Page 8 of Highland Heart

“Oh God,” she whispered, suddenly panicked. She began to struggle against him, pushing away, and finally he seemed to come to his senses. He lowered her down to the floor, gently, and reached for his kilt. She was already smoothing down her skirts, attempting to push back her hair which had come loose from his fingers.

“Are you going to accuse me of forcing you now?” he demanded, suddenly eyeing her as if she might fly at him with fingers like talons.

Rosina took a breath and swallowed. “No. You didn’t force me,” she admitted. “I wanted it too.”

His mouth curved up and she wondered when his smile had started to make butterflies take flight in her belly.

“Good,” he said, “because this won’t be the last time, Rosina.”

Her eyes narrowed and she knew she was a moment away from beginning to shout at him, when the curtain behind him was pushed open.

Chapter five

DUGALD

Dugald loved his brother Finlay but right now he would have preferred not to see his smirking face. He stepped in front of Rosina so at least she had some privacy. Finlay cleared his throat as if fighting laughter.

“Ewen has retired again,” he reported, with a wink. “Only been out of the bed chamber for a couple of hours and he’s back in it again.”

“Not alone, I gather,” Dugald said dryly. “Remember he has ten years to make up for. What do you want, Finlay?”

“Callum wondered if you fancied visiting the tavern in the village. He tells me the whiskey is passable and the lassies more than passable.” Callum and Finlay were twins but that was where their similarity ended. Callum had always been the one to throw himself life and soul into a party, whereas Finlay was usually more serious.

Finlay tried to see around Dugald, who shifted to prevent him getting more than a glimpse of Rosina.

“Tell Callum I’m busy.”

Finlay’s serious green eyes lit up with mischief. “I’m sure Rosina can spare you.”

That was when Rosina stepped around him, just as he feared she would. “I am more than happy to spare him,” she said. “We have finished here,” and she gave him a cold, narrowed look from her stormy grey eyes.

“For the moment,” Dugald reminded her.

She opened her mouth, glanced sideways at Finlay, and closed it again. A moment later she had slipped through the curtain and was gone.

“I see Rosina is as formidable as ever,” his brother said.

Dugald bit off his protest. Rosina could be formidable but he would not have called her so a moment ago, while she was wrapped around him, moaning his name.

“Be careful,” Finlay warned him quietly. “You don’t want to find yourself in the same mess again. Jeanette Gordon will do everything in her power to keep you away from her daughter.”

“I am careful,” he said automatically, but Finlay wasn’t finished.

“You remember last time? That woman didn’t want her daughter wasted on a landless nobody when the chance of a grand marriage might come up in whatever fantasy world she was inhabiting. As if Tighe would ever have let her go! He was enjoying spending her money far too much.”

Dugald remembered treating Jeanette’s feelings as a bit of a joke at the time—now Finlay’s words made him wonder just how far the woman might have gone to take Rosina away from him. The scene ten years ago was still clear in his mind—himself and Rosina before the laird, and Jeanette glaring. Even, if he recalled, prompting Rosina when she stumbled in her renunciation of their union.

He had been so hurt and angry, so heartbroken that she thought so little of him that she would reject what was between them, he hadn’t taken proper notice. Perhaps the time had come to do so.

Finlay rested a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “What should I tell Callum? Are you coming?”

“No,” Dugald shook his head. “Take our father. He needs a rest from Mistress Stewart.”

Finlay laughed. “She has him twisted around her little finger if you ask me.”

“He is only trying to do his job as her guardian,” Dugald replied, already walking toward the curtain. Finlay followed him out and then went to find Callum and his father, although it seemed unlikely Hamish Campbell would leave Mistress Stewart, even for a moment, without his full protection.

Dugald hadn’t admitted it before, but he was beginning to worry about his father. When had Hamish Campbell last been so serious about a woman? Certainly not since before their mother had died when Dugald was born. Hamish had dedicated himself to his sons and his inheritance, the stronghold and lands of Auchiltie. And then, when the clan wars had driven them out, he had hoped to make a new life at Castle Tighe, a hope that was dashed when they were forced out again by the laird.