Page 17 of The Highlander Who Loved Me
Johanna pressed her palms against the cushions to steady herself. “Why are you asking me? Am I to believe you haven’t rifled through my possessions?”
“If you’re saying I’ve opened your satchel, ye’re right,” he said without hesitation. “Men were prepared to kill for what’s in that bag. I need to know what they’re after.”
She cocked her chin. A show of defiance might well put him in his place. “In that case, you already know what I’m carrying. I presume you were able to read it.”
His scowl might have made a pirate captain proud. “Tell me what you’ve hidden in that bag.”
Willing herself to stand, she gripped the arm of the settee and came to her feet. Her legs wobbled, drat the luck.
Harrison MacMasters gently took her elbow, steadying her. “You’re still weak. And the medicine I gave you is going to make you feel weary. Please, sit.”
Defeat washed over her, and she sank back to the cushion. “I must be on my way. I do not wish to sound overly dramatic, nor overly imaginative. But this truly is a matter of life and death.”
Harrison seemed to digest her words as he took the case from his brother and placed it in her hands. “Tell us the nature of your business, Miss Templeton. We willhelp you.”
She shot MacMasters a pointed glare. “He already knows what’s in here. I can only pray he did not damage it. I cannot imagine he would treat such a rare find with the respect it deserves.”
She opened the valise and removed the book. A treasure, indeed.
“A book?” Harrison’s brows knit into a line. He rubbed his jaw as if it ached. “Frankenstein’s monster, no less.”
“Aye, a blasted book.” MacMasters pinned her with his dark gaze. “I’ve no interest in mad scientists and piecemeal bodies. And neither does Cranston. What are ye hiding?”
Johanna hiked her chin. “I’ll have you know Mrs. Shelley’s workis a classic. This particular volume is uniquely valuable.”
“Valuable?” His scowl deepened. “It’s time ye start telling us the truth. The woman who wrote that drivel didn’t have men chasing after her who wanted her dead. What you’ve got hunting you is real, lass. Not the product of an intellectual female’s overactive imagination.”
Devil take the man. She’d been prepared for an ill-spoken brute. But Connor MacMasters was articulate. Intelligent. And as arrogant as a buccaneer of old.
She kept a firm grip on the novel. “I will have you know this book is quite rare, a first edition, published anonymously in a printing of only a few hundred copies. Mrs. Shelley wrote an inscription on the title page. Only a handful of volumes bear her handwritten words.”
“Ye’re telling me Cranston wants a book about a monster?” MacMasters plowed a large hand through his straight, dark hair.
“This is not merely a novel. It’s a treasure. One of a kind.”
“May I see it?” Was the physician’s voice always so subtly coaxing, or had he reserved that velvet tone for women who showed up on his doorstep, wounded and carrying an immeasurably valuable book?
She offered him the volume. Handling it with the respect it deserved, he inspected it with a scientist’s regard for detail.
“I see nothing questionable,” he observed. “How did you come to possess it?”
“I received this book as a gift.”
MacMasters’s eyes narrowed. Did suspicion always play in those green irises? “Who gave this to ye?”
“An acquaintance.”
“A man ye’ve been involved with?” he pressed.
“Involved with?” Heat crept over her cheeks. They’d likely stained scarlet. “No. Nothing like that.”
He folded his arms at the waist. Impatience infused the simple movement. “Who is he?”
“No one you’d know. He’s not from these parts,” she stalled. How much could she safely disclose to these men?
His eyes went flinty, like shards of emerald mixed with silver. “Ye need to tell us who gave ye this book.”
When he looked at her like that, she could feel her pulse speed. She pulled in a breath, then another. “I really don’t see that this your concern.”
