Rebellion & In From The Cold by Nora Roberts Page B

And he had called her his love. Serena pressed her lips together to moisten them. Perhaps he was feverish. “I should wash.”
    He cleared his throat and felt ten times the fool. “Do the mare and the foals do well?”
    “Very well, though everyone but Malcolm is exhausted.” She tucked her hands into the folds of her skirts, not knowing what to do next. Oddly enough, she wanted to laugh. It was laughable, after all—Brigham drawing his sword like an avenging angel. Or devil. And herself smeared with dirt and sweat and birthing blood. “I beg your pardon, my lord,” she managed as a giggle escaped her. She might enjoy fighting him, but not for the world would she embarrass him deliberately.
    “This amuses you, madam?” His voice was cold, cracking like ice on a pond.
    “No. Yes.” With a sigh, she wiped at her eyes. “I’m terribly sorry for laughing. I’m tired.”
    “Then I will leave you to find your bed.”
    She couldn’t let him go that way, she thought as he put his hand on the door. If their parting words had been a shout, it would have contented her. But to have made him cringe when he had tried to protect her would keep her awake at night.
    “My lord.”
    He turned back. His eyes were calm again and very cool. “Yes?”
    Her tongue tied itself into knots. This wasn’t the kind of man you could thank with a smile and a quick word. The other man would have understood—the one who had held her so gently. But not this one. “You, ah, ride with my father and his men today.”
    “Yes.” The reply was curt as he drummed his fingers on the hilt of his sword.
    “I will wish you luck … with your hunting.”
    He lifted a brow. So she knew, he thought. Then, that she would of course know, and being a MacGregor, would go to the grave with the knowledge if need be. “Thank you, madam. I shan’t keep you longer.”
    She started to leave, then turned, the passion in her eyes again. “I would give so much to go with you today.” Gathering up her skirts, she raced toward the house.
    Brigham stood where he was, in the chill air of early morning, the light breeze ruffling his hair. It had to be madness. It had to be the gravest error of judgment, the sharpest of ironies.
    He was in love with her.
    Letting out a long breath, he watched her until she had scrambled over the rise. He was in love with her, he thought again, and she would sooner plunge a dagger into his heart than give hers to him.
    It was a long, rough ride over land wilder than that he and Coll had traveled through on their way north. There were echoing hills and naked rock thrust like deeply gouged teeth from the bare ground. Gray peaks and crags glittered with snow and ice. For miles they would see hardly a hovel. Then they would come across a village where peat smoke rose thick and people clamored out for greetings and news.
    It was very much the Scotland his grandmother had spoken of: hard, often barren, but always fanatically hospitable. They stopped at midday and were pressed into a meal by a shepherd and his family. There was soup, the makings of which Brigham didn’t care to know, and bannock and black pudding. He might have preferred the supplies they had brought with them, but he ate what was offered, knowing it was as gracious a feast as could be afforded in the lonely hills. It was washed down with Ian’s own ale.
    There were half a dozen children, all but naked, though happy enough, and the shepherd’s wife, who sat near the fire working a spindle. The turf house smelled of the compost heap that lay just outside the door and of the cattle that were housed in the room beyond.
    If the family considered their fate bitter, they didn’t show it. The shepherd drank with gusto and pledged his loyalty to the Stuart king.
    All the men were welcomed, and food was pressed on each, though the portions were meager. Brigham couldn’t resist a grin at the sight of the proper Parkins struggling to swallow the mysterious soup while removing a