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She strove to learn and do as many duties as she could during this time. It felt as if she lived ten years in one. And matured decades by her twenty-fifth birthday.
Her delicate, petite frame swivelled back into hiding, in wait for the exact moment to act. Though she looked delicate, she discovered she was anything but. In these last months, she summoned a strength she never imagined she possessed. Facing up to the odds of her people regarding her as the leader, dodging her uncle’s malice, struggling to keep her clan’s welfare safe. It had been like killing a lion daily.
Now she would have to kill another. Or marry one, in this case.
Marriage to a womaniser sounded like a lousy bargain to waste her life on, by the way. However, for her clan she would do anything.
Her hazel eyes turned back to the road. A hundred yards. Wait a moment more, she told herself. She took the time to steady her breath and her heart rate. To no avail.
She checked again. Twenty yards. Her hands firmed on the rifle as she turned and posted herself in the middle of the road, aiming it.
“Stop right there, McKendrick,” she issued in what she hoped to be an assertive tone, tightening her fingers on the cold metal in order to stop their trembling.
“Darroch?” he said in that smooth voice of his as he halted his horse. He used to call her by her clan’s name when they chanced on each other.
She lifted her gaze to him.
The man had always been a weapon himself. In mere seconds, the sight of him sent every nerve ending to a meltdown. He was perfect, just perfect, there was no other word for him. At about six feet four, the view of him reminded her of the statue of Apollo Belvedere she saw once reproduced in a book. The face, that is, because the rest of him she did not even want to contemplate, lest she display a ninny swooning she utterly despised.
“You’re trespassing on Darroch’s lands.” She blurted to cover up her reaction.
With nowhere else to focus, she absorbed him. The locks of dark brown hair, the straight brows, the deep-set coffee eyes fringed by sooty lashes. Next, she studied his fine, straight nose, those lips designed to induce unlawful thoughts, the square jaw including a cleft on his male chin. The strong, masculine body under his green, black, and white tartan clamoured for exploring hands.
r /> His beauty attracted scores of women and she refused to fall prey. Since she met him four years ago, she lived with the misfortune of reacting to him, despite her attempts to feign indifference. Those years ago, both happened to be in the gathering that made his nephew the heir of the McPherson and the McKendrick.
“No one complained before,” he stated, an amused gleam in his piercing eyes.
She lifted the rifle one extra inch to show how serious she was. Of course, she need not tell him she had no money to buy the balls required to shoot, the detail unimportant.
“I’m complaining today.” Her voice hardened at his dismissal.
At that, he dismounted. Yes! Precisely what she wanted him to do.
One straight brow rose mischievously. The man held fame for being a jester. “All right, lass, you need not use this subterfuge in order to meet me. We can arrange it any time you wish by the usual means, you know, send a note or something.” His nefarious lips rose on one side. It made the cleft on his chin stand out. It also made her want to devour him.
His voice and his grin caused a flutter in her stomach. “Only you would think of such a self-centred motivation.” She scorned, tamping down the flutters.
Had she the time or opportunity for flirtation, he would be the last man on the planet to whom she would turn. Moira harboured an utter contempt for womanisers, having seen enough for a lifetime.
His stance froze to deadly still, granite smothering his Apollonian features. “Now wait there for a second, Darroch,” steel entered his tone, making it lower and coarser. Lachlan also held the fame for being rather hot-headed and he did not look pleased at that exact moment.
Never would she back down, however.
The strip of strong legs she saw between the tartan and the kilt hoses paced forward despite the gun pointed at him. Would those legs feel rough to the touch? The random thought infuriated her.
He moved once more onto a patch of dry leaves—that he did not fear the threat of a gun amazed her—and triggered the trap. A net made from the estate’s sheep’s wool enveloped him, suspending his tall frame up to a tree’s thick branch.
“What the hell are you up to, Darroch?” Downright anger shot from him in droves.
Moira’s hazel eyes lifted to the trees’ canopies, surprised with her success. The tightly knit net she had made held steady.
Laird Lachlan McKendrick dangled right in the air.
Lachlan joggled on the donkey-pulled cart, eyes peering through the tight net with difficulty. The wool obscured his view, as he could only discern his horse tethered to the back of the cart with his fishing supplies and a much-needed—and out of reach—knife on it.
The moment he succeeded in setting himself free a certain feminine neck would taste the strength of his fury. A wheel stumbled on a protrusion causing his backside to concuss against the raw wood. It made his fury soar sky-high.
As soon as he hung from the tree branch, the mad Darroch lass brought about the cart that had been hiding in the woods. Dexterously, she lowered him onto it and tied the top rope to the yoke, effectively immobilising him. Any protest would fall on deaf ears, he reckoned, so he kept the boiling words for when her elegant neck was between his large hands. Tying done, the mad Darroch sat at the driver’s place and incited the donkeys with the reins. The lass drove a cart for pity’s sake!
