The Recruit (Highland Guard #6)(66)

“You’re sure you do not wish to go to the meal?” Lady Katherine said.

Mary shook her head, a wave of nausea that had nothing to do with her pregnancy and everything to do with the prospect of seeing him rumpled and satisfied having risen inside her. “Beth can bring me something to eat if I get hungry.”

The girl nodded eagerly. “Aye, my lady. I will have a platter sent up from the kitchens.”

And a big pitcher of wine, she wanted to add.

“See,” Mary assured the two women who were looking at her with troubled expressions on their faces. Apparently her acting ability wasn’t as strong as she’d thought. “I shall be fine. Beth will take care of me. Go to the meal. I believe the earl has arranged for some minstrels tonight. I will probably fall asleep right after I finish packing.”

The ladies hesitated, but eventually she was able to push them out of the room. By the time she and Beth had managed to finish packing her trunks and bags, she was indeed ready to retire. Beth helped her remove her gown and gave her a plush velvet robe to put on while she sat by the brazier to finish her embroidery.

As soon as the girl left to fetch her something to eat, Mary took out the tiny piece of linen. Her chest tightened. It was a cap she was working on in secret for the baby. Sometimes the need—the desperation—for this child rose up so hard inside her she couldn’t breathe. All the love she’d wanted to give to her husband and son.

She perched the glasses on her nose and went to work, trying to put what she’d seen out of her mind and focus on the baby.

No matter what else had happened, she could not regret what she’d done. Her one night of sin with Sir Kenneth had given her this child.

But it didn’t lessen the hurt any. She was a fool. What had she expected? She was nothing to him, and he should be nothing to her. She gnawed on her bottom lip. If only the woman hadn’t been so young and pretty. Even from a distance she could detect the fine features and gorgeous red hair. She was vaguely familiar, but Mary figured that she’d probably seen her around the Hall before.

Her hands seemed incapable of managing the tiny stitches, so she removed the glasses from her nose, put the embroidery aside, and closed her eyes for a moment.

When the knock came, assuming it was Beth, she bid her to enter. She heard the door shut, and when the girl didn’t say anything she opened her eyes to tell her just to leave the tray. Instead she jumped to her feet in shock.

She stared at the man who’d invaded her chamber—who’d invaded her sanity. Sir Kenneth Sutherland stood—lazed, actually—with his back against the door and his arms crossed against his chest, watching her. The relaxed pose didn’t fool her. She could feel the danger emanating from him.

Dread sank to the bottom of her stomach like a stone.

“What are you doing here? Get out!” She hoped she didn’t sound as scared as she felt.

He smiled, glancing toward the trunks. “Running away from me again, Mary?” His gaze slid down her ready-for-bed-clad form, and she hastily clenched the edges of her robe tighter even though she knew he could not see anything. He let his arms fall to his sides and made a tisking sound. “For someone who purports not to care or have a thought about what happened, you seem to be very anxious to get away from me.”

He took a few steps closer to her. Why had she never noticed how small the room was? And who had lit the fire so high? The temperature seemed to have gone up twenty degrees. But the blast of heat wasn’t coming from the brazier. The pounding in her heart told her exactly who was the source of the heat.

“I have to ask myself why,” he said idly. He took another step, and she almost yelped like a frightened pup. He smiled as if he’d sensed it. A big, lazy, knowing smile that set alarm bells ringing up and down her spine. “You know what I think? I think you’re scared about how I make you feel. I think you’re scared not because it meant nothing to you but because it meant a lot. I think that if you didn’t care as much as you say you don’t care, you would be sitting down for the evening meal right now, not hiding up in your room.” He held her gaze. “I think you want me.”

Mary gasped with outrage. He was arrogant, overbearing, and so cocksure of himself. It didn’t make it any better that he was also right. Not that she would ever let him know that. “I’m not hiding, I’m packing. Not that it’s any business of yours, but I am not leaving to avoid you. There is a pressing estate matter to which I must attend.”

He laughed. “Very pressing, I’m sure.” She looked up, terrified to realize how close he was standing to her. No more than a foot separated them. “Is that why your pulse is fluttering, your cheeks are flushed, and your heart is beating so hard I can hear it?”

Her eyes widened in alarm. That wasn’t possible, was it? But he only smiled, her reaction giving her away.

She started to retreat, backing away from the chair she’d been gripping like a lifeline. Only then did she remember the baby cap. She sucked in her breath. It lay in the middle of the chair with her glasses like a beacon. All he had to do was look down. If he hadn’t heard her heart pounding before, he surely heard it now. She prayed …

Too late. “What are you doing?”

He reached for it, but she snatched it and the glasses from him before he could pick it up. “Careful! You’ll break the glasses.” Praying her cheeks weren’t as hot as they felt, she added, “It’s a piece of embroidery I’m working on.” She tucked it in the basket she used before he could look at it closer.