McGillivray's Mistress - By Anne McAllister Page 0,23
he said quietly.
“I—”
“Seven-thirty. At Beaches with Lord Grantham, Carin and Nathan, Skip Sellers and his wife.”
“I don’t—”
“You want to sculpt, don’t you? You want challenges, isn’t that what you said?”
“Yes, but—”
“And you want to be able to leave that damned king of yours on the beach to charm and educate the tourists, don’t you?”
She couldn’t speak. She stared at him dumbly. “Not…not if it means you won’t come tomorrow. It’s good,” she said desperately. “Not the king. My sculpture. The one of…you.” She gulped. “It is. I know it is. I didn’t know when we started. I was afraid…but now I need to keep going. It…feels right. So I’ve got to finish it.”
For a long moment he just looked at her. Then he shook his head. “I’ll come,” he told her.
“But you said—”
“I’ll come,” he promised gruffly.
It felt as if the sun had come out. “Really? Honest?”
He jammed his hands in his pockets. “I said I would, didn’t I? Tomorrow morning. Five-thirty.”
She nodded eagerly.
“Only if you come to dinner tonight,” he told her implacably. “Seven-thirty, Fiona. I’ll pick you up.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’LL COME,” Hugh said cheerfully. He popped the top on the beer he’d just taken from his refrigerator and took a long draught from the bottle. “Always ready for a free meal.”
“You’re not invited.” Lachlan grabbed a beer for himself since Hugh didn’t offer any. “I only came to see if I’d left my navy blazer here.” The last time he’d worn it, he’d been staying in the spare bedroom of Hugh’s small beach house while he’d been working on the Moonstone. “The numbers are even the way they are.”
“Numbers?” Hugh’s brows hiked beneath a fringe of shaggy dark hair. A grin touched the corners of his mouth. “Is that, like, an etiquette thing?” He perched on the countertop next to the sink, swinging his bare tanned legs, holding the beer with one hand and reaching down to scratch his mutt, Belle, on the ears.
“It’s like an etiquette thing,” Lachlan agreed drily. “And since you don’t do etiquette these days…”
Eight years of spit and polish in the U.S. Navy had been all the rules and regimentation Hugh had been able to tolerate. Since his discharge four years ago, he’d been turning casualness into an art form.
“I’m polite,” Hugh protested.
“Besides,” Lachlan went on briskly, rummaging through the coat closet, “Grantham already met you.”
Hugh had flown him in from Nassau Wednesday afternoon along with Fiona’s hundred pounds of clay. “The idea is for him to get to know people on the island he might want his tours to meet.”
“Like who?”
“Artsy types. Carin and Nathan. Grantham’s with Nathan now.” Lachlan had taken him to visit Carin’s shop before he’d gone to see Fiona at the bakery. Nathan had been going to pick him up there and give him a tour of the island’s photographic possibilities. “Skip and Nadine Sellers.” Skip was the lead singer and composer for the local steel band Grantham had mentioned. “Fiona.”
Hugh stared, his beer halfway to his lips. “Fiona? Dunbar?”
“That’s right.” Lachlan turned away and opened the door to the broom closet. There were swim fins and a snorkel, an old fishing net and float he’d snagged years ago, a couple of diving tanks, a string of pink flamingo patio lights, and a couple of Hawaiian shirts. No blazer.
“Why Fiona?” Hugh asked.
“She sculpts.”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“She sculpts,” Lachlan repeated, unaccountably annoyed at Hugh’s less than enthusiastic agreement.
Now, though, his brother was looking at him narrowly. “Don’t mess up Fiona.”
Lachlan banged the closet door shut. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“You took her to Beaches before,” Hugh reminded him, in case he’d forgotten.
“So?”
“So, the evening didn’t end well. I seem to remember that she made it pretty clear she didn’t want anything to do with you. Tried to drown you, didn’t she?” Hugh flashed a quick hard grin.
Lachlan’s jaw set. “Her foot slipped.”
At least that was what she’d told Maurice when he’d fished them out.
“Uh-huh.” Which meant Hugh wasn’t going to argue about it, but he didn’t believe it either. He was looking unaccountably serious for a man who never got ruffled. His grip on the beer bottle was turning his knuckles white. “I don’t know what you’re thinking about Fiona, Lachlan, but you’d damned well better not hurt her.”
“I don’t plan to ‘hurt’ her. I plan to have dinner with her. And since when do you worry about Fiona Dunbar?” he demanded.
“Since her old man died and she’s on her own.”
“She’s a grown woman.”
“She hasn’t been anywhere or