Seduced by a Rogue by Amanda Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

rise to his defense. And do not forget that the Douglases are kinsmen to his
     wife.”
    “Do you dare to try teaching
me
about kinships, my lad? You would do better to have carried out my orders. Instead, you return with nothing accomplished
     and excuses on your tongue.”
    “By God, Alex,” Rob said, bristling. “I am no longer twelve years old, nor am I dependent on you or subject to your constant
     authority. You are my brother and a man to whom I owe familial duty, but I am
not
your lackey. Nor do I have to stand here and listen to this like a misbehaving—”
    “Och, aye, I forgot,” Alex interjected, his tone scathing. “
Now
you are a great landowner, the Laird of Trailinghail. And as that fine estate lies across the river Nith,
now
you count such small things as loyalty to your clan and loyalty to Nithsdale, to Dumfries, and to
me
as nowt.”
    “If that is what you believe, we’ve
nowt
to discuss,” Rob snapped.
    “Aye, sure, lose your temper. It is ever the same with you. The minute someone calls you to account for your actions, or their
     lack—”
    “No more,” Rob said curtly.
    “Nay, then, although I’d hoped you had learned to use that stubborn head of yours to prove yourself a worthy member of our
     great clan. But you are still the hot-tempered, impatient… Damnation, Rob, I’ve no doubt now that you angered Dunwythie as
     much as you are angering me now. If you
were
still a lad—”
    “Aye, ye’d skelp me blue. But you’d soon find yourself at a standstill, trying anything so daft now,” Rob said. “If you need
     someone to treat again with Dunwythie, you will doubtless find a more competent man quite easily.”
    “Fiend seize you, Rob. I’d hoped…” He sighed. “God kens I’d hoped you had grown out of these ways of yours. But I should have
     known you had not.”
    “Good-bye, Alex,” Rob said. “I’ll not impose further on your hospitality.”
    “Och, aye, run back to Trailinghail,” Alex said with acid dripping from his tongue. “’Tis ever your way. I’m told your people
     there think highly of you. One can only pray that you do not disappoint them as you have me.”
    Rob turned and left, striding back across the hall toward the stairway so angrily that men moving toward tables stepped hastily
     out of his way.
    “Sir! Master Rob! Hi, there, an ye please, sir!”
    The high-pitched voice interrupted his streaming thoughts, and Rob turned, wrathfully meaning to tell any gillie insolent
     enough to shout the length of the hall at him how much in error such behavior was.
    The black-haired, blue-eyed lad looked only nine or ten years old. He met Rob’s scowl bravely.
    “What the devil do you mean by shouting at me like that?” Rob demanded.
    His pointed little chin thrusting boldly forward, the lad replied, “Herself did say I should shout the house down if I must
     to keep ye from leaving. That’s why.”
    “Oh, she did, did she?”
    “Aye, she did.
And
she said ye’d look as red as raw beef, too. So she kens ye well, Herself does. And she tellt me never to mind your temper.”
    “You mind your tongue. Is that all she said to tell me?”
    “Aye! Well, no the bit about raw beef… no to
tell
ye that bit, any road. But she did say to stop ye,
and
to say ye’re no to go afore she talks wi’ ye.”
    Rob looked past the lad to the dais, where his sister-in-law, the lady Cassandra Maxwell, stood near the high table gazing
     myopically at him. Apparently realizing he had seen her, she smiled warily.
    Movement in the open doorway behind her—which led to the ladies’ solar—diverted Rob’s eye as his grandmother, Lady Kelso,
     stepped into the opening.
    She gestured imperiously.
    “I see Herself now,” he said to the lad. “You can go, but I do thank you.”
    “Aye, sir. Ye’d no want to put her in a temper.
Nae
one would,” the lad said with the emphasis of unhappy experience. “But she’s a fine old trout, Herself is.”
    “Old
trout
?”
    “Aye,