Page 11 of Scot of Deception
In the end, when she drew in a deep breath and spoke, she didn’t answer Blaine’s question. Instead, she said, “I have never committed a crime.”
Blaine froze. He didn’t know if he should lie or tell Kathleen the truth, but then again, he wasn’t so sure of the truth himself. “What, precisely, dae ye mean by crime?”
Kathleen’s eyes widened comically as she huffed out in disbelief. “Ye’ve committed a crime?”
“I said I dinnae ken what ye mean by crime!” Blaine protested.
“What was it?”
“I asked ye first.”
“Ye ken what a crime is!” Kathleen said, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “An’ ye ken what ye’ve done is less than honorable, which is why ye’re askin’ me tae clarify! If ye had never committed a crime, ye wouldnae have tae ask!”
Blaine couldn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes. “It was naethin’.”
“Och, it was somethin’,” Kathleen insisted. “It must have been if ye’re actin’ like this.”
“Like what?”
“Suspiciously.”
Blaine stared at her and Kathleen stared back, an amused smirk dancing on her lips. He wasn’t as amused as she was, though, if only because this was simply his confirmation that this entire game had been a bad idea.
How had he been roped into this? And now, if he told Kathleen the truth, would she be wary of him?
That was the opposite of what he needed. He needed her to trust him, to let him follow her to Castle Stalker. How could he have been so careless, so foolish?
“Ye willnae tell me?” Kathleen asked, her smirk turning into a small pout. “I would tell ye if I had committed a crime.”
“Dae ye wish tae ken?” Blaine asked, leaning a little closer to her. “Even if it was murder?”
In an instant, Kathleen paled, pulling back from him. “Was it?”
Blaine let the tension hang between them for a few moments longer, his gaze never straying from Kathleen. In the end, though, he only shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “I stole a horse once.”
“What?” Kathleen asked, her fear dissipating as fast as it had appeared. Instead, it was replaced by curiosity, and this time, she was the one leaning closer to Blaine, bridging the gap between them on her own accord. “Why would ye steal a horse?”
“Because I didnae have a horse an’ I had tae get somewhere,” Blaine said.
“An’ ye couldnae buy it?”
He shook his head. “Nay. Nay at that time.”
If Kathleen wanted to ask more about it, she didn’t show it. He figured she was either too busy trying to digest this new information or she thought that asking would be improper. Perhaps she even thought that he had fallen to hard times, or that his family had, at some point. Blaine neither confirmed nor denied any of it, and he wouldn’t even if Kathleen asked.
As long as she didn’t suspect him of trying to hurt her, it was better to let her reach her own conclusions.
“It’s yer turn,” Kathleen said after a while. Despite Blaine’s best efforts, their game continued for a long time—long enough for him to have to ask for more ale no fewer than four times, and by the end of it, it seemed to him that he was the one who was losing, after all.
“How are ye nae drunk?” he asked in disbelief. A woman of her size should have been floored by so many drinks, and yetKathleen was not only still standing, but she seemed to be even steadier than he was—and he was twice her size.
When she laughed, though, the sound was bright, loose, showing no inhibition. “I’ve been drinkin’ since I was very young,” she said. “Me an’ me cousins … well, they would drink an’ I would demand that they give me some too. An’ they always did.”
“Yer cousins, hmm?” Blaine asked. “An’ where were yer parents then? Yer governess?”
“We did it in secret, o’ course,” Kathleen said. Now that Blaine was taking a better look at her, he could see she was flushed from the alcohol.
“I see,” he said. “An’ dae ye always force yer cousins tae dae as ye wish?”
