He stopped and swung round so abruptly that Katherine almost cannoned into him. ‘All right, if you’re so set on knowing … I changed it for you, as you were incapable of doing it yourself,’ he admitted. ‘Now, does that satisfy you?’
She could feel the searing heat slowly rising from the base of her throat. ‘But-but … I’m not wearing anything beneath,’ she squealed, cheeks now aflame.
‘I’m well aware of that, strangely enough,’ he admitted, before neatly avoiding the small fist which swung in a wide arc towards his left ear.
It wasn’t so much the bold admission itself that had instantly replaced the searing humiliation with anger as the provocative gleam which had sprung into his brown eyes. ‘Ooh, you—you lecherous wretch!’ she screeched, frustration at missing her target only adding to her wrath. ‘I trusted you! How could you have taken advantage of me in such a despicable way?’
Half-amused, half-exasperated, Daniel followed as she swung away and began to stride up the beach, her slender frame held rigid with indignation. He could quite understand her mortification and anger, though he found it difficult to maintain his countenance when she swiped his hand away as he reached out to assist her over the rocks.
‘All I did was try to make you more comfortable, Kate,’ he ventured gently.
‘Kindly do not speak to me!’
‘My actions stemmed from the purest of motives,’ he assured her, sublimely ignoring the request.
The earnest admission won him a brief, considering glance. ‘Maybe so,’ she conceded in a tight little voice still throbbing with anger.
‘Come, be fair, Kate!’ he urged, determined to bring her out of her sulky mood, which was so unlike her. She might be a feisty little wench on occasions, hot-tempered and occasionally wilful, but sullenness was not in her nature. ‘After all, it was no more than you did to me when I received that slight wound the other day.’
‘That, Major Ross, was totally different, and you know it!’ she countered, clearly unwilling to be pacified. ‘You were fully aware of what I was doing the whole time. Furthermore, I don’t suppose for a moment that I’m the first female to have glimpsed you in a half-naked state. Whereas you are most certainly the first man ever to have seen me.’
He hardly needed this assurance, but the totally honest admission gave him a wonderful feeling of satisfaction all the same. ‘No, I don’t suppose I am the first, Kate. I expect your father was,’ he teased gently, and she swung round, tiny fists clenched.
‘Ooh, you really are asking to get your ears boxed!’
‘If it will help you recover from your fit of the sullens, then go ahead,’ he invited, screwing up his eyes in anticipation of the blow that never came. Consequently he risked opening just one again a moment later in time to catch the faintest of twitches at one corner of that delectable mouth.
‘This conversation is becoming ridiculous,’ Katherine announced, turning away in time to hide the smile that she seemed incapable of suppressing.
‘Wrong,’ he countered. ‘This conversation was ridiculous from the first. So I would suggest that, instead of wasting our breath in fruitless argument, we channel our energy into something far more worthwhile—namely, getting off this beach.’
She couldn’t help but agree with this. ‘And do you happen to know of some way off this rock-fall, without having to get our feet wet?’
‘There’s a path up the cliff a little further along. My cousin Simon and I occasionally played here when we were boys.’
Memory stirred. Katherine was almost sure that the cousin to whom he had just referred was none other than the man who had married his childhood sweetheart. Consequently she tactfully refrained from comment. She had no desire for him to discover that she had already learned something of his past from her aunt. If he wished to confide in her he would do so, she decided, asking instead if they were close to any towns or villages.
‘There’s a sizeable habitation about three miles away, where I’m certain we’ll have no trouble in acquiring a mount. We’ll be able to get something to eat there, if nothing else.’
She cast him an impatient glance. ‘If you possess any sensibility at all, Major Ross, you will kindly not mention food to me, especially after what I’ve suffered.’
His shout of laughter might have held a callous ring, but his voice did not lack sympathy. ‘I can understand your sentiments, my little love, but food is precisely what you do need, if only to maintain your strength. I’m determined to complete the last leg of our journey, for I have every intention of sleeping in my own bed tonight!’
Chapter Twelve
Rosslair was bathed in warm afternoon sunshine when Katherine caught her first glimpse of the greystone manor house, set in the gently rolling countryside she well remembered. It was a truly handsome building, not large by some standards, but undeniably the home of a gentleman of comfortable means.
As Daniel urged the weary mount into the courtyard at the back of the house, the sound of hooves on cobblestones brought a stocky individual of average height from one of the numerous outbuildings, which lined the yard on three of its sides. His craggy features were instantly softened by a broad smile of welcome, as his clear blue gaze rested upon the man about whose waist Katherine had clung for the past few hours, and a moment later her ears were assailed by an unmistakable accent.
‘To be sure now, I were only saying to Janet this very morn she were worrying herself to no purpose, and that you’d return safe and sound in your own good time. And that happy I am to be proved—’
He checked as his gaze fell upon the delicately featured face peering at him round one broad shoulder. ‘Now what have we here, Major, sir? Not another lad to help about the place, I’m thinking.’ He peered more closely as Daniel assisted the slender figure behind him to the ground before dismounting himself. “Tis not a lad at all, I’m thinking.’
‘There’s no fooling you, Sean McGann,’ Daniel announced, before making Katherine known to the man who had served him loyally throughout the hard-fought campaign in the Peninsula.
‘O’Malley?’ Positively beaming with delight, the exsergeant grasped the slender fingers held out to him. ‘Now, there’s a fine Irish name for you!’
‘And with a fine Irish temper to match,’ Daniel assured him, much to his loyal henchman’s intense amusement. ‘Come into the house when you’ve taken care of the horse, McGann,’ he added before leading the way into his home by way of the rear entrance.
In the large farmhouse-style kitchen he discovered his elderly housekeeper, seated at the table, busily occupied in repairing a rent in a sheet. After one brief glance to see who had entered her private domain, she rose to her feet and came rushing forward, with quite amazing speed for someone of her advanced years, to clasp as much of Daniel as she could encompass in her arms.
There was clearly a bond of affection between them that put Katherine in mind of her own relationship with Bridie. It was not unusual for loyal, elderly retainers to be given far more licence, so it came as no surprise to hear the housekeeper administer a scold when Daniel lifted her quite off her feet a moment later in order to plant a smacking kiss on one lined cheek.
Katherine’s only partially suppressed chuckle instantly alerted the housekeeper to her presence. She glanced enquiringly up at her master, before subjecting the stranger to a rather prolonged stare which grew increasingly disapproving.
Daniel immediately relinquished his hold, before reaching out one hand to remove the floppy, misshapen hat, and allow those gorgeous auburn locks to fall about slender shoulders. If anything his housekeeper’s expression became even