Hero in the Highlands by Suzanne Enoch Page B

whether she’d merely attempted to send them away, or whether she’d meant to see them drowned in this damned bog.
    He’d been a great many places in his thirty years, and he couldn’t recall one that felt as utterly … desolate as the wide, shallow valley that surrounded them. No trees, no birds, no wildlife of any kind touched his sight. The overcast sky had begun to sink into the mountaintops, blending into the bog and surrounding moor to form an endless, gray nothingness. The hair at the back of his neck pricked, but he couldn’t be certain whether it was the emptiness, or the sensation that it wasn’t as empty as it appeared.
    â€œWhat do you say, Major? Do we keep following the stream until we reach the sea?”
    â€œNo, we do not,” he returned. “We turn around and find the cow’s mud puddle again, and then we head northeast from there.”
    The sergeant followed as Gabriel wheeled Jack about. “Why northeast? It could be any direction but due south, since we came up that way.”
    â€œBecause she lied. And when she lied, she faced squarely southwest, as if she were protecting whatever lay directly behind her. And I imagine it was close enough that she figured she could get there and warn Kieran Blackstock of our arrival before we discovered her ruse and turned back.”
    He felt his aide’s glance. “You’re being circumspect about all this, considering where she sent us.”
    â€œI’m not being circumspect,” Gabriel countered, tightening his dirt-coated fingers around the reins. With most of the mud dry, he felt more like a statue than a man. But not on the inside. On the inside he seethed, both with anger and with something more primal. While he’d been admiring her backside and other attributes, the petite lass had looked him in the eye and lied to him. That required a response. And the one he wanted to give had more to do with sweat and sex than asking for an apology. “I’m being patient,” he said aloud. “Being reckless here would be both useless and unsatisfying, and potentially dangerous.”
    â€œYou do mean to get angry, though—when the situation presents itself.”
    â€œAs you know, Sergeant, no one makes a habit of lying to me. Nor do I approve of having my time wasted.” Adding to that the matter of not even being thanked for his efforts and having a clump of mud thrown at his head, and perhaps he could admit, just to himself, that he was as angry at himself for being duped as he was at the black-eyed woman for attempting the deed. Successfully managing the deed, actually. If she hadn’t had mud plastering her dress against her skin and showing every curve like some erotic chocolate statue, he likely wouldn’t have been as willing to believe her—and that rankled, too. He didn’t make a habit of thinking with his cock.
    â€œI imagine this would not be a good time, then, to point out that I only just got the last of the bloodstains out of that coat you’re wearing,” Kelgrove said after a moment.
    â€œNo, it wouldn’t be.”
    â€œI didn’t think so.”
    The heavy clouds continued to settle lower as fog rose to meet them, reducing visibility with every passing minute. If the weather continued to worsen, the two of them would have to camp overnight or risk wandering directly into a deep bog. Gabriel cursed the black-eyed woman again. He’d expected trouble at Lattimer, but for the devil’s sake, he hadn’t even set eyes on the place yet.
    Finally they spied the churned-up mudhole by nearly walking straight into it. With no sun, determining north from east had become a task all in itself. Gabriel paused, re-creating the scene, the position in which the woman had stood, and then kicked Union Jack into a trot again. He might be mistaken, but he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts. The error earlier—when he’d