Page 31 of Love with a Scottish Outlaw
She almost laughed aloud. They were both in the same position, waiting for a new start to life—and apparently he felt better thinking she was worse off than he was.
Or maybe he just liked to be of help, for he flattened the next ball of dough, and did a better job watching over it than she did. For an hour they worked together companionably. He’d become her little shadow, the two of them stuck there together.
Until Duncan came over. Then Finn seemed to shrink as he scuttled away.
The laird eyed the boy, frowning. “I’ve not beaten the lad,” he said gruffly.
“But other men have.” She spoke quietly, and he stepped closer to hear her. “Perhaps the men who kidnapped him, or simply the men who lived on the streets with him.”
“And he’s said nothing about family to ye?”
She shook her head. “I honestly don’t think he has any. Sort of like me, for surely your men would have encountered people looking for me by now.”
She tried to keep her voice expressionless, because she didn’t want him to see how it kept her awake at night, at first wondering if her family was missing her, and now dreading that she had no one out there at all. Perhaps those men who’d died had been her only family.
“It’s been eight days,” Duncan said quietly. “Ye were traveling. If ’twas a fair distance, ye’re not likely to be missed yet, aye?”
She shrugged, glanced down at the girdle, and gave an unladylike curse. “Oh, I’ve burned them again.”
When she removed the blackened cakes from the heat, she glanced up to see him watching her, unsmiling. But his eyes seemed a bit less shadowed, as if she amused him. Or maybe she was reading too much into this inscrutable man.
“Ye’ve picked up the language of a cave-dwelling clansman,” he said dryly.
She ignored his teasing. “I can serve the food, stir it even, but I will never rival Mrs. Skinner. Surely there’s something else I can do. Laundry, perhaps? You trust me outside now.”
He took her hand and lifted it, as if pointing out how white and useless it was.
She practically forced her thumb near his face. “See, I’m developing calluses, aren’t I?”
They were standing too close again, and she realized that seemed to happen too often. She glanced about and saw more than one pair of eyes watching them speculatively, most without rancor. They were a source of interest, but only Melville seemed to care what they did with each other.
Lowering her voice, she said, “Do you have any idea why Melville dislikes me so?”
Duncan grunted. “I’ve been told he hopes I will marry his daughter.”
Catherine’s mouth dropped open, and it took everything in her not to look Sheena’s way. “What does that have to do with me?”
He cocked his head. “I’ve never kissed his daughter.”
She felt her face flame scarlet. “Oh. But . . . he doesn’t know we’ve kissed. I promise I’ve not told anyone.”
“He’s not a stupid man.”
“It’s my fault,” she murmured, not knowing where to look anymore. “I’ll try to be more careful. I don’t know if I’ve ever kissed a man before, and it seems pretty wonderful. Perhaps my face showed too much . . .” She trailed off in distress.
When he didn’t say anything, she risked a glance up, only to find him staring at her mouth with a hunger he didn’t bother to hide.
Maeve interceded, bustling her away with the women to begin clearing the breakfast dishes and shooing the men off to their day’s chores, which eventually left Catherine and Duncan even more alone.
Catherine stayed where she was, embarrassed and grateful as she hovered near him as tentatively as a bird. He didn’t move away either; she could hear him breathing, knew it had quickened, just as hers had—here, in front of too many people.
“What happened to Maeve’s face?” she asked quietly, trying to distract herself.
He studied his friend’s face impassively, and then said the last words Catherine expected. “My mother did that.”
Her eyes went wide, her lips parted in shock, but he wore no expression at all.
“Surely an accident,” she began faintly.
