Chapter 2
Thane MacPhearson watched the woman stalk off, her dark skirts billowing and strands of equally dark hair flying loose to fall about her long, bare neck. For just a moment, he had the impression of a furious black swan.
Too bad she wasn’t a swan, because in that case he could wring the bird’s neck.
Instead, he simply had to tolerate the harridan’s cutting words and her misanthropic manner.
And why the hell was there an actual bird in the house?
Was she some sort of witch, capturing a creature for a spell, and that was why she was dressed in head-to-toe black?
I should never have come here, Thane thought, not for the first time.
He indulged in a moment’s weakness and pictured what he wanted to do to that rude, cruel woman. He’d teach her a lesson about what happened when people ignored the rules. They were there for a reason, and without them, everything devolved into chaos.
It was a good thing she’d left when she did.
If he had the opportunity, he’d scare some sense into her, hold her close so she couldn’t escape the lesson, kiss her senseless until he heard the gasp from those plush-looking lips and she begged him to keep going, to taste every inch of her skin and make her his in the most primal way possible…
What. The. Hell. Thane’s imagination had completely run astray, onto a wilder track than he wanted to be on, especially since his body was already reacting to the brief, unexpected fantasy, stirring at the mere notion of getting closer to that temptingly soft skin and the snapping eyes that showed such disdain for him.
He shook his head, willing the erotic images to dissipate. The woman had made him angry, not aroused. So what if she was gorgeous, with the sort of figure that could persuade him to want to stay in bed all day, playing the kind of games that would have her gasping his name…
There he went again. He needed to get his damn fool body under control, or he wouldn’t be able to walk at all, let alone walk down a hallway in public. Why was he even feeling this way? It hadn’t been that long since he’d bedded a woman, a week at most.
Maybe two weeks. Or four. Six?
Never mind. The point was that Thane was never going to think of this particular woman again, in any context. After all, she was a stranger; he’d never see her again, and soon he was leaving the city of Edinburgh for good. So it wasn’t as if he was going to get to know the lass. He didn’t want to.
You came back.
The venom in her words was overwhelming.
There was something else in them too— something harsh and even frightening if he lingered over the intonation of her speech, trying to understand why she’d said that phrase, that way.
He almost recognized the sense in the sounds, but then his mind slammed shut. He shook his head.
“This is why I don’t go to parties,” he muttered, avoiding the curious regard of a passing older couple, who were probably wondering if he was drunk. Thane wished he were drunk. The sweet, dulling numbness was a balm, taking away so much of the pain that attended him since his return from the war.
In a flash, he remembered that he could absolutely get drunk, and quickly too, because he was meant to meet his friends up on the floor above at this very moment.
They’d have drinks to hand, because they were good, sensible men who knew what was important in life—namely, avoiding any attempts to ensnare them in marriage by hiding out far from the matchmaking mamas in the ballroom below.
Already feeling more like himself, Thane adjusted his clothing, yanked on the hem of his jacket to restore his appearance to mostly respectable, and walked to the end of the hall where he knew the staircase to be.
Even better, his path took him in the opposite direction from the black-haired harridan.
Who I am never thinking about again, he told himself, taking the stairs two at a time. Wait. I’m thinking about her now because I’m thinking about not thinking about her.
Damn, I need whisky.
A few moments later, Thane strode into a red-wallpapered room, his mind still occupied by the irritating woman he’d just run into. Not her words; he couldn’t think of those. He focused on her black hair and black clothes. That was safe to consider.
“Why the stormy face, MacPhearson?” a voice asked.
“I thought I was supposed to be the dour one.” It was Struan who spoke, one of Thane’s comrades and a veritable hulk of a man.
He’d been born and raised in a part of Scotland even further north than the others, and was the main evidence for Thane’s private theory that people grew more laconic as their home latitude increased.
“You are the dour one, McInnes,” another man interjected. Calan Shaw was by far the handsomest of them all (a fact he was well aware of and used shamelessly in the presence of ladies). “No matter how often I try to get you out among people who like having a good time, you choose to hide.”
“Let him if he likes.” That comment came from Duncan MacKenzie, one of the most dependable and steady men Thane had ever met.
The red-haired Duncan sat near the fire with Kai Buchanan, who looked like a gangly youth next to Duncan’s more mature figure.
Not that that stopped Kai from sipping what looked like an exquisite whisky, to judge by the rich amber hue.
Kai noticed his gaze and raised the glass. “Looking for one of your own, Thane? Over by the window.”
“No time to change your kit?” Duncan asked. All the other men were in typical evening wear. They’d wisely left their uniforms at home when they came back.
Thane shook his head as he made his way to where an open bottle sat near several cut-crystal glasses. He poured himself a healthy measure and walked to the last free chair. “Ceremony went late. Of course.”
“Should we have come to it?” Kai asked. “Not sure if we ever established a tradition for that sort of thing.”
“Our tradition is to avoid everything we’re not directly ordered to do,” Calan growled.
Their company was a young one, having been cobbled together from the dregs of a few others following a bad stretch of luck for the British and their allies on the Continent several years ago.
That was why it contained men from all over the country, and perhaps why Thane’s particular little group had bonded so quickly.
And definitely why they had hardly any traditions or quirks like so many other companies had.
“You’ve not explained,” Struan said as Thane settled into his seat.
“Explained what?”
“Why you looked like you wanted to take someone’s head off when you walked in.”
“Oh, that. I’d just been insulted, is all.” Had he, though? You came back wasn’t an insult, it was more of a…curse? No, condemnation. She hated him for existing.
Calan’s expression went from idle to deadly in a second. “By who? I’ll set the man straight.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Thane told him firmly. “For one thing, it was a woman.”
Kai bit his lip to avoid laughing. Duncan didn’t bother trying to hold in his mirth. “Oh, Lord, what was it about? You’ve barely been in Edinburgh for a day, and yet you’ve already made enemies?”
“She can’t be an enemy, for I’ve no idea who she is.”
“What did she say?” Kai sounded curious now. “Most folks don’t make a practice of insulting total strangers.”
Thane paused, considering his next words. Like him, all his friends were veterans of the war on the Continent. They’d served with him, risked their lives with him. Repeating the woman’s words about how he came back would be unnecessarily cruel. They knew too many soldiers who didn’t.
“It was nothing,” he said, deflecting.
“It had to be something,” Calan pressed. “Or you wouldn’t be so angry.”
“She said I had oats for brains.”
The other men laughed, not believing him. Though she did say that, before the other thing.
“Tell us, MacPhearson.” This time it was Duncan who pressed.
“Let’s simply say that she didn’t respect my service to the Crown.”
Struan’s jaw clenched. “She’s lucky she’s a woman” was all he said.
Thane was glad he’d opted not to share the lass’s harsh dismissal of his comrades who died.
Struan would never hurt a woman—but Thane wasn’t going to give him or any of the others more details about her appearance.
His friends were exactly the sort of men who could identify an enemy with minimal information. It was how they’d survived.
The best battle is the one that’s avoided, he recalled a hardened sergeant telling him once. Very true.
“It makes you wonder why we went over,” Calan murmured. “Seems half the population of the isles wouldn’t have cared if Bonaparte actually managed to cross the Channel and take over.”
“They’d have cared if it happened,” Thane said. “And we helped ensure that it didn’t. So let’s drink a toast to that.”
“Aye,” Duncan agreed.
They did, and the whisky made a smooth trail of fire down Thane’s throat.
“By the way, you know who’s here tonight, against all odds?” Kai said brightly after he’d put his glass down. “One who will assuredly appreciate our service—none other than Miss Ross.”
“Ach, Brodie Ross’s wee sister,” said Duncan, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “The stories he’d told about her!”
“She’s not that wee, for they were twins,” Kai pointed out. “A quarter hour apart, according to Brodie.”
“So? She was born second,” Calan said. “That makes her the wee lass, doesn’t it?”
“Not now,” Thane muttered. The mention of Brodie Ross had thrown him—all the way back to the war. Brodie’s death had ripped Thane into pieces. He would never get over the guilt he felt, living and breathing and walking while his friend did not.
After all, you came back.
The taunt echoed in his head once more. Was that why the unknown woman’s words seared him so? That fact that, all unwittingly, she’d hit upon his sorest spot, his guilt at surviving what his dearest friend had not.
“Thane, you with us?” Struan asked. For such a bruiser of a man, he was surprisingly astute at noticing people’s reactions.
“Of course.” Thane lifted his glass again. “To Brodie.”
“To Brodie!” they all echoed.
“You’ll come downstairs to meet her while she’s here, won’t you?” Kai asked. “I know she’d love to meet you, Thane. And see Calan and Duncan again. And someday, I think it might help her to hear us talk about Brodie.”
Thane nodded. “Hard to believe I haven’t met her yet, considering how much Brodie went on about her.”
According to Brodie, his sister was an angel on earth—though a rather mischievous one, based on the many stories of childhood pranks and jokes Brodie shared.
It would be good to meet her, if only to remind himself that there were women in the world who viewed soldiers like him, like Brodie, with respect rather than disdain.
The conversation turned to more general topics, and Thane allowed himself to relax. At long last, he was among friends, in his home country. All would be well. Eventually.
So, having been fortified with good Highland whisky, Thane was willing to brave the crowded party below.
Bowing to the inevitable, he went down with the others.
They’d had their reunion, now it was time to appear as guests.
Just another form of duty, Thane told himself, knowing how many of the ladies present were looking to make a marriage.
Well, they’d have to look beyond him. Thane had no intention of marrying anytime soon. Possibly never.
That reminded him of something. “Struan, I wanted to ask you about that croft near Ben Nevis you’d mentioned… Struan?” Thane looked over to where his friend had been not five seconds ago. “What the hell?”
“We’ve lost him. Again,” Kai said sheepishly. “I didn’t notice till you said his name. How does he do it?”
Thane had no answer. The man was approximately the size of a mountain, and yet he could slip away like a shadow when he wanted to.
Thane never knew how he learned the trick.
But he was well aware that crowds made Struan uncomfortable.
That had been true ever since the war, and in particular since that horrible day when Struan…
Thane’s mind shied away from the memory, unwilling to plunge into the depths of battlefield trauma while about to enter a bright and sparkling ballroom.
It wasn’t fair. Struan should be able to walk anywhere he damn well pleased. But he’d suffered an injury that couldn’t be ignored, and he hated the way people looked at him now. No wonder he’d turned into smoke between the upper and ground floors.
In the ballroom, Calan and Kai divided the task of finding Brodie’s sister as quickly as possible, before the men got ensnared by the gauntlet of traps laid by all the single women and their mothers.
“Ah, there she is,” Kai said. “Obvious when you think about it. West corner, by the windows.”
What was obvious? Thane couldn’t tell yet, thanks to the crush. Trusting that Kai knew one young lady from all the others, he followed his friends though the sea of unfamiliar faces.
“Here they are!” Calan said cheerfully, putting his full charm on display now that ladies were present. “Mrs Tacita Murray, and Miss Ross, both looking lovely enough to put the sun to shame.”
“Is that the whisky speaking, Calan Shaw?” a woman’s voice responded, her tone rich with amusement.
Thane went still, because the voice was familiar. As he stepped past his friends, who’d blocked the view until this moment, he confronted the last person he expected to see.
The black-haired, black-clad harridan from before was none other than Catriona Ross.