Page 16 of Love with a Scottish Outlaw
If he was concerned, she couldn’t tell by his expression, with the perpetual frown he always wore. But his touch had been gentle . . . she didn’t know what to think, couldn’t trust herself to interpret anything at all.
“I am fine,” she said. “Now eat, so your men can.”
He glanced around, then lifted up a bannock, and sure enough, his men fell on their food ravenously.
But Laird Carlyle didn’t take a bite. Instead he took her hand before she could leave. Catherine inhaled, stiffened to pull away, but he did nothing more than stare at the couple of blisters on her palm.
“So now we know I haven’t been cooking to earn a living,” she said dryly.
“Have Maeve see to those,” he said, letting her go.
Catherine turned away from him stiffly. So he cared about her health. Probably because he didn’t want her dying on him.
But she surreptitiously watched him. He was there with his men, participating in their discussion, but he never smiled, never really looked like he was a part of them. Of course, he was their chief, their leader, so perhaps all men were careful about such a boundary. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she was far too interested in him.
But how could she not be interested in the man who held her fate in his hands?
Chapter 5
Duncan told himself that he needed to keep an eye on Catriona, and he’d had a difficult time outside that morning seeing to the new foal because he’d kept returning to check on her. He didn’t know what he’d expected to find, since she was working with the women. She hadn’t given up in frustration at being ignorant of the hard work necessary to prepare a meal—even after blisters marred her delicate hands.
She was still angry with him for saying she might be lying about her memory loss. Perhaps stubbornness was the reason she’d worked so hard all morning. He continued to watch her from beneath his lowered brows, as if he expected her to do something that revealed she knew that cooking was beneath her. Instead, she carried plates for his men and ignored their open stares. One of the men grabbed her skirt. Duncan was about to toss the table out of his way to reach them, but Catriona turned back unperturbed, then handed the man the bannock he’d apparently asked for. It was Melville again, who obviously didn’t approve of having a stranger in their midst. He had a daughter here, so perhaps he was allowed to be wary. But harm Catriona?
Duncan was being ridiculous. None of his men would harm a woman he’d brought to the encampment. She was under his protection, and he took that seriously.
A little while later, he was seated alone at his table, finishing up the last bit of mutton as he watched Catriona receive her first lesson in washing dishes. Ivor sat down across from him.
His war chief eyed him silently for a moment, then began to speak in Gaelic. “The patrols returned while ye were eating. They found no strangers, no one looking for a missing woman.”
Duncan nodded, relieved.
“Ye’ve kept us close to the encampment these last weeks after the attack on ye,” Ivor said. “Should we spread out farther, because of the lass?”
“Aye, do that. Be careful.”
Duncan knew his time hiding Catriona was limited, but he hoped to make her father suffer as long as he could.
Duncan glanced at her, saw her smile at Maeve, and felt the shock of it. He hadn’t yet seen her relaxed, with pleasure in her expression. Her golden eyes were alight, her full lips tilted up, her teeth near blinding with whiteness. Except for her head injury, she exuded health and vitality, a woman whose every need had been tended to. He tried to tell himself that of course she’d been able to take care of herself—she had access to her father’s blood money.
“Ye watch the lass more than ye should,” Ivor said quietly.
Duncan focused his gaze on his war chief. “I brought her here. I feel responsible.”
“For her, or for your people, because I cannot tell exactly who.”
“Ye damn well know whom I’ve spent my life protecting,” Duncan said, trying to stifle his rising anger. “I want no danger brought to them.”
“I know why ye couldn’t leave her on the side of the road to die, but in some ways, ’twould have been easier.”
Duncan arched a brow at Ivor.
“Nay, I’d not have let the lass die, either,” Ivor said tiredly. “But she’s a vulnerability I don’t like. We don’t know who she is, who her people are.”
Duncan did, and it magnified the vulnerability tenfold.
Ivor squinted at him. “But there’s something ye’re not telling me.”
Duncan couldn’t lie outright to the man he considered closest to him, a friend. “When I can tell ye my plan, I promise I will.”
