Catriona contemplated this as MacKenzie’s steps faded away, momentarily distracted from her scandalous situation.
While her father diverted time and attention toward hosting academic guests, the castle was crumbling around them, weeds conquered the grounds, and the people in charge of maintaining it all were increasingly plagued by their own ailments. An attempt at a land sale with neighboring Baron Middleton, which could have eased the strain on the Campbell purse, had fallen through in the spring. No wonder her thumbnails were bitten to the quick. In the end, it was the earl’s and her responsibility to run Applecross, but they were as bad as each other when it came to managing the stewards and accountants. Usually they justified their neglect with their cerebral brilliance—who had time to look after ledgers if one could add to the production of knowledge or advance women’s rights instead? However, lately, she was failing at it, the brilliance. On her desk below the window loomed a stack of books. She had already scoured it top to bottom for inspiration. After co-authoring countless papers with Wester Ross, she had been keen to finally write a book in her own name, on a topic of her choosing, but a curious blank yawned where passion should have been. Writing without that passion was like squeezing water from a stone; weeks had passed and her well was still running dry. She had no noble excuse left for letting Applecross fall into ruin.
She grabbed the floating flannel and ran it over her arms and neck. She gave her shamelessly ogled chest a good scrub. She was neither a waif nor voluptuous, but her breasts were sizable in relation to her frame. Plain gowns concealed this. Now a man knew. On her left nipple, the silver studs of her piercing caught the red gleam from the fire in the hearth. Had he noticed the intimate piece of jewelry? For a moment, her hand lingered on the wet, warm curve of her breast. She exhaled and put her head under water.
Her thick black hair was still damp when she made her way to the ground floor an hour later. She had pinned her bun so rigorously that her scalp ached, but she barely felt it—the moment of truth was upon her. At the sound of male voices coming from her father’s study, her stomach hollowed. Smile, how do you do. Heart pounding, she entered the study. Her father stood just to her left in front of the wall-mounted bookshelf, and his tall frame fairly concealed the guest on his other side. Both men had their heads bent over an open book in the earl’s hands.
Her father turned to her, and, in a familiar motion, he took off his glasses. “Ah, Catriona. How delightful. I hadn’t expected to see you before dinner.”
“Father.” It came out thin. The stranger at the earl’s shoulder had dark, curly hair. Still young. Broad but lean shoulders.
The earl stepped aside. “May I introduce our guest? I present you Mr. Elias Khoury. Mr. Khoury, my daughter, Lady Catriona.”
The stranger’s surprise was a palpable pressure on her skin. Her eyes felt hot. They exchanged a fleeting glance, as if looking at each other properly risked igniting the room in the way a match lit an explosive gas.
As the silence spread, the earl looked from one to the other.
Elias Khoury placed his right hand over his heart. “My lady.”
His voice was raspy. Hers was gone, her throat squeezed shut. The moment their gazes had connected, an old recognition had hit her belly like a shock wave. His eyes were like the sky where it met the Scottish sea, a liquid mosaic of blues and greens, streaked with the golden rays of a starburst pattern. In their depths glinted, unmistakably, a spark. The spark. She had encountered it before, three times to be precise, homed in three different human shapes. Each time, it had caused her misery. Now it had found her again. In her father’s new colleague. It didn’t help that he was handsome—clean-shaven, his complexion tanned and smooth, with a symmetry to his angular features that would have delighted a da Vinci. It certainly didn’t help that he had already had his hands in her undergarments.
Chapter 2
His grip on Scottish lore was shaky, but any lingering doubts Elias might have had were gone: the selkie was not a selkie. The enchanting creature from the lake was a human woman, clearly horrified to see him, and the daughter of the professor he intended to charm. Grand. At first, he looked away, as though she still weren’t properly covered. As though it would make him unsee . . . curves. Skin shimmering like moonlight. Wet black hair, cascading down to shapely hips in a tangle. His nape felt hot and pulsed as if he had done himself an injury. Catriona. She was real. She was here. And he couldn’t unsay any of the words he had said. It’s nothing I have not seen before. God take him now.
“Mr. Khoury comes highly recommended by Professor Pappas,” Professor Campbell said, ruthlessly ignoring the awkward atmosphere that filled the study. “He will be in charge of classifying Leighton’s pieces in the Ashmolean.”
Lady Catriona took an audible breath. A perfunctory smile appeared on her white face.
“How do you do, Mr. Khoury.” Her tone was well-tempered, as if she hadn’t already made his acquaintance. His name had rolled off her tongue effortlessly. “I hope your long journey was uneventful?”
“Too uneventful, I’m afraid,” he replied as smoothly. “I arrived rather too early, which must have inconvenienced your staff. My apologies, ma’am.”
His jaw was tense. If she but whispered a word to her father, his mission here would come to an end before it had begun. She was difficult to read, standing there all bloodless and still as a column. Gone was the nymph. A pair of round spectacles perched on her fine nose. Her features were regular but unremarkable except for their quietness, which gave her an oddly timeless appearance. In her high-collared gray dress, and with the parting of her sable hair as precise as if drawn with a knife, she was the picture of a bookish, British spinster. Still alluring if one liked his women aloof and invisible. Which, to date, he had not.
“I was over at the Middletons’ when Mr. Khoury arrived,” the earl told his daughter. “Fancy that.”
“Oh dear,” she said. Her eyes were like pieces of glass, clear but without expression. “I hope you found ways to entertain yourself, Mr. Khoury.”
“He took matters into his own hands,” the professor said, only now closing the book on Byzantine mosaics he had been showing Elias. “He took a walk to explore the grounds. Apparently, he’s an avid birder.”
“Lovely,” Lady Catriona said in a bland tone.
Elias clasped his hands behind his back and said what he should have said three hours ago: “I had hoped to spot a white-tailed eagle, hunting over the lake.”