Her words rolled from her tongue in that foreign way, and he found he liked listening to her, even as her obvious reluctance to be near him grated. A woman whom he found beautiful and who was kind to others was disgusted with him. He felt like a caged animal she was wary of—and all because he was Scottish?
And perhaps he’d found the exact chink in her armor and had hurt her that first day, a voice in the back of his mind reasoned.
“I’d like to ask you a few more questions.” Pleasant enough.
She gave one tight nod.
“How have you escaped Pascal’s notice this far?” Court had never heard of this place and wondered why Pascal hadn’t looted it.
She didn’t hesitate to say, “Probably by not dragging his mercenaries into my home.”
“I answer to him no longer.”
“His ex-mercenary, then,” she said with a flick of her hand as if the difference was trifling. “Vitale told me as much.”
At his irritated look, she added, “I don’t know why we’ve been spared.” She was clearly lying, but he let it go.
“I have another question.”
She remained there, though she didn’t deign to meet his eyes, and he found the question he’d meant to ask forgotten, replaced by, “Why do you hate Scots?”
She blushed to the tips of her small ears, her skin pinkening against her crisp white blouse and her ever-present choker. “If you please, I would rather not discuss my dislike of Scots with a Scot.”
“You can tell me. I will no’ bite.”
She gave him a wide-eyed look that said she wasn’t sure on that count at all and hadn’t thought about the possibility until he’d brought it up. Finally she said, “I’ve heard very unfavorable things about them—about you. Worse than any of the other outsiders Pascal has lured here.”
Court exhaled, reckoning it might be time to admit that his crew’s Highlander tales had worked too well.
Whenever they arrived in a new area, his men spread rumors to the people underlining the Highlanders’ brutality, their lust for blood, and their enjoyment of torture. Then, when the thirty-five Scots in their company, some painted, some in kilts, all nearing or exceeding six feet tall, gave a savage battle yell and charged with the requisite crazed look in their eyes, the combatants ran. They almost always ran.
The farmers and ranch hands in Andorra had fled so fast that even his quick cousin Niall could barely swat the last one on the arse with his sword.
Only one leader and his men had stood their ground….
Court’s eyes followed her slim hand when she smoothed an already immaculate crease in her skirt—today a bright red one. “And what did you think of Scots before we came here?”
She frowned, appearing genuinely confused. “I didn’t think of Scots.”
He scowled at that. “And now?”
“Now that you’ve come, you’ve shown yourself to be the epitome of all I’ve heard.”
He waved her on with his cast.
She crossed her arms over her chest and took a breath. “Violence surrounds you, as shown by your beating, but also by the gashes on your fingers. I’d wondered how you could receive such a peculiar injury, then concluded you’d cut them on someone’s teeth when you hit him in the face.”
Court nodded, extremely impressed. That was exactly what had happened. He nearly smiled remembering the satisfaction of splitting the Spaniard’s lips, of the blood he’d spat for at least an hour afterward….
“You have a history of it as demonstrated by the scars covering you. I’d heard that your people live in bands—”
“Clans,” he grated. “They’re called clans.”
She shrugged. “And that these clans fight with each other constantly because you are a bloodthirsty people more concerned with warring than with culture or refinement.” He noticed she’d begun pressing one finger after another against her crossed arms as she ticked off points. “You are mannerless. Your halfhearted gratitude to me for saving your life bespeaks a sense of entitlement—”
“It bespeaks lack of practice in being beholden.”
She raised her eyebrows in an expression that said if he continued to talk, she would cease. “You look like a blackguard. Except when you are angry. Then you look like a brute that could readily kill me. Your insulting me that first day was hurtful and uncalled for. I’ve heard it’s that way with your people—a complete lack of delicacy. There’s little thought behind your eyes….”
“I’ve heard enough,” he snapped when she appeared to be just gathering steam. Many held these misimpressions, and he and his men played on them with the stories they spread, but to hear them voiced back to him by an Andorran?…Scots were a thousand times prouder and more accomplished than these medieval crag-of-a-country people cut off from the changing world.