The Highlander's Christmas Countess (The Lairds Most Likely 8)

Mr. MacNab rose and crossed to the door. The wind was still roaring around the hut. When he managed to heave the door open, the sudden blast of cold made Kit wrap her arms around herself.

The door only stayed open a few seconds before Mr. MacNab battled to close it again. “It’s a white hell out there.”

“Everyone will be afraid for us.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it.” As he came back to the fire to pile on some more peat, he looked troubled. “It’s getting colder, too.”

It was. “Do you think we’ll be here all night?”

Another nonsensical question, but she found that deep voice so soothing, she didn’t really care whether he was speaking calming platitudes.

He rested one elbow on the rustic mantel and cast her a searching glance. “I hope not.”

In an odd way, she felt safer here in this primitive hut than she had since she’d run away. If Neil was looking for her, and she had no doubt he was, the dreadful weather would keep him away. She wasn’t even afraid of an unmasking anymore, because Mr. MacNab now knew all her secrets – apart perhaps from the foolish penchant she harbored for him.

“Do you trust me, Kit?”

Startled, she looked up, wondering if he’d read her mind. “Aye.”

“Thank you.” A smile creased his face. “I know you don’t trust easily.”

“No.” She had once, but life had taught her that evil could lurk under an amiable manner, and greed and cruelty didn’t always come announced.

“Will you trust me to keep you alive through this snowstorm?”

“Do you want to try and get back to Lyon House?”

His short laugh was dismissive. “Good God, no. We wouldn’t make two yards out there.”

“Then what?”

“I want to pull the bed near the fire and I want you and I to share it, purely for body warmth. You have my word as a gentleman and a MacNab that I won’t take liberties.” He paused as if waiting for her to protest. When she didn’t speak, he went on. “It’s the only way we’ll survive this.”

Kit waited for her instincts to scream a denial. After all, Belmont Sinclair, Neil’s slimy friend, had schemed to winkle his way into her bed. But it seemed she really did trust Quentin MacNab not to try to seduce her and make a claim on her inheritance.

The embarrassing truth was that some wicked part of her might even like it if he did. In the narrow room in the stables, where for a few hours each day she became Christabel instead of Kit, she’d spent too many nights dreaming of his kisses.

“I think that’s very sensible,” she said calmly and saw his relief at her cooperation. Despite their predicament, a smile tugged at her lips. “I’ll spare you a fit of maidenly hysterics. I don’t want to die in this hut either. I want to live to kick Neil Maxwell out of my home and watch him scuttle away like the cockroach he is.”

Admiration brightened Mr. MacNab’s hazel eyes. While she might warn herself to be careful, it was difficult not to bask in his approval. “It would be a tragedy to miss that by a mere week.”

“I agree.” She rose on legs that felt ridiculously wobbly at the prospect of lying beside Mr. MacNab. It seemed here she was more Christabel than Kit, too. And for weeks, Christabel had concealed a silly tendre for this dashing young man. “Shall I help you with the bed?”

“I can manage.”

She released a hiss of impatience. “Just because I’m a girl, it doesn’t mean you have to treat me like a porcelain figurine. You didn’t when you thought I was a stableboy.”

“I never thought you were a stableboy,” he said quietly.

“Oh,” she said, blushing for no reason she could think of.

He sent her another searching look, and she wondered if her weakness for him was quite as much of a secret as she hoped. “Two sets of hands will definitely help with the bed, so thank you, my lady.”

She winced. “Seeing we’re about to become much better acquainted, you should go back to calling me Kit.”

He smiled. “Then you should call me Quentin.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. Remember I’m officially a servant until Christmas Eve. What would the other servants say if I was suddenly on such terms with the laird’s nephew?”