The Husband Hunt by Jillian Hunter Read Free Book Online

she must flee again?
    For a great part of her youth, she had counted on animals for companionship. Certainly, few children had been allowed to play with
her,
illegitimate daughter of a charmer. Her only friend had been an odious boy named Lamont Montgomery, an apprentice to her estranged Uncle Murdo, who practiced magic in the Border hills. She had pretended not to care that no one else sought her company, and when her mother had found a wounded hawk or even a hedgehog in the woods, there had been solace for her own hurts in helping the creatures heal.
    The owl gave vent to a long, melancholy hoot.
    "What do you want?" Catriona whispered again.
    "A little peace and quiet would be nice," a deep voice drawled from the window several feet to her left.
    She turned her head in surprise and felt a shock ripple down her spine, this one leaving a wake of unsettling warmth that confused her. All she could see of the speaker in the misty darkness was a sharp profile and a powerful upper torso, loosely clad in a hall-buttoned white cambric shirt.
    "What are you doing here at this hour?" she asked, before she realized how absurd the question was.
    "I happen to live here."
    "I realize that," she retorted. "But why are you not in bed?"
    "I
was
in bed."
    The sarcasm in his voice was not lost on her. "Are you implying it is my fault that an owl has awakened the entire household?"
    She imagined rather than saw the infuriating smirk on his face. "Isn't it?"
    Catriona had been accused of far worse things in her life, of causing rain showers during a church service, and crops to fail, even a death once, but this man's casual arrogance seemed absolutely undeserved.
    "That is quite unfair. How could I possibly summon an owl out of the ethers?"
    "I have no idea," he said, sounding thoroughly annoyed, "and I'm sure I don't care. I just want you to shut the blasted thing up."
    She was trying to think of something clever to say to that when another owl fluttered from above the trees and settled down on the same limb as its noisy partner. She blinked in disbelief.
    Knight gave an indignant snort and pointed at the tree. "That's exactly what I mean."
    "It's your tree," she said incredulously.
    "Well, they're certainly not my owls."
    "They aren't mine, either."
    "They must be Scottish owls," he said,
tsking
under his breath. "No sense of propriety."
    "No Scottish owl with an ounce of sense would be caught anywhere near
this
house," she muttered back.
    The second owl began to hoot in chorus with the other.
    She fixed the pair of them with an impatient frown. "Oh, do be quiet, would you? He thinks that
I'm
what has brought you here."
    And both owls, as if spellbound, subsided into the requested silence.
    For a moment, the viscount was apparently too startled at this development to speak. Then he gave one of his low, wicked laughs that wreaked havoc on Catriona's nervous system. "Well, well. The owls have obeyed their mistress."
    She felt her cheeks flame. "If that's true, let me ask them to—"
    A torch flared in the yard below, illuminating the house. Catriona stole a look at Lord Rutleigh's face, the masculine features schooled into a dark mask of amusement. The light must have revealed her face, too. His gaze caught hers, rooting her to the spot with its intensity. She felt her heart quicken, and a flush of a pleasant disconcertment she had never before experienced warmed her from within.
    They stared at each other in a mix of reluctant curiosity and mistrust. Catriona knew what she resented about him—he was an autocratic Sassenach who thought himself superior—but she admitted he seemed to have his good qualities, although it puzzled her that she found him so attractive. She shrugged inwardly, reminding herself that she had been rebuffed by his sort most of her life.
    He gave an affected yawn as if his interest in the whole affair had waned. "You were saying?"
    She drew back into the room, talking to herself in an indignant undertone. "If I did have