The enchanted ring Page 4

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ROWAN found herself wishing the kiss Michael Doran had taken as payment for that ridiculous debt was easier to forget. It was idiotic, she told herself, to make so much of one kiss, but when she was quite honest about it she knew she had been so unutterably relieved that he had asked for only that that she had almost willingly complied. If Sean had suspected even that much he would no doubt have been furious and probably tackled his old antagonist without a second thought, so silence, she thought, was the best course. Even Laura would remain in ignorance because she and Sean were so close it was possible she would tell him. Rupert was the only one she felt she could safely confide in. He was sufficiently detached to view everything less emotionally. He sat, unmoving, while she told him about it and only nodded his head for several seconds without comment when she finished. 'You're not worried about one kiss, are you?' he asked at last, and the expression in his eyes read more into her story than she had intended. 'No.' Her tone and something in her voice made him eye her even more curiously. 'But you're not content to just forget it either?' ' I wish I could, Rupert.' She twined her fingers together to try and steady them and he put a hand over them, gentle as he always was with her. 'I'm being incredibly silly, I suppose, but it was the way he kissed me.' She looked at him, willing him to under57 stand and not misinterpret her words. 'Rupert, he's a '3 very attractive man. I don't like him, I hate the things 'H he does and the things he's done in the past, but oh, il I don't know. Nothing's changed my opinion, but 3 there's something about him that attracts me in spite -i of myself. Does that make sense?' ' Rupert smiled slowly and squeezed her hands. 'Some,' he allowed. 'Doran's a dangerous man with women, I did warn you, sweet creature, didn't I?' He regarded her for a moment in solemn silence, then laughed softly. 'Don't worry about it. Rowan, I'm sure you can cope with Doran's sort, you're a sensible girl, so he's not "f. likely to sweep you off your feet. Does Maxwell know?' I he asked as if the idea had only now occurred to him. < 'No.' . ' Rowan looked at him, an odd little figure sitting be- side her on the stone bench, and wondered why it was she found him so easy to talk to. There was a rapport between them that had nothing to do with the usual feeling between a man and a woman, and yet Rowan s always felt she would miss Rupert more than anyone I else if he was no longer there. Why she should think of him in that particular way, she had no idea, unless it was because there always seemed to be an air of imper-I manence about him. He never seemed quite real somehow and yet he was a great source of strength to her. 'You're a wise girl,' he told her with a smile. 'I hope so,' Rowan said warily. 'I just don't trust Michael Doran.' 'I wouldn't trust our worthy Saint Francis not to go off half cocked if he knew Doran was kissing his girl,' Rupert remarked dryly. "His girl?' Rowan looked at him with raised brows and a half smile on her face. 'His girl,' Rupert repeated adamantly. 'Have you said you'll marry him yet? I know he wants you to.' 58 Rowan laughed, her eyes curious. 'Oh, Rupert, how do you do it? How can you know that? I didn't know myself until a few days ago.' He folded his hands together and put them behind his head, a wicked gleam in his eyes. 'I see all and know all,' he told her in his beautiful, deep voice, and Rowan almost believed him. 'Or Laura told you,' she teased, but he shook his head slowly. 'No one needed to tell me, exquisite creature. Anyone with half an eye can see that he's deep in the throes of true love and suffering for it.' 'He's not suffering,' Rowan protested with a laugh, then sobered suddenly and looked at him searchingly. 'Should I say I'll marry him, Rupert?' It would help, she thought, if Rupert with his fey gift and seeming knowledge of things unspoken could reassure her about Sean and how she should answer him, but Rupert shook his head. 'Beloved angel, don't make me your oracle, please!' He raised his hands in mock horror. T have my own salvation to work out without being responsible for your happiness or otherwise. Suffice it to say that the poor creature is in love with you as to your own feelings ' He spread his hands appealingly. 'Who can say?' Who could interpret her own feelings? Rowan thought the following evening as she walked down to the garden stream with Sean, certainly not herself. She was as uncertain as ever and hoped he would not face her with another proposal. She was certain that Laura knew how Sean felt about her, for she encouraged every opportunity for them to be together and often Rowan caught her watching them with a dreamy half smile on her face, as if she was already writing her own satisfactory conclusion. 59 'It's a beautiful evening,' Sean said, one arm around her waist as they walked, and Rowan nodded. 'Lovely,' she agreed. He smiled down at her. 'Almost as lovely as you.' 'Thank you, kind sir.' She dipped him a mock curtsey. 'There are so many lovely things to see in this beautiful country. You must be very proud to belong to it, Sean.' If she had expected him to respond as lightly, she was disappointed, for she sensed him frown before she looked up and saw it. 'Unfortunately,' he told her bitterly, 'none of it belongs to me.' 'Well, that isn't so bad,' Rowan reminded him gently. 'I should know, Sean, because I've never had .anywhere I could call my own.' 'That's what makes the difference,' Sean told her. 'I was born up at Thornhill and I was very fond of it.' 'Of course you were," Rowan consoled him, 'but being bitter about it won't help, Sean, it never does.' 'No, no, I suppose it doesn't,' he agreed, reluctantly she knew. 'It's just that I have nothing to offer you when you at last say you'll marry me.' Rowan noted the 'when' with a wry smile. Whatever else Sean lacked it was obviously not optimism. ' I marry you, you mean,' she told him. 'It I do I shall be far more concerned with the man than with what he owns.' He sighed, his arm tightening round her. 'I refuse to take "if" for an answer,' he told her. "It's when you marry me and I'll keep on asking until you do say yes.' 'Sean, you don't know me. You know almost nothing about me, so how can you say you love me and want to marry me?' 'I know all I need to know,' he assured her confidently, and brought them to a halt, turning her round 60 to face him. 'I know I love you and I know I want to marry you, nothing else matters to me.' 'I'm bad-tempered and selfish,' she warned, and he laughed. "I don't care.' 'I'm capricious and strong-willed.' 'And very, very beautiful,' he said softly, and kissed her before she could think of further argument. 'Very beautiful,' he echoed, and again forestalled any further argument. He held her for so long that she was breathless and a little dizzy when at last he released her and she looked up to see the deep blue eyes almost black in the evening light. 'Sean!' 'Rowan?' He held her close and Rowan wondered just what her real feelings for him were. Certainly she found him very attractive and she enjoyed being with him. There was no reason why she should not commit herself at least to a tentative promise to marry him, but thaLwas not what Sean wanted and she was reluctant to make a promise she might find herself unable to keep. She was used to being independent, living her own life and going her own way and she was very unsure that she was ready to settle down to anything else yet. Also Sean had already seen one engagement end disastrously, so surely it was better to make no promises at all than to make them and have second thoughts later as Barbara Clooney had done even if her motives had been more mercenary. 'Please be patient with me,' she pleaded. 'I we both have so much to lose if I make a .hasty decision, and I'd hate to make you unhappy, Sean.' He smiled and kissed her forehead gently. 'I doubt if you could,' he told her, 'but ', he shrugged, 'I'll try to be patient, if that's what you want.' 61 It was a misty day again and somehow Rowan felt that it matched her own mood that morning, restless and a little sad. Laura had assured her that the mist would dear away very quickly and indeed the sun was already trying to warm its way through the haze that hung over the lower ground. It always gave the countryside a feeling of mystery and unreality. Rowan felt, and one which she found quite intriguing. On higher ground it was clear so that going downhill was rather like walking into a cloud from above. Without any special destination in mind when she set out. Rowan found herself walking across the meadows and down in the direction of the river, the way she had walked her first time out in Bogmoor. Leaving the road via a low gate, she followed the same path over the lush meadows and down the grassy slope to the water. Sh
e had gone more than three-quarters of the way down the slope when she began to realise that the mist was much thicker than she had thought and that perhaps she should not have left the road and the higher ground. The swirling greyness became perceptibly thicker and more chill as she neared the river and she wondered in a sudden moment of panic if she had left it too late to find her way back. Retreat was the only answer and she had already half turned to go back up the slope when some faint sound of movement reached her. She spun round hastily, trying vainly to see what might have caused it, but a second later laughed to herself at her jumpiness. It could only have been a cow or some other creature come down to drink from the river and nothing to fear. The mist was playing tricks with her imagination as well as making her chillingly wet. Reassured, she started again, but she had taken only 6a one short step up the grassy hill behind her when the i sound of a shot shattered the stillness and brought a cry of alarm from her. 'Come away, ya thievin' beggar!' a harsh voice, muffled by the mist, sounded off to her left somewhere, and she peered desperately through the swirling dampness to try and see who it was, although the shot had given her an idea. 'Please ' she began, but another shot blasted through the mist at her and sent panic shuddering along her spine as she turned blindly, only to go full length. Before she could gather her senses she fell headlong down the short slope, rolling down, unable to stop herself, and straight into the coldness of the river, her scream of shock at the sudden chill shivering through the stillness. 'McConnell, for God's sake, man I' That voice at least was familiar and as she lay there, dazed and stiff with fright, she was almost glad to hear it. "Tis some thievin' divil sneakin' up in the mist, sir,' the voice of the unrepentant McConnell declared. 'I t'ink he went inta the river, an' a good job too.' "It sounded like a woman,' Michael Doran told him, their voices much nearer now, and the keeper snorted his disbelief. 'Aah now, why would a woman be down here in the like o' this?' he asked. 'Sure even them thievin' divils in the village do their own poachin', it's not woman's work.' 'It still sounded like a woman's scream,' Michael Doran insisted, 'and I can think of one who's insane enough to be down here in this.' 'Can ya now?' The man sounded doubtful still and Rowan, rapidly recovering her breath, heard the answer with a flush of anger, despite her position. 'Miss Blair,' Michael Doran told him, and gave a 63 snort of laughter at the idea. 'Blair? Aah now, would that be the red-headed little fancy madam from Mrs. O'Neil's?' McConnell guessed, and Rowan shook as much with anger as with cold at the answering chuckle, now only feet away as she pulled herself out of the water and up on to the grass. 'Exactly,' Michael Doran agreed. 'Though I promised her safe passage over my land, you old reprobate, so we'd better find her.' They could see her now through the mist, as she could see. them, two ominously dark figures in the clinging dampness. 'T'ere she is!' The keeper's cry of triumph startled her and she went as fast as she could up the first few feet of the grass slope before either of them realised what was happening. The taller of the two moved quickly, however, especially for such a big man, and an arm went round her, pulling her down again, ignoring her wildly beating hands and feet. 'I thought so,' he said, holding her firmly in the crook of one arm, despite her soaking wet dothes. 'Let me go!' Rowan wriggled desperately, fighting some irresistible panic that urged her to escape. 'Let me go ' 'What are you doing down here?' he asked, ignoring her demands, and Rowan kicked at him wildly. 'It's no concern of yours,' she retorted. 'Now put me downl' 'Not yet,' he told her quietly. 'I suppose you're up to nothing more sinister than one of your endless walks. I don't imagine you're poaching as McConnell suspects?' 'Of course I'm not,' Rowan stormed. 'You gave me permission to walk over your precious land, and when I do I have guns fired at me!' 'Gun,' he corrected quietly. 'I didn't fire mine.' 64 She had not until then noticed that he too carried a ;gun under his other arm. 'I don't care how many it 'was,' she told him. 'Put me down, I want to go home.' 'You can't go home like this,' he argued. 'Not in that state. You'd get pneumonia before you'd gone a dozen yards and then I'd have Maxwell on my back for that too.' He handed the gun he carried to the keeper and put his other arm under her, lifting.. her into his arms as if she weighed no more than a child. 'You need drying out before you go tramping around all over the countryside.' I ,' 'Don't argue, woman,' he told her shortly. 'It's too far back to Laura O'Neil's in this and in those wet . things. You stay here, McConnell,' he told the keeper, 'while I take Miss Blair up to the house.' 'I can go home and dry out,' Rowan objected. 'I don't want to go to the house.' 'You wouldn't,' he said, and added, 'and for heaven's sake keep still.' He was already striding along the river bank and away from the way she wanted to go, and that unreasoning panic stirred in her again at his deter', mination. I won't keep still, let me go!' It was panic, she recognised, that made her more frantic than she would normally have been in the circumstances and he seemed to guess it. He laughed, a short, harsh sound, and held her more firmly. 'Abducted,' he taunted her. 'Whisked away by the wicked squire to face a fate worse than death.' He snorted impatiently, looking down at her with eyes : that appeared almost black. 'For God's sake, what do you imagine I'm going to do with you?' Rowan did : not answer and he shook her impatiently. 'Answer pme!' 'I don't know.' She wished he was not so over-I 65 t powering, so big that she felt as it nothing she did would have the slightest effect on him. 'But you're busy making wild guesses,' he jeered. 'Your head filled with all the ribald yams that Maxwell and the rest have been feeding you, am I right?' Again he shook her when she did not answer quickly enough to suit him. 'Well?' 'Stop doing that!' she objected, and he laughed. T'd guess that you were a spoiled little wretch,' he told her, 'except that I'm more inclined to believe the blame lies with your red hair rather than your upbringing.' It was a guess that Rowan would not deign to comment on, instead she fell into a rather sulky silence. They had gone no more than a hundred yards and climbing all the time and already the mist was almost dear, although wisps of it still hung in the still air, defying the sun that shimmered' hazily above it. He looked down at her angry face and the bedraggled hair dinging to her neck and smiled. Rowan dubbed it a grin and disliked the implication of it. 'How do you manage to be so bad-tempered, soaked in the river, covered in grass stains, and still look beautiful?' he asked. Rowan felt the colour in her cheeks and he laughed again when he saw it. 'Now you're blushing,' he told her delightedly. "You are a sweet old-fashioned little thing, aren't you?' 'You're insufferable ' Rowan dedared, turning her face away from him. 'So I've been told often.' It seemed not to bother. him in the least and Rowan clenched her hands angrily. A few seconds later, however, she momentarily forgot her anger in curiosity when a huge grey stone house loomed through the thinning mist as they turned a corner. It appeared much older than Mrs. O'Neil's and 66 much bigger, and she was briefly and discomfitingly reminded of a castle. Great blocks of stone formed its walls and would keep out both weather and intruders, while the solid-looking wooden door with its iron studs looked as if it would deter anything. It would also, Rowan thought fancifully, make a very effective prison. A kick with one booted foot opened the door and it crashed back against the wall, making Rowan start nervously and realise for-the first time that she had instinctively put one arm round his neck. 'Bridie ' he yelled at the top of his voice, and stood for a moment with her still in his arms before he stood her down in the centre of the vast hall. His voice all but echoed round the high stone walls and after a few seconds an elderly woman appeared from a doorway at the back, near the stairs Michael Doran indicated Rowan's bedraggled figure with one hand. 'A drowned pup,' he told the woman. 'Take Miss Blair upstairs, will you, Bridie, and skin her and dry her? One of my dressing gowns will cover her decently while you dry out her things.' 'I don't ' Rowan began, and he lifted her off her feet again so that her protest ended in a faint squeak. 'And don't take notice of any nonsense from her about going home to dry,' he told the woman while he strode up the wide staircase with Rowan. 'It would take her at least half an hour to walk there and by that time she'd have started pneumonia.' He opened
a door by what appeared to be his normal method, a hefty push with one foot, and Rowan was deposited, none too gently, in the middle of a bathroom. His smile as he left them was the last straw and Rowan clenched her hands angrily while the ;' woman reached warm towels from a cupboard and I smiled slowly. I 'Oohl' Rowan stormed helplessly, 'I'll I'll strangle him!' 'Aah sure now, don't take on so,' she was advised in a soft, patient voice. 'Himself knows best, so he does, an' we'll soon have ya dry an' feelin' the better for it.' 'I'm sorry.' Rowan smiled apology at the woman as she started stripping off her wet clothes. 'It's just that he he infuriates me.' The woman's greying head nodded understanding. 'Sure he's a hard man ta judge, but he's not as black as many would paint'm. He's a good enough man when he's a mind to be an' not tryin' ta be the scallywag ya see today.' Rowan admired her loyalty, but she was not prepared to admit she was wrong in her own estimation, so she made no further comment. She obediently dispensed with almost everything she wore and donned a huge, all-enveloping woollen robe that covered her from chin to toe. The sleeves were so much too long that she turned them up, over and over until her hands emerged. 'Bridie I' A cry from below in the hall sent the woman hurrying out of the room in answer to it. 'Bring her into the library when she's ready,' Rowan heard him say. 'I've made some coffee.' 'I don't ' Rowan began when the woman came back with the message, but she shook her head, her eyes showing mild amusement. 'Ya'd best go down an' have some coffee,' she told Rowan, 'or himself'll only come up an' fetch ya.' 'He's impossible,' Rowan objected. 'He does exactly as he likes and no one thinks to tell him where he gets off.' 'Some do,' the woman argued mildly, 'but sure it does'm no good at all.' 68 Believing it was quite possible. Rowan followed the loyal Bridie from the bathroom and down the stairs, lifting her long robe as she went for fear of tripping on it. She was led to a room that must have faced out on to the river, the way she had come in, and she could not help but look around curiously as she walked in. The room was as big as one would expect in a house of this size and three of the four walls were covered from floor to ceiling with shelves of books. The sheer number of them defied conjecture as to how many there were and Rowan looked at them wide-eyed. They were not merely there in bulk for the sake of the impression they created either, she thought, for they had the look of being handled and cared for. Through a high window at the far end she could see the last of the grey mist swirling lazily across the river which she could just see below a slope in the ground. Her host stood by a coffee table near the fireplace, a smile on his face for her reaction. 'Sit down,' he told her. 'I haven't said I'll stay yet,' Rowan retorted, and he laughed. . 'Well, if you're likely to go off into the mist again, leave my dressing gown behind, will you, I don't want it ruined.' 'But I ' she began, and stopped when she saw his grin of satisfaction. 'Exactly,' he told her. 'You can't go, can you? Not and keep your reputation unsullied. I imagine that even Maxwell would think it odd if you were seen strolling across the fields in what you've got on under that robe.' His reference to her lack of covering apart from his robe made her pull at the thick woollen garment defensively. 'You,' she told him slowly and with relish because she had been working up to losing her temper ever since she heard him call so premonitorily from downstairs, "you are the most arrogant and illmannered man I've ever had the misfortune to meet, and I wish I'd never seen you ever I' She thought he took exception to being told her opinion quite so forcefully and his eyes darkened momentarily to the almost black they had been earlier. "I'm sorry I can't share your regret. I find you not only beautiful but highly entertaining, and whether you like it or not you're going to have to put up with me for the next hour or so while your things are drying.' T ' she began again, feeling slightly ashamed of her outburst and prepared, at least m part, to apologise for it, but he waved her to silence. 'Sit down,' he ordered. "For once do something sensible and drink some of this coffee,' it'll put some warmth into your bones after your ducking.' 'I was only going to say I was was sorry.' 'Sorry?' He looked at her for a moment, his eyes disconcertingly steady, then he smiled. 'Up and over,' he said. 'I don't think I ever saw quite such a little firecracker as you. Rowan Blair.' He put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her downwards into the chair behind her. 'Now will you please sit down?' Obediently she dropped into the big armchair that threatened to envelop her completely, feeling horribly vulnerable dressed as she was and with him towering over her. He thrust a big mug of coffee into her hand and she took it, gratefully, she had to admit. 'Thank you.' 'Sorry it's not in ladylike cups,' he told her, 'but I thought quantity was more important than quality in this instance.' 'I'm grateful,' said Rowan, with a small grimace for the hot, strong brew, and he raised his brows. 70 ' - 'I find that hard to believe after the fuss you made .about coming here, but I won't make a thing about it.' ' 'Of course I made a fuss,' Rowan objected. ' I didn't know what to expect.' ' 'So you anticipated the worst,' he taunted, the grey eyes mocking her over the top of his coffee mug. 'What did you anticipate. Rowan?' He sat in a chair opposite her, sprawled lazily, his booted feet apart, elbows on the arms of his chair as he held the coffee mug with both hands. Above the white roll collar of his sweater his face looked dark and even more mocking than usual and she was reminded uneasily of Sean's description of him when he came back from O'Hare's cottage. "That satyr!' he had said, and the comparison seemed uncomfortably accurate at the moment so that a shiver coursed along her spine as she looked at him. 'Are you cold?' he asked, suddenly and unexpectedly anxious. 'No, no, I'm fine, thanks.' She might as well not have spoken for the notice he took. Ignoring her hasty head-shake, he strode across to a cabinet under the window and returned with a whiskey decanter in one hand. 'This'll warm you.' 'Oh no, please ' She tried to cover the mug with one hand, but he took it from her and poured a generous measure of the amber liquid into her coffee, the fragrance of the steam tickling her nostrils invitingly. 'Nonsense,' he told her. 'It'll counteract the river water, drink it up. It's best Irish whiskey too, so it's good for your soul as well as your spirits.' But I don't ' '-Oh, now don't tell me you never had a drop o' the hard stuff to keep the cold out,' he laughed. 'Come on, 7i Rowan, what do you suspect me of now?' , 'Nothing,' she denied, and picked up the coffee mug again. 'Thank you.' 'I'll join you.' He spiked his own drink as well and sipped it appreciatively. 'How is it?' Rowan drank some of the well-spiked coffee and felt the glow it made as it coursed through her warmly. 'Fine, thank you.' 'Good.' They were silent for some minutes while she drank more than half the coffee, feeling her spirits lift as he had promised. 'Better?' he asked, and she nodded. 'Yes, thank you.' She held the mug in her two hands while he looked at her, a curious brow arched above eyes that looked amused again. 'You're not afraid of me getting you drunk and then ?' His dark brows completed the sentence and Rowan flushed, not only from the effects of the whiskey and hot coffee. 'Must you always be so offensive?' she asked, her bravado partly induced by the drink, she realised. 'I beg your pardon.' He inclined his head in mock apology, then laughed. His gaze swept her from head to toe and, although the vast robe covered her like a shroud, she had never felt more vulnerable. 'If only Maxwell could see you now,' he taunted. 'I'm glad he can't,' Rowan said shortly. 'And I don't think it's very good-mannered of you to embarrass me like like you are.' 'By looking at you?' He laughed again. 'A cat may look at a king, so I've been told, so I presume a mere landlord may look at a ?' Again arched brows completed the sentence. 'A lady?' he suggested softly. 'I try to be,' Rowan retorted, 'though there are times when I find it very difficult.' 72 'Like now,' he suggested, but Rowan did not answer, and he studied her for a few moments over the top of his coffee mug, his eyes curious. 'I can't quite fit you into Laura O'Neil's crazy menage,' he dedared at last. 'Are you really her companion? It was companion you said, wasn't it?' 'I did,' Rowan admitted. 'That's my official designation.' His brows shot upwards again. 'And your unofficial one?' 'I don't I don't understand you.' She thought she understood him only too well, but she disliked the implication she thought she detected in the question. 'I think
you do,' he averred. 'Laura O'Neil has a reputation for taking in lame dogs and I'm quite sure you don't fit into that category, therefore she must have some other reason for having you there. You admit yourself that companion nonsense has no meaning so why are you there?' Rowan flushed, her left hand gripping the woollen robe close under her chin protectively. 'I don't really see that it's any concern of yours why I'm there, Mr. Doran, but since you ask, I am one of Mrs. O'Neil's lame dogs, as you choose to call them. I needed other employment and somewhere to live and Mrs. O'Neil provided both, though I suspect it was pity rather than necessity that prompted her action.' It was difficult to believe that she had said so much to him, of all people, and she bit on her lip, regretting it already. It was something that she had so far refused to face and now she had actually voiced it. 'Now why would she do a thing like that?' he asked. ' I don't know. Perhaps only because she's an old friend of my godfather, Abel Rigg.' She saw the surprise that flicked his expressive brows upwards again. 'Abel Rigg? He's your godfather?' 73 'Yes.' She looked at him curiously. 'Do you know him?' 'I met him once briefly when he was visiting the O'Neils years ago. He boxed my ears for cheeking him.' Rowan blinked at him. 'He boxed your ears?' He nodded, his eyes amused at the memory. 'I liked him,' he declared honestly, 'for all he made my head sing with the weight of his hand.' Rowan laughed, her eyes sparkling at the thought of this rather formidable man being chastised by her stocky little godfather. 'Oh, I'd love to have seen that,' she said gleefully. 'Abel's a wonderful old man and it sounds as if he always was.' 'You vicious little wretch!' he reproved her, then shook his head, the grey eyes above the thick rim of the mug suddenly gentler-looking. 'You should laugh more often,' he told her softly. 'I don't think I've even seen you smile before, it's quite a revelation.' Rowan put down what was left of her coffee, the heavy mug chattering lightly against the table top because her hands were trembling, all her old fears rising again at the intimacy of his tone. ' I think my things must be dry by now,' she said. 'Dry enough to walk home in anyway, especially as the sun's out now.' 'Of course they won't be,' he argued in a tone that' allowed no differing opinion. 'Bridie will let us know when they are.' He narrowed his eyes speculatively. 'Why were you out there in that mist. Rowan?' 'Walking, as you said,' Rowan said shortly, her chin at an angle that defied criticism. 'The mist wasn't really thick until I got nearer the river on the lower ground.' He shook his head. 'You and your walks,' he taunted, putting down his mug and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. 'Don't you ride?' 74 Rowan's green eyes dismissed the possibility with scorn. 'Everyone isn't in a position to indulge the more aristocratic pastimes, Mr. Doran, and I'm one of the ones who aren't.' 'Riding,' he argued quietly, 'is not an aristocratic pastime. Rowan, not these days, and unless I'm very much mistaken, your education was expensive enough to indude riding in the curriculum, so don't play the poor village maiden, it doesn't suit you.' I wasn't I ooh, you are insufferable!' 'Possibly,' he agreed calmly, "but I hate to see selfpity, especially in a young and beautiful woman. When you have so much you have no right to feel sorry for yourself.' 'I don't!' Rowan argued, and got to her feet. She walked to the high window at the end of the room, gathering the robe about her. It was a second or two before she heard him move and then he came and stood just behind her, dose enough for her to feel the rough tweed of his jacket snag against the woollen robe when he raised an arm. A gentle finger lifted the still damp tendrils of hair from her neck. 'If you want to ride,' he told her, 'I can lend you a very nice little bay mare. You'd get along well to-gether.' For a moment Rowan said nothing, struggling with the temptation to accept the offer, but she knew she must inevitably refuse. Acceptance of it would make her far too much in his debt and then there was the hurt it would give to Sean if she went, he would find it hard to forgive her that. Also she still did not trust Michael Doran. The fact that he had made the gesture did not automatically erase all those things she had been told about him. The way he neglected his tenants' welfare, the mistresses he had kept up here at the house and, worst of all in her eyes, the way he had taken away Sean's home. She turned, finding him disconcertingly dose, and clutched at the neck of the robe tightly. 'No, thank you, Mr. Doran.' For a moment he was silent, then a smile changed the rugged face again, but reached his eyes only as mockery. 'Maxwell wouldn't like it, is that the reason?' he guessed, and Rowan flushed uneasily. 'Sean wouldn't like it,' she agreed, 'but that isn't the only reason. � I just don't want to accept your offer, that's all, Mr. Doran.' 'I see.' The grey eyes darkened ominously and Rowan thought how different he looked when he was angry. It was a face over which expressions flitted as quickly as thoughts. 'My reputation's firmly established in your estimation and there's no redeeming it, is there?' Rowan did not answer, her eyes downcast, an odd feeling of pity in her heart, though why there should be she could not even guess. He looked at her in silence for several seconds, then turned on his heel and strode across the room to the door, his booted feet sounding heavily on the polished wood floor. 'I'll see if your things are dry,' he told her, 'then you can go.' He turned in the doorway, .the grey eyes still dark, and something in their depths that set Rowan's heart thudding erratically against her ribs. 'I won't offer to take you home,' he told her quietly, 'in case Maxwell gets the wrong idea.' 76