Page 92 of Love with a Scottish Outlaw
“About her memory comin’ back? Och, she’s worried what people’ll think about her, a rich, fine lady that she is. I think she was unhappy before. She didn’t say it,” Finn added confidently, “but I think she’s happier here.”
“A cave is no place for a lady,” Duncan said with solemnity. “Or a young lass either.”
“There’s other women here,” Finn insisted.
“With their menfolk.”
Finn sighed. “I thought sharin’ the truth with ye would make ye change yer mind about findin’ me a family.”
“Finn—is that short for Fiona?”
“Finola,” Finn said glumly.
“And what is your surname?”
“Hume.”
“Finn, I hope that someday ye’re proud of your name and can use it freely. I won’t make ye do so here. And I won’t tell your secret until ye’re ready.”
“Thank ye, sir.”
“But I’m glad ye told me the truth, that ye trusted me. Now trust me with your future, and know that I will do my best for ye.”
Finn nodded, but didn’t meet Duncan’s eyes. After she left, Duncan regretted that she looked so dispirited. He vowed not to disappoint her.
Cat spent an awkward evening considering everything she’d done. Once again, she’d rushed heedlessly into a decision, chasing after Duncan, without giving thought to the consequences—one of which was losing her virginity, she thought wryly. She’d made the decision herself, but still . . . did that mean she trusted him? No, she refused to consider that. She’d shared an intimacy with him, but it had ended. She wasn’t entrusting him with her life.
The other consequence of her choice to be with Duncan was that everyone knew they’d gone off for hours alone. She felt like they all knew that she’d given herself to their chief.
Sheena knew. Cat had never seen a woman mope around so much, dispiritedly helping clean up the last of the dishes, slinking off to sit by herself with her father, Melville, who patted her shoulder and glared at Cat.
Cat knew she was hot with a blush, and leaned closer to the cauldron of hot water, hoping everyone would think that was the reason.
And then there was Finn, who seemed just as depressed. When Cat finally confronted the girl, she only said that she’d told Duncan the truth, and though he’d been kind, he hadn’t changed his mind about finding her a home. Finn pulled a blanket over her head on her pallet and fell asleep early. If she actually slept, Cat couldn’t be certain.
Cat herself found her pallet soon after, and almost wished she could hide under a blanket, too. She imagined people staring at her back, thinking her a harlot—or a “fancy lass,” she remembered with faint amusement.
And she was, in truth, Duncan’s fancy lass, and had been quite willing about it, too. As she lay dozing, images came to her of the afternoon lying beneath him. Her breasts were still sensitive, and between her legs—oh, she still blushed to remember what he’d done to her, how he’d pleasured her. She was no longer a virgin, had nothing to offer her husband on her wedding night.
Any man who cared about that wasn’t worth marrying, she told herself sternly.
But beneath her bluster was a creeping undertone of doubt. Never before had she met a man she’d even wanted to risk her reputation on. Oh, she’d snuck away for an occasional moment alone at a ball, had even been kissed before—and liked it.
But only Duncan, a Scottish outlaw who’d betrayed her and held her captive, had made her pull off her own garments in her haste to be with him.
And it had been worth it.
What was she supposed to make of that?
At last she fell asleep, and it seemed little time had passed at all before she was awakened by an odd sound. She rolled over onto her back and heard the snores of a handful of men—all the others were on patrol looking for the kidnappers. A few torches still burned on the walls, but the peat fires were nothing but embers. She lifted her head, listening, and at the narrow opening between two screens, saw movement at the entrance to the cave—a person sneaking past a dozing Melville. A small person.
Finn.
Cat quietly put on her shoes, pulled the laces of her gown tighter, and followed the young girl. Most likely she was going out to tend the horses. Now that she’d been taught to work with them, Finn seemed to have found a measure of peace with the animals.
Melville made a snorting noise as Cat passed by. She lifted a torch from the wall, said quietly, “I’ll be with the horses,” and he nodded and lowered his chin to his chest again.
But Finn wasn’t with the horses, who crowded toward her eagerly for treats. She patted noses and necks as she looked around, but there wasn’t a sound. Apparently Finn did not want to be found, and Cat had a prickly, uneasy sensation spread across her skin. Dawn was beginning, a gray smudge in the eastern sky. After one of the guards gave a nod as he went past, Cat put the torch out in a bucket and began to roam the area outside the cave, from the woods to the paddock, to the burn Duncan used for his bath. At last she looked straight up, at the towering turret of the Carlyle castle on the cliff. Would Finn really have gone up there, when she’d expressly been forbidden?
