‘Stop struggling,’ he said, and his voice sounded lazily amused. ‘I rather like you like this, Miss Balfour.’
I gave an angry sigh. ‘You have not answered my question,’ I said. I relaxed for a moment, staring at the spiky pattern of the pine needles against the dark blue of the night sky. ‘Why smuggle whisky?’
‘Why not?’ He sounded maddeningly reasonable. ‘The King’s taxes are criminally high.’
‘But you are an officer in the Navy and heir to an earldom!’
‘Which has nothing to do with the exorbitant state of the taxes.’ He moved slightly, his hand coming up gently to brush the tumbled hair away from my face in what was almost a lover’s touch.
‘I cannot have a conversation about tax with you in this situation,’ I said, resisting the urge to turn my cheek against the caress of his fingers. ‘It is ridiculous.’
‘As you say.’ His voice had dropped. ‘Taxes are not the matter uppermost in my mind, either.’ He leaned closer. And at that point, when every fibre of my being was aching for him to kiss me, we heard the sound of horses on the road.
We both froze absolutely still.
‘Excise men?’ I whispered.
‘Maybe.’ In the darkness his face was set in taut lines.
‘I could call out for help—’
His gaze came away from the road and focussed hard and fast on mine in the moonlight. ‘Then why do you not?’
For a long, long moment of silence I looked up into his face, and then I took a deep and deliberate breath.
Throw down the gauntlet…
His mouth came down on mine so swiftly that I never had a chance to call out, and after the first second I completely forgot that that was what I had been intending to do. The sensuality flared within me in a scalding tide, drowning out thought. He kissed me again, fiercely, hungrily, and I instinctively understood somewhere at the back of my mind that this was something that been going to happen between us from the very first moment that we had set eyes on one another.
No one had ever kissed me before. My being the schoolmaster’s daughter, the village lads had thought me above their touch, whilst the gentlemen who had visited the Manor had thought me beneath their notice. So, although I understood the theory of love from my reading and from observation, I was quite an innocent. But Neil Sinclair did not kiss like a gentleman, and he made no concessions to my inexperience, so I had no time to worry about what to do, or how to go about the whole business of kissing. In fact, I do not believe that I spared it one thought, but simply responded to the ruthless, insistent demand of his mouth on mine.
When he let me go, the pine needles and the stars pricking the skies above them were spinning like a top. I saw the flash of his smile in the darkness.
‘Thank you,’ he said. And then he was gone.
I lay still for another long moment, thinking of the arrogance of the man in thanking me for something he had not had the courtesy to request in the first place but had simply taken, like the thief he was. Then I struggled to sit up, and from there, by degrees, to stand on legs that felt all too unsteady. I could still feel the imprint of Neil Sinclair’s lips on mine, a sensation that threatened to rob me of any remaining strength. Then I told myself that I was acting like a silly little miss—and that Mr Sinclair had behaved like the scoundrel he undoubtedly was, and deserved everything that was coming to him. I took that long-delayed deep breath and found that I could scream after all.
‘Help! Smugglers!’
I stumbled out of the woods and onto the road—right in front of two English Army redcoats. Their horses shied and almost set the poor old coach horse off at a gallop—except that it was long past such excitement. One of the soldiers was so startled that he already had his musket raised and wavering in my direction.
‘What the hell—’
Indeed. What I can have looked like, tumbling out of the trees with pine needles in my hair and my clothing askew, can only be wondered at. He was a short, stocky man, and from what I could see of his expression in the rising moonlight I would have said he looked of nervous disposition. Not the kind of temperament to suit hunting smugglers through the Scottish glens.
His companion was a very different matter. Tall, fair and languid, he put out a hand to soothe the other man and stop him shooting me in a fit of anxious overexcitement.
‘Put away your gun, Langley,’ he murmured. ‘Can you not see this is a lady? You will frighten her.’
He dismounted with one fluid movement and was bowing before me. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘Lieutenant Arlo Graham, at your service. Smugglers, you say?’
‘Whisky smugglers in the woods,’ I said. ‘What are you waiting for?’ I looked from one to the other. ‘They are getting away.’
Lieutenant Graham sighed. He seemed utterly disinclined to plunge off up the wooded mountainside in hot pursuit. Perhaps it would have disarranged his uniform.
‘Too late,’ he said. ‘They will be well away by now.’ He turned to the carriage. ‘Is this your conveyance, madam?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am Miss Balfour, niece to Mr Ebeneezer Balfour of Glen Clair.’
‘But where is your coachman?’
‘I have no notion,’ I said truthfully. ‘I believe the wretch ran off when the smugglers stopped the coach.’
‘And why should they do that?’ Langley interposed. Rudely, I thought. ‘If they were smuggling whisky why draw attention to themselves by stopping the coach?’
‘I have no notion,’ I said again, rather less patiently this time. ‘I am not in their confidence, sir.’
Lieutenant Graham smiled. ‘Of course not, Miss Balfour.’
Langley frowned suspiciously. ‘And what were you doing in the woods yourself?’
I looked at him. ‘Hiding, of course. What else would I do with such ruffians about?’
‘What else indeed?’ Lieutenant Graham said. ‘That blackguard of a coachman, running off and leaving a lady unprotected! I am sure your uncle will turn him off on the spot. Now, pray let me escort you to Glen Clair before you take a chill, Miss Balfour. Langley, you can drive the coach and lead your horse. I will take Miss Balfour up with me.’
Before I could protest, he had remounted the very showy chestnut and reached down to swing me up before him. His arm was strong for such a deceptively indolent fellow. The horse, clearly objecting to the excess weight, sidestepped and threatened to decant me on the verge. I grabbed its mane and reflected that it was only in stories that the heroine was so featherlight that the poor horse did not suffer.
‘Unchivalrous fellow,’ Graham said, bringing it ruthlessly under control. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Balfour.’
‘When you are quite ready, Graham,’ Langley said crossly. He had already mounted the box and efficiently tied his own horse’s reins to those of the poor old nag.
Graham pulled an expressive face. ‘I apologise for Langley,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘I fear the climate in the north suits him ill. He is in a permanent bad mood.’
‘He is lucky it is not raining,’ I said. ‘This is fine weather for these parts.’
‘But cold,’ Graham drawled. ‘Always so cold, Miss Balfour. And on the rare occasions that it is warm the mosquitoes bite. Langley, poor fellow, is fatally attractive to the mosquito.’
It seemed to me that if Neil Sinclair was a handsome knave, then Arlo Graham was the smoothest gentleman this side of the Tweed. But both had one thing in common. They were well aware of their own attractions. Lieutenant Graham certainly did not require me to join the ranks of his followers, being his own greatest admirer.
We set off at a decorous trot. After we had covered but a few yards, Langley enquired irritably whether Lieutenant Graham could not hurry it up a little, for the coach was in danger of running us over. Arlo Graham sighed, but speeded up slightly. It also meant that he had to tighten his arms about me as I sat in front of him, to ensure that I did not lose my balance. This was by no means an unpleasant experience, but I found that rather than dwelling on Lieutenant Graham’s most respectful embrace, I was thinking of Neil Sinclair’s rather less deferential one. Not that I needed to worry that either of these two were likely to catch him, for the one would end up shooting at shadows and the other would do nothing so strenuous as chasing criminals. So it seemed it was left to me to have a few severe words with Mr Sinclair when I next saw him.
