Papa slumped back against the heaped pillows, and his face had turned a worrying shade of white. Changing the splint had been a painful process.
“Should we get a doctor?” Marina asked.
“The nearest doctor is thirty miles away, lassie. Dinna fash yeself. I’ve been caring for Achnasheen’s bumps and scrapes for the last fifty years. Ye’ll no’ do better with the quack at Strathcarron.”
“I’m sorry if I offended you.”
The old lady shook her head. “No reason ye should ken our ways. The Mackinnon has entrusted your father to me. I willnae let him—or you—down.”
More homage to the omnipotent Mackinnon. Santo cielo, no wonder the man was insufferable.
“Now I’ll show ye to your chamber, and ye can get out of that gown and get ready to have supper with the laird. I dinna want another patient on my hands, and it’s no’ the night to be standing around in wet clothes.”
Despite the protection of the coachman’s aromatic coat, Marina’s dress was uncomfortably clammy. She’d remained close to the roaring fire to keep from shivering. When they’d reached the castle, the Mackinnon had ordered her to her room so she could change, but she’d insisted that first she’d see her father settled. Her host hadn’t appreciated her defiance, even on such a minor matter.
“I’ll come back and sit with Papa, once I’ve put on something dry,” Marina said quickly.
“Och, I’ll see your da eats his dinner, then I’ll give him a wee sleeping draft. There’s nothing for ye to do here, lassie.”
With reluctance, she complied, not least because the old lady was almost as authoritative as her master. And good manners insisted Marina offer some polite return for the laird’s hospitality and for putting his household out to care for two strangers in trouble.
It seemed dinner with the Mackinnon was inescapable. If only the laird didn’t send her comp
osure whirling into the wind. She felt much more like her capable, assured self when glittering gray eyes didn’t observe her every move.
Her room was next door to her father’s and quite as well appointed, with another blazing fire, and a shy young girl of about sixteen who prepared a hot bath for her. When Marina caught the scent of lavender rising from the steaming water, she almost groaned with longing. The long day’s travel, the effects of being flung around the carriage, and a wait in the cold had left her tired and stiff and aching.
More thoughtfulness from the laird? If he meant to give her a good meal as well, she could almost forgive him for being such an imperious devil.
By the time she ventured downstairs an hour later, she felt considerably more human. And her native cynicism had set in. The Mackinnon had impressed her, hard as she’d fought against his rugged appeal. But she’d been far from her best after the accident, and frantic about her father, too. Now that she met the laird in more prosaic circumstances—if this gothic setting could be described as prosaic—she was sure he’d shrink to mundane proportions.
The maid had given her directions to the drawing room. Marina had stayed in several large country houses south of the border and was used to having footmen on hand to guide a confused guest, but this house wasn’t so conventionally staffed. From what she’d seen thus far, the Mackinnon had retainers rather than servants.
She descended the wide stone staircase, decorated with heraldic beasts—the Mackinnon family crest appeared to feature a griffin—and crossed a cavernous hall lit with more burning torches. The walls were decorated with weapons arranged in concentric circles, and ghostly figures loomed out of ancient tapestries hanging from coffered ceiling to flagstoned floor. Marina shivered, not because of the cold this time, but with a return of that sensation that she ventured back into the distant past.
If a man in surcoat and hose, or even a suit of armor, had greeted her when she stepped into the elegant drawing room, she wouldn’t have been surprised. Instead, the gentleman who turned away from the blazing fire at her arrival wouldn’t be out of place in one of those elegant English mansions she’d visited over recent weeks.
Marina was almost sorry to find the Mackinnon wearing a beautifully tailored black coat and trousers, snowy neck cloth, and elegant silvery silk waistcoat. That austere face belonged to an earlier age, one of chivalry and faith and danger, not the modern world with all its comforts and compromises.
He bowed like a civilized man. As he inclined in her direction, firelight sheened across his thick auburn hair. What an intense red it was, like flame. The extraordinary color held her transfixed, and her fingers curled at her side as if she held a paintbrush.
When she didn’t curtsy straightaway, familiar ironic amusement lit the gray eyes. In a way, they were as remarkable a color as his hair. Oh, dear, any hopes that less dramatic circumstances might banish his larger-than-life air faded fast.
“Good evening, signorina. You found me withnae difficulty?”
“I’m sorry.” She performed a wobbly curtsy. “You must think I’m utterly rag-mannered.”
His lips quirked. “I think ye held your nerve with stalwart courage through some difficult hours, and now you’re tired.”
All that was true, but she had a horrible suspicion that weariness wasn’t what made her pulses flutter and her breath catch in her chest.
She couldn’t mistake the admiration in his eyes as he surveyed her. Peggy, her maid upstairs, had made the best of the ill-fitting dress and had done a good job with Marina’s mass of slippery black hair, weaving it into an elegant chignon and decorating it with some pearl pins.
As Marina rose from her curtsy, the Mackinnon took her hand. Heat rushed up her arm and set her heart skipping and racing like a spring lamb. She might be tired and sore after her ordeal, but right now the world appeared brighter and more vivid than it had this afternoon. Life just seemed more…lively in the Mackinnon’s presence.
Maledizione, this really wasn’t good.
At twenty-eight, she was old enough to guess what lay behind this wealth of uncontrollable physical reactions. Her brain might tell her that this man was far too used to getting his own way for her ever to become his friend. While her unruly female body wanted to spread itself before him and invite him to do whatever wicked things he wanted.