“Aye, and you have lost whatever good sense you had left,” Boyd said. “Or we would not be having this conversation.”
Honoria glared at her brother.
“As I’ve said, she saved my life,” Lash said more forcefully. “I owe her a great debt.”
“And how did she do that, gypsy?” Callum demanded. “How did she save your life?”
“In your bed, Highlander.”
Hugh burst into laughter.
Callum’s reaction was instant. Honoria cried out in warning as her brother shot forward, but before his fist connected with Lash, Duncan and Kieran surged ahead and grabbed him by the arms, hauling him back.
Honoria groaned, casting Lash an aggrieved look. “Did you have to go and say something like that?”
“Christ, Ruthven. You’ve got balls,” Hugh remarked. He turned towards the restrained Callum. “What the Rom meant, brother, was that he has been occupying your bed while he recovered.”
“She nursed him back to healthwith herbs, Callum,” Isla said with a huff. “You men are such hotheads! And it’s not Mr. Ruthven’s fault the very devil possesses his half-brother.”
“Half-brother?” Gregor whistled.
“Rom?” Adair demanded.
Lash sighed.
“This seems like a story best heard over a drink, I think,” Duncan said.
“Aye, I want an explanation from the gypsy,” Adair growled.
“Leave the man alone,” Hugh said, stepping forward. All eyes turned to him. “You left me in charge, Adair. If you take issue with anything that happened while you were gone, you can take it up with me.”
“We will,” Adair snapped. “I should have never left you in charge.”
“Nay,” Hugh said, shaking his head. “I am as capable of looking after our sisters as you are.”
The two brothers glared at each other.
“Adair, let it go,” Duncan said, his voice low. “As much as what happened pains me, our little brother took care of it.”
“Should have taken the lasses with us,” Boyd murmured. “At least then we could’ve contained whatever trouble they stirred.”
“Och,nowyou want to take me with you,” Honoria’s voice dripped with acid. She cast her brother a dark look. “If I’d known stirring up trouble while you were away was all it would take for you to take me to Edinburgh, I’d have done so long ago.”
Boyd rolled his eyes in response.
“You look healed enough to me,” Callum said to Lash, eyeing him with suspicion. “Why didn’t you leave?”
“I can guess the reason,” Kieran suggested, his gaze flicking between Lash and Honoria.
Honoria’s heart somersaulted in her chest. Her gaze flicked over each of her brothers’ stony faces, their rigid composure and the thin pull of their lips. Panic set in. If her brothers believed there was any connection between her and Lash, they would send him away like they did Patrick.
She needed to come up with a way to convince them Lash was the perfect man for . . .
Honoria came up short. The perfect man for . . . ?
She cast Lash a sidelong glance. Even with the grim set of his jaw, the fury that hadn’t entirely left his eyes, and the stubborn set of his shoulders, she wanted him to stay.
Aye, she had to convince her brothers, and Lash, he was the perfect man.
