Seduced by a Rogue Read Free Page B

hearing to say to me.”
    “Och, aye, I’m mute,” Will said, looking warily at Rob’s hands.
    Realizing he had clenched both into fists, Rob drew a breath, let it out slowly, and relaxed them.
    “Aye, that’s better,” Will said with relief. “What now?”
    “We get our horses and view the other fields,” Rob said, fighting an urge to look again at the place where the women had gone
     into the woods.
    What on earth was wrong with him, he wondered, that he could let one young female affect him so?

    “I do think you might have been more helpful, Mairi. ‘
Only
women,’ indeed!”
    Grateful that Fiona had at least waited until they were beyond earshot of their visitors before commenting, Mairi forced a
     strong image of the disquieting Robert Maxwell from her mind as she gravely eyed her sister.
    When his image threatened to return, she said more forcefully than she had intended, “You flirted dreadfully with William
     Jardine, Fiona! You must not! You
know
Father wants us to keep clear of
all
Jardines.”
    “Pish tush,” Fiona said without remorse. “I do not understand how anyone can imagine that such a handsome, charming gentleman
     as Will Jardine can be aught but a friend to us.”
    “He may be handsome, but he was not charming,” Mairi said. “He was cheeky and rude. And he behaved as if he thought he had
     every right to treat you disrespectfully. You should never respond to such behavior as you did.”
    “A fine one
you
are to say such a thing! You blushed at every word Robert Maxwell said to you.”
    “I did not,” Mairi said, hoping she spoke the truth. Even now, his powerful image intruded.
    Catching Fiona’s shrewd gaze on her, she added quickly, “If I did blush, I will not do so again. He wants to help the sheriff
     extend his authority into Annandale, so he is no friend to us. Neither the Maxwells nor the Jardines are our friends, Fiona.
     We must both remember that.”
    “Aye, well, I think we should
make
them our friends,” Fiona said with a teasing look. “Surely, making friends is better than going on as enemies.”
    “It is not as easy to do that as to suggest it,” Mairi said. “Recall that our father told us the troubles between the Jardines
     and the other Annandale noblemen began long ago, in the days of Annandale’s own Robert the Bruce. The Maxwells and Jardines
     sided with England, against the Bruce becoming King of Scots.”
    “Pooh,” Fiona said. “That’s just history and too long ago to matter to anyone. This is
now
, Mairi, and Will Jardine is one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen.”
    “Fiona—”
    “The truth is you’ve gone so long without an eligible suitor that you should welcome attentions from a man
     as handsome as Robert Maxwell. To be sure, he is old… at least five-and-twenty… and not nearly as good-looking as Will Jardine.
     But you are only six years younger, Mairi! And Robert Maxwell
is
handsome. Moreover, you cannot deny that he intrigued you enough to make you blush.”
    Mairi did not try to deny it. Instead, repressively, she said, “His brother is abusing the power of his office to extort money
     from the lairds of Annandale. We lie outside his jurisdiction, Fiona. And as your would-be friend William Jardine is clearly
     abetting the Maxwells, we have no more to discuss about
him
.”
    Fiona gave her a speaking look but did not otherwise reply.
    Sakes, Mairi thought as the image of Robert Maxwell filled her mind again, the man had been much too sure of himself in a
     place he had no right to be. Despite his confidence, though, her father would certainly send him on his way.
    And after he did, she would not see Maxwell again. That thought, although it failed to cheer her, assured her that forgetting
     him was the only sensible thing to do.
    Thus it was with astonishment and tingling trepidation that she found herself confronting him again unexpectedly that very
     afternoon.

    Rob had not expected his visit to go smoothly, because