As he neared, Jane began racing for Vinelands as if for a friendly country's border. But Hugh dropped from his horse to the ground and snared her around the waist in one fluid movement.
Swinging her around to face him, he snapped, "Never, never leave like that again!"
"Or what?" she asked, panting.
He clutched her slim shoulders. "Or I'll tie your arse to a bed." When hadchair becomebed ?
"Not likely, you brute - "
"Brute? This brute's tryin' to protect you, yet you treat all this like it's a game."
"How can I not when you tell me nothing? You've given me nothing truly tangible to worry about! You and Father both said Grey isn't in England, so how could he have followed us here?"
"Why take that risk?" Hugh said, loosening his hold on her shoulders. "Why're there Weylands here now?"
"They like the quiet season."
"You knew they were coming?"
She nodded. "Hugh, I need to go there. It's important to me."
"Why did you no' just ask me to take you?"
She rolled her eyes. "I knew you wouldn't let me. But I'm asking you now to come with me."
Go with her? To the other side?No' bloody likely. "I canna keep an eye on you among all of them." He was so unused to being around groups of people, it made him constantly wary. Much less aroundthese people. "And how would you explain us?"
"I'd tell them the truth." Her chin went up. "We're married. That's all I'd say, for right now. In the future, I'll explain what happened."
"Too many people," he insisted. He had no wish for Jane to know how utterly inept he was in social situations.
"This is my family. They'll never say a word. You've never seen such a loyal family."
"Jane, you've got to understand that your life is on the line."
"Look me in the eyes and tell me that a day at Vinelands will put my life in more danger than staying at Ros Creag."
Hugh opened his mouth to speak, then closed it directly. If Grey had somehow made it past the net into England, then he would have Ethan breathing down his neck long before he ever thought to approach Ros Creag. And if he somehow got past Ethan, Grey would have to traverse the lake by ferry, which could be seen from Vinelands.
Technically, Hugh deemed it safe enough. But the last social event he had attended as a participant, not just skulking in the shadows, had been the festivities the night before Ethan's ill-fated wedding, and Hugh had never seen any of those guests again.
His next attempt was to be a day at Vinelands? A trial by fire? Damn it, he'd avoided this all those times in the past - yet now she expected him to voluntarily walk among the mad, carefree Weylands. He'd be more comfortable walking into a hail of bullets.
And God help him if Jane told her cousins about his behavior the night before. He shuddered at the possibility. A trial by inferno. "Does no' matter. I've told you we're returning. So that's what we're going to do."
She bit her lip and gazed up at him with those big, green eyes. When he realized she was about to ask in a way he hadn't yet figured out how to deny, he cut her off, snapping, "No' a chance," and dragged her toward the horse.
He was biting out Gaelic curses, she slapping at his grip on her elbow and kicking at his shins, when a voice cried, "Jane?"
They both faced forward and froze.
Chapter 25~27
Chapter Twenty-five
"Oh, bloody hell." The seventh circle of hell. That's what Hugh looked like he'd ventured into as more and more of her family filed out of the house and approached them. Belinda was here with her husband and children, and Sam and her family had arrived as well.
She had to laugh evilly. "Too late to run. You're snared,
I'm afraid."
"Aye, and you'd best enjoy it," Hugh muttered. "You go back to a locked cellar."
"Jane!" Samantha cried again, her russet curls bouncing. "What are you doing here?"
"Aunty Jane!" five children called as they besieged her, trampling her to the ground as she laughed.
Belinda clapped her hands in delight. "But you said you couldn't come this week!"
Then they noticed Hugh behind her, and everything went silent while jaws dropped. The children stared up at the towering Highlander in wonder. To break the awkward moment, Jane held up her hand, and as expected, Hugh shot forward to help her to her feet.
"What'she doing here?" Sam asked, never one to mince words.
Hugh gave Jane an expression as if to say, "Indeed."
"Well, he's...we're married."
Sam's jovial husband, a physician named Robert Granger, murmured to Sam, "Not four days ago, you told me she was marrying Bidworth."
From the side of her mouth, Sam answered, "That's because shewas ."
"Well, obviouslythat did not happen," Jane said blithely. "So wish us well and meet my new husband."
Hugh knew her cousins - barely - so she introduced Hugh to Robert, and they shook hands. If Hugh's threatening look hadn't deterred him, Robert would likely have bear-hugged him a welcome into the family.
Then she presented Hugh to Lawrence Thompson, Belinda's husband, a prankster and a considerable wit with a ready laugh, who cradled his hand after Hugh shook it.
Seeing all of them lifted Jane's spirits and made her realize how much Hugh's awful words had hurt her.I'll still leave you.
Hugh eyed everyone with such a leery demeanor, so noticeably out of his element, that she couldn't resist. She knew she had a diabolical gleam in her eyes when she faced Hugh and said, "I absolutely must catch up with my cousins and show off my new ring. In private." He was subtly shaking his head. "Hugh, why don't you get to knowthe other husbands - they like to drink scotch and sit on the lawn about this time of morning. Talk about the stock exchange and such."
She hadn't missed his wary glance at the children either. "Oh, and, children, your new uncle Hugh loves to buy presents and treats. You've only to tell him what you want!"
"Off of him now!" Robert exclaimed as he shooed bairns off Hugh. "Run along and play!"
Hugh wanted to fall down with relief when the last one made yet another request, released his leg, then scampered away. Jane really was going to do this - she truly was leaving him to deal with these men. She and her cousins had gathered up bottles of wine and strolled out on the dock without a backward glance.
"Don't know what Jane was thinking, to set the hounds to you like that!" Robert flashed him a sheepish grin.
"But, finally, it's just men." He led them over to a set of wicker lawn chairs and, once seated, began pouring a round of drinks, though it was not nearly ten.
"So, what do you do, MacCarrick?"
Hugh reluctantly sat and accepted the glass, not knowing his way around this. "I'm...retired." He'd never been forced to make conversation. Never spoke unless something needed to be said. In more than one way, he'd been perfectly suited for his occupation.
"That's the way to do it, my boy!" Robert raised his glass - then drained it. "Retire, take a beautiful bride, and enjoy life."
Lawrence worked on his drink more slowly, but not by much. "Are you and Jane starting a family straight away?"
Hugh shrugged. After seeing her happiness when all those bairns waylaid her, he had never been more keenly aware that he could never give her children.
Robert sank back with his second drink on his knee. "We waited, Sam and I, nearly three years to start."
Waited?So odd to hear these upper-class gentlemen speak of topics like this. "Waited" meant contraception.
Robert and Lawrence then mused on how their wives had behaved and looked when pregnant ("quite lusty" and "pleasingly plump"), how children changed a man ("didn't know what I was about before them"), and other things Hugh tried his damnedest to block out.
He kept glancing over at Jane and her cousins deep in conversation, knowing she was telling them everything about last night. Each time she closed in to whisper to the two women, he cringed, feeling his face flush violently.
After a grueling hour of conversation Hugh barely heard, Lawrence suggested that the men target-shoot. Hugh ran his hand over the back of his neck, knowing he would have to miss. Though he had a powerful desire to impress Jane, to shoot as these people had never seen, he stifled it, aware how unwise it would be to demonstrate exactly what he excelled in.