don’t trust you, so I make you this promise. I will never forbid you to ask me about it, and mayhap the day will come when I can tell you.”
The tear dried on her cheek as she considered his promise.
At last, still watching the road, she said, “I must be able to trust you. But how can I when I’d often wonder if you were parsing your words or just lying to me?”
“Will you agree to let a matter drop if I tell you that I cannot discuss it?”
She glanced at him, saw him looking intently at her, and could not look away. Something in his expression challenged her to think before she replied.
At last, licking dry lips, she said, “If I say that I agree, will you promise never to say those words just because you don’t want to answer me?”
“I will promise that without hesitation.”
His voice sounded hoarse, and his gaze was more intense than ever. The way he was looking at her sent new sensations surging through her, touching her in the very places that had reacted earlier when he had stroked her breasts.
She muttered, “Will you promise never to mislead me again?”
“With respect, Catriona, I did not really mislead you about Tor Castle. You asked me if I knew of it, and I said that I did and that I knew its exact location. We were on the loch trail then, and we met Comyn, which ended our conversation.”
“But by not being forthright…”
“That was just after we’d met. Recall that I still did not know how the people of Rothiemurchus felt about members of the Cameron confederation. I had good reason to tread cautiously.”
“We do have a truce,” she reminded him.
“Aye, but truces are not set in stone, lass. Men break them all the time.”
“Men break many things,” she said. “How will I know I can trust your word?”
“Because I will trust yours if you say that I should. Should I?”
Fin saw color fire her cheeks and knew that he had touched a nerve. He decided to press the advantage. “We need to be able to trust each other, lass. I know that it angered you when we met Comyn today and I told you to stay on your horse.”
“And I irked you when I dismounted and said what I did to him.”
“Aye, but I quickly saw that you could manage him, so I let matters be. Then you began to contradict him about his so-called negotiations, and I could see that you were going to make him even angrier than he had been.”
“By my troth, sir, had I not been thinking as much about how you would react to my defiance as I was about what I should say to him—”
“Don’t you see, sweetheart? That is just the sort of thing we need to learn about each other. Until we do, I would ask that you obey me when I make it clear that I expect obedience, if only because I have more experience of the world than you do. In return,” he added before she could argue, “I will do my best to give you the same respect when we speak of things about which you know more than I do.”
“What if I don’t obey you?” she asked, regarding him now from under her lashes. “Sithee, sometimes I just act because it seems right to act.”
“Then I fear you must accept whatever consequences I impose. I am your husband now, Catriona. So, law and tradition accord me certain rights and likewise certain duties. The greatest of those is the duty to protect you from others. And from your own folly,” he added bluntly.
When she licked her lips, his body stirred in response, making him wish James and Morag to perdition. What he wanted to do was snatch his defiant, beautiful wife off her garron, carry her into the nearby woods for privacy, and master her so thoroughly that she would know forevermore that she was his woman.
Catriona could not mistake the heated desire in Fin’s eyes, and since her own body had reminded her any number of times that they had consummated their union too hastily, his desire and even his threat stirred other, much stronger feelings.
Preferring not to think about those consequences he had mentioned, because she knew he would never approve her habit of taking her own road whenever she could, she was glad to see the turning they wanted ahead. As they ascended the steep, wooded trail into the mountains, she