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“And Miss Paddington.” She turned those enormous eyes on him, and he almost lost his speech. “We start tomorrow at dawn.” If she proved to be the lazy kind, she would be in for a hard time here.
“I’ll be here,” she answered without giving signs of disgust at the early hours.
Drostan got him with a foot down the aisle, with his full cooperation. Fingal did not have the choice to veer from this track. So, in the last year, he renovated the old manor Drostan had turned over to him. It took time, but he owned a presentable home now. One he was glad to go back to at the end of an exhausting day. Like today.
Except that today there would be a guest in residence.
An intriguing guest.
One he would make sure to forget all about in three seconds.
Three, two, one…
Nope, not happening, my laird.
Catriona looked up at the construction before her and her lungs released air in a gasp. A splendid manor stood before her all erected in grey stone, probably from the seventeenth century. A round tower with battlements on one side, elongated in the shape of a tall house on the other. She counted four floors in the tower and three on the roof-topped house. The stones showed the marks of time, which added to their charm. As she stepped inside, it took her breath away. It had clearly received recent attention with new panelled walls and polished floor boards. Impeccable drapes decorated the diamond-shaped windows and the huge fireplace in the main room looked inviting and cosy, though not yet lit.
The elderly housekeeper, Mrs Thomson, showed her to a guest chamber on the second floor of the tower. The room looked recently decorated, but kept a somewhat mediaeval atmosphere with its round shape and diamond-shaped window. The velvet drapes, the polished fireplace, and the four-poster bed completed the decoration. The latter included a fluffy mattress and pillows, and the counterpane had a very feminine embroidery on it. Mrs Thomson told her to make herself at home and that she would bring a tray of tea before she left the room.
As soon as she was alone, Catriona crossed the room. A peer through the window got her sighing wistfully. Green woods with a lake in the distance, as clouds in the horizon gave a touch of movement to the scene. Catriona had missed this so much. Her land, her country. How did she stay away for so long? Why did she not insist on more trips here? Because of that, few people would recognise her in the Highlands, this being the reason Laird Fingal did not. Her absence spoke of unrooting. Her parents were allowing her and Anna to forget their traditions and their origins. It felt sad, and it made Catriona pensive to realise she would marry an English lord and remain away from everything that defined her—everything she loved so deeply. She tore herself away from the view before tears pricked her eyes. No use bringing this about now. The opportunity to enjoy this summer in her homeland presented itself, and she would make the most of it.
Mrs Thomson entered with the tea and said dinner would be served in the main room. While she took her tea, she wrote to her mother.
Footmen brought the one trunk she carried for this trip into her chambers early in the afternoon. Presumably, dinner would be in the company of the manor’s owner, the impossible god, which would require her to dress accordingly. She was happy that she usually chose discreet and refined but muted apparels. The one in a celestial blue shimmering silk with a discreet neckline seemed proper. No need of a maid either as her clothing could slide on with ease.
The prospect of spending the evening with the man who would become her brother-in-law caused her insides to quiver a little bit without plain reason, though denying it would be a deplorable case of self-delusion. If there was one thing Catriona did not suffer from, it was self-delusion.
Taking a deep breath, she descended the round stairs and ambled ramrod straight to the main room. As she entered it, her heart somersaulted. Fingal stood there, a glass of wine in his big square hand, his hawkish profile cut against the fire in the fireplace, his gaze on the cool twilight outside the window panes.
Catriona had imagined, hoped—even concluded—that the initial impression he made on her was erroneous somehow. How irksome to find out she had been wrong. Irrevocably, dishearteningly wrong. His tall, broad frame was clad in a pristine shirt with a green, black, and white tartan wrapped around him, making him look like a warrior of old. A hot flush ran over her, followed by an icy one. She was not supposed to eye him with anything but that kind of casual familiarity one reserved for their in-laws. Tearing her eager gawk from him, she looked anywhere else, only vaguely noticing the renovated, comfortable furniture placed carefully around her.
“Mr McKendrick.” She made her presence known, training her eyes somewhere over his bunched shoulder.
He pivoted to her and cannoned her with a stare that seemed to see exclusively her. “Miss Paddington,” the deep rumble greeted.
Weak, earthly creature that she pitifully was, she directed a glance at him, defeating her determination not to succumb. And nearly melted at the sight of damp, luxuriant dark-brown hair, the shadow of an evening stubble on tanned skin, transforming him from warrior to pirate, to outlaw, a bandit, a burglar of her composure and strength of will.
The concept she had formed of herself had been of a woman unaffected by male attraction. Up to this moment, no member of the opposite sex had ever caught her…not attention, that word did not begin to describe it…her breath, yes breath; her lungs burned from lack of air. And she did not appear capable of drawing air in any time soon. No English lord had ever done anything for her, not so far.
It had taken one week travelling through precarious roads, from a longing to revisit her birthplace, for a highlander to overcome such a false assumption. And the most inappropriate highlander, in the most inappropriate manner.
“Mrs Thomson said I should attend dinner,” she blurted, her brain too dysfunctional for anything else.
His glare sauntered down her silhouette and before starting back up again, lingering on the swell of her breasts and her mouth before snagging back at her. It felt like an unbridled caress, sowing goose-bumps on every inch of her skin.
“It’s about to be served,” he assured her.
If these first minutes were a sample of what dinner would be like, it might be wise to retrace her steps. For the life of her, though, she would not act coward.
“Allow me,” he continued, motioning to one of the set places on a long table sitting to one side of the hearth.
In three large strides he neared to help her to a chair, and Catriona captured a faint scent of him, green woods and a touch of horse mingled with another subtle essence that made her want to press her nose to his taut muscles to inhale deeper. As she took her seat, he pushed her chair closer to the table from behind her. His breath fanned the nape of her neck, the sensation reflecting directly on her plucked breasts. The novelty of it did not diminish its intensity, and she took a few seconds to suppress it.
In economical movements, he moved to the other side of the table and sat across from her. Her gaze snagged to the candelabra with flickering candles because darting it to him would be disastrous.
The silence thickened with all the things unsaid, unsayable; she strove to break it. “It is a charming house you have here.” Neutral territory, and the safest.
His stance showed he understood what she was doing. “It sat in shambles until a year ago, when my brother assigned it to me.” A footman came to serve the wine. “The refurbishing started then.”
