The Ranger (Highland Guard #3)(23)

In the morning the spectators had gathered near the galley house—which housed her father’s ships—to watch the boat races and swimming contests in the bay behind the castle. They’d moved to the barmkin for the sword and archery contest before the lavish midday meal, and now they’d clustered on patches of grass mixed into the rocky knoll just beyond the castle gates for the final event: spear throwing.

“There’s your knight,” her sister Mary teased, pointing to the group of warriors lining up below.

Anna winced. If Mary had noticed, everyone must have noticed. Her normally blissfully unaware sister defied their father’s rule that women were more perceptive than men.

“He’s not my knight,” she quipped.

Too adamantly, she feared, judging by her eldest sister Juliana’s grin. “It certainly looks like you want him to be. A little sisterly advice, though”—Anna could tell she was trying to hold back her laughter—”you might want to be a little more ... uh, subtle.”

Anna pursed her mouth. She’d tried that. It hadn’t worked.

She lifted her chin, pretending not to know what her sister was talking about. “I’m merely trying to be a good hostess. Being friendly to all the knights who have answered Father’s call.”

That caused both of her sisters to burst out into peals of hysterical laughter. “Lud, I hope you aren’t that friendly to all of them,” Juliana said. She leaned over Anna, who was seated on the plaid between them, to address Mary. “Did you see that dress she wore yesterday? It must have been five years old. It wouldn’t fit Marion,” she said, referring to their petite twelve-year-old niece.

“Mother was furious,” Mary nodded, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “You should have seen her face when she saw Anna come in for the midday meal. It was the angriest I’ve seen her since Father fell ill.”

At least one good thing had come of Anna’s humiliation. It had been wonderful to see her mother cast aside her worry, if only for a moment, to berate her. Lord knows, nothing else had come of it. She could have been wearing a sackcloth for all Sir Arthur took notice of the gown.

She knew she should be ashamed, stooping to such wanton lengths as donning an indecent dress to get his attention. But desperate times called for desperate measures. And after a week of making a fool of herself, chasing after a man who didn’t want to be chased, she was at her wit’s end. Sir Arthur Campbell was almost as much of a mystery to Anna as the first time she’d bumped into him. She knew that he was an able knight, who was focused on his duty and liked to keep to himself—but she’d known all of that before.

He was an impossible man to read. Faith, he was an impossible man to get in the same room! Inventing reasons to be near him wasn’t easy, and Anna had been growing increasingly frustrated in her efforts to keep an eye on him. None of the other men had ever been this much trouble. Probably because they hadn’t been trying to avoid her.

So far, she’d seen nothing to warrant suspicion—unless being monosyllabic and unforthcoming were reasons for suspicion. He had to be the most difficult man she’d ever tried to converse with. Sir Arthur was the master of the short reply, not to mention as prickly and cantankerous as a bear roused from its winter slumber. If this was an indication of his interest in her—not that she gave any credence to her father’s claim—she couldn’t imagine what he was like when he wasn’t interested.

Yesterday, however, she’d made an important discovery. She’d learned how to make him talk: Get him angry. Perhaps she’d been going about this all wrong.

Her eyes narrowed on the enigmatic knight, currently moving with the other participants to the far end of the field. Though he’d done nothing suspicious, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was hiding something. Whether this was due to her powers of womanly perception or simply her pricked pride, however, she didn’t know. But there was definitely something different about him.

When her sisters had finally stopped laughing, Juliana said, “I must admit I’m surprised by your friendliness toward the knight.” She bit back another laugh. “He’s handsome enough, but you usually avoid men of his sort.”

Warriors, her sister meant. She was right.

“His brother is the far more handsome of the two,” Mary interjected, her gaze fastened on Sir Dugald’s impressive form below.

Anna didn’t agree, but she certainly wasn’t going to give them any more reason to tease her.

“And Sir Arthur is not nearly as popular with the ladies, either,” Juliana pointed out as a way of warning to Mary.

She spoke from experience. Juliana had been widowed years before, but her marriage had not been a happy one. Her husband Sir Godfrey de Clare, an English baron, had blamed her for their inability to produce an heir and according to her sister, lifted every skirt he could find to try to prove it.

Anna desperately hoped Juliana’s next husband was a man her sister could love. Though love usually had nothing to do with how marriages were arranged, the sisters were more fortunate than most. Three marriageable daughters was a treasure trove for any nobleman seeking to enrich his lands and connections, but their father was not unreasonable. He took their wishes into consideration when finding them potential husbands.

Juliana had wanted to marry Sir Godfrey—at least initially. Just as Anna had wanted to marry Roger.