“Och now!” She curled her lip, “you are foul to even make such a suggestion to a well-bred lady. How dare you! Well, never you mind. I’ll be finding my own way to England. Brigands or none. I no longer care.”
He was surprised by her words and her reaction.
Huffily, she gathered her skirts in her hands. “You are a crude, ale-smelling beastie and I have no use for such a man. Better I should go alone than have to deal with the likes of you. I should have never come here.”
Now she had that thought?
Ewan caught her arm as she started past him. “How did you get here?”
“I rode a horse until I reached your mountain and then I walked.”
“Is that how you intend to get to England?”
“Aye. I’ll crawl there on my hands and knees if needs be.”
“You’ll never make it alone.”
“Then I shall die trying.” She tilted her chin defiantly.
He saw red again. “The bloody hell you will. I’m taking you home to your clan.”
“Never.”
His jaw ticced. In all his life he had never had a woman infuriate him so. Women were either too terrified or too lust-filled in his presence to do much more than nod or giggle. But this one... this one made his blood boil.
“You think I won’t?” he asked her.
She snatched her arm free of his grasp. “I think you don’t know who my clan is. You have no idea who I am and you can’t take me back unless I tell you.”
She had him there.
But not for long. “You will tell me.”
“Ha!” she snapped, defying him with her spirit.
Ewan clenched his hands into fists. What did a man do with such a woman?
“Why of all the men in Scotland did you come to me?” he asked.
“Because you and your brothers are the only men I know who scare Ryan. I knew Sin and Braden MacAllister would never leave their wives to take me to England and Lochlan, being laird, would never consent to help me. That left you. I thought that if I told my father I had eloped with you, no one would dare come after me.”
Ewan cursed again.
This was his old nightmare all over again. So close to the events with Isobail and yet so oddly different.
How could this be happening on this particular day that marked the death of his brother? “You told them you eloped with me?”
“Well, what else could I do?”
“You could have done as you were told.”
She shook her head. “That is the one thing I canna do.”
“Why?”
“Because I will not allow myself to be some useless adornment.”
Ewan frowned at her unexpected words. Although why he even reacted to that, he didn’t know. She seemed to throw him off keel every time she opened her mouth.
