“I’ll not harm you,” he said softly. “Not unless you give me reason.” He tugged on the blanket, pulling it from beneath her hips. While she watched with wide eyes, he cut a long strip from it. When he reached for her, Katrine cowered.
He hesitated. “I’ll have to gag you, lass. I can’t afford to have you scream again.”
Katrine couldn’t answer him; for once in her life, her tongue failed her. She returned his gaze helplessly, still trembling. But he must have sensed how frightened she was, for he was gentle as he wound the strip of wool around her mouth and tied the ends behind her lace-edged nightcap. And he spoke to her pleasantly as he proceeded to cut more strips from the coverlet with which to bind her.
“Campbell’s soldiers aren’t coming, it seems. No doubt they thought your scream was that of a mountain cat.”
His voice was soothing, calm, but the effect was destroyed by his mention of the wildcats that roamed the Highland hills.
“Do you work here?” he asked, taking her hands and crossing them at the wrists to tie them.
Katrine stared at him as he bent to his task. A waving lock of ebony hair fell rebelliously over a high distinguished forehead. Who was he? she wondered. Not that she wanted to know. If she never saw him again, it would be too soon.
She dragged her gaze away, reflecting on his question. He mistook her for a servant, she realized. No doubt ladies and serving wenches all looked alike in their nightclothes.
“I’d have thought you could have found better employment than service to Argyll’s lackey.”
Argyll’s lackey? He was speaking of her uncle, obviously. At the slur, Katrine felt a trace of her former spirit returning. She might have retorted, too, if not for the wool in her mouth.
But the urge fled as he pushed her back into a sitting position and raised the hem of her nightshift to attend her feet. Katrine froze. His warm fingers were on her bare flesh, sliding across the back of her calves as he drew the woolen strip around her ankles.
She sucked in her breath, or tried to, and he apparently caught the
sound. He paused for the space of a heartbeat, his long fingers stilling, his dangerous gaze returning to lock with hers. Shaken, apprehensive, she wondered at the pulse of excitement that his touch, his gaze, engendered in her, at the sparks that seemed to flare from the calloused pads of his fingertips up the backs of her legs, to settle in places whose existence no young lady ever acknowledged.
Fortuitously, though, his gaze dropped and his hands began to move again. Katrine was filled with relief…and something more. Anger that this black-haired ruffian could have such a disturbing effect on her.
She welcomed the anger, though. It was a more satisfying emotion than fear, and made her feel far less helpless, less impotent. She tried to fan her outrage as his hands returned to tying her ankles, considering precisely the words she would have said to him if she hadn’t had a gag stuffed in her mouth.
He finished his task quickly, then reached for the coverlet and arranged it around her shoulders. “There, that should be more comfortable.”
His mock gallantry sparked her newfound ire. Indeed, how could she be comfortable when he had trussed her up like a Christmas goose? Katrine stared at him wrathfully as he rose to his feet, though no doubt he couldn’t see her expression in the dark.
She heard him strike a flint before he relit the lamp and the study flared to life in a golden glow. His gaze slid back to her and found her watching him with ill-concealed dislike. In his gleaming dark eyes, she detected a brief flash of amusement that she found highly irritating and insulting.
“I’m gratified that you chose not to scream again,” he observed. “It would reflect ill on the honor of a Highland gentleman to have to harm a lass.”
Her own eyes flashed as she glared at him over her wool muzzle. Gentleman? She would have told him precisely what she thought of his pretensions to gentility had she been able to speak—and had he not turned away just then.
Resentfully Katrine watched as he resumed his seat at the desk and continued whatever he had been doing with her uncle’s ledgers when she interrupted him. From her position, she couldn’t tell what it was, though she could see that he frequently dipped a pen in the inkwell.
For some while the only sounds were the scratching of a quill and the brush of grit on parchment as he sprinkled sand over the ink to dry it. Despite her bindings, Katrine began to relax somewhat. She wasn’t going to be murdered just yet. That was some comfort. And he hadn’t really hurt her—if she dismissed the dryness of her mouth and the loss of circulation where the wool was binding her.
She occupied herself by pondering who the stranger was and what he was doing with the account books. He seemed too well-spoken to be a common thief. All right then, uncommon. His frock coat and breeches were superbly cut, showing his lean, muscular form to advantage, and the riding boots that reached just above the knee were made of supple, gleaming leather.
Well dressed or not, he was a criminal. A hard, ruthless, dangerous criminal. He had already proved that by threatening to introduce her to his dirk—the dirk whose handle now peered innocently over the rim of his right boot. Her temper flaring at the memory, Katrine studied the stranger’s profile, memorizing his features so she would be able to describe him later to the proper authorities.
Not that she would ever forget his face, with that high brow and aggressive chin and midnight blue eyes. She guessed him to be perhaps thirty or a bit older. If not for the dark stubble that shadowed his jaw, he might even have been considered handsome, Katrine decided magnanimously. The full sensual mouth would have been appealing to some women, and so might the waving hair that was black as a raven’s wing. She herself might have found him attractive had he not been so violently overbearing; but a man as savage as he played no part in her dreams.
Just then, as if he felt her watching, he turned to glance at her. His gaze roamed slowly over her—the way hers had done to him—as he coolly took in every detail of her dishabille. Though she had tamed her hair in a braid before going to bed, her fiery curls now spilled from beneath her cap, loosened by her tussle with him. And her nightshift was hiked up above her bound ankles, showing her slippered feet and a glimpse of bare flesh.
Seeing where his dark gaze lingered, Katrine defiantly raised her chin and stared daggers at him.
He gave her a wicked grin in return. “You’ve pretty ankles.”
She found that even in her fury she could blush. Granting a temporary victory to him, she hastily scrambled to push her hem down and cover her feet.
For her modesty, she gained only a deep chuckle from the man whose disconcerting gaze had the power to make her quiver. Then, dismissing her, he returned to his task while Katrine nursed her grievances.