The Eyes of Love by Karen Ranney

Author:Karen Ranney [Ranney, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Karen Ranney LLC

Chapter Seventeen

The head of His Grace's security detail had not been in favor of Maggie Carlisle coming to Scotland to join the duke. Nor was MacCauley pleased when Richard banned his personal protection officers from Hawthorne House.

Harold, therefore, had been charged with being Damien MacCauley’s secret agent, a function he bristled at occupying.

Tuesday, a week ago, he'd been summoned to the headquarters housing the security detail as if he were a suspect in an investigation. The questions posed to him were no more polite than if he'd kidnapped a seven-year-old girl on the way home from school and buggered her to death.

When he'd displayed his irritation at MacCauley's insolent tone, the Chief Inspector had said, "You bloody well broke every rule in the book two months ago, Harold, or have you conveniently forgotten that?" MacCauley sent him a look that dared him to complain further.

When Harold wisely remained silent. MacCauley smiled.

"Tell me about Maggie Carlisle," Damien said, sitting on the corner of the desk before the seated Harold. "What's the woman like?"

"Haven't you done a profile on her, sir?"

MacCauley's smile was so sharp it could have cut wire. When the man didn't answer his question, Harold decided he'd pushed the Chief Inspector far enough.

“She doesn’t like being patronized,” Harold said. “She has quite an attractive smile, is passionate about her work, and doesn’t care for the ocean."

MacCauley had not been pleased with his scant description, but Harold hadn't elaborated.

He could have told MacCauley that Maggie’s morning smile was something reminiscent of a Raphael Madonna, infinitely forgiving and strangely luminous. But then, he hadn't known a week ago that she was so energetic at dawn, that the shy morning sky had nothing on Maggie's eyes.

This morning, she was dressed in something gray and shapeless. Sweats, he believed they were called. Her shoes were white with stripes of bilious pink alternating with fluorescent green. He wondered, with a piquant sense of humor that would have startled Maggie, if the clerk in the shop where she'd bought them had misrepresented their appearance, or if Miss Carlisle had selected them knowing how bright they were.

Her attire hardly looked substantial enough for this house with its pockets of icy air gusting through it like particularly nasty ghosts. The Scots winters were gruesome things; Harold was only comfortable within two feet of a roaring fire.

Harold found himself thinking of his long-divorced wife, with her skin rosy from their loving and her eyes slumberous. For a second, he wondered if that, indeed, were the reason for Maggie’s glowing good looks, then remembered the sight of Richard, tousled and weary from a night filled with recurring dreams, standing by the window overlooking Loch Mordrair.

Harold felt a twinge of surprising regret, then buried it beneath protocol.

"Good morning, Miss Carlisle. You are up early this morning. I trust your accommodations are acceptable?"

Maggie smiled. "My room is lovely, Harold. But it feels as if I’ve slept through breakfast and dinner.”

He didn't tell her that a call button was mounted beside her

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