She’d almost forgotten their earlier conversation. Still, it was a troubling issue. “If I insisted I wanted to leave on my own today, you’d arrange it?”
“I wouldnae let you go on your own. Remember, I saved your life. You belong to me now.”
Something about those words set up a traitorous quiver in her stomach. “Be serious, Mackinnon.”
“I am.” He frowned. “But aye, if you must go, I’ll see you to somewhere safe, and you can plan the rest of your tour from there. I’ll stay around long enough to make sure ye hire a coachman who knows where he’s going. I’ll also give you introductions to people who can help along your way.”
She hid a smile. This was outside his remit—despite his absurd claim to be responsible for her, they remained strangers. She’d already noticed that a strong streak of protectiveness ran alongside his penchant for dishing out orders.
“So I’m free to go?”
“Do you want to leave your father?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Aye,” he said with audible reluctance. “You’re a foolish and headstrong lassie to want to travel on by yourself, given everything ye need is here already. It’s unfortunate we turned the dungeons into wine cellars a hundred years ago, so I cannae chain you to the wall until you see sense.”
“You could lock me in my room.”
He shot her a disgruntled glance. “Don’t give me ideas.”
“Very well,” she said.
Dark red brows lowered toward that regal nose. “What does that mean?” he said with a bite of annoyance. “That it’s time to go back to the castle and order up the traveling chaise?”
She smiled slowly, loving that for once she had the upper hand. “No, Mackinnon, it means I’m pleased to accept your hospitality, now I know it’s not in the nature of a prison sentence. I look forward to giving my father some company as he recovers.”
It was childish, but delicious to relish the Mackinnon’s growl of frustration. “You’re bonny, Marina Lucchetti, but you’re a wee besom, too.”
He didn’t need to translate the word. She got the gist. At least he called her pretty as well as troublesome. “I don’t like people trying to compel me.”
“So I gather,” he said, the line of his mouth unhappy. “Now if Her Majesty will deign to agree, there’s a hillock over the next rise that’s a braw spot to stop for breakfast.”
“I bow to your local knowledge,” she said sweetly.
“At least ye bow to something,” he muttered. He coaxed his pony forward, and Marina’s followed without her bidding.
After a pause, she asked the question that had been worrying her more than her right to leave—although she appreciated having her freedom confirmed. “Don’t you get bored with all these women who agree with everything you say?”
He looked back. “Not really.”
Marina supposed that talk was the last thing this virile man wanted from a woman. The thought was strangely stirring, although she was sure it had to be too early in the morning to fall victim to sensual yearnings. “Well, you should,” she said, annoyed with him, annoyed with herself.
He gave a short laugh. “I’ll say one thing—I havenae been bored with ye yet, lassie.”
“Could you be any more patronizing?” she snapped. “And, no, you don’t have to answer that.”
Feeling cross, she urged her pony to trot past Fergus’s horse. Suddenly, it seemed too humiliating to trail after the Mackinnon, like a dinghy bobbing in a yacht’s wake.
Chapter Eight
Fergus glanced over to where Marina perched on a tussock, painting the view. Her traveling set of watercolors lay open on the grass beside her, and Macushla and Brecon stretched at her feet, snoozing in the afternoon sun. The laird wasn’t this lassie’s only admirer at Achnasheen.
She’d unbuttoned that fearsomely masculine jacket to reveal a plain white shirt beneath. Her hair was a silky black tangle on the back of her neck, half undone from this morning’s tidy chignon. When she was concentrating, she tugged at it, he’d noticed.
He’d soon realized that she hadn’t exaggerated her devotion to capturing the landscape on paper. During their frequent stops for her to do quick sketches, he watched her disappear into a world of her own. Over the short time he’d known her, he’d become used to the crackle of attraction, sparking away beneath their every interaction. When she vanished into her art, he might as well be a tree or a rock.
In fact, he felt like he added up to less than a tree or rock. At least they contributed something to her finished painting.