Page 19 of The Scot is Hers
“Just rest,” he grumbled. “When the rain stops, I’ll see that ye get back to where ye came from.” He couldn’t even force himself to say the bastard’s name, and he let out a low prayer that the rain ended bloody well soon.
Alec stared out over the landscape through the sheets of rain and darkened sky. It hit him all of the sudden that if his mother had not decided to throw her ridiculous secret party at his castle, that the woman sitting behind him would have fallen over the cliff. In a twisted way, his meddling mother was to thank for the wee nuisance being alive, albeit slightly injured. And how ironic that she was one of the chits to torment him years ago, and here he’d become her rescuer. Well, if that wasn’t Fate kicking him in the ballocks.
“I was at that ball, sir,” Lady Giselle said, cutting into his thoughts, her tone shaper than before. “But we did no’ meet on the dance floor.”
“Ye’re a wallflower?” With that mouth, he wasn’t surprised.
Even covered in mud, he thought she was probably decent-looking enough that she’d not be completely ignored. Hard to tell when she looked as if she’d rolled around with a bunch of pigs. Had to be her attitude that kept her away from the other lads.
She laughed, the sound as bitter as some he’d pushed out in the last couple of years. “Some might say so. However, it’s my own choice. But nay, no’ that night. We met in the garden.”
Alec narrowed his eyes and turned more fully to face her. It couldn’t be...studying the hair matted to the top of her head, the still pale, mud-streaked cheeks, and the earnest eyes that glared up at him with a challenge in their depths, he realized that there was something indeed familiar about her. Alec flashed back to the garden, dawning understanding and recognition hitting him in the gut.
Her words returned to him, how she hadn’t thought of him since that night. How very opposite their reactions had been, for he’d notstoppedthinking about her since then. It had been so refreshing to spar with a woman who couldn’t care less about the scar on his face. He’d attempted to find out who she was but never was successful. He’d half convinced himself that she’d not been real.
“Ah, aye, I do remember ye.” It was an effort to keep his voice measured. She’d been the one lass who hadn’t been intimidated by him. And she didn’t appear to be now either. Alec’s heartbeat sped up, and a thrumming hummed in his veins. “Ye refused to give me your name then, Lady Giselle. I appreciate ye telling me now.”
A crack of lightning lit up the abbey ruins, and he caught sight of the quirk of her lips, a smile so fleeting it disappeared with the bright light. He thought she was bonnie, mud and all.
“Perhaps I should have kept the mystery going a little longer,” she said. “Though I daresay neither of us wants to meet under such circumstances again. We keep finding each other at our worst. Ye punching garden walls and me falling off of cliffs. A friendship between us seems doomed to fail. Best we keep going our separate ways.”
Friendship. So she didn’t find him worthy of even that. At least she respected him enough—to be honest, that was refreshing. Almost as revitalizing as her not finding him to be utterly hideous.
“If ye help me up,” she wiggled her hand toward him, “I can try to mount my horse and be on my way. Out of your hair, and then ye can return to stalking this pile of rocks to your heart’s content.”
Alec stared at her outstretched hand and considered it. Life would be much less complicated if he sent her on her way. But for the last few years, he’d been exceptionally bored, holed up in his castle. Perhaps what he neededwasa bit of a complication.
“Och, nay. I’ll no’ be the one to let ye ride out in this storm. ’Tis too dangerous, and with your ankle like that, ye’ll find it painful to ride. We’ll have to stay here until it settles.” All of that was true. But what he didn’t say was he rather relished the idea of Keith coming to find her and having the chance to punish the man who was the downfall of everything. Sir Joshua Keith was his sworn enemy. Alec was itching for a reason to put their feud to rest. To see that bastard pay the way Alec and so many others had.
Giselle let out a sigh that didn’t sound half as disappointed as he thought she meant it to. “And so I find myself alone with ye once more.”
“Aye, although this time, I hardly think ye need to be worried about anyone stumbling upon us. No’ just yet anyway.”
“Right about now, my mother will discover I’m no’ in my room.” She scrubbed her hands over her face, washing away some of the mud that had started to dry. “She’ll tear through the castle looking for me. Probably scare most of the servants. Father will blame her for my disappearance. Threaten to send her away, most likely.”
Alec chuckled. “Does he threaten that often?”
Giselle shrugged. “They were meant for each other. What of ye? Who will be searching for ye when they discover ye are missing?”
“My mother. But she’ll figure I’m avoiding the disastrous tea she’s got planned with a dozen uninvited ladies. I do no’ think it would cross her mind I’d left the castle becauseshewould no’ leave the castle. ’Tis hard for her to separate her actions and desires from others.”
“Huh. I know what that’s like. I’m also eluding a disastrous tea. And I daresay the single bachelor I’m avoiding marriage with outweighs any of the ninnies awaiting your company. When do ye think our mothers will notice we’ve left the castle grounds?”
The lass had a point. He’d rather deal with the nitwits at Slains than be bound for life to Sir Joshua Keith. “Perhaps another hour or so for ye, after they’ve scoured the castle and outbuildings looking for ye. I think I’ve got a little longer.” His mother would be discreet about it, not wanting her precious guests to catch wind of what she and most of society would deem as inappropriate behavior.
“Will the countess send out a search party?” Lady Giselle asked.
Alec shrugged. “She will try, but my friends will tell her no’ to do so yet.”
“Your friends? Ye’re evading them as well?”
He nodded solemnly, feeling a little bit guilty about that. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see them. Hell, if it had only been them, he would have stayed. But the simpering potential brides his mother had convinced to join them all were not worth the struggle it would take to make an appearance.
“An unfortunate side effect of the situation,” he said. “Now, tell me. Were ye and Sir Joshua intending to join the festivities at Slains?”
“Goodness, I do no’ think so. At least, an invitation was no’ mentioned to me.” She shook her head. “If anything, I feel as though I was about to be locked up and never heard from again.”
“Is that so?” Alec didn’t doubt it.
