“Do you want to?”
“Not really, perhaps fifteen minutes ago I would have thoroughly enjoyed it, but not now. Actually, it was strangulation I was thinking of. I would prefer now to strip that nightgown off you and kiss every inch of you.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” he repeated, mimickin
g her.
“I think I should like that, at least the kissing part.”
“I will kiss you once you have told me where MacPherson is so I can deal with this.”
Sinjun didn’t know what to do. She was frightened for her husband and unfortunately it showed on her face. He said, “Don’t even think it, Joan. Tell me the truth now and tell me all of it. Then you may give me your promise to keep yourself out of my affairs.”
“He’s in the croft that lies just on the western edge of Craignure Moor.”
“An excellent hidey-hole. No one goes there. He should be quite enraged by now.”
“He hasn’t been there all that long, no more than three hours now.”
“I will see you later,” he said, and rose to stand beside the bed. “I wish you to rest and regain your strength. I’ve realized that keeping away from you wasn’t a good idea. You’re my wife. I will sleep with you tonight and every night for the rest of our lives.”
“That would be nice,” she said, then began twisting the covers in her long fingers. “I want to go with you, Colin. I want to see this through.”
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!”