Free Indiscretion by Jillian Hunter Page A

attended.
    "She's a widow now," he said, tucking his handkerchief into his pocket. "I wonder why she's com ing back."
    "Everyone in the lodge is wondering the same thing." Flora chewed a strand of limp red hair that had escaped her straw hat. "Black Mag is certain she's going to stir up things like the storm witches who live over the mountains."
    "Black Mag?" He shook himself. "Is all this based on that crone's prediction?"
    "It wasn't just Mag," she said with assurance. "The chambermaid at the lodge said Anne had sent word she was arriving in a few days, and she was sorry for the short notice, but that the staff should be prepared."
    "It is her lodge," he said.
    "She never liked the lodge. And she never liked shooting, or me for that matter."
    "Now Flora, do not start imagining things again. One of these days the w rong person is going to believe you."
    "Lord Kingaim was her un cle-in-law." She whispered the realization, watching the ravens circle over some unseen prey on the moor. "She's bound to wonder about his death. It's only been a year."
    He gripped her by the shoulders. "There's not much to wonder about. He died of a heart ailment on the loch. He wasn't exactly a young man."
    She looked him in the eye, easing away. "Neither are you."
    "Thank you for the reminder," he said sourly.
    She took a few steps away from him, making a face as her slippers brushed a rain puddle. The hawk flew overhead, as if taunting, certain of its freedom, but sudd enly the girl seemed more inter este d in the mud on her shoes, and h er father was definitely more interested in what Anne's visit would mean to him.
    Anne had never exactly responded to his subtle attempts at flirtation, but she had not been a widow then either, and he told himself that a woman in her position was going to need a protector, and that such a person should probably be a nobleman with a respectable background and the maturity to take a vulnerable lady in hand. A smile crossed his face as he looked across the moor toward her estate. So Anne was coming back, alone this time. It seemed his hunting urges would have to be redirected toward a gentler type of game.
     
     
    T hey traveled for two more days before reaching the hamlet o f Glenferg in the Grampian foot hills. Patrick remarked that it was about time the railroads ran through this part of the Highlands. Anne disagreed and said she liked her birthplace unspoiled, and who wanted a smelly train chugging over a sacred cairn anyway? Nellwyn told them both to cease their arguing because it was giving her the megrims.
    They reached the lodge early on the evening of their eighth day together. Tucked away in a forest of fir trees, a traveler could search for weeks and never find it. David had act ually bought the fortified tow erhouse with dormer windows and a turret staircase on a whim, claiming he needed a castle for his princess. He had added a white-harled block and four pavilions before his death, but the tower remained the heart of the house.
    Nellwyn took Patrick aside in the unlit courtyard after Anne had gone ahead to see if any letters had arrived. "Why are you looking so sour, Sutherland?"
    He frowned, watching Anne disappear into the darkened tower. Ever since his confrontation with Isobel he had been obsessed with protecting her. "I didn't know I was looking sour."
    Nellwyn shook her head. "Perhaps sour isn't the right word. You look rather wistful whenever you watch Anne, but then again, so does the wolf when he stalks a doe in the woods." She paused. "Something happened bade there in her old house, didn't it?"
    "Some stones are. better left unturned ," he said quietly, and he thought of Anne's father beating her, and his entire body tightened in the blackest anger he had ever known.
    He stopped, taking a breath. Her father was dead. He was beyond anyone's reach now, and it was left to him to repair the damage, not seek revenge.
    "We can't stand here all night," Nellwyn said. "We have work to do."
    "Aye," he