to listen to reason, was she?” The truth was he didn’t know what he’d hoped to accomplish. Even with all his restraint, he felt like he had been channeling his father. He felt like a bloody bastard.
“Perhaps not. You are right, though—she cannot go see her father. He’ll take her home, but only after he challenges you to a duel. Assuming you don’t let your temper get the better of you and kill the man before that.”
“Aye. I wouldna be able to refuse his challenge, not after what he’s done.”
“And he’s just as honor-bound to offer the challenge for what you’ve done to Lydia.” Rafe sipped his whiskey before he stood and walked over to the tray on a nearby table and poured Brodie a glass. Brodie downed it all in one gulp.
“You know, Kincade, that’s a sipping whiskey.”
Brodie snorted. “For a Sassenach, maybe.” He held out his glass, and Rafe refilled it. “It’s not just the threat of a duel, though.”
“Oh? And what else is there?”
Brodie stared at the amber liquid in his glass. “I dinna rightly know. It’s the way she’s been treated by her own father. The man clearly favors his younger child over her, which makes not one bloody bit of sense. I want to show her that I care about her, even if he doesna care.”
“So you admit that, do you?”
Brodie didn’t look at his friend but nodded. “’Tis a bit hard not to. She’s sweet, intelligent, passionate, kind, amusing . . .”
Rafe crossed his arms and frowned at the flames, still holding his own whiskey. “Well, now that our evening has been thoroughly spoiled, what are you going to do about Lady Rochester and Mr. Hunt?”
“We must put them off the scent,” Brodie said.
“That might be manageable, but you don’t know Lady Rochester. She is as clever as her children, perhaps more so. She won’t fall for any trick for long.”
“Well, unless you have any better ideas, I say we send her on a wild chase to the north while we leave Edinburgh.”
“As a plan, it has the virtue of simplicity. I’ll have Shelton send her a message tomorrow after we leave for your castle, that we arrived late and left early the next morning for the Isle of Skye. I have a friend there we can send them to. By the time they realize they were fooled, we will be far away.”
“Good. I want to be off as soon as possible.” He didn’t want to run into Jackson Hunt, but he also didn’t want to let Lydia go. At least, not yet.
Lydia rubbed a hand over her bottom and cursed Brodie Kincade with every foul bit of language she knew—which, unfortunately, wasn’t nearly enough to do justice to her feelings.
Her pride had been hurt far more than she had been physically. He had treated her like a misbehaving child, and he’d tried to make her feel to blame for resisting his commands. And on some bizarre level, she did. That made no sense whatsoever.
She should defy him at every turn, shouldn’t she? He had no right to tell her that she could not see her own father. He was the one who’d kidnapped her. Her choosing to stay with him did not change that fact. She had believed him to be an honorable man who had taken drastic action to avenge a wrong made against him. She did not agree with such measures, but on some level could understand it. Even his stubbornness in not believing her was understandable, given Portia’s talent for deception.
But now she’d learned he had known the truth about her and her sister, and still he would not let her go. How did he square that with his so-called honor?
Furious, Lydia paced the length of the bedchamber, scowling as she tried to figure out what to do. If Brodie returned here tonight expecting to bed her, he would be sorely disappointed. For the first time in her life, she wanted to behave as Portia would. She wanted to scream and throw expensive breakable things into the nearest wall.
Yet she checked that destructive urge. This was Lord Lennox’s house, who was blameless in all this. She wouldn’t damage his home, especially when he had no idea his brother and brother-in-law were using it for such nefarious purposes.
Lydia paused in her pacing to look at the window opposite the bed. She approached the sash window and pushed it open. The perfumed smells of a well-tended garden came from below. She peered