The Soldier's Rebel Lover

‘What do you mean, Mr Urquhart?’

‘It’s Finlay.’ Glancing over his shoulder, he caught her hand and pulled her into the shelter of the stable door, out of sight of prying eyes. ‘I can understand why you don’t want your brother to know anything about your past. I have promised to keep that between us, and I keep my promises. But what I don’t understand, my fair former partisan, is why you’re so determined to hide your true self behind a demure facade. What are you trying to conceal?’

If he had not been watching her so closely he would have missed the flicker of fear in her eyes. It was quickly masked. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr Urquhart.’

‘Finlay.’

She closed the distance between them to whisper in his ear, ‘I am not concealing anything, Finlay. I assure you.’

‘No?’ Her hair tickled his cheek. Her smile was beguiling. Her eyes gleamed. Not a trace of the demure lady now; this woman made his blood heat. She made him lose his train of thought, distracting him with the proximity of that mouth, the memory of that kiss this morning.

But this was business, life-and-death business, not pleasure. He stepped away from temptation. ‘As my friend Jack is wont to say, “I’ll believe you, thousands wouldn’t.”’

Chapter Four

Isabella peeled an orange and carefully separated it into segments. Xavier had breakfasted hours ago, setting off on his business trip to Pamplona before the sun had risen. Across the large, ornately laid table in the breakfast room, Finlay had finished his substantial selection of ham, cheese and bread, and was taking a second cup of coffee. He was chatting to Consuela about the latest French fashions. Isabella knew nothing about such things, and so could not tell if he was extremely knowledgeable or merely extremely plausible. Her sister-in-law was more animated than Isabella had ever seen her. Several times she had broken into a ripple of girlish laughter. Now, she was reading him a mock lecture, wagging her pretty beringed finger at him and fluttering her long lashes. Consuela never teased Xavier like this, but then Xavier, though handsome, had not a fraction of Finlay’s charm and even less interest than Isabella in women’s fripperies.

She ate a piece of her orange. The fruit was at its best at this time of year, succulently sweet, rather like Consuela. And that, Isabella reprimanded herself, was a shrewish remark quite unworthy of her.

She slanted a look at Finlay. He caught her eye and flashed her a smile. She looked down at her plate. It had seemed complicit, that smile. As if they had a secret. As if they knew something Consuela did not. A flutter of nerves sent her back to her coffee cup. She took a reviving sip, reminding herself that Finlay had no grounds for whatever suspicions he was nurturing. If he challenged her again about playing the demure lady, she would invoke the need to behave as her brother expected her to while under his roof. And in the meantime, she would pursue her own suspicions regarding him.

‘Xavier tells me that you are taking Mr Urquhart on a tour of the wine cellars,’ Consuela said, getting to her feet. ‘That was generous of you. They are horrible, Mr Urquhart, cold and I am sure swarming with rats. It is no wonder my husband is reluctant to go down there. I only wonder that Isabella is so fond of them. Now you will excuse me, if you please. I must go and tend to my son.’

‘So your brother is uncomfortable in his own wine cellars,’ Finlay said, closing the door behind Consuela. ‘That explains why he was so easily persuaded to allow his sister to spend time in the company of a mere wine merchant.’

‘It is not the dark or the rats Xavier fears, it is the fact that the cellars are so far underground. He has never liked them.’

‘And yet you, according to the lovely Señora Romero, are very fond of them.’

‘I don’t share my brother’s temperament. I have been wondering, Mr Urquhart—Finlay—what it was that made you turn to the trading of wine, when you left the army?’

‘It is a lucrative business. As a canny Scot, that was reason enough.’

‘With the right contacts I am sure that it is indeed lucrative. I wonder, you see, since you told me that you had not been home to England—I beg your pardon, Scotland—for so many years, I wonder how you have managed to establish sufficient customers so quickly.’

Isabella took a sip of coffee, but kept her eyes on Finlay. Did his eyes flicker? Did his fingers tighten on his cup? She could not be sure.

‘I’m wondering,’ he replied, ‘if it is any of your business. Are you worried that I’ll sell your brother’s wine to someone who has not the palate to tell the difference between your fine Rioja and the stuff they drink from the barrel in the village bodegas? Are you thinking I should test the colour of a man’s blood before I sell to him? Blue—yes, you can have as much as you like. Red—no, sorry, laddie, not good enough.’