Amanda Scott by Ladys Choice Read Free Book Online

her if she deserved skelping.
    In truth, he doubted that she cared a rap about who his connections were, or had spared a thought for her own, before she struck.
    She was a beauty, too, more arresting in her own way than her sisters—the three he had met, anyway. And unlike most young women, who behaved coyly and affected shyness when meeting him, she had looked at him directly, albeit angrily.
    Famished now, he strode toward the great tent, smiling again as he recalled how her dimple had peeped at him, the way her chin had come up, and how the curling amber-gold tendrils escaping her coif had gleamed in the sunlight. He even admired the way her wide-set, dark-lashed eyes had sparked flames at him and the whiteness of her teeth when she bared them at him. And, too, there was the tempting fullness of her rosy lips, lips clearly intended for kissing.
    Knowing she was to stay at Lochbuie while he and Michael did, he thought it might be amusing to try to alter her opinion of him. He decided, though, that if she triedslapping him again, he would not leave it to Macleod to teach her manners.
    “Hugo, I want a word with you.”
    Hearing in his cousin’s voice the stern note rarely directed at himself, he stopped instantly and turned to wait for him.
    Frowning, Sir Michael Sinclair glanced about at the crowd swarming to get its midday meal. He waited until a group of men passed them to enter the tent, then said quietly, “We’ll delay our dinner a few minutes more. I would know more about that incident before the ceremony.”
    “You saw it,” Hugo said. “You know as much as I do.”
    “You had nothing to do with that young woman’s abduction.”
    Although Michael made it a statement and not a question, Hugo knew he would not have mentioned it had he not harbored at least small doubts. The knowledge stirred new irritation, but he kept his tone mild as he said, “You know I did not.”
    Michael held his gaze for a long moment before he said, “I hope so. Are you certain you gave Lady Adela no cause to think you wanted to marry her?”
    “Don’t be daft,” Hugo said, but he felt heat in his cheeks as he said it.
    Michael’s gaze sharpened. “None at all?”
    “Of course not.” Hugo met that sharp gaze and gave his answer firmly, with no intention of sharing the niggling doubt that had just flitted through his mind—certainly not until he’d had time to give it more thought.
    Accordingly, he was silent until Michael nodded and said, “That is all I wanted to know. If Macleod requests our help, we’ll give it.”
    “Aye, sure,” Hugo said as they continued toward the tent together.
    When they had taken their places at the men’s end of the high table, he saw that neither Lady Sorcha nor Isobel was present. He found then that his appetite was no longer as keen as it had been.
    He bore his part in nearby conversation as needed, but his mind was no longer on the festivities. When Isobel entered the tent at last, with her sister Cristina and Hector Reaganach—the latter looking grim enough to remind Hugo that men had good reason to call him Hector the Ferocious—he hoped Hector’s mood was due to annoyance with Lady Sorcha rather than with the man she had slapped.
    Even more than he wanted to avoid Michael’s displeasure did he want to avoid that of the powerful warrior who carried his family’s legendary battle-axe with him everywhere he went. Unfortunately, though, he could think of only one way Lady Sorcha Macleod could have come to believe he had wanted to marry her sister. That was if Adela herself had led her to believe it.
    Conversation ebbed and flowed around him as he tried to recall what he knew about Lady Adela. Besides her golden beauty, his strongest memory was the haughty way she had dismissed his casual flirting at Orkney. He recalled, too, that when he had responded to that dismissal as he always did to such setbacks, she had cast a basinful of holy water in his face.
    Michael had witnessed that