Chapter 20

Josselin never wanted to see Drew MacAdam again. Not after what he’d said to her yesterday. He was a nasty-mouthed, heavy-handed, swaggering cad, sticking his nose—and his lips—where they didn’t belong.

She should have slapped him for his ribald remark, and she told herself if she hadn’t been so overwrought by the events of the day, she would have.

But he’d bid her a swift, mocking farewell before she could gather her wits, and she’d only been able to stare after him in open-mouthed outrage.

She kicked a wooden block under the wheel of the beer wagon, then whipped out a rag, angrily scrubbing the plank of her makeshift counter and shooing a fly that was buzzing around the tap.

Then she forced herself to take a deep, settling breath. This morn she had to focus on the task at hand and forget about that wayward Highlander. With any luck, he’d moved on to Cockenzie or Leith or St. Andrews, miles from Musselburgh, and she’d be free of his brain-muddling distraction.

Taking Philipe’s instructions to heart and keen to distinguish herself by identifying and capturing a spy for the queen, Josselin had arrived before the players this morn, and as the first group approached, she scoured their ranks for suspicious characters.

’Twas only an hour before she received a tankard with three notches along the lip. Without blinking an eye, she filled the cup and pried loose the note affixed underneath. But when she turned to hand the brimming cup back to its owner, her gaze drifted past his head to the man grinning behind him, and she almost spilled the beer.

Collecting herself, she managed to successfully pass the tankard to her target. Then she faced the troublemaking Highlander, crossed her arms over her madly pounding heart, and gave him her fiercest scowl.

They spoke simultaneously.

“What the hell are ye doin’ here?” she demanded.

“Are ye stalkin’ me, lass?” he asked.

Her arms fell out of their fold. “Stalkin’ ye!” she spat, brusquely snatching away the next customer’s tankard. “Don’t be a swollen-headed arse.”

“’Tis the thimble I promised ye, isn’t it?” His eyes twinkled with mischief. “Ye didn’t have to come after me for it, darlin’. I’d have found a way to—”

“Please!” she scoffed, waving the tankard at him. “Do ye think I’d drive a beer wagon all the way from Edinburgh to Musselburgh for a paltry thimble?”

“Well, if ye didn’t come for the thimble, then ye must have come to see me,” he concluded with a grin.

The curious bystanders, who’d been watching their discourse with interest, murmured in agreement and turned to see her response.

Giving the smug cad a long, withering glare, she silently counted to three.

The man whose tankard she held broke the silence. “Pardon me, but could I have my—”

“Look. Highlander,” she bit out, punctuating her words with jabs of the tankard. “I’m runnin’ a beer wagon. I didn’t come for the bloody thimble. And I certainly didn’t come for ye. Just because we shared a kiss or two—”

“Three,” he corrected.

“Fine. Three.”

“Ye shared three kisses?” one of the crowd asked.

She lowered the tankard. “It doesn’t matter how many kisses—”

“In some parts o’ the Highlands,” another onlooker said, “a kiss is as good as a betrothal, and three kisses—”

“Ach, for the love o’ Saint Peter!” she said, throwing up her hands and glaring at the crowd. “Can ye not mind your own affairs? This isn’t the Highlands, and I’m not his damned betrothed. Aye, I kissed him thrice. But I’ll bloody well ne’er do it again.”

There was a long silence, and Josselin lifted her chin, satisfied her point had been made.

Then someone from the back of the crowd said, “Five shillin’s says he gets a fourth kiss,” and the air was suddenly filled with counter wagers.

Josselin’s jaw dropped in utter amazement. She’d never seen a mob so eager to gamble as the men who attended golf matches. And they seemed willing to wager on almost anything.

A fourth kiss? Were they mad? Couldn’t they see how she despised Drew MacAdam? Marry, she found the man so despicable that she could hardly breathe properly in his presence.

He caught her eye then, and to her surprise he gave her a sheepish smile, as if apologizing for the crowd’s behavior. Flustered, she turned away to fill the empty tankard.

By the time she finished the task and gave the man his beer, most of the horde had become distracted by an arriving golfer and had wandered off, already wagering on the outcome of the game.

But Drew was still standing at the counter. He was frowning down at an unfolded scrap of paper in his hands.

Suddenly, Josselin’s heart slammed against her ribs. She slipped her thumb into the hidden pocket of her skirt. The spy’s missive wasn’t there. Hell, she’d never tucked it away. She hadn’t had a chance. She’d gotten distracted by…

The Highlander looked up and caught her eye.

She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she detected a grim cast to his normally mocking gaze.

Panicked, she snatched the note from him.

“What the devil do ye think ye’re doin’?” she demanded, so mortified that her hands were shaking as she folded the missive and tucked it into the top of her bodice.

“Just returnin’ your note.”

“Ye weren’t returnin’ it. Ye were readin’ it.”

He snorted. “Ye know Highlanders can’t read.”

“Then how did ye know ’twas mine?”

He shrugged. “I saw ye drop it.”

Flustered by her own carelessness, she blurted out, “Well, maybe ye shouldn’t be watchin’ my every move.”

“And maybe ye should hold more tightly to your love letters.”

She stiffened. If he couldn’t read, how did he know ’twas a love letter? She glanced up, meeting his eyes.

In an instant, his grin returned. “’Tis the second one ye’ve dropped at my feet,” he teased.

But Josselin was almost certain that in that split-second before he smiled, she’d seen something entirely different in his gaze.

Something all too perceptive.