The Husband Hunt Read Free

outside the house brought an abrupt end to the conversation. Olivia pulled away from the startled squire, her shawl fluttering to the carpet. Wendell rushed up to the window behind Knight and pushed her out of the way, shielding her with his body.
    "Now, that," Knight said quietly, "is a very talented badger indeed."
     
     

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Chapter 2
    « ^ »
    Catriona settled down
in the shrubbery and watched Thomas dart across the lawn, a barrel-chested figure in tattered tartan. She knew it stung his pride to bring her here to England. He resented asking anything of the Sassenachs who had robbed his family of dignity and fortune, but as he himself had admitted:"Yer half brother is drinkin' himself to death and liable to hurt ye in his bad spells. Yer Uncle Diarmid is gone, and these people, English or no, are yer kin, albeit indirectly. They're yer own, Cat. They'll take care of ye. I'm too old to serve ye much longer."
    She fumbled on the ground for her portmanteau, spilling its contents in the dirt. A miniature hand-mirror glinted in the moonlight, and she picked it up, recoiling at her silvery reflection.
    She had never envisioned making her social debut on English soil looking like such a guttersnipe. But then nothing in her life had ever followed a proper path. She was illegitimate to begin with, a come-by-chance child. Her noble father had died without ever acknowledging her, and she had inherited her hardworking mother's gift, or curse, of prophecy, which tended to make her even more of an outcast.
    Not that her gift did her much good. It never came to her when she needed it, such as now when she was anxious to know how her English relatives would receive her. Foretelling the future wasn't a talent a young woman could brag of to attract a beau. In fact, it frightened all but her closest friends away.
    "You, Catriona Beatrice Grant," she informed the unsmiling face in the mirror, "are an anomaly of nature, and you look like hell. I wouldn't let you into my fine Rutleigh mansion. I wouldn't even put you in my privy."
    She reached down in the dirt for her brush, noticing that there wasn't a single weed in the manicured flower beds. Not one dandelion dared to show its sunny head, which, along with the ring around the moon, Catriona regarded as a portent of bad things to come. If the people who lived on this estate were that particular about their garden, they would certainly not appreciate the more unconventional aspects of her past.
    Suddenly, a man appeared on the front lawn with a musket. Had Thomas given the signal? she wondered in horror. Had he been taken hostage by English aristocrats while she stared at her disreputable self in the mirror?
    The shrubbery that concealed her parted, and she slowly raised her head, staring up into a musket barrel. "Please don't shoot me," she said in the calmest voice she could manage. "I know my appearance is rather unexpected, but I am Sir Lionel's long-lost cousin from Scotland. We had planned to go to his estate first, but then we learned of his passing, and that I could find her ladyship here. The dogs frightened me, you see, and that was why I deemed it prudent to wait."
* * *
    She fired the pistol straight into the air to summon Thomas. A few seconds later, he pushed through the bushes to frown at her. "Put down that weapon," he said in an undertone. "The old gardener has only come to help me bring up yer things."
    Catriona stared in concern at the elderly man who had stumbled back in the shrubbery, blinking in disbelief. "Well, it's a good thing neither of us shot the other." She frowned at Thomas. "You never gave me the signal."
    "Aye, I did. Ye were off in that other world, no doubt, or frettin' with yer damn hair."
    She rose to her feet, whispering as she did, "What did you tell them about me?"
    Thomas positioned himself in front of her like a bodyguard. His voice was a low growl in her ear. "Not everything. Just enough to ease yer entree, lass."
    "They're going to find out sooner