Page 7 of In Love With the Wrong Highland Sister
Laria listened but said nothing as they began to eat. Eloisa and Gavin were closer to each other in age, and they began to chat amicably, even flirting a little. James felt infinitely grateful. If Eloisa preferred his brother, he could pursue Laria, and she seemed like an infinitely more appealing prospect. He watched her surreptitiously, noticing the way she was enjoying her food, concentrating on it as if it were the last meal she would ever eat. She was not dainty at all, and she did not pretend she was something she was not.
Laria was worried. If James Elliot did not favor Eloisa, then perhaps he would turn his attention to her, and she had no wish to find herself fending off the unwanted attentions of yet another admirer. Since Robert died, half a dozen young noblemen had tried to court her, only to be fended off by her gallant father, who would have done anything to keep her happy. Clearly, the size of any possible dowry outweighed the lack of children.
“Laria?” The deep voice beside her stirred her out of her reverie, and she turned to look into James’s mesmerizing blue eyes. He had obviously asked her something, but she had been so busy daydreaming that she had missed what he was saying.
“What?” she responded rather rudely.
James’s eyes clouded as he looked at her. It had not escaped his notice that Laria was not only trying to avoid speaking to him but to look at him either. He was sitting beside her, almost close enough to feel the heat from her body, and he could already feel his manhood stirring. God, she was gorgeous. He could never imagine marrying her little sister, knowing that she was nearby, free, and available to him. Could she not see the way he was looking at her?
Laria was all too aware of the way James was looking at her. She kept her eyes stolidly on her plate and looked up only when he asked the question.
“I asked if you would like to go riding with me tomorrow,” he said, giving her his most winning smile.
Laria frowned. “You are meant to be courting my sister, not me,” she hissed. “No, I will not. I can go as a chaperone to you both, or perhaps you should leave both of us alone.”
James bristled at her hostile reaction, but he persisted in his effort to try to win her over. “Why are you so hostile to me?” he asked. “Have I done something to offend you?”
“Why should you think that?” she asked, glaring at him. “I do not care for you or what you think, Master Elliott. It is my duty as a sister to protect Eloisa from anyone who would hurt her. I know some such people, and I hope you are not one of them.” She frowned at him threateningly.
“I think you have entirely the wrong idea about me, Laria.” He was beginning to become angry. “I have not made up my mind about Eloisa. I hardly know her, but she will come to no harm from me.”
Just then, Margaret Elliott piped up.
“What are you two talking about up there?” she asked, smiling.
“Nothing much, Mother,” Laria said, giving her mother a tight, forced smile. “I was telling James some of Eloisa’s favorite haunts.” She had made that part of the conversation up on the spur of the moment, but Gavin picked it up at once, and soon he and Eloisa were engaged in conversation about her favorite places to hide away in the forest, go fishing, and even bathe when no one was around.
James tried to engage Laria in more conversation, but she either gave him monosyllabic answers or refused to reply to him at all, and eventually, he gave up and began to chat to Laird and Lady MacLean instead.
Laria breathed an inward sigh of relief. Perhaps she had been rude enough to discourage him. She hoped so, but it seemed that Eloisa and Gavin had struck up a friendship that she now had to nip in the bud. Damn! Was there no end to all this matchmaking and interference in her sister’s life?
Suddenly, she was utterly sick of it and felt a wave of longing for Robert so strong that it almost overwhelmed her and brought tears to her eyes. She stood up, scraping her chair on the floor, and said: “Forgive me, but I am feeling a little sick. Please excuse me.” She picked up her skirts and fled from the room, out into the fresh evening air. It was almost dark, but there was still enough light for her to pick her way up to the top row of battlements, where she looked out into the sunset and thought of her husband.
“Robbie,” she whispered, “why did you leave me? Why did you not take me with you? I am so lonely without you, and I do not even have a child to remember you by. You told me I could marry someone else if I wanted to, but I could never, ever find any man who compares to you. I miss you so much. What am I to do?”
She had spent many hours here asking him the same question, but now it seemed that she had received an answer in the form of a voice in her mind.Never give up,she thought.Do whatever you think is right, but do not give up, Laria, my dearest love.It was Robert’s voice, and suddenly, all her anger gathered up into a giant lump of rage, and she roared her anger into the sky.
4
Laria woke up especially early the next morning. It was a clear, crisp day without a cloud in the sky, the kind of day that should have made her feel glad to be alive, but instead, she felt as though the weight of the world was resting on her shoulders. She decided to go out and punish her unfortunate punch bag again, so she leaped out of bed and splashed cold water on her face, then put on her tunic and plaid, winding it tightly around herself so that it covered her decently.
She strode along to the grounds where the guards practiced their battle drills every day and looked into the storeroom to find that the punch bag was missing. She was about to start searching for it but jumped in fright as a deep voice asked from behind her: “Looking for this? I am sorry. I did not mean to startle you.”
Laria whipped around to see James, grinning from ear to ear, his cornflower-blue eyes twinkling as he held the object under one arm. Laria knew how much the punch bag weighed, and she could not move it without the assistance of one of the guards.
However, as she looked at the bulging muscles on his arms, she could see why it had seemed so effortless for him. He could probably lift tree trunks without too much trouble, she thought ruefully.
Laria put her hands on her hips and planted her feet widely apart on the ground, trying to make herself look as big as possible. She squared her shoulders and thrust her chest out, but she could never hope to look as threatening as James. “That is my property,” she told him sternly. “If you wished to use it, you should have asked for my permission.”
He looked suitably crestfallen, and for a moment, Laria felt sorry for him, but it was just for a moment, then she was tempted by an unholy urge to laugh.
“I beg your pardon,” he apologized. “I thought it belonged to the estate.”
“Even so,” Laria said, frowning. “You cannot go prowling around the castle without hindrance helping yourself to the use of other people’s things.”
James was about to put the bag back in the storeroom when Laria raised her hand. “No. I want to use it,” she told him. “Put it down, and I will ask a guard to help me carry it.”
“Now that is just foolish!” he said scornfully. “I will carry it, and you can tell me where to put it.”
