Amanda Scott by Abducted Heiress Page A

her, and of looking down at the sleeping, rosy-cheeked baby in her cradle when Bessie was
     new.
    She did not linger on such memories, however, particularly ones of Bessie.
    She had lived at Dunakin for more than half her life. It seemed unfair that she had to leave whether she wanted to go or not,
     but life was like that for women, and so it would ever be.
    She had learned over time that men who ordered her destiny paid little heed to her once they controlled her. Keeping her or
     winning and controlling her had always been more important to them than knowing her. Clearly, Kintail was like the others
     and expected to keep and control her easily. She had learned to find her way, though, first at Tantallon, then at Dunsgaith—although
     she had stayed but a short time—and then at Dunakin. She would do the same at Eilean Donan, whatever its domineering master
     might think to the contrary.
    That natural skill she had discovered at six for getting her own way she had honed to a fine art in the years since then.
     Kintail would learn that she was no pawn to push around as he pleased.
    She would be on her own, for she could expect little if any support from Mackinnon or his lady. Being on her own was nothing
     new, though, for despite what she had told Lady Mackinnon, she did not think of them as parents, nor had they ever really
     encouraged her to do so. They had been kind to her always, but they had never let her forget that her true guardian was Donald
     the Grim. Nor had their sons let her forget that she was Border-bred, not a Highlander, or that they considered Highlanders
     somehow superior.
    Since she could outwit the lads in the schoolroom and outshoot them with bow and arrow, and since they had not otherwise been
     unkind to her, she had easily shrugged off their teasing. But she felt little kinship to any of them. For years, she had kept
     her own counsel and gone her own way, her previous experience having warned her that to form close relationships was unwise,
     lest she be ripped away again. Now that it was happening, she could congratulate herself on her good sense.
    A niggling notion stirred that Kintail might not keep the same emotional distance from her that Mackinnon and his family had.
     Nor could she persuade herself that even in time he might become as casual a guardian.
    That thought stirred again the odd feelings that seemed to ripple through her whenever she thought about him. Even now, she
     felt a constant awareness of his presence in the castle. What would it be like when he confined her within the walls of his
     own home? Heat surged through her at the mental image, and she hastily turned her attention to her packing, engaging her two
     companions in desultory conversation and ruthlessly reining in any wandering thought after that until increasingly gusty sighs
     from her chief companion drew her attention and she realized that most of the afternoon had passed.
    “You are tired, madam,” she said then. “I know you must be yearning for your usual nap, and we have all of tomorrow to finish
     this. In any event, I want to have a wash before I dress for supper. I feel musty and frazzled.”
    “I dinna mind saying I’ll be glad of an hour’s rest,” Lady Mackinnon admitted. Pushing a stray lock of gray hair from her
     cheek, she looked around the chamber with a frown. “I’d no idea we’d find so much to do.”
    “I have lived here for years,” Molly reminded her, “and you have been more generous than you should in giving me things to
     take with me.”
    “Well, one canna imagine what ye might need in your new home, and we dinna want ye to go without such as we might provide
     for your comfort. Doubtless, though, the number of sumpter baskets and kists will astonish Kintail.”
    “Let him be astonished,” Molly said with a smile. “I want to astonish him.”
    “Aye, I saw how ye taunted him with that yellow gown of yours at noon, but dinna underestimate the man,” Lady Mackinnon