had no say in how long I’d be away and would likely go again before long.”
“I knew it!” Shaking her head at him, she added, “Dafty, you should have told her that you love her and missed her even more than you’d feared you would.”
“But—”
“Nay, don’t explain it to me. Go and find Morag. Talk to her.”
“And say such mawkish things to her? Sakes, what would my men think?”
“Morag is not going to repeat to your men what you say to her. But if you do not take more heed of your wife, sir, you may soon find yourself without one.”
“Aye, well, you’d best come inside with me then, the pair of you,” James said. “You’ll want to break your fast, after all.”
“I am getting hungry, aye,” Catriona admitted.
Fin said, “We’ll be along directly, sir. You won’t want us at your heels if you should meet your lady wife, seeking you.”
Catriona looked at him, and Fin knew that she had detected his annoyance.
The hard note in Fin’s voice had startled Catriona, but recalling his strong sense of honor, she suspected why he had spoken so. She waited until James had vanished into the woods before she said, “I think I know why you are—”
“Don’t lie for me again,” he said curtly. “I did not tell you that my father was our war leader that dreadful day.”
“Nay, but he had naught to do with your dive into the river, and I knew by your own words that you must be a Cameron, so I do not see that it matters.”
“Even so, you must not lie to your brother, lass, and never to protect me.”
“But I did not do it for you. I did it because I was sure when he apologized to you that he was going to start telling me that I should know better than to have come here with you. When he starts telling me how I should behave—” A thought struck her, making her grin ruefully. “Sakes, I expect that’s just what I did to him!”
“Aye, it was,” he agreed.
“Then I will apologize to you for making you a witness to what I said to him. But I assure you that had I admitted that you had not told me about your father, James would still be explaining at ponderous length why you should have done so.”
“Mayhap he would,” Fin said. “I would like to know, however, if you would have spoken as impertinently to Ivor as you did to him.”
Feeling a sudden urge to laugh but aware that it might still be unwise, she said frankly, “I think you know very well that I would dare to scold Ivor so only if I were far enough away to escape to safety, and never this close to the water.”
His eyes twinkled then, but he said, “I should perhaps warn you that I do not react well to such impertinence, either.”
“Do you not? But then you have no right to treat me as Ivor would, do you?”
Meeting her gaze, he said, “I suspect that the men in your family would sympathize more with me than with you if you made me angry enough to toss you into that loch. Or do you think I’m wrong about that?”
Since he clearly knew that he was right, she said, “I’m thinking that if we do not go inside soon, someone will look for us.”
When he chuckled, she stuck out her tongue at him.
Entering the hall with Catriona, Fin saw at once that the lady Morag sat at the high table with the ladies Ealga and Annis.
Catriona had also seen her good-sister and was frowning. He nearly asked why before he realized that James was nowhere in sight.
“He will think to look here eventually,” he murmured to her.
“Do you think so? I can tell you, sir, men are rarely wise enough to look in the most likely places. Moreover, I’d wager that he looked here before he went outside, just as she knew he would.”
“Is she so calculating then?”
“Faith, I scarcely know her. She and James have been married for nearly two years, but Morag does not talk much about herself. When she does, she talks most often about her home in the Great Glen, and her family.”
“Have you tried to draw her out?” he asked.
“Aye, sure. That is, at first I did, and I do try to be kind. But she barely talks to me, or to anyone else, come to that. Surely, you have seen as much for yourself.”