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say. It deserves to be said. Your Grace—” she started, but he cut her off.
    “Colster,” he interrupted quietly. “I think I like you calling me Colster. It reminds me that we aren’t friends.”
    “You can call me Miss Cameron.”
    His smile was genuine and quick. “ Touché .”
    She plowed on with the determination for which she was known. “Miranda meant little to you, and she has the right to be happy. I’m only apologizing because I know that a man withyour excessive pride and overbearing sense of consequence suffered greatly at being jilted.” There, let him chew on that.
    His smile hardened. “You’re right,” he agreed. “She meant nothing to me.”
    Charlotte’s sisterly defenses rose. “Then I am glad she married Alex. They were meant for each other.”
    He leaned back, his expression inscrutable. “That’s good because that is all they have.”
    “Alex is very capable of making money. You don’t control the world, Colster .”
    “I do in England, Miss Cameron. He’s not making money there.”
    Charlotte crossed her arms. “Well, we aren’t in England anymore, are we?”
    “We are,” he assured her. “The king’s reach certainly covers the Highlands.”
    He was so smug in his own sense of omnipotence. “Laird MacKenna may be of a different opinion,” she answered.
    “Then I shall set him straight,” was the curt answer, but Charlotte had caught the flicker of doubt in his half-hooded eyes.
    Suddenly, she understood. “You are on you way to meet Laird MacKenna. Why? He doesn’t like you. Not at all.”
    Instead of answering, he said, “If you are wise, Miss Cameron, you will turn on yourheels and go running back to London as quickly as possible.”
    “And miss this meeting? I think not.”
    Grimly, he warned, “Beware of involving yourself in business that is none of your concern.” He started to pull his hat down over his eyes again, but Charlotte’s curiosity had been whetted.
    “It is my concern, Your Grace,” she said. “You made it so when you accepted my hospitality for a ride in this coach and in return manhandled me—or is that some sort of medieval feudal right you were exercising?”
    His brows came together. “You have a sharp tongue, Miss Cameron.”
    “And a sharper wit,” she informed him.
    Was it her imagination, or, in spite of her insolence, did she see a ghost of a smile on his lips?
    She had. And with his humor, the stiffness seemed to leave him. He appraised her a moment before sitting forward, his manner changing. Without the earlier animosity, he asked, “Why are you visiting MacKenna?”
    “Because he invited me,” she said simply, and couldn’t resist adding, “and because you have made it very difficult for me to feel comfortable in London. I’m welcome on very few doorsteps. Which I can handle,” she hurried to assure him, “except that my friends the Seversons are also being forced to share my guilt. They have donenothing save extend the hospitality of their home to me and my sisters. In return, they have been practically shunned by polite society.”
    The line of his mouth flattened. “Not because of me. I’ve done nothing.”
    “You don’t have to. People are so anxious to please you they anticipate what they believe you want.”
    “I can’t control what people imagine—” he started, but was interrupted when the door in the roof slid open. Wind blew rain into the coach’s compartment. Caught up in the furies between herself and Colster, she’d forgotten about the storm outside.
    “We’ll be stopping,” Klem said. “The rain’s letting up, but the horses are spent.”
    Charlotte couldn’t hide her disappointment. “This morning you had hoped to reach Nathraichean by nightfall.”
    Klem frowned down at her. “This morning I did not expect such a storm. We’re done, miss. The horses and us have had enough. I have a cousin with a small inn not far from here by Loch Airigh. We’ll stay the night. It will also give us