Page 23 of Laird of Twilight
She sat up and yanked her skirts over her feet. Her expression looked hurt. Tears glinted in her pretty eyes. An actress with some skill. He continued to frown.
“It was not a guess. Sometimes when I touch someone, or they touch me, I just suddenly know things about them. Or I see something in my mind, and know about it. I will admit sometimes I speak too quickly and say far more than I should.”
“More than enough, and you damned well know it.”
“I beg your pardon.” She bit her lower lip. “Who was he, the friend you lost there? A kinsman?”
“You’re the one with the blasted Sight, you tell me,” he snapped.
“A chief,” she said quickly. “In your clan. No, a chieftain,” she finished.
“First, you accost Sir Walter Scott at the Ladies’ Assembly,” he said, “then you feign a desire to be compromised. Now this. End your scheming now. We are done.” He inclined his head stiffly. “Rest here, Miss MacArthur. When the weather improves, I will take you home.”
She stood, hopping, fists clenched, facing him. “I thought, as one raised in the Highlands, you would understand those with the Sight.”
“Who told you I was raised in the Highlands?”
“Youtold me,” she said. “At the assembly. I thought you might have some appreciation forDa Shealladh, the Second Sight. But I was mistaken. Do not bother to take me home. I will go myself. Now.” She dropped the lap robe and snatched up her damp plaid to throw it around her shoulders. Hobbling, fuming, muttering, she grabbed her shoes and stockings and limped toward the door.
James stood back, arms folded. Anger subsided. He felt suddenly amused, suddenly less convinced she was a schemer. True, he was wary of minxes with an eye to a man’s fortune, having courted the princess of them all, Charlotte Sinclair. She had been Lady Rankin’s marriage choice for him, and he had fallen for her charm as a vulnerable soldier returning home. Too soon he saw how manipulative, ambitious, and haughty she was. He had never proposed to her, never would.
But now something told him that Elspeth MacArthur was not cut of the same cloth at all. Yet he was puzzled. She seemed to lack true guile, but she had some plan in mind. And she was so sweetly innocent and alluring that he wanted to believe her.
But he would not be played for a fool. “Miss MacArthur, please sit down. I am not tossing you out.”
“No need,” she said, as she tried to push her bandaged foot into a boot. “I am leaving.”
“The man killed beside me at Quatre Bras,” he said, “was my cousin. A young chieftain of Clan MacCarran.”
She was silent, her hands stilled on the boot.
“But several people could have told you that. As for the wound I received, it is bloody obvious that I require a cane. So I will not credit your intuition. However, do stay, Miss MacArthur, and rest assured of your safety. I will not be responsible for further injury to you.”
She watched him. “Trout,” she said.
“What?” He straightened.
“Trout. And...pudding?” She wrinkled her nose.
“Puddin’,” he said quickly, too startled to hold back. “My cousin loved desserts when we were at Eton. The lads teased him mercilessly. He was a bit of a pudge then. Puddin’, they called him.” Why had he told her that?
“And trout? I heard ‘trout’ just now.”
“Enough,” he snapped. “I will fetch us some tea.” He turned.
“Lord Struan,” she called after him. “I am sorry.”
Out in the corridor, he stopped, shoved a hand through his hair.Trout.No one knew about that but his siblings, and they would never have told a stranger.
How did Elspeth MacArthur know any of this? Few were aware of it beyond himself. But his cousin, Lord Eldin, had been at Quatre Bras too. Was Eldin low enough to tell this girl about the devastation James had endured when he was unable to help his friend and cousin Archie? Had Eldin schemed with the girl to undermine James’ inheritance? A remote possibility.
He simply could not piece it all together.
But—Trout. That was his boyhood name for Archie, who had once fallen into a stream while fishing with James and William, coming up with a trout jumping about in his trousers. The boys had fallen in the water trying to help, collapsing with laughter. Only hours before Archie was killed, he and James had laughed remembering the wayward trout again. Eldin would not have known.
But how did Elspeth MacArthur know about it?
He shook off bewilderment, seeking safe practicality. Sight or none, ruination or none, if he and his pretty visitor were alone here too long, there would be an obligation of marriage simply from the circumstances. Finding a fairy bride, however ridiculous, could not compare to that very real predicament.
