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Aye. The duke abraded her worse than scraping her naked bottom upon splintered wood.

Hunching lower in the blankets’ folds, Berget offered a sympathetic smile.

Marjorie’s frustration must’ve shown in her expression despite her efforts to appear unperturbed.

Trentwick Castle cannot be much farther. It cannot. Marjorie hoped as she clamped her teeth against another shiver and burrowed into the furs pulled to her ears.

This gathering would be the first time the feuding Kennedys and Buchannans had marked Hogmanay together in over three decades. Roxdale’s father had impregnated Graeme’s aunt, and Gordan Buchannan had been forced to marry Winifred Kennedy at blade point. She’d been as reluctant a participant as the old duke.

According to Camden, family lore claimed his aunt had wept copiously throughout the ceremony and, all the while, the fifth duke had vehemently vowed he’d never bedded the lass. She’d died a mere month after giving birth to Roxdale—some said from a broken heart.

Roxdale’s strong resemblance to his sire—the entire ducal lineage, in truth—refuted the old duke’s adamant claims that he hadn’t fathered the bairn.

Henceforth, the families had avoided each other. Until now.

And she was to blame, in part.

Blast her interference and attempts at peacemaking.

Marjorie had encouraged Graeme to invite Roxdale to the cèilidh festival last August. Yes, and look where your insistence has landed you? she scolded herself. Freezing, dreading the upcoming week, and forced to be gracious to their brusque, curt host who’d soundly insulted her the last time she’d seen him.

Nonetheless, in recent months, Graeme and Roxdale had decided to put past offenses behind them and, as the former laird’s widow, Marjorie felt it her duty to attend the house party. Even though Roxdale’s behavior when they’d last met was nothing short of appalling.

She winced slightly at the offending memory, seeing that day as clearly in her mind as if it had been yesterday. She closed her eyes to block out the intrusive recollection, but to no avail.

Cora and Elana, their little cheeks stuffed squirrel-like full of clootie dumpling, had giggled hysterically while they talked, causing a spray of crumbs to fly forth onto the table. They’d never been deliberately ill-behaved before. Apologizing to Roxdale, Marjorie couldn’t hide her dismay and mortification.

Eyebrows arched in a superior fashion, he’d sternly criticized her daughters’ table manners before she had a chance to gently correct them. It hadn’t been his place to admonish the girls. His cold disapproval meted out in clipped, critical tones had reduced Cora and Elana to tears.

Nor had it been his place to reprove her and remark on her shortcomings as a mother. Oooh, even now, her blood heated. He’d all but implied she was an empty-headed nincompoop incapable of properly raising her daughters.

It only happened rarely, but Marjorie had lost her temper, giving credence to redheads’ reputations for having fiery temperaments. Fury goading her outrage, she’d whispered in his ear in similarly starchy syllables as his own precisely what he could do with his opinions and admonitions.

Her suggestion may have contained a reference regarding what cavity into which he could stuff his handsome, arrogant head. And perhaps another reference to said head being so inflated with self-importance and self-righteousness it wouldn’t fit in said cavity.

She might’ve also asserted he wasn’t so different from the other ignoble blackguards who’d held the title before him, and she’d been grossly misguided in badgering Graeme to invite him to the celebration.

His features chiseled from granite, Roxdale’s hazel eyes had gone cold as steel. Wordlessly, he’d risen, sweeping a condescending gaze over Marjorie and her daughters. He took her measure, inch by insolent inch. Given the snide tilt of his lips, he’d found her wanting.

One of his raven brows had shied upward, just this side of contemptuous, and she’d balled her fists and bitten her tongue to refrain from telling him in front of her daughters to bugger himself. Stiff-shouldered, his anger and derision palpable, he’d strode away, his strapping legs moving with lithe grace that a man his size should not possess.

And a woman as peeved at him as she was had absolutely no business noticing.

Later, Marjorie had learned Cora and Elana had been mimicking the antics of a pair of rascally clan Buchannan lads who were sitting behind her and the duke. Nevertheless, the girls washed dishes for a week for their discourtesy.

She’d contemplated requiring them to write Roxdale notes of apology. But then Roxdale’s proud, angular features arranged into a derisive mien sprang to mind, and instead, she itched to slap the superior smirk off his lovely, sculpted mouth.

Lovely, sculpted mouth?

Had she gone mad?

No. No. That was not what Marjorie meant at all. His smug mouth. Yes, indeed. Smug and seductive as sin.

Another unwanted memory of that day played around in her mind: when the cèilidh dancing had commenced in the evening.

Even now, humiliation scorched her cold cheeks at the unwelcome recollection. Her face probably glowed like candied apples. Thank God the coldness inside the coach could be blamed for the high color.

She slid Berget a covert glance, gratified to discover her sister-in-law had closed her eyes once more. Poor, exhausted dear. She must be wholly done in due to traveling so many days on end.