The Laird's Willful Lass (The Lairds Most Likely 1)

Chapter Fifteen

Fergus approached dinner with the bleak certainty that this was the last night Marina would spend under his roof. He cursed himself as a numskull for taunting her to the point where she decided she must go. Especially as for one dazzling instant when she kissed him, he’d wondered if she meant to give him everything he asked for.

After he’d dragged her to safety, all he’d wanted to do was cherish her, and hold her tight, and give thanks for her survival. He was never going to let her do anything dangerous again as long as she lived.

But he soon admitted that was unfair. Daring and curiosity were part of who she was. No wonder he was at sea with his intriguing guest. He was used to women who sheltered in his strength. Marina met his strength with strength of her own.

Devil if he knew how to handle her. He made blunder after blunder. Orders only made her rebel. So far, while he’d been lucky enough to coax a couple of kisses out of her, his attempts at seduction had fallen flat.

Be damned if he’d let her go.

Be damned if he knew how to make her stay.

It was Ugolino’s first night downstairs. Fergus’s clansmen Jock and Ian had carried the older man down in a chair, and now he sat with his broken leg propped up on a stool. He was in good form, full of jokes, outlandish tales and bonhomie.

While the man’s chatter flowed around him, Fergus couldn’t take his eyes off Marina. Although the night wasn’t cold, she wore the purple dress with the Elizabethan collar and long sleeves. He guessed she was trying to hide the evidence of her fall from her father. She hadn’t mentioned her brush with death. In fact, she’d been quiet all evening.

For once, she hadn’t brought her sketchbook. The sketchbook crammed with pictures of the man she meant to forsake.

Those drawings should give him hope. Not to mention the way she’d kissed him this afternoon. But she set her formidable will against him, and he didn’t underestimate what that meant for his success. He feared his pursuit of her was doomed.

“Fergus?”

Fergus realized Ugolino must have asked him a question. Marina wasn’t the only one distracted tonight. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“Santa pazienza, a man might as well talk to himself. I asked if today’s good weather was going to last. My daughter says the views on the estate are magnificent.”

Fergus couldn’t refrain from casting Marina an incredulous glance. Unless she considered the sight of her host a magnificent view, she’d taken little advantage of the spectacular landscape.

A flush rose on those dramatic cheekbones, as she avoided his eyes and went back to pushing a piece of parsnip around with her fork. He hid a grim smile and answered Ugolino. “Weather here is unpredictable, but most years, winter starts to move in toward the end of October.”

If Marina meant to travel to Skye, she needed to leave soon, so she had time to complete—start—her commission for the duke. The mere thought of her leaving made Fergus’s gut twist into a painful knot of despair.

She gave up all pretense of eating and set down her cutlery. “I wasn’t prepared for how beautiful the Highlands are.”

“They’re even beautiful in dreich weather, although I suspect only a Scotsman would say so.” And tired of waiting for the ax to fall, Fergus went on. “If you stay until next month, you’ll see storms and rain, snow if you’re unlucky.”

He provided her with the perfect opportunity to announce her departure. Instead she went back to staring at her half-full plate, leaving her father to respond. “What inconvenient guests we are, arriving with no definite plans to leave.”

Marina had plans to leave, but again, to Fergus’s surprise, she didn’t speak. “I told ye, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“If ever you’re in Firenze, I hope you’ll let us return your hospitality.”

Should he chase Marina back to Italy? Would she be any more receptive in Florence than she was at Achnasheen? Could some extravagant gesture tip her over from rejection to acceptance? He doubted it. She wasn’t a woman who played flirtatious games.

Moodily, he studied her, and wished for the thousandth time that things had worked out differently between them. In the candlelight, she was all dark mystery. To a man denied her favors, that gown was a fiendish instrument of torture. It covered her so modestly, yet suggested so much.

Fergus struggled not to stare at the lush bosom pushing against the deep purple silk. Once he’d been churlish enough to dismiss her curves as unimpressive. Now the thought of touching those elegant breasts made every drop of moisture evaporate from his mouth.

Not that she was ever likely to grant him that privilege. He could go to Florence. He could go to Timbuctoo. He could go to bloody Jupiter. Her answer would still be no.

What a tragic waste, that such a passionate creature should seal up her innate sensuality and devote herself to the altar of her art. When he’d accused her of being a Vestal Virgin, he hadn’t been far wrong.

“No need to repay me.” He paused. “Unless Signorina Marina would give me a picture. That would be a grand reminder of our time together. Apart from a few inept watercolors my sisters did in the schoolroom, I have no paintings of Achnasheen.”

Marina’s head jerked up, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “Why would you want the facsimile when you have the reality?”

Surprise struck him speechless, then his lips curved in a wolfish smile. Well, well. This was a direct challenge to what he’d said this afternoon, and her first sign of spirit tonight. “Sometimes in the winter, it’s nice to have a reminder of summer,” he said smoothly.