Eyes of the Cat (7 page)

Her breath whooshed out in an angry rush. Tabitha tried first to elbow him in the ribs, and then to stomp on his foot. Both blows went haywire.

“Easy, lass.” Chuckling, he spun her about in his arms, so she faced him. “’Twas just a joke.” He smiled at her.

Tabitha glared green daggers. “Well, I’m not laughing. And
Big Chief
better takum hands offum paleface squaw, before squaw knockum stupid grin offum Big Chief’s face!”

He released her so fast she staggered two paces backward before catching her balance.

“That wasn’t funny.” The chill in his voice sent an icy shudder down her spine.

She shook it off and drew herself up with all the dignity she could muster. “I don’t see why not. If you can play Comanche, why can’t I?”

“Because you’re not a Comanche.”

“And you
are
, I suppose?”

“Aye…I am.” And he angled away.

Tabitha’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Around her in the moonlit courtyard, puddles flashed and the rampart’s towers loomed like shadowy giants, but all she saw was the tense muscular figure before her.
Alan MacAllister thought he was a Comanche?
Of all the… Wasn’t being the lord of a Highland fortress on the flat plains of Texas eccentric enough for him?

She shook her head. The man was either a liar, a joker, or a lunatic. Probably all three. And she wanted nothing to do with any of them!

“Right. Of course you are,” she said. “And I happen to be Shakespeare’s
Prince Hamlet
. Excuse me now, but I must go look for my father’s ghost.” Gathering her skirts together, she turned and darted up a nearby stairway that led to the top of the bailey wall, forgetting her earlier threat.

“Tabitha— Don’t!” Alan caught up with her just as she reached the rain slick pathway behind the parapet. Grabbing her wrist, he jerked her around to face him.

She skidded and shrieked. Not because of Alan, but because she suddenly realized something that, in her anger, she hadn’t stopped to consider from the ground: how high and exposed it was upon the wall. The parapet shielded the outer edge, but the inside of the pathway was a twenty-foot dizzying drop straight down to the massive, muddy courtyard below.

Tabitha took one look at it and, without stopping to consider again, threw herself into his arms. It was probably the last thing he’d been expecting, and it knocked him backward a pace, but he rapidly rebalanced, swinging her off her feet and against his chest. She shivered and clutched his shoulders, burying her face against his neck to shut out the sight of the drop. Her hair had come loose and hung about them both, shimmering like a gold veil in the moonglow. Not that she could see it at the moment, but others could.

“Now that
was
silly,” Alan said. “You didn’t really think I’d let you jump, did you?”

“
What
?” She let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “Good heavens, I was being facetious when I said that. Heights terrify me! You couldn’t get me to leap off this wall if you lit a fire under me.”

His arms tightened a fraction, but she was too unnerved to notice. Nor did she see what he was gazing at over her head, a small audience gathering in the yard below.

“Opportunity knocks but once,” he quoted cryptically, a sudden, odd lilt in his voice that slipped past her, too. “All things considered then, dear, this looks like a perfect time for me to confess something.”

“Oh no, you’re not going to tell me that you’re also an Arabian Sheik, or a Russian Cossack, or something like that, are you?” Tabitha groaned into his neck. His answering chuckle had an ominous ring to it, but she missed that warning as well.

“Tabitha Tilda, the only thing I’ve any interest in being right now is your husband.”

“
What
?” Her head flew up, and she glared at him.

“That’s what I wanted to discuss at the spring.” Alan parried the glare with an incorrigible calm. “I’m asking you to marry me. And if you don’t say yes, I may become so
down
hearted, I’ll go weak and accidentally drop you off the rampart.”

“You. Wouldn’t. Dare.”

“I surely wouldn’t. But then…I might not be able to help myself.”

“No!” She gasped and clutched at him as he took a wavering step toward the pathway’s open side. “Wait!”

“Aye, dear? You’ve something to say to me?” His eyes gleamed expectantly down.

Hers blazed frightened fury back. “I don’t think you really want to hear what I have to say to you,” she hissed like a cornered cat.

“I’d better.” He relaxed his hold a notch and took another step.

“No!— Yes!” Tabitha shrieked over the pounding in her ears.

“Which is it, aye or nay? Make up your mind, lassie. My arms are getting tired.”

He moved right to the edge.

She clung frantically to him, fighting down dizziness and frustrated rage. This was so unfair! So unbelievable! So
MacAllister
.

“All right! Y-yes,” she finally managed to choke out, though how she was able to squeeze the words past that suffocating lump in her throat, she had no idea.

“Yes,
what
?” His voice sounded like the business end of a saber.

“Yes, I…I’ll m-marry you,” she half sobbed.

“Louder. I want to hear you say: I promise to be your wife, Alan MacAllister.” A powerful pair of arms slipped their hold just enough to make her gasp and clutch at him again.

The crisp, post-storm air blew against them, fanning Tabitha’s hair out over the courtyard like a blond banner, but doing nothing to cool the scorch of angry mortification.

Oh, what difference does it make? Engagements have been broken before now. It’s not like I’ll ever go through with it.

Drawing a deep, trembling breath, she discreetly crossed two fingers behind his back and repeated with as much volume as she could muster, “I promise to be your w-wife, Alan MacAllister.”

He pulled her securely against his chest and stepped away from the edge. “And I promise to be your husband, Tabitha Tilda. Did you hear that, Uncle Angus?” he called.

“Aye, lad, we all did!” the big man’s voice boomed back. “Why dinna you kiss the bonny bride?”

Alan glanced at the bonny bride’s murderous expression. He flinched. “Um…later.” Grinning a bit sheepishly, he carried her down the stairway to those waiting below. Whose waiting did not include waiting for a kiss.

Roaring felicitations in Scots Gaelic, Angus snatched Tabitha up into a rib-crunching bear hug and planted a resounding, hairy smack on each flushed cheek before turning her over to the next in line.

“I…I’m not sure what to say.” Zachary Earnshaw gazed down at her with a curious mixture of bemusement and concern. “You’re rather young for this, and marriage isn’t like a math equation, Tabitha. There are no tried and true formulas you can follow to make it come out correctly. Are you certain you know what you’re doing?”

I know I’m
not
going to marry any overbearing, over-muscled, insane Scottish Comanche.

Tabitha met the worry in his gaze with iron resolve in her own. “Quite certain!”

Zachary’s expression relaxed into a relieved smile. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Then you have my full blessing, child.” The smile went a trifle wry. “Though I doubt Matilda would have approved.” Chuckling to himself, he turned and headed back to the generator tower, a slight crookedness in his gait the only evidence that he still carried several annoying ounces of shrapnel from the Civil War.

“Aunt Matilda would have had a
cow
.” Tabitha slapped the creases out of her velvet skirt while pretending it was Alan.

Suddenly she stiffened.

“You must be loosing your touch, Mr. Elliott. I heard you approach.” She pivoted about to confront him.

“I thought it would surprise you more this time if I didn’t appear out of nowhere.” He stared at her, an inscrutable look in his smoky gray eyes. “I’m afraid you’ve put your foot in it, Miss Jeffries. Or, should I say, Lady MacAllister?”

“Hah, it’s only an engagement, Mr. Elliott, and it hardly puts me in a worse position than I was before. I’ll be
Lady MacAllister
when they throw the first snowball out of you know where.”

Simon opened his mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut again. He breathed a small sigh and shrugged. “Ah well, far be it from me to disillusion you, dear girl. At least it affords me opportunity for this.”

On that odd note he jerked her forward and kissed her. Kissed her warm and firm and full, in fact. And square on the mouth.

He punctuated the act with a cavalier grin. “Don’t look so startled, Miss Jeffries. Merely following the dictates of tradition, is all. Who are we to argue with such things?” His gaze shifted, but the grin remained. “Isn’t that right, Alan?”

“Aye. I dare say you wouldn’t care much for the tradition I’m thinking of now, though.”

“Probably not. But then, they can’t all be this much fun.” Simon chuckled. “You’ll have to excuse me now. Dr. Earnshaw and I still have a lot of work to do tonight. You too, I imagine. Hmm, Alan?” With a wink at Tabitha, he sauntered off in the wake of Zachary Earnshaw.

“I don’t want you even speaking to him again. Understand?” Alan’s low growl rolled out like thunder.

Biting back her own aggravation at the incident, Tabitha glanced up into his black glare and asked coolly, “Are you giving me orders?”

“Aye! And you’ll bide what I say, lassie.”

“Aye, I’ll
bide
you,” she mimicked him. “I’ll bide you when I see
pigs
circling in the air and building nests in the parapets. Now leave me alone. I’ve had just about all of the male species in general that I can tolerate for one night. I’m going back to bed. I’m going to drink that water in my room and hope that it
is
drugged, so I don’t have to look at or listen to any of you for a good long while!”

She gathered up her skirts and raced toward the towering keep, only to be grabbed by the arm and spun about before she was halfway there.

“What do you mean, your water is
drugged
?”

“It has to be! That, or some other damn thing I was given. Why the hell do you think I slept for twenty-four solid, bloody hours?” she shouted—then clapped a hand over her mouth in embarrassed surprise. It was the first time she’d ever cursed. The way things were going, though, it probably wouldn’t be the last.

Alan loomed over her, his handsome face in the shadows, so she couldn’t read his expression, but his voice, when it came, had a sharp edge of suspicion. “I didn’t know about any of that. I’ve been gone most of last night and all of today. I returned but a short while ago.”

“How lucky for me.” She bared teeth in a snarl of a grin. “What were you doing?”

The grip on her arm hardened. “One thing you’d best learn, and quickly, Tabitha, is not to question me. You might get answers you’d rather not hear.”

She swallowed down a sudden flutter of fear. “Fine. I don’t really care anyway, you know. I only asked because I was hoping that wherever it is you were, it was someplace you’d be going back to
soon
.”

“Not yet, lassie.” He yanked her back when she tried to shrug free, pulling her close enough to see the gleam of his eyes in the shadows. They glowed almost like a cat’s. “I’ve one more bit of advice,” he purred dangerously. “It’d be worth your while to at least
try
being pleasant to me. Your life could become a wee bit…uncomfortable, otherwise.”

“
Otherwise
?” Tabitha drew herself up to her full height. It brought her nearly eyelevel with the top of his shoulder. “Things can hardly be any worse for me than they are right now! My life has been
uncomfortable
since I left Philadelphia with that taxing little chatterbox, Lady Gabrina.”

“If you didn’t like her, why were you so willing to take her place? I’ve been pondering that. What did Gabrina and that captain of hers offer you?”

His implication stung her. “Don’t be insulting. I wouldn’t do something like that for pay. They tried to stop me, in fact. And I never said I didn’t like her. I simply found her a bit too fluffy headed. Girls like that get on my nerves, I’m afraid. But I helped her and Captain Lawrence because they needed it. It seemed the only solution to the problem. And”—she paused to gather her thoughts and dignity together—“and because the very idea of an arranged marriage in this day and age really ruffled my principles. It’s uncalled for, unpleasant, and utterly archaic!”

“I agree.”

“You…” Her eyes widened. Was that a smile she saw tugging the corners of his mouth? “Then why on earth were you going to marry her? Did the thought of her money mean so much to you?”

The smile vanished. “Now, who’s being insulting?” He gave a short laugh, but there was no humor in it. “Gabrina’s family has little money, anyway. Didn’t she tell you that?”

“No.” But his words were beginning to paint a much clearer picture for her than the one Gabrina had presented.
Tradition and family honor, my Aunt Fanny.
It had been nothing but a business deal. Though, naturally, Lady Gabrina wouldn’t have cared to admit that. Tabitha hardly needed the rest of Alan’s explanation.