“Protect me? I don’t need any man’s protection!”
Her eyes blazed with fury, and he realized he’d said the wrong thing again. Damn it. Perhaps she was right: Perhaps shedidn’tneed his protection. The memory of yesterday was stillraw in his mind. The power that had blazed out of Elise. The sheer, mind-numbing scale of it.
Yet it made no difference. She was still just a human woman and all it would take was one piece of bad luck, one instant of being in the wrong place at the wrong time to undo her. The pirates would want revenge for her attack on them. They would be looking out for her, biding their time, planning their response.
So it didn’t matter that she was a MacFinnan spellweaver. Keeping her safe was still his duty, and he would not,couldnot allow her to put herself in harm’s way. How could he make her understand that? How could he make her understand that if anything happened to her, it would rip his heart out?
He couldn’t. The words he wanted to say clogged his throat, refusing to come out. And this only made him angrier.
“I am chieftain of this island,” he growled at her. “And while ye are my guest, ye will do as I bid ye. Ye willnotgo out alone searching the island for something that isnae there. Do I make myself clear?”
Her nostrils flared and she lifted her chin, glaring pure fire at him. He wanted to rage at her, make her understand his predicament. He wanted to take her face in his hands and kiss her. He wanted to spill out everything that filled his heart and have it all out in the open between them. But he could not.
“Fine!” she exploded. “I’ll do as you ask,my laird.” She imbued his title with enough sarcasm to make him wince. Before he could reply, she climbed to her feet, snatched up the map from the sand, and tucked it under her arm. “Now if you will excuse me, I have someextremelyinteresting paperwork waiting for me.”
She marched off without a backward glance, anger rolling off her in waves. Jamie watched her go, regretting all the words he wanted to say but couldn’t. He suspected it was unwise to upseta MacFinnan spellweaver, a woman who could likely blast him into cinders if she chose, but he would risk any danger if it meant keeping her safe.
With a sigh, he heaved himself heavily to his feet and headed back to the boat shed, already thinking of ways he could make it up to her.
Chapter Ten
Elise fumed allthe way back to the keep. She’d been so sure she was onto something, so sure she had finally,finally, made a breakthrough. But no. Mr. I-Know-Everything hadn’t responded the way she’d expected and had forbidden her from looking into it any further. Forbidden! As if he had the right to tell her what to do!
She stomped up the track that led up from the beach, splashing through puddles left by the recent rains without really noticing, and ran through what she’d learned. Jamie already knew the pattern of the attacks. He’d already scoured the island, searching for the pirate base and found nothing. Was he right and the pirates weren’t here after all? Had she gotten it wrong?
It was possible, of course, and she would normally have accepted Jamie’s explanation. But her MacFinnan instincts were still screaming at her. Something had been nagging at her ever since she’d arrived here. Perhaps this was it.
By the time she reached the gates and stepped through into the courtyard of Dun Arach she was so lost in thought that she almost walked straight into the horse that was being led from the stable by Bryn and Martin.
“Lady Elise!” Bryn called sharply, startling her out of her thoughts and making her look up just in time to avoid walking straight into the horse’s rump.
“What? Oh, sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
Bryn and Martin shared a look. “Um. Are ye all right?”
The two stable lads were dressed for riding, and she guessed they were taking the white horse out to put it through its paces. As she looked at them, an idea began to form in her head and a smile crept across her face. Jamie had forbidden her to go outalone, hadn’t he? He hadn’t forbidden her to go outat all.
She walked over and clapped her hands to Bryn and Martin’s shoulders. “Right, lads. How do you fancy going for a little ride?”
*
Jamie paused inthe doorway to the main keep and took a deep breath. The smell of roasted meat and thick gravy met his nostrils, setting his stomach growling. It seemed an age since he’d eaten breakfast and he’d been working down in the boatyard all morning. Such labor worked up quite the appetite.
He pushed through the door into the great hall eagerly—and not just at the prospect of food. Elise would be here and he sorely needed to talk to her. Their argument earlier had been playing on his mind, and he desperately wanted to smooth things out between them. He needed to…what? Not apologize, exactly. After all, he’d been right not to allow her to go riding off on her own, but perhaps he’d not handled it as well as he might have.
He knew he could be gruff and impatient at times, especially when feeling high emotion, and Elise MacFinnan definitely provoked emotion in him. He hated that things were tense between them. The discomfort itched between his shoulder blades like a wasp sting. So, if he needed to tell her he was sorry in order to make things right, he could swallow his pride and do that, couldn’t he?
So, as he stepped into the great hall—finding it busy as it always was for the midday meal—his eyes swept the room, searching for one dark-haired figure in particular. But there was no sign of her. Over on the far side of the room, a messy pile ofledgers and rolled documents were scattered across a table, but there was no sign of the woman herself.
He frowned. Where was she?
“My laird?” Andrea said, coming to his side. “Will ye not be seated? We’ll be serving the meal shortly.”
Jamie turned to his housekeeper. “Where is Elise? I was told she was studying in here.”
Andrea nodded. “Aye. She was. Phillip brought a whole load of documents for her.” She nodded to the pile on the far table. “But that was a while ago.”
“So where is she now?”
