Fall from Grace by Jill Barnett

Author:Jill Barnett [Barnett, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Highland
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

So his instincts about her had been correct, Colin thought. Her clan was her life, and her need to right the wrong done them, whatever that be, was what compelled her to do and say the things she did.

He knew of that kind of compulsion himself, fighting the wrongs done by others. He'd spent a decade doing the same. It had taken him ten years to rebuild the Campbell name and the title of the Earl of Argyll.

The title was his by inheritance. The respect was his by merit.

His uncle, the last earl, had spent much time and effort inciting the clans, thereby ensuring his services to a king who preferred his kinsmen to be busy feuding with each other, rather than causing trouble to him and his precious throne.

Colin had inherited the title at fifteen, and it had taken him years to gain respect and, more important, to regain trust—years to repair the damage done by a man who cared nothing for loyalty, heritage, respect, but only for the amount of gold paid him to divide his own homeland. It was not an easy thing, living down a traitor.

He felt her looking at him and glanced up.

She scowled and turned away, digging beneath her and coming up with a dark red apple. She took out two more and handed one each to Seamus and Fiona, then pulled out her dirk and began to peel the remaining fruit.

'Twas like watching a child with a toy, he thought. She slowly drew the blade round and round so the peeling curled downward. When the entire peel was only one long dark bouncing spiral, she grinned and cut it off, lifting the peel up to eat.

Then she noticed he was watching her and flushed as red as that apple. She stuck her chin up.

He found her game with the apple charming. He didn't care whether she looked at him or not. He enjoyed watching her.

Perhaps it was the expressiveness of her features, the way every thought in that obstinate little mind flickered across her face as clear as spring water. She was in a fine temper, and Grace McNish was lovely in a temper, in spite of her scowl, in spite of her zeal to chew the bloody apple from here to kingdom come.

He smiled.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, and he winked. She looked away quickly. He stared at the back of her head, and after some time she looked at the apple in her hand, then muttered something about McNab.

"I cannot hear you, McNish, when you speak to the forest," he said, watching her cut off a chunk of the fruit.

Still she didn't look at him, but shouted, "I said… would you like some apple?"

"Sounds familiar, a woman offering a man an apple…" He let the sentence hang.

She spun around as he'd expected she would, her eyes narrowed in understanding. "I see no man, McNab. Only the serpent."

"If only you knew how badly I want to say something right now.

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