His Judas Bride

Chapter 9

"How very kind of you, sir." She flicked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "A peace offering, is it?"

He scrunched through the snow towards her, the worn leather breeches looking as if his legs had been poured into them, the fur pelt glistening with snowflakes. "Uh-uh. If it had hit you now, that would be the peace offering."

"I see." And she'd come out here, braving that dog, in order to spare his clan?To hell with that. Grasping her skirts, she swung on her heel."Just please don't think your present inability to find yourself some manners, bothers me because it doesn't."

"I'll just have to try harder then."

"You try all you want. It's a different thing from succeeding."

He flattened his hand on the wooden door panel in front of her. Masculine. With a scar sliced deep into the knuckles. She hadn't noticed yesterday quite how tall he was. His scent, cool as a mountain stream, yes.But not his height.

How the hell could she notice it now? When he was being rude as a bear's backside? And hated every inch of her guts as it was?

Never look at the moon, remember? Yesterday she had. The second she clapped eyes on him. Maybe if she hadn't, this would be over by now? Maybe she wouldn't have changed her mind when changing her mind wasn't an option?And the steps that had brought her out here wouldn't lead to happiness? So that feeling, that thing, rising inside her, about him? About how close he stood?

"Hell, just because I didn't fall over myself, it doesn't mean that wasn't an apology. Right?" he growled.

That feeling that was an assault on her senses, just as he was? That feeling was one she'd take hold of.

"Really? So what are you going to do? Kill me if I don't accept?"

Before she could move, he yanked the knife out of the door jamb.

"No. But she might."

"Who? Meg …?"

She slid her gaze sideways. A girl. Toeing the slush in the shadow of the dipping pines frosted by a giant's icing at the far end of the yard. Grimy-faced, probably no more than three, setting an age on children, wasn't exactly her strong point---she might be four, or even five--but certainly a girl. One who might as well have Callm McDunnagh's etched into her forehead, right down to the hair—yesterday, damp, his had been umber, today, dry, stray snowflakes melted on muddy blond streaks.

A girl. Probably one of many who were in this glen. In this time not yet spent. This awful thing she'd come to do.

"So?"How Kara kept her gaze fixed, stopped her throat fluttering, was down to one thing. She was bankrupt. There was nothing she could afford. But her hair stood on end. This did not make her a good person, happy with yesterday's choices and the steps she'd then taken.The ones she'd taken not five minutes ago either. Not now she saw this. "Other men come out here and they play hide and seek, pitch and toss with their little girls. You teach yours to throw knives."

When no amount of knives could save this ragamuffin from what might be coming? And she couldn't very well say so when her chance to get back her son would result in him losing his daughter. Let Kara go? He wouldn't let her live. See how drawn to him she felt then. Dragging her gaze to his, she forced her coolest stare.

"As for you apologizing? What for? Trying to murder me. Leaving that thing at my door. Or both? Because, really—"

"Both?" He shot his gaze over her shoulder, then ricocheted it back. "What the …?"

Dug. It was Dug. Imagine? Terror raked such giant talons across her scalp when she'd nothing left to fear, she nearly froze to the door, then slithered down it in pieces. Tiny ones.

Why hadn't she just accepted his apology?She'd have to now. Graciously, with a smile on her face. It was either that or pretend that thing, that dog thing that sounded like ten rabid hellhounds, wasn't yowling fit to wake the dead--a state she was likely to enter into when he saw she'd locked it in her room--and it was.

"But, but what … whatever apology it is, whether you tried to, or not," she shouted, largely to drown it out.She looked as if it wasn't making any noise too "Whether it was your little girl there, or not, I do, of course, accept."

"Well, you can just consider it withdrawn. Where the hell is Dug?"

"Dug? Oh. Are you meaning that—"

"You know damn fine what I'm meaning. What the hell have you done to Dug?"

This was like that time she had poked a stick in a hornet's nest to see what would happen. Except the hornets hadn't barged past her nearly throwing her off her feet, before she could explain herself. Over a dog. It wasn't as if she'd killed it or anything. On the contrary she'dbeen lucky to survive it.

"Me? Do something to it?" This was like that time she had poked a stick in a hornet's nest to see what would happen. Except the hornets hadn't barged past her nearly throwing her off her feet, and battered their shoulder off her room door—of course they didn't have shoulders.Over a mangy cur. It wasn't as if she'd killed it or anything. On the contrary she'd ?been lucky to survive it. "After the kind hospitality you offered to me here, you think I would—"

"Offered?"

"It is what I said. I would do anything to harm your dog. I mean … I wouldn't do anything to harm it."

God, she sounded as if she was foaming at the mouth. But look at him, the terror of her glen, maybe even this one too, whispering sweet nothings and fondling its ears now it came whining out of her room.

"It's all right. It's all right, Dug. There now. There, there."

As for the moth-eaten cur?Talk about milking this for all it was worth. Whining and cowering against him as if she'd beaten it from one end of Lochalpin to the other. When she was lucky to have a hand left, not to mention an arm to put it on.

Was it so wise to stand here looking, when she did have a hand, she had two, though? When no one had ever broken a door open on her cell for all her hopes, for all her prayers?

Shouldn't she remember that her failure yesterday to let this man play with his knife, had firstly resulted in him sending her father's men packing, so secondly, she was now stranded here alone?

So this business of seeing that this man wasn't all he showed the world wasn't the path to happiness here.

"Sir." She rustled across the floor with as much grace as she could muster when her stomach felt as if a drawstring had been pulled around it. "I know what you're thinking."

He glanced up. To an undiscerning woman, his handsome face was cool and contained. But she was a discerning one. What he was thinking probably wasn't repeatable. Or rather, what she thought he was thinking wasn't. When what he was probably thinking was that she'd been trying to escape.

"Half an hour."

It was.

"I'm sorry?"

His eyes narrowed. "If you do want to marry Ewen. Half an hour, you be outside, fully ready to leave for McDunnagh Castle and your betrothed. Your time here is over."

"I see."

My God. Marry Ewen?She'd have to now. With red dresses on. What else could she do now her attempts at being happy with the steps she was taking had crashed about her ears? Unless she told him? But if this was his reaction over a dog that would go well as a two- legged donkey over a ten foot high fence.

"Fine." She swallowed the tiny huff of breath. "We can go now if you want. After all, it's not exactly as if I have to pack."