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“I’m doing nothing before I hear from Fingal what happened.” By now, he had stood up to his full, impressive height.
“He compromised the wrong daughter, that’s what happened!” McTavish devolved.
Wrong being a very relative concept here, Drostan pondered as he remembered the lass and his brother working together with the Arab horse.
Circling his desk, Drostan came to stand right in front of Angus. The half-bald, rounding-middle man had to bend his head back to look at him.
“I’ll wait for them. When I have the facts, I’ll send for you,” he determined.
The other man huffed in apparent agreement, turned and left, pounding his feet and banging the door.
Drostan’s thumb and index fingers pressed the bridge of his nose. That was all he needed at the moment, he thought, another clan quibble.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“We’re stopping at Gretna Green to get married before we proceed to my manor,” Fingal informed her.
Catriona looked at him and wondered why she did not rebel when he took her from her townhouse, plonked her on his horse, rode her to his lodgings, and put her in this carriage. And then had told the driver to set off northwards.
Probably because she did not really want to, she must admit. But marriage? “I don’t think I want to marry you,” she answered. They sat on opposite seats in the comfortable vehicle he had brought with him.
She was still dressed in the riding-habit she wore when she had come home from riding. Fingal bought her several pieces of undergarments in the villages they passed by, but too few assortments of dresses led her to stick to her own garment. In the inns they overnighted—in separate rooms—a bath had been available, and she had aired her dress as she slept in her chemise.
It had been like this for the last four days. Sometimes, he rode his thoroughbred, whose name she did not know. He also kept his distance, frustratingly so. During the trip, they talked about several things, none too personal, mostly about childhood in the Highlands, governesses, education, their families.
“You chose to marry me that night in the stable,” he said, eyes fixed on her.
“On the contrary,” she reminded him. “I agreed that you could not offer for me.”
“I’m not talking about the words, but the deed.” He crossed his thick arms over his impressive chest, and she gained a misplaced yearning to change her seat and go touch him.
“You haven’t even asked,” she pointed out.
Marriage to him might be heaven or hell. Or both. Catriona admitted she and Fingal listed a lot in common, especially when it came to horses and riding. But living with him would make her turn to melted butter every time her gaze fell on him, or his on her. She would become a ninny, a pea-brain famished for his attentions. That would not do. He held too much power over her body, for one. If she was honest with herself, she must own that he had a domain over her mind, too. Because she did not succeed in stopping thinking about him from day one.
The carriage jolted and rattled over the uneven road, but they did not notice it.
A side smirk adorned his sculpted lips. “I consider it superfluous, but—” He placed a mocking hand over his heart. “Would you do me the honour of being my wife?”
She placed her own hand over her heart. “Sorry, but no,” she replied with a false, regretful look on her.
He shrugged those bunched shoulders. “Alright. We reach Gretna Green tonight.”
“You need not to do this,” she insisted.
His eyes burned on her. “Oh, no?” She felt the heat on every pore. “I deflower the McTavish’s first born and leave it at that?”
“No one would ever know,” she asserted.
“That’s one question I wanted to ask.” He frowned at her. “What would you have done, knowing you had lain with your future brother-in-law?”
The man did not have mercy on her, did he? Deep colour tinted her cheeks. Put this way, it seemed crude, but she had not meant it like this. “I’d hoped to keep it a secret.”
“And when we met?”
“I reckoned we wouldn’t meet so soon. Neither you nor Anna were exactly rushing the whole thing. By the time we met, you’d probably not even remember my name,” she risked.
“Your other name, that is.” An angry scowl marred his chiselled features. “You see me as that superficial?”
