ABrutus couldn’t have betrayed her more viciously. Catriona was quietly fuming as she strode to the stable. One moment, Wester Ross extolled the virtues of intellectual percolation, and the next, he tossed her schedule aside to send her traveling with a man who knew the exact shape of her breasts. She had suffered through dinner with her insides churning from a powerful emotion, and now she was to be stuck with him for days?
Her burning cheeks cooled a little when she entered the sheep stable. The familiar smell of straw and wool grease and the bright baas of the spring lambs solidified the ground under her feet. Old Collins was leaning against the whitewashed wall of the last pen, talking to Will, the stablemaster. The men had finished sorting the lambs into different pens; some animals would be sent to the market tomorrow, the others would be shorn and released back into the hills.
She stood next to Collins and surveyed the flock.
“Middleton wants to purchase the old borderlands in the west,” she said.
Collins regarded her from the shadow of his greasy brown cap. “Aye.”
So there had already been talk.
“Do you think it necessary?” she asked.
Regret pooled in the gamekeeper’s blue eyes. Few Scotsmen willingly sold land. Will raked five fingers through his blond hair when she looked at him.
She blew out a breath. “I see.”
At least having her academic plans disrupted was for a worthy cause, then. It was always the worthy causes that impeded her own work, wasn’t it.
Will gave her the weekly report about the lambs. Wool prices were falling again. Would the land sale indeed be worth it, or just postpone the inevitable? Except for the borderlands, the estate was entailed and there was little more to give. She absently rubbed her throat. Any sensible woman in her position would have laid down her pen a while ago and set out to snare a rich industrialist for a husband. Any sensible father would have long urged her to do so.
The stable doors opened with a squeak, and they all turned to look down the aisle. Mr. Khoury’s well-built figure appeared on the doorsill. Heat scalded her stomach. Her gaze flitted over walls and rafters before settling safely on MacKenzie, who was hard on Mr. Khoury’s heels as he approached.
“You have found our stable,” she said, aware her voice sounded like an automaton’s.
He tilted his head, a faint smile on his lips. “Mrs. MacKenzie was so kind to accompany me every step of the way.”
As any decent chaperone would, sir.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You have an interest in sheep?”
“In fibers and textiles,” he said smoothly. “My family is in the silk trade.”
“I thought you were a scholar.”
His eyes flicked toward the lambs in the pen. “I suppose I’m the, how do you say, the black sheep of the family,” he said.
Interesting. Such self-deprecation was hardly commonplace in his culture. He must have paid attention to English habits up at Cambridge.
Mr. Khoury shifted his attention back to her, and his direct gaze sent warmth washing down her legs. These kaleidoscope eyes had seen . . . everything.
“May I touch them?” he asked.
“What?”
He nodded at the pen. “The lambs.”
“Oh. Yes, of course. If they’ll have you.”
He held his hand into the pen and made some soft hissing sounds, bzz bzz bzz. In profile, his features were as appealing to her as in portrait. His strong nose befitted an emperor. His thick dark hair was clipped close to the sides and back of his head but kept longer on top, and a stray curl fell into his brow when he looked down.
“Collins, William,” she said. “Why don’t you go and enjoy your evening.”
The men mumbled their acquiescence and left. MacKenzie visibly dug in her heels; she was here to stay. This was a problem because what Catriona had to say to Elias Khoury was not for a chaperone’s ears. Meanwhile, Mr. Khoury’s strange method had lured a lamb. He was cooing words of praise in Arabic while his tanned fingers expertly scratched the curly coat. Unexpectedly, he looked at Catriona, his eyes gleaming aquamarine with some genuine enthusiasm. Like the sun-kissed surface of the sea. Oddly terrified, she glanced away.
“It’s good wool,” he said in an appraising tone.
Her cheeks were overwarm. He pronounced wool like a Frenchman. He sometimes intoned like one, too; she didn’t need her linguist training to notice. He was too sophisticated to be in her stable, with his proud nose and French vowels and English suit, though his languid posture said he was a man at ease in his body anywhere. It made her acutely conscious of her ugly, thick-soled boots, how awkward her arms felt in any one position; of her monotone voice, the twinge of pain when she tried to hold his gaze. Bloody spark.
She pulled back her shoulders. “Mr. Khoury. Are you truly a bird-watcher?”
Since there was no escape from MacKenzie, she had addressed him in Arabic.
Mr. Khoury relinquished the lamb and faced her with an alert expression. “Eh.” Yes.
MacKenzie huffed with disapproval at the switch of language.
Catriona ignored it. “So your presence at the lake this afternoon was purely coincidental?”
His dark brows arched high, as if her audacity to mention the unmentionable had shocked him. He raised his hands. “I swear,” he said, “I watch birds of prey.”
“I see. Still. We ought to address our situation.”
Mr. Khoury glanced at MacKenzie, who had resorted to ignoring them, too.
He came a little closer. “I came here to speak to you. I’d spare you this journey if I could.”
His rich scent teased her nose, warm and woodsy like afternoon sunshine on a dry summer day. It had muddled her mind throughout the entire meal earlier.
She adjusted her glasses. “You have seen me in a terribly compromising position,” she said, stating the obvious. “We ought to pretend it never happened, but happened it has, and we both know it. We know it’s an outrageous situation.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “Indeed. Where I’m from, we’d be married by now.”
A wheezing sound came from her throat.
He moved his hands in a soothing gesture. “A joke,” he said. “Forgive me.”
His tone was suspiciously light—there was some truth lurking in this joke.
“Luckily, all that is required of us is to journey to Oxford together,” she said coolly, feeling color creep up her neck. “I shall introduce you to relevant places and gentlemen there, and then we shall keep our distance.”
“Of course,” he readily agreed.
“I wish to leave the day after tomorrow.”
He had traveled a week to come to Applecross, but he didn’t blink. “As you wish.”
“Lastly, I would prefer that we travel in separate compartments at all times to avoid the awkwardness of tiptoeing around our situation.” Tiptoeing she said in English.