Sir Nevis jutted out his chin, but he turned slightly and nodded at the other men, and slowly, suspiciously, they lowered their guns.
The Scotsman smirked, then twirled the musket in one hand so that the butt was facing away from him and handed it to Mr. Bellows. “Now...might we help you repair the wheel?” he asked as if the tension had not just simmered so menacingly between them. As if none of them had, only moments before, feared for their lives.
“That is not necessary,” Sir Nevis said stiffly.
The Scotsman shrugged indifferently. “Aye, then. We’ve no desire to toil under the hot summer sun.” He turned as if he meant to depart, but he caught sight of Daisy and he hesitated, his eyes locking on hers.
Daisy’s breath quickened; her first instinct was to step back, to run. Her second instinct overruled the first, however, for he had a pair of astoundingly blue eyes. Cerulean blue. She was moving without thought, stepping away from the coach as she nervously pressed her damp palms to the front of her gown.
His heated gaze slowly traveled the length of her, his eyes like a pair of torches, singeing her skin as he took in every bit of her gown and the tips of the shoes that peeked out from beneath her hem. Then up again, to her bosom, where he unabashedly lingered, and finally to her face.
Daisy self-consciously brushed her cheek with the back of her hand, wondering if she looked dirty or worn.
He continued to stare at her so boldly and unapologetically that Daisy couldn’t help but smile uneasily. “Ah...th-thank you for your offer,” she stammered. What the devil was she to say in this situation?
He stared at her.
“Madam, I must insist that you return to the chaise with your lady to wait,” Sir Nevis begged her.
“Yes, I will,” she assured him, but she made no move to do so, not even when she heard Belinda call for her. She simply could not look away from the Scotsman.
“Who are you?” he suddenly demanded.
“Me?” she asked stupidly, but then she remembered herself and stepped forward, her hand extended, and sank into a curtsy with the vague idea that if all else failed, perhaps civility might work. “I beg your pardon. I am Lady Chatwick.” She glanced up, her hand still extended. The Scotsman scowled down at her. He showed no inclination to take her hand.
Daisy self-consciously rose. She’d never seen eyes so blue, she was certain of it—the very color of an early spring day. “I do so appreciate your offer of assistance. We’ve come a very long way and have not seen roads as bad as these.”
His gaze narrowed menacingly, and he took a step toward her. And another. He tilted his head to one side, studying her, as if she were a creature he’d never seen before. “What is an English noblewoman doing in these hills?” he demanded, his voice tinged with suspicion.
“We are to Auchenard,” she said. “It is a lodge—”
“Aye, I know what it is,” he said. “No one goes to Auchenard now but rutting stags. What business have you there?”
She was slightly taken aback by his crass comment. “Ah...well, Auchenard belongs to my son now. I thought he should see it.”
He frowned as if he didn’t believe her. His gaze fell to her lips, and there it lingered.
Daisy’s blood fired and flooded her cheeks. She nervously touched a curl at her nape. “I beg your pardon, but might I know your name?”
He slowly lifted his gaze. “Arrandale.”
“Arrandale,” she repeated.
He took another sudden step forward, and now he stood so close that she had to tilt her head back to look up at him.
“Stand back!” Sir Nevis shouted, but the Scotsman ignored him.
Daisy’s heart was seizing madly in her chest. She could clearly see the emerging shadow of a dark beard and the dark lashes that framed his eyes. And the nick of a scar at the bridge of his nose, another one on his jawline. She looked at his mouth, too, the dark plum of his lips.
“You should no’ have come here,” he said quietly. “This country is no’ safe for Sassenach women and children. Repair your wheel, turn about and head for the sea.”
Daisy blinked. “I beg your pardon, but we’ve—”
He abruptly turned his back on her and strode to his horse, swinging himself up onto its back. He said something to the others, and, just like that, they rode away, in the direction from which Daisy and her party had labored all day.
It seemed several moments before Daisy could breathe. She exchanged a wide-eyed look with Sir Nevis, who at last instructed the others. “To the wheel,” he said. “Make haste.”
“What has happened?” Belinda’s voice cried out behind Daisy. “Where have they gone?”
“Be thankful they have gone and left your purse and your virtue intact, madam,” Sir Nevis said darkly and whirled about, marching to assist in the repair of the wheel.
Daisy felt Belinda’s hand on her back. “You are shaking,” she said. “Calm yourself, Daisy. They’ve gone—you’re quite safe for the moment.”
Daisy wasn’t shaking with fear. She was shaking because she had never in her life been so bewitched by a man.
MORE THAN TWO hours after the Scotsman and his group had left them deserted on the road, the wheel repaired as best it could be, Daisy and her party began the arduous progress east once more.
As they bumped along, her heart still fluttered a little. She couldn’t rid herself of the image of that man. She listened idly to Belinda, who hugged the small window, peering out at the landscape, remarking on the vast emptiness and dangers lurking, but Daisy thought of him.
“I’d not be the least surprised were we attacked by those wild men,” Belinda said, shuddering.
“They didn’t seem so very wild in the end, did they?” Daisy asked. She thought of the warnings her friends had given her before she’d departed for Scotland. She’d invited several ladies over for tea. “What trouble you’ll find there, what with all the traitors among them,” Lady Dinsmore had cried. “You can’t go! I’ve heard they slaughter the English.”
“They’re savages,” Lady Whitcomb had added gravely. “They have been unnaturally influenced by the Stuarts and are quite impossibly untrustworthy! You won’t be safe for a moment among them—everyone knows the greatest prize is an Englishwoman.”
Daisy didn’t share their pessimistic view. She’d been married to a man who was himself a Scot by blood, and he had never given her any reason to believe she should fear them. Then again, she’d never seen a Scot like the one she’d encountered today.
Neither had Belinda apparently, for her head snapped around, her brows almost to her hairline. “I thank the good Lord we escaped unharmed!”
Ellis lifted his head and looked at his mother, an expression of worry on his face. Daisy smiled reassuringly and hugged him to her side. “We are safe, darling.”
She’d often privately wondered if she’d done something while she carried the boy to produce such a fretful, fearful child. What else could explain it? He was nine years old and had never wanted for anything, had no outward ailments to speak of, and yet he was so timid. Their London physician had warned Daisy a few years ago that her son suffered from a weak constitution. “No doubt he shall be sickly all his life,” he’d said as he’d closed his bag.
That news was not what Daisy had expected, and she’d looked at him with confusion. “Sickly? What do you mean?”