The Highlander's English Bride (The Lairds Most Likely 6)

As they stepped outside, she clutched the coat around her throat. "Won’t you be cold?"

"I’ll manage," he said gruffly, as the chill air struck him like a blow.

He paused to look up at the stars, but flying clouds masked the sky. All his life, it had been his habit to wonder at the night’s beauty. It was second nature to note the name and position of the few pinpricks of light he saw.

At his side, Emily did the same thing. The fleeting moment of common ground between them eased his crankiness. As he drew her down to the garden, the hand he curled around her arm wasn’t quite as insistent as it had been. With another woman, he might even call his touch tender.

"Now tell me what you think you found," he said, as they entered a bedraggled garden, all bare sticks with the coming winter. The light from the house saved him from stumbling around in the pitch black.

When she raised her face, he caught the glint of her eyes. "I found…" She placed a slight emphasis on the word. "…an error in your figures for the velocity. You’ve transposed sine for cosine three lines down on page three. Why on earth didn’t you ask me to check it before you published?"

His lips turned down, although somewhere in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help wondering if Emily might be right. She sounded so certain, and her mathematics were usually reliable. His pride insisted that he stifled the unwelcome niggle of doubt. He’d been over those calculations a hundred times. "I don’t need your supervision, Emily."

"Apparently you do," she retorted, and he was immediately back to wanting to lift her high over his head and hurl her into the river. "Anyway, it’s pointless talking about it out here in the dark. Take me back inside,

and I’ll show you."

"You’re set on ruining my success tonight," he said grimly. "I’d thought better of you."

"Oh, for heaven’s sake, Hamish, I’m not doing this out of spite. Anything but. I don’t want to see you make a fool of yourself."

"Because it reflects on your father as my mentor?"

"There’s that, but for your own sake as well. I bear you no ill will."

"Right now, I have difficulty believing that," he said, his temper rising to a dangerous pitch. He reminded himself again that he had too much to lose to unleash his anger. "You could have approached me privately about this."

"I only saw the paper tonight," she responded just as hotly. "These last months, I’ve had my hands full with Papa. It never occurred to me that you’d make such an elementary mistake."

The superior little baggage. "Elementary?" he asked on a rising note.

She faltered back into the spindly bushes and that displeased him, too. As if he’d descend to violence.

"Yes, elementary." At least she didn’t sound frightened.

His burgeoning anger made him say something he didn’t mean, but that he knew would rankle. "Everybody says there’s nothing but trouble in store, when a female dabbles in higher learning."

"Then everybody is a dimwitted ass."

"I suppose that means me."

"If the cap fits."

His hands fisted at his sides as he battled for calm. He and Emily had often squabbled before, but this threatened to disintegrate into a juvenile quarrel that would show neither of them in a good light. "There’s no point in continuing this discussion."

She didn’t budge. He should have known she wouldn’t. She was as stubborn as a mule. "So are you going to withdraw that paper and make corrections?"

"I believe it’s unnecessary," he said coldly, although he was desperate to check the equation she’d singled out. He wouldn’t admit that to Emily, though, even under torture. Hamish held out his hand. "Allow me to escort you back inside, Miss Baylor."

They’d known each other for ten years and been on first name terms for most of that time. He intended the formal address to wound. By God, after tonight he’d be happy never to see her again.

"Now you’re acting like a child."

"If I am, it’s of no concern to you."

"Oh, Hamish, don’t be like this."

The world of disappointment in the words made him grit his teeth until his jaw ached. "There’s nothing more we can achieve out here."