Page 47 of Claiming His Scottish Duchess
They strolled among the blooming hedgerows, sunlight warming their backs, and Catriona began humming an old lullaby from the Highlands. Lydia giggled as she reached for a cluster of daisies, her earlier disappointment forgotten, at least for now.
Catriona smiled down at her, tucking a flower behind the girl’s ear. “There now. A princess, if ever I saw one.”
As they disappeared down the garden path, Catriona glanced back toward the house.
Toward the window.
Toward the man she’d been bound to—the man who turned away from the world.
And yet, heaven help her, her heart kept turning toward him.
A few afternoons later, Richard returned from business to find his niece high up in the branches of an ancient oak tree, perched precariously like a bird. His eyes wandered lower, where Catriona was clinging while she wildly waved encouragement to Lydia.
His protective instincts surged as he called them. “Duchess!” he barked, his voice sharp and biting. “What in God’s name do you think you two are doing?”
Catriona waved to him, her chestnut eyes sparkling with amusement. “We’re climbing a tree, Yer Grace! Ever hear of it? It’s quite exhilaratin’, ye should try it. I think this auld oak could hold ye!”
“Exhilarating?” he clipped, his gaze fixed on Lydia, who was now inching her way to a higher branch and reaching even higher. “It’s dangerous! She could fall!”
“Lydia’s a curious and capable bairn,” Catriona called back. “Besides, I’m right here, Yer Grace, she’s perfectly safe. She needs to learn to be brave and to find the fiery mare inside of her.”
“Brave? By making her climb a tree like some animal?” Richard’s voice rose.
“She is nae a porcelain doll to be locked away with the key around yer neck! She needs to experience life, nae just stuffy dinner parties. She needs to feel the sun on her face! The wind in her hair!”
Richard’s eyes, though narrowed in disapproval, couldn’t help but linger on the way the sunlight caught in Catriona’s hair, revealing radiant wisps of auburn in her ebony locks. He wished he could catch that defiant chin of hers and teach that disobedient mouth a lesson.
“I am trying to keep her safe,” Richard said, his voice edged with anger.
“And I am tryin’ to help her live,” Catriona replied, her own anger subsiding, replaced by a weary understanding of his fear.
The moment hung between them, thick with unspoken words. He felt the ghost of her touch, the memory of her soft kiss. The air thrummed with a tension that he knew had nothing to do with Lydia perched in the tree above.
Richard narrowed his eyes at his wife. “Get her down. Now.”
Catriona half-sighed, half-groaned, and turned her attention back to Lydia, her voice softening as she guided the girl down from her leafy perch.
Swiftly, Lydia landed on her feet without a scratch, looking up at Catriona as the duchess began her own descent.
As she swung down from the branches, her skirts hitched and her body taut with movement, Richard’s jaw tensed. She dangled there for a breath too long—mischievous, unaware, or perhaps entirely deliberate.
The soft stretch of her limbs, the curve of her waist, the flash of her ankle—every line of her called to him, stirred something primal.
God help him, even now, with a child nearby and fury in his chest, hewantedher.
As Catriona grabbed the lower branch, a sudden, sharp crack split the air. The branch splintered beneath her grip, and for a split second, her body hung suspended, the tension in the air as thick as the silence.
“Whoa!” Catriona cried out.
She began to fall, her body dropping downward, her feet flailing for purchase.
Richard’s heart slammed in his chest as he reacted instinctively. He dove forward, his muscles coiled with the adrenaline coursing through him.
Her form tumbled toward the ground at an unforgiving pace.
The damn fool woman—she was going to land badly, hurt herself…
But he was too fast, too furious to let that happen.
