throat.
Score two to Lady Christina MacMorlan. Lucas’s lips twisted into a rueful smile. She had trounced him last night and now she thought she was rid of him for good. He needed to raise his game.
Galloway escorted him out onto the front steps with the air of a man seeing him safely off the premises. It was a glorious early-summer day, the sky a radiant, cloudless blue, the wind from the sea carrying a hint of salt and with it the soapy scent of gorse. Across Kilmory’s beautiful sweep of lawn, Lucas could see three figures standing in the shade of a vast cedar tree. One, gray-haired, slight and leaning heavily on a stick, he thought must be the Duke of Forres himself. He looked small, diminished in some way by his age. Lucas could see why it was his daughter who had a firm hand on the running of the estate.
The other two figures were women, one fair and slender, very young, the other woman older, tall and elegant in a gown of damson muslin. She had seen him and there was an air of sudden stillness about her as though she was holding her breath.
Lucas glanced at Galloway, who was waiting with an attitude of polite impatience to close the door behind him.
Without hesitation he set off across the broad swathe of grass to confront Lady Christina MacMorlan. Since he had nothing to lose, he might as well try blackmail.
CHAPTER FOUR
“ W HO THE DEVIL is that? ” Allegra asked.
Christina had been listening vaguely to her father’s plans for a twenty-foot-high Italianate fountain in the middle of the lawn whilst simultaneously wondering what she might spare from the dairy to take on her visit to Mrs. McAlpine in the village that afternoon. The poor woman had just given birth to her sixth child—all boys—and her husband had died in a storm that had taken his fishing boat only eight weeks before. When Allegra stopped walking abruptly and stood staring across the grass toward the castle entrance, she practically tripped over her.
“Language, Allegra,” Christina said automatically. She had known that having Lachlan around with his blunt conversation would be a bad influence. Gertrude would have the vapors if she heard her daughter speaking like an Edinburgh dandy. And that was another problem; Christina had no idea what she was going to do with Lachlan. He needed a swift kick up the backside to send him back to his wife instead of sulking here at Kilmory.
“Ladies do not use that phrase,” she said. “It is shockingly vulgar.”
“They use it when they see a sight like that,” Allegra said. “Who is he?”
Following her niece’s pointing finger, another sin against etiquette that Christina simply did not have the energy to correct, she saw the tall figure of a man framed in the castle doorway.
Lucas Ross.
Her heart began to race. Her breath felt tight in her chest. Suddenly the sun was too hot and too bright.
“Damnation,” she said involuntarily.
Allegra giggled. “Aunt Christina! How shockingly vulgar.”
“Sometimes,” Christina said, “ladylike language simply isn’t forceful enough to express one’s feeling.”
And staring at a man might also be improper, she thought, but there were times when it was impossible to resist. No man had the right to be as indecently handsome as Lucas Ross.
In the half-light of the smugglers’ cave the night before, Lucas had looked spectacular enough with his strongly marked black brows, his firm cleft chin and tumbled black hair. There was something about him, an air of arrogant distinction that was innate but powerful, setting him apart from most other men. He had height and a broad-shouldered physique that exuded masculinity of the type Christina had never come across in the airless ballrooms or rarefied libraries of Edinburgh’s academia. Her sisters’ husbands both had something of that charisma and intensity. Christina remembered that she had looked at Lucy and Mairi and felt more than a little jealous of them. But now she thought that such
Score two to Lady Christina MacMorlan. Lucas’s lips twisted into a rueful smile. She had trounced him last night and now she thought she was rid of him for good. He needed to raise his game.
Galloway escorted him out onto the front steps with the air of a man seeing him safely off the premises. It was a glorious early-summer day, the sky a radiant, cloudless blue, the wind from the sea carrying a hint of salt and with it the soapy scent of gorse. Across Kilmory’s beautiful sweep of lawn, Lucas could see three figures standing in the shade of a vast cedar tree. One, gray-haired, slight and leaning heavily on a stick, he thought must be the Duke of Forres himself. He looked small, diminished in some way by his age. Lucas could see why it was his daughter who had a firm hand on the running of the estate.
The other two figures were women, one fair and slender, very young, the other woman older, tall and elegant in a gown of damson muslin. She had seen him and there was an air of sudden stillness about her as though she was holding her breath.
Lucas glanced at Galloway, who was waiting with an attitude of polite impatience to close the door behind him.
Without hesitation he set off across the broad swathe of grass to confront Lady Christina MacMorlan. Since he had nothing to lose, he might as well try blackmail.
CHAPTER FOUR
“ W HO THE DEVIL is that? ” Allegra asked.
Christina had been listening vaguely to her father’s plans for a twenty-foot-high Italianate fountain in the middle of the lawn whilst simultaneously wondering what she might spare from the dairy to take on her visit to Mrs. McAlpine in the village that afternoon. The poor woman had just given birth to her sixth child—all boys—and her husband had died in a storm that had taken his fishing boat only eight weeks before. When Allegra stopped walking abruptly and stood staring across the grass toward the castle entrance, she practically tripped over her.
“Language, Allegra,” Christina said automatically. She had known that having Lachlan around with his blunt conversation would be a bad influence. Gertrude would have the vapors if she heard her daughter speaking like an Edinburgh dandy. And that was another problem; Christina had no idea what she was going to do with Lachlan. He needed a swift kick up the backside to send him back to his wife instead of sulking here at Kilmory.
“Ladies do not use that phrase,” she said. “It is shockingly vulgar.”
“They use it when they see a sight like that,” Allegra said. “Who is he?”
Following her niece’s pointing finger, another sin against etiquette that Christina simply did not have the energy to correct, she saw the tall figure of a man framed in the castle doorway.
Lucas Ross.
Her heart began to race. Her breath felt tight in her chest. Suddenly the sun was too hot and too bright.
“Damnation,” she said involuntarily.
Allegra giggled. “Aunt Christina! How shockingly vulgar.”
“Sometimes,” Christina said, “ladylike language simply isn’t forceful enough to express one’s feeling.”
And staring at a man might also be improper, she thought, but there were times when it was impossible to resist. No man had the right to be as indecently handsome as Lucas Ross.
In the half-light of the smugglers’ cave the night before, Lucas had looked spectacular enough with his strongly marked black brows, his firm cleft chin and tumbled black hair. There was something about him, an air of arrogant distinction that was innate but powerful, setting him apart from most other men. He had height and a broad-shouldered physique that exuded masculinity of the type Christina had never come across in the airless ballrooms or rarefied libraries of Edinburgh’s academia. Her sisters’ husbands both had something of that charisma and intensity. Christina remembered that she had looked at Lucy and Mairi and felt more than a little jealous of them. But now she thought that such
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