“Five.” Although Marina was familiar enough with high society to know that a wife and children presented no barrier to dalliance.

She grew to enjoy the Mackinnon’s brief grunts of laughter. Deciding she’d made enough of her aristocratic Florentine connections, she turned to a more neutral topic. “How long do you think this rain will last? I need to get out onto the hills.”

“My daughter likes to work,” her father said with a note of pride. “Always painting, painting, painting.”

The Mackinnon lifted his gaze to the soggy scene outside the window. “It should clear overnight. You’ll be able to go out tomorrow, signorina.”

“And have you found me a guide?”

“Indeed. I’ve put our best laddie on the job.”

“Excellent,” she said and went back to her drawing, as the Mackinnon and her father began to speak of the journey north and where the idiot coachman had gone wrong.

“I’ve arranged for Coker to sail down to Oban with some sheep I’m sending to market,” the Mackinnon said after about ten minutes. “He can make his own way

back to Glasgow from there.”

Yet again, the Mackinnon imposed his will where he had no right. Marina glanced up from her finished sketch. It wasn’t bad, but it failed to capture the man’s crackling energy. She’d have to try again. “I might need him to drive me to Skye.”

She said it more for form’s sake, than because she meant it. After yesterday’s debacle, she felt nothing but contempt for the useless fellow.

The Mackinnon tilted his proud head in her direction. “Signorina, I hope you’ll trust me to see you safely to wherever you need to go.”

“Of course she does,” her father rushed to say. He was capable of acting in his own interests rather than hers, when he thought it necessary. Right now, he wouldn’t want to risk losing the comfortable berth he’d found for his convalescence.

“Do ye really want to keep him on?” the Mackinnon asked.

She sighed. The strange thing was she did trust the Mackinnon as far as practical arrangements went. Nothing she’d seen indicated he was anything other than a man of his word. He was acting for her benefit, even if he didn’t ask her permission first. “I suppose not.”

“Anyway, what is he to drive, sciocchina?” Papa asked. “Unless our host lends us a carriage. If you fear we already ask too much of Fergus, well, that’s yet another obligation.”

Her father was right. But Marina couldn’t help but feel that every time she gave in to the Mackinnon, even about an issue as minor as her coachman’s fate, he eroded a little more of her independence.

If she lost her independence, how could she survive in the world she’d chosen to inhabit?

“Very well, Papa, you’ve made your point,” she said with a hint of impatience and turned to her host. “It seems I owe you more thanks. You’ll soon tire of my conversation, sir, as it will be nothing but an endless stream of gratitude.”

A faint smile. “I cannae imagine ever tiring of your conversation, signorina.”

She cursed the heat that rose in her cheeks. “Wait until you know me better before you make such rash assertions.”

“I look forward to it.”

The smile hovered. Without thinking, she lifted her sketchpad and quickly turned to a clean page. To her irritation, the fleeting expression vanished before she caught it.

“Are you thinking of painting my portrait?” the Mackinnon asked.

The heat in her cheeks, barely conquered, rose again. “I’m just passing the time.”

“She draws the way you and I breathe, Fergus,” Papa said. “Although most of the time, she finds landscapes of more interest than people.”

She shot her father a repressive glance. “I’m stuck inside today.”

Her parent responded with a speculative look that shifted from her to her host.

The Mackinnon gave another of his grunts of amusement. “So in the absence of a hill or a river, I’ll do?”

“Precisely,” she said, although the unwelcome truth was that she found his features irresistibly compelling.

Tags: Anna Campbell The Lairds Most Likely Historical
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