Page 8 of Highlander’s Lesser Evil

If only he knew. “Well, I have all the hearts I need right now, but I appreciate the offer. Now, there are three lovely ladies over there who have been eyeing you all night, and I suspect that you’ll find them far more agreeable than me. Besides, I have a task that I need to complete, and then I am going home.”

“What kind of task? Shall I help?”

Privately, she laughed. “No, I think I can handle this one all on my own. But I appreciate your offer.”

“I shall see ye again before I leave,” he promised before he kissed her knuckles and turned and walked away.

One man down. One man to go.

It was easy to find Theodore MacDougal; she’d been aware of him ever since she’d felt his gaze upon her. He wielded the kind of presence that made it impossible not to notice him, but even if the other women weren’t constantly wagging their tongues over his midnight-black hair and those gorgeous blue eyes, she would know that he was a man of power.

Her heart hammered in her chest when she realized that he was walking toward her, and there was a hunger in his eyes.

Flee! her mind whispered. Yes, she should run while she still had the chance, but nobody had ever affected her this way, and the man had yet to say a single word to her.

This was who everyone wanted her to marry? This was the man they were willing to sacrifice her to?

“Ye must be Gemma,” he said in a husky voice as he stopped in front of her. “I am Theo MacDougal, yer laird.”

Taking her hand, he lifted it to his lips. Graeme’s kiss still lingered on her skin, but it was a distant memory as his lip skimmed her knuckles.

If she turned into a liquified puddle right at his feet, she would never live down the humiliation. “That’s Lady Gemma,” she said as she leaned heavily on her English accent. Immediately, Theo dropped it as though it had been burned. “Lady Gemma Merrimen, the daughter of the Duke of Flinton.”

“Ye’re English?” he hissed. “What the bloody hell are ye doing here?”

She blinked innocently at him. “Laird MacDougal, this is my home. I have lived here for a little over a year now.”

“How did ye get here?”

“Well, I had to take a carriage from my father’s estate, but as I’m sure you well know, a carriage can’t navigate the mountains, so I climbed up on horseback. I was given the sweetest mare. Her name is Daisy. I think a child must have named her, but I still have her in one of the stables. Her hair is almost as dark as yours. I thought my hair was dark, but it seems almost mousy compared to yours.”

“Damnation, woman, I wilnae have some aristocrat declaring war on me because his daughter is here. Ye will return immediately.”

She was deliberately flighty, leading him on the merry chase to really bring down the hammer. “Oh, my father knows that I am here. It was his idea, actually. He thinks I’m a married woman, and I’m certain he’s already spent the coin he was paid for my hand.”

If Theo’s eyes bulged any more, they would fall right out of his head. A nasty vein was appearing in his forehead. “Who the hell were ye to wed?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I guess I should have realized that you didn’t know when you asked how I got here. It’s so strange. Everyone knows.”

“Lady Gemma,” he said through clenched teeth.

“A year ago, I was purchased and brought here to be married, but then he forgot all about me and married someone else. I wonder, now that he’s a widow, if Laird Fletcher MacSeaver will remember his bride-to-be that he stashed away?”

4

Theo could barely think as he stared at the beauty. Fletcher MacSeaver had purchased her? Somehow, that didn’t surprise him, but what kind of English milksop sold his own daughter to a man so much older than her?

Then he remembered that his own father wasn’t exactly the most loving family member either.

“Do ye wish to marry MacSeaver?” he asked cautiously.

“Heavens, no!” she laughed, and it sounded like music drenching him. Taking a shuddering breath, he reveled in it and wondered what he could do to make her laugh again.

Unfortunately, comedy wasn’t his strong suit.

“Do ye wish to marry Graeme MacSeaver?” The young and handsome heir apparently was a far better choice than the father, and he had seen Graeme kissing her knuckles just moments before.

A look of delight sparked in her eyes, and he felt a strange flicker of jealousy before that same laugh escaped her lips. “Absolutely not.”