Free School For Heiresses 3- Beware A Scot's Revenge by Sabrina Jeffries

to theHighlands and his clan. To make peace with his father.
    He’d never had the chance. Father died beforeLachlan reached home, and his vow to live a steadier life vanished in the wake of the disaster his father had left behind. It was either save his estate and clan, or watch his crofters flee toNova Scotia orVirginia like the others who could no longer scrape together a living in theHighlands . He should be thankful that his rigid father hadn’t lived to see him running illegal stills. Or riding as a highwayman to get funds for the equipment and barley. Or dragging an upstanding fellow like Colonel Seton into his activities.
    “Colonel Seton isn’t part of this,” he repeated, determined to convince her. “He’s too good a man for that.”
    “Then aren’t you worried about him sending the army out after you?”
    “He can send out whomever he pleases—they won’t find us.”
    “Then my father will send—”
    “He won’t. Not when I have you.” He settled back against the seat. “And even if he does, I’m a hard man to kill, lassie. God knows yer father’s men tried. Best remember that the next time you want to sink yer teeth in me. Between the war and yer father’s treachery, I’ve no soft parts left. I’m rough as old timber, with a head solid as stone. Try to hurt me again, and I’ll make you regret it.”
    She blanched, but didn’t yield. “Oh, don’t ‘fash yerself,’ sir,” she said, her tone heavy with mocking.
    “You’ve made it quite plain that the Lachlan Ross I knew, the one who would never hurt a woman, is no more. The Scottish Scourge killed him and took his place. And that scoundrel is capable of any villainy.”
    The word “villainy” raised his hackles. He’d known she would react this way; he’d known she’d be as stubborn and sure of her lofty place as her father. But it still rankled to have her act as if he was in the wrong.
    “Aye,” he said coldly, “I’m liable to do anything, my lady. As long as you realize that, we’ll get on just Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html fine.” He leaned forward to fix her with his fiercest gaze. “Because you’re not going home until I say ye are. And that won’t be until yer bloody father comes toScotland .”

    “I tell you, something’s dreadfully wrong,” Maggie said as she paced the path beside where the colonel sat on a boulder.
    He mopped his brow with his handkerchief. “See here, my lady—”
    “Don’t try to deny it again.Venetia should have returned long before now.”
    His frown seemed to concede the point. As well he ought—the sun sank lower by the moment, and they were still trapped on this cursed mountain.
    At first, she hadn’t minded it. AfterVenetia had left, the colonel had grown surprisingly quiet, less outrageous than usual. He’d scarcely even flirted with her, and since he’d flirted constantly since the day she’d first met him and Lucinda at Mrs. Harris’s school, it was refreshing to have him refrain. Well, not entirely. Try as she might, she did feel a twinge of disappointment. What was she thinking? His flirtations were absurd for a man his age. The only reason he was behaving like a gentleman now was because of his pain.
    She slanted a glance at his pale face. He must be suffering greatly. He’d allowed her to examine his heel, and she had cringed at the wicked scar that cleaved his flesh. A ball had shattered his heel, he’d told her, so the bones sometimes gave him pain if he stressed them too much. Why, it seemed a miracle he could walk at all.
    Maggie sighed. How she wished they’d never gone on this outing. She didn’t want to know about the colonel’s suffering; it made it harder to dislike him.
    And nowVenetia was missing. “Do you think she has lost her way?”
    “There’s only the one path. If she lost her way, she’s a fool.”
    Maggie strode to the crest of the hill to look down again, but she saw nothing of her niece.