The Heiress Bride - Catherine Coulter [125]
He looked at her for a very long time. “Remember I told you the message MacDuff brought to me in Edinburgh? That you had no intention of stealing my box? I looked at him as blankly as a cutpurse caught in the act, and he explained that he’d told you about my father and my brother. I wish he hadn’t, but now it’s done. I also realize, a bit late perhaps, that you want to be important to Vere Castle and to me and to the children. Very well, Joan, you and I will go see Robert MacPherson.”
“Thank you, Colin.”
“Let’s wait for another couple of hours. I should like him to be raw-brained with rage.”
Sinjun grinned at him. To her deep pleasure, he smiled back at her. “I will come back to awaken you. Sleep now.”
It was a very good start, she thought, watching him leave the bedchamber. An excellent start. She hadn’t the heart to tell him she was quite hungry, not at all sleepy.
It was close to ten o’clock at night. Sinjun was sitting in her husband’s lap in a deep wing chair that sat facing the fireplace. She was wearing a nightgown and a pale blue dressing gown. Colin was still in his buckskins and white batiste shirt. The evening was cool. Colin had lit a fire and the warmth of it was soothing. Sinjun laid her face against her husband’s shoulder, turning slightly every few moments to kiss his neck.
“The brothers and wives seem to be speaking to each other again,” Colin said. “I would further say that if Sophie isn’t with child right now, she soon will be. Ryder was looking at her all through dinner like a man starving.”
“He always looks at her like that, even when he’s furious with her.”
“She’s a lucky woman.”
Sinjun looked up at his shadowed jaw. “Perhaps you could look at me like that sometimes.”
“Perhaps,” he said, and tightened his hold on her. “How do you feel?”
“Our adventure with Robert MacPherson didn’t tire me out at all.”
“Ah, so that’s why you slept for two hours upon our return home?”
“Maybe a little bit,” she conceded. “Do you think he’ll draw off the attack now? Do you think you can believe him?”
Colin thought back to the hour he and Joan had spent in the dismal little croft with Robert MacPherson. They’d arrived in the middle of the afternoon and he’d allowed her to enter the croft first. She walked like a general leading her troops. He smiled at the back of her head. He was glad he’d brought her with him. Two months before he couldn’t have imagined doing such a thing, but Joan was different; she’d made him see things differently.
Robert MacPherson was so furious he couldn’t at first speak. He saw her coming through the door of the croft and he wanted to leap upon her and cuff her senseless. Then Colin came in behind her and he froze, frightened for the first time, but he refused to let the bastard see his fear.
“So,” he said, spitting in the dirt floor in front of him, “it was a lie. You did know about this. You sent your damned wife to get me. You rotter, you damned slimy coward!”
“Oh no,” Sinjun said quickly. “Colin has come to rescue you from me. I would have given you over to the Royal Navy and let you swab decks until you reformed or got kicked overboard and drowned, but Colin wouldn’t allow it.”
“You don’t look very comfortable, Robbie,” Colin said, stroking his jaw. MacPherson lunged forward, but only three feet. He was pulled to an ignominious halt by the chains.
“Get these things off me,” he said, panting with rage.
“In good time,” Colin said. “First I’d like to talk to you. A pity there are no chairs, Joan. You’re looking just a bit white around your jawline. Sit on the packed dirt and lean back against the wall. That’s right. Now, Robbie, you and I will discuss things.”
“You bloody murderer! There’s nothing to discuss! Go ahead and kill me. Aye, you do that, you murdering sod. My men will destroy Vere Castle and all your lands. Go ahead!”
“Why?”
“What the hell do you mean, why? You killed my sister. You killed poor Dingle.”
“Oh no, Dingle was killed by another of your own men. As it happens,