Page 9 of Highland Seduction

“With my enemies? Aye.”

“Catlin said ye’re kind.”

“I am.”

“Then be kind to me.”

They’d reached the ridge, and no matter how many times Ainsley saw it, the sight stole her breath. Rolling hills wrapped around a stream that could carry a horse away when the current was strong. From here, though, it appeared harmless.

“I find that I cannae,” she admitted.

“’Twould better serve our purpose.”

“Which is?”

“To have this marriage annulled.”

Ainsley looked more closely at this husband of hers. The bruise on his face looked angrier this morn than it had last eve. It was turning different colors too. But the other side of his face? ’Twas as perfectly formed as any man’s. Much to her dismay.

“How do ye propose such a thing?” In this, at least, she was ready to listen.

“I will head to Berwick, find Marta and Ian, and then appeal to the king for an annulment on grounds that there is no feud if the missing couple is no’, indeed missing.”

“Tor,” she said, testing his name after she finished laughing. “That is the most absurd plan I’ve ever heard in my life. When ye said we would no’ stay married, that is what ye intended?”

“Ye have a better plan?”

“Nay,” she admitted. “I do no’. I’ve thought on it all night and could no’ imagine how ye believed such a thing possible, to dissolve our marriage. No’ when the king himself decreed it.”

“’Tis settled, then. My plan it is.”

“’Tis no’ settled. None know if Ian and Marta are even alive, nor headed toward Berwick. And if they are, how will we appeal to the king? Or convince him the feud is ended?”

“Was no’ a search party being sent on the road to Berwick? If Marta indeed has an aunt there, and Royce seems to believe she does, and they were seen heading in the direction . . .” He shrugged. “I will go in the search party’s stead. And if the couple that was spotted heading that way is truly Marta and Ian, we’re closer to ending the feud than we’ve been in years. No?”

“Perhaps,” she hedged. “There are many variables.”

“Ainsley . . . may I call ye Ainsley, as ye’re my wife?” The smirk on his face at the question he had no intention for her to answer irritated her. “I venture my plan is a better one than yers, but if ye’ve one to share, please, do so.”

He circled his mount toward her, now facing the opposite direction. Edging closer to her than she would like, he smiled. “Unless, of course, ye wish to remain married. I’d no’ choose a Shaw, of course. But if one were to be forced upon me, I suppose it would be preferable to be one as comely as ye.”

His voice lowered during that last bit, and if she believed his words at all, Ainsley might find herself affected. She certainly had been the eve before, especially before she learned the man would become her husband. “That,” she informed him, “is the least desirable plan of all. So while I think yers is lacking, I will admit to having little hope for an annulment of this marriage. Some hope, I suppose, is better than none at all.”

“’Tis settled, then. I will leave at once for Berwick.”

“We will leave at once for Berwick,” she corrected.

“Nay, lass. Ye’ll no’ be coming with me. I would get there as quickly as possible lest we lose the trail the healer has given us.”

She would no sooner allow her fate to be placed in this man’s hands than she would marry him at all. But since the deed was done . . . “I am coming with ye.”

“Nay, ye’re no’.”

“Why?”

That seemed to surprise him. “Why?”

“Indeed. Why, if ’tis my fate as well as yers?”