Claimed by the Laird

Lucas glanced at Galloway, who was waiting with an attitude of polite impatience to close the door behind him.

Without hesitation he set off across the broad swathe of grass to confront Lady Christina MacMorlan. Since he had nothing to lose, he might as well try blackmail.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_2956482d-1ec2-5ad6-b896-139e117c4add)

“WHO THE DEVIL is that?” Allegra asked.

Christina had been listening vaguely to her father’s plans for a twenty-foot-high Italianate fountain in the middle of the lawn whilst simultaneously wondering what she might spare from the dairy to take on her visit to Mrs. McAlpine in the village that afternoon. The poor woman had just given birth to her sixth child—all boys—and her husband had died in a storm that had taken his fishing boat only eight weeks before. When Allegra stopped walking abruptly and stood staring across the grass toward the castle entrance, she practically tripped over her.

“Language, Allegra,” Christina said automatically. She had known that having Lachlan around with his blunt conversation would be a bad influence. Gertrude would have the vapors if she heard her daughter speaking like an Edinburgh dandy. And that was another problem; Christina had no idea what she was going to do with Lachlan. He needed a swift kick up the backside to send him back to his wife instead of sulking here at Kilmory.

“Ladies do not use that phrase,” she said. “It is shockingly vulgar.”

“They use it when they see a sight like that,” Allegra said. “Who is he?”

Following her niece’s pointing finger, another sin against etiquette that Christina simply did not have the energy to correct, she saw the tall figure of a man framed in the castle doorway.

Lucas Ross.

Her heart began to race. Her breath felt tight in her chest. Suddenly the sun was too hot and too bright.

“Damnation,” she said involuntarily.

Allegra giggled. “Aunt Christina! How shockingly vulgar.”

“Sometimes,” Christina said, “ladylike language simply isn’t forceful enough to express one’s feeling.”

And staring at a man might also be improper, she thought, but there were times when it was impossible to resist. No man had the right to be as indecently handsome as Lucas Ross.

In the half-light of the smugglers’ cave the night before, Lucas had looked spectacular enough with his strongly marked black brows, his firm cleft chin and tumbled black hair. There was something about him, an air of arrogant distinction that was innate but powerful, setting him apart from most other men. He had height and a broad-shouldered physique that exuded masculinity of the type Christina had never come across in the airless ballrooms or rarefied libraries of Edinburgh’s academia. Her sisters’ husbands both had something of that charisma and intensity. Christina remembered that she had looked at Lucy and Mairi and felt more than a little jealous of them. But now she thought that such ruthlessness, such uncompromising strength in a man would be too much to handle.

It seemed ludicrous that Lucas Ross was a servant. He was too tough, too in control to be at the beck and call of others. She pictured him more as a soldier, or a sailor, an adventurer, someone who gave orders rather than took them. He was a man born to lead, not follow. But she was being fanciful. A man could not choose his station in life, nor could he necessarily change it.

A shiver skittered down her spine. Lucas had descended the castle steps and was striding across the lawn toward them. He looked very purposeful, and she suddenly felt a desperate urge to run away. It was ridiculous, but even so the panic clogged her throat. He had not followed her instructions from the previous night. That should have told her something about the man he was and she should have thought twice before refusing to allow Galloway to appoint him.

Well, it was done now, and Lucas would simply have to accept it. She was the Duke of Forres’s daughter and she did not expect to be confronted by a servant or be required to justify her decisions. All the same, as Lucas approached the three of them, the breath caught in her throat and she had to stop herself from pressing a hand against her bodice where her heart was tripping crazily, as though she had run too far, too fast.

Suddenly Lucas was standing directly in front of her. His physical presence was so powerful that Christina took a step back even though there was nothing remotely threatening in his manner. Their eyes met. His were so brown they were almost black, dark as a winter’s night beneath those straight black brows, his expression impossible to read. The rest of his face was equally daunting. There was no warmth or softness in it. It was all hard angles and darkness. He held Christina’s gaze; she tried to look away and found that she could not. She was floored by the same physical awareness, fiercely intense, that had possessed her the previous night.

Then it was over, as though it had never been, and he bowed most elegantly.

“Lady Christina?” he said. His tone was deferential, in contradiction to the expression in his eyes, which was anything but respectful. “My name is Lucas Ross. I do not believe we have met, unless you have the advantage of me....” He let the words hang for a moment and Christina’s heart gave a wayward thump.

He had recognized her. He knew she was the woman he had kissed the previous night.

She straightened her spine. “No,” she said coldly. “I have not had that pleasure, Mr. Ross.”

A spark of amusement gleamed in Lucas’s eyes as though he was remembering just how pleasurable it had been, how she had melted in his arms, her lips opening beneath his as he had kissed her with heat and skill and passion. She felt a flash of that same sensual heat low in her belly. Damn him. The only thing she could do now was to act the aristocratic lady, disdainful, dismissive—even if cold was the very last thing she was feeling.

“This is very irregular,” she said. “In what way may I help you, Mr. Ross?”

Lucas smiled, quick, appreciative. It transformed his whole face, giving it warmth for one brief moment.

“I applied for the footman’s post,” he said. “Unfortunately my application was not successful. I wondered if you would be good enough as to explain why?”

“The appointment of servants is Mr. Galloway’s job, Mr. Ross,” Christina said. “You would need to apply to him for an explanation. Now if you will excuse me—”

“But you were the one who refused to offer me the post,” Lucas said. “I heard you tell Mr. Galloway not to appoint me.”

There was a sharp silence, during which Christina ran through any number of unladylike epithets in her head. She had not realized that they had been overheard.

“I am sorry, Mr. Ross,” she said eventually. “I am not in the habit of explaining my decisions to anyone.”

The quizzical lift of Lucas’s brows was very close to mockery. “I see,” he said, and Christina blushed to realize quite how arrogant she had sounded. “But how am I to improve if you will not tell me the areas in which I am lacking?”

Galloway came puffing up at that moment. “Mr. Ross! How dare you approach Lady Christina in such a ramshackle manner?”

“I meant no disrespect,” Lucas Ross said. His gaze had not moved from Christina, and she felt her face heat. “I merely asked to know the reasons why my application was rejected. Do I not deserve that?” He spoke directly to Christina so that only she could see the hidden amusement in his eyes. She felt trapped, flustered. Lucas knew perfectly well why she had rejected him and she had a disturbing feeling that unless she changed her mind he would be quite prepared to share the reason with everyone. Allegra was looking from one to the other with speculation. Even the duke was looking mildly interested. As for Galloway, he was avid to know her reasons since she had refused to give him any.

She was not sure which was worse, the fact that Lucas could expose her as a whisky smuggler or the fact that he could disclose that the previous night he had tumbled her in the heather. The first might land her in jail and the second would ruin her reputation.

She was trapped.

“I expect,” Allegra drawled, unexpectedly coming to her rescue, “that Aunt Christina rejected your application because you are too handsome, Mr. Ross.” Her blue MacMorlan gaze was drifting over Lucas with undisguised appreciation. “My poor aunt has to consider the smooth running of the household, you know. Your looks would cause havoc below stairs and scandal above.”

“Allegra!” Christina snapped, torn between relief and embarrassment at her niece’s intervention.

“What?” There was a hint of childish petulance in the way that Allegra shrugged one slender shoulder. “You know it’s true.”

Lucas smiled easily. He addressed Christina rather than Allegra. “It has always been a terrible disadvantage to me to look like this, I confess.”

Christina was almost tempted into an answering smile by his dry tone. “I am sure that your plight garners a great deal of sympathy, Mr. Ross,” she said, equally drily. “It must be a terrible burden to be cursed with such good looks.”

Appreciation sparked in Lucas’s eyes. “Oh, it is. But I scarcely think that is the reason you dismissed me, Lady Christina. Do tell us your real explanation or I shall be obliged to speculate.”

Christina took a deep breath. That was a clear threat and she was not going to be intimidated. Lucas Ross needed to understand that he could not expect to blackmail her into giving him a job.

“I think that would be a mistake, Mr. Ross,” she said. “Think carefully before you say something you might regret.”

Lucas’s eyes danced, daring her to call his bluff. “Are you afraid of the truth, Lady Christina? Do you not want it to come out?”

The man was a scoundrel. He deserved all that was coming to him.

“Well,” Christina said, injecting what she hoped was sincere regret into her tone, “I was thinking only of protecting your reputation, Mr. Ross, but as you are so monstrous persistent I can see that nothing but the truth will suffice.” She took a deep breath. “I am afraid that there was a problem with one of your references.”

She could see that Lucas had not been expecting this. A shade of wariness had come into his expression. Good. He was far too sure of himself.

“I was hoping not to have to raise this,” Christina said, warming to her theme. “I imagine it is an uncomfortable topic for you, Mr. Ross....” She risked another glance at Lucas and saw that he was watching her with so much wicked amusement in those dark eyes now that she almost forgot what she was saying.