Amanda Scott by Ladys Choice Read Free Book Online Page A

incident, too, but evidently did not recall what Hugo had said to her or what she spat at him as she doused him. In truth, the topic of marriage had raised its head, but only in that she’d said she would
never
marry him.
    Clearly, she had told her sisters about the holy water, but he could recall nothing about her to suggest that she might lie to them. How else, though, could they have come to believe he would want to rescue her from an unwanted marriage?
    He had continued to flirt with her when they made two of the party that had departed Orkney with Henry for Castle Sinclair in Caithness. But that had not altered her thinking, because she had stubbornly continued to spurn his advances. The thought that she might make him a suitable bride when and if he had time to marry had certainly entered his head. But until now he had not imagined for an instant that it had entered hers. Such thoughts were not supposed to enter gently bred young women’s heads, although in truth, he supposed they occasionally did.
    To his chagrin, he realized the only reason he had continued to assume she would accept him was that he had heard nothing to suggest she had developed an interest in anyone else. Nor, until Lady Sorcha’s messenger found him, did he suspect that any other man had taken interest in Adela. He had simply assumed that when he wanted her, she would be available. He had assumed, as well, that her father would leap at the chance to welcome such a splendid bridegroom for her.
    Hugo winced at such plain evidence of his own arrogance, deciding that the lass had been right to call him conceited. Still, he was sure that nothing he had said or done ought to have led her sisters to believe he intended anything beyond flirting. If Adela had declared anything else to them, she ought not to have done so. And even if she did think he meant marriage, her most unladylikesister Sorcha ought never to have sent messages to him as she had, let alone dared to slap him.
    His thoughts were spinning in circles. If he was guiltless, then why, he asked himself, did he find it so hard to stop thinking about what the young vixen had said?
    He saw her come into the tent at last, but to his surprise, she walked straight to her father. When she bent close to speak into his ear, Macleod looked no happier to see her than one might expect. Indeed, he began scolding her roundly, without regard for the interested men around him. Hugo told himself she deserved to hear whatever Macleod said, and ruthlessly suppressed an inexplicable urge to defend her.

    “Please, sir, just talk to her,” Sorcha said quietly. “It was Lady Clendenen’s friend, Lady Gowrie. I’m sure those men her cousin saw must be the abductors. Heaven knows what they may be doing to Adela whilst we linger here!”
    “Ye ken naught o’ the matter,” Macleod said, getting to his feet. “What’s more, I ha’ heard enough o’ your prattle for one day. Ye’ll come wi’ me now or I’ll make ye rue what ye did to Sir Hugo right here, afore everyone.”
    Taking her by an arm, he gave her no choice, for she dared not resist him. Her cheeks flamed when more than one chuckle accompanied their departure, but she told herself she did not care. She had to make him understand.
    Outside, she tried again. “Please, sir, you cannot mean to abandon Adela. You cannot simply ignore what they did.”
    “Why not?” he demanded. “Ye made a fine fool o’yourself, sending out the Lord kens how many messages to Sir Hugo, and ye’ve seen what came o’ that. Every man for miles about learned o’ them, and everyone believed ’twas Sir Hugo that scooped her up to his saddlebow. Now they’ll ken that we all stood by and watched villains abduct me daughter. But Sir Hugo were right about one thing.”
    She wasn’t going to ask him what that was, but he grabbed her by both arms and put his face close to hers. “He were right to say the fault be yours alone, Sorcha Macleod. Whatever Adela’s fate be