In the Bed of a Duke by Cathy Maxwell

if I hadn’t intervened, you’d be minced meat right now.”
    The truth of her statement pricked his pride. “I was the one holding the pistol.”
    “And I shot it,” she answered, a statement that seemed to remind her of something else she wanted to say. “You don’t point a gun at a lot like that unless you are prepared to pull the trigger, even though such a little gun wouldn’t stop the likes of them.”
    She was right. He’d thought the same.
    He didn’t want to admit it.
    But, for once, Miss Cameron wasn’t in the mood to argue. “How shall I explain this to Laird MacKenna?” she asked, looking around at their surroundings as if expecting the trees to answer.
    “You won’t be telling him anything,” Phillip answered. “You are returning to London.”
    Miss Cameron rounded on him, her spirit returning. “I am not.”
    “You are,” he assured her. “I’m hiring a vehicle to take you back first thing on the morrow.”
    Her nose wrinkled with distaste. “You don’t like the fact I was the one to fire the shot, do you? I’ve wounded your male vanity, and you want to rid yourself of me as quickly as possible.”
    “What nonsense. I’m not vain—”
    She interrupted his claim with a definitely unladylike snort of disagreement.
    Phillip was perilously close to losing his temper. “Listen, Miss Cameron, I am worried for your safety. If you believe that is vanity, so be it. However, do you truly think MacKenna would welcome you with open arms after you shot one of his clansmen?”
    That gave her pause.
    “I didn’t kill him. I only wounded him,” she admitted in a somewhat contrite voice.
    “An action that could be interpreted as your siding with me. I’m certain MacKenna will not be pleased.”
    She raised her hands to her head as if wishing to hit herself for such an error in judgment, and then dropped them to her sides. “I only helped because I felt somewhat responsible for what they were about to do to you. In hindsight, I should have let them beat you into a pulp.”
    “I’m fond of you, too,” he said dryly, surprised to find he was thoroughly enjoying himself. She had quick wits and a cool head in the face of danger.
    But she wasn’t paying attention to him. “I am going to Nathraichean,” she said with a determination. “I will explain to Laird MacKenna. He knows I don’t like or trust you. He’ll understandmy concern, and I’m certain he will be as distressed over his clansmen’s behavior as I was—”
    “Why were you going there anyway?” Phillip demanded, cutting through her verbiage.
    “Are we back to this again?” She made an exasperated sound that she released in a sigh of resignation. “I met Laird MacKenna at a garden party. He called on me and, since I am a woman alone in this world and the security of a husband would not be unwelcome—” She said this as if blaming him for every single wrong in her life. “—I encouraged him. Naturally, when he invited me for a visit in Scotland at his estate, and I accepted. Can I be more clear for you?”
    Phillip shook his head, satisfied.
    She wasn’t. Hands on hips, she said, “Now, since it is obvious you will not be welcome, why are you going there?”
    He grinned at her. He couldn’t help himself. She was not afraid of him or showing the smallest desire to toady up to him. She was also the one person who didn’t seem to want something from him.
    But he wasn’t about to tell her why he was in Scotland. “It’s none of your business. Come along,” he continued, overriding any protest she could make. “We’ll keep walking and eventually find a place for the night. I’ll pay for your passage to London, and no one need be the wiser about what either of us was doing this night.”
    Leading the horse, considering the matter settled, Phillip walked over a hundred feet before he realized she wasn’t following him. Instead, she was walking off in the opposite direction.
    “Damn it all,” he muttered to the