fact,” Hatchard said wryly.

“One does what one can to aid an old man’s memory.” Kaley sniffed. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you usually send your men for the wares?”