She thought of a cat, playing with a mouse, and firmly set her jaw.
“Your father, so I’ve heard, is a hard man,” Alasdair Penhallow remarked.
She was thrown for a moment by the change of subject. Then, cautiously: “Yes, he can be very hard indeed. But he’s also a canny chieftain. It’s thanks to his diligence that our clan thrives in many ways.”
“I’ve heard that too. Still, some women, under such circumstances, might be eager to make a new home elsewhere.”
“Yes, some women might, I suppose.”
“Especially if that home was a fine one.”
“An added inducement for some, perhaps,” she said coldly.
“Don’t you want children, Miss Fiona Douglass?”
She considered prevaricating, but it really didn’t seem worth the trouble. “Yes.”
“Well, then?”
“I’ll not marry only for that reason.”
“Don’t you think you ought to hurry, at your age?”
His voice was not unkind. It was even gentle. But still his words stung. “All the more reason to choose one of the others,” she snapped. “As you’ve no doubt observed, they’re considerably younger than I am.”
“I have observed that, yes.”
“And yet you sit here wasting your time with me.”
“Wasting my time? Hardly. I find you very . . . entertaining.”
Fiona could feel a hot, angry flush overtaking her face and throat, and she recalled Mother’s breathless report from a few weeks ago:
Alasdair Penhallow has been scandalizing the Eight Clans for years with his disgraceful behavior. Not just on special occasions but every day! Consuming spirits to excess, presiding over debaucheries, and so on! A monster of irresponsibility!
“Yes,” she said to him now, her voice full of pointed meaning, “I understand that you’re very fond of . . . entertainment, laird.”
Those brows drew together again. “And what might you mean by that, miss?”
“It would hardly be maidenly of me to say.”
“You needn’t spare me. I have no delicate sensibilities.”
“Obviously.” Fiona permitted herself a slight, a very slight sneer.
He leaned forward, frowning. “What in the devil’s name are you insinuating?”
“I’ve heard some things about your . . . habits, laird, which would hardly inspire in a rational woman an ambition to become your wife.”
“Are you criticizing me? You don’t even know me.”
“Nor do I want to. We’ve come full circle, haven’t we?” Fiona smiled triumphantly, as if she had scored a well-deserved point. And indeed, she could almost feel the tension in those broad shoulders of his as he said, slowly:
“You give the distinct impression, miss, of being a shrew.”
“I haven’t the slightest interest in what you think of me.”
“I pity the man who marries you.”
“As long as we’ve established it won’t be you, you may disburse your pity as freely as you like.”
“Although now I begin to wonder why any man would want to.”
“Now who’s being blunt, laird?” It gave Fiona what did seem like slightly juvenile satisfaction to have shaken him from his posture of calm politeness, but he certainly deserved it, for his gibe about her age if nothing else. Deliberately, even a little ostentatiously, she settled herself into the corner of the sofa. Ugh. The pillow there was as stiff as a block of wood, and its elaborate beaded decorations pressed uncomfortably into her spine. All in all, a stupid pillow. It looked good, but felt bad. No doubt an acquisition of the Penhallow’s sainted mother. Fiona jabbed her elbow into it, then looked measuringly at Alasdair Penhallow. Now that they’d cleared the air between them—in a manner of speaking—she couldn’t resist satisfying her curiosity. “So did you ride your horse all throughout this castle?”
His frown deepened. “I beg your pardon?”
“It was just something I heard.” Then Fiona remembered the other part of the story. That he’d done it stark naked. My, my. It was one thing to hear gossip when the person it was about was elsewhere; it was another thing entirely to think about that person without any clothes on when he was sitting right across from you. And even when that person wasn’t your type and you didn’t like him but he was still a tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man, who seemed to literally radiate provocative virility . . .
A hot red flush suffused not just Fiona’s face, but her neck and chest, too. Resisting a powerful, even desperate urge to fan herself with her hand, guiltily she met his eyes, those brilliant amber eyes, and saw that he was looking at her with a hard quizzical gleam in them.