Historical Hearts Romance Collection

by Sophia Wilson

  As a boy, Campbell Castle had seemed impossibly large to Blane, but now as a man who stood nearly twenty hands high and had a long stride and business in nearly every part of the countryside, it wasn't large at all. Which was why he was both surprised, yet not surprised, when he heard the familiar humming notes of a song.

  There was no doubt at all that it was her. With quiet footsteps, he crept deeper into the garden and followed the haunting sound of her voice, the humming that gradually became singing. When he finally saw her, he nearly stumbled over his feet.

  She sat on a low stool, washing her hair. She bent her head over a low bucket, baring her pale neck. An old and faded gray gown, already damp at the sleeves and hem, was draped over her small frame. Her long hair rippled wet and heavy from soapy water and hung down into the wide bucket. Silvery bubbles merrily danced down the heavy reddish-brown strands as she sang and soaped her hair.

  She was like a mirage.

  The wordless notes of her song conjured the old stories of Scotland that Una had told him as a child. Fae creatures darting over the moors, their teeth and claws glinting silver in the moonlight. Women of otherworldly beauty who rode the foaming waves of the sea with their arms held out to lure men to them. Love waiting in every meadow to pluck like so many spring flowers.

  She sang on, and he fell even more deeply under her spell. But that spell was nothing otherworldly, Blane knew that. His angel was simply the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And he’d been long without a lover. Beyond wanting to taste her flesh with mouth and hands, Blane also wanted to invite her to eat with him, to talk with him and tell him everything there was to know about her life.

  But he remembered how well it had gone the last time he'd snuck up on her.

  Cautiously, he cleared his throat. The singing stopped.

  Her body jerked in surprise, and her eyes searched quickly for him. When that green gaze found him, she stiffened, and she made to stand up but the heavy weight of her hair seemed to hold her fast to the stool. Annoyance flickered across her features but she didn’t give him the tongue lashing he expected.

  “My lord.”

  Had someone cautioned her to be more respectful to him?

  She greeted him with her head high, even though her hair still hung down in long ropes into the bucket. Soapy foam clung to her hair. Water dripped down her neck and into the fabric of her gown. Despite her mutinous expression, she looked wet and uncomfortable for him to see her there.

  Sympathetic unease prickled the skin over his arms. He didn’t want her to be discomfited and cold because of him. It was getting colder, and the approaching winds were enough to slice bitter cold through to the very marrow of a man. The longer she took to wash her hair, the more cold she would expose herself to.

  “Allow me?” He took a step toward her, and the second bucket of water near her feet. Its clean water reflected up the pale curve of her neck.

  She looked at him in distrust for a moment before giving her silent permission.

  What are you doing? His conscience warred with him as he took off his gloves and stuck them in his belt. The sweet scent from the soap already in her hair floated up to him, heather and oranges, as he quickly rinsed the dirt from his hands with some of the water from the clean bucket and then put his hands in her hair.

  If he’d thought smelling and seeing her intoxicated him… Her hair was like wet silk under his hands, cool from the wind and the well water. Very deliberately, he tried to focus only on getting her clean and not on all the ways he would love to get her dirty. Efficiently but gently, he finished soaping her hair, kneading her scalp and making sure every inch of the thick mass dipped into the water after. Then he took the bucket of clean water and slowly poured it over her head and washed away the soap.

  The whole time, she stayed silent under his touch, only moving her head this way and that for him to get at any lingering soap bubbles. Once her hair was clean and gleaming wet under the sunlight, he gently twisted it like a piece of cloth in the river until most of the water was gone. As a child, he’d sometimes helped Una like this when she was too tired to do it herself.

  With his heart beating fast from being near her and from touching her so intimately, Blane picked up a fold of clean cloth from a rock nearby and gently dried her hair, then wiped her damp face and the back of her neck. When he had no more excuses to touch her, he handed the cloth to her and stepped back.

  His body was sick with desire, and his breath came much too quickly for her not to hear it.

  She looked up at him, her gaze as thoughtful as it had been the morning they met. “Thank you,” she said.

  “It was my own pleasure.” Then he bowed low before her and took his leave from the garden.

  Blane didn’t stop walking until he was in his chambers. He stood with his body hard and aching, his breath rushing from his mouth like he’d just stormed a castle. Trembling, he stood with his forehead pressed against his closed chamber door and wished, to his everlasting regret, that he was a less honorable man.

  Chapter 3

  That night, Blane lay in his bed while the fire crackled behind the grate and the smell of fresh cut flowers sweetened his rooms. The angel had come again when he hadn’t been there to see her or talk with her. The touch of her delicate hands was everywhere he looked, from the bathwater—still miraculously hot—that had been waiting for him when he got back, his clothes that had been laid out on the bed, the sachet of dried herbs in his bureau of small clothes. It felt like she touched him even when he did not know it.

  Just like he’d touched her in the garden. Even now, he couldn’t believe he’d done it.

  That ill-advised touch, the memory of her heavy hair in his hands, bedeviled him and made it impossible for him to fall asleep.

  After too long tossing and turning in the sheets, he climbed from the bed with the excuse of tending to the fire. It was a cool night and, since he slept naked, he wanted the fire to stay as high as possible. After stoking the flames, he put the fire irons away and passed the window on his way to climb back into his bed and try once again for sleep. But, just outside his window, a slender shape making its way through the darkness by candlelight caught his eye.

  Who the devil?

  But it didn’t take Blane to realize it wasn’t a devil at all, quite the opposite. It was her. He’d never gotten dressed so fast and ran from his turret rooms so far in his life.

  He was still dragging on his heavy plaid, the only protection against the night chill, when he reached the field of grass just outside the castle and spotted her light moving steadily away. Blane had barely dragged on trews and boots, foregoing any small clothes in his haste. He took care to make as much noise as possible so as not to startle her. As he walked closer, he saw her look over her shoulder at him hurrying toward her. And, she kept walking.

  He smiled.

  "A good evening to you, lassie," he said when he caught up to her. Blane was breathing hard but trying not to show it ever so much.

  Her hair was dry now and braided into a thick rope at the base of her neck. The scent of heather and oranges drifted from the gleaming locks.

  "Good eve, my lord." She kept walking, the lantern raised high before her, looking only at him from the corners of her eyes without turning her head.

  "Am I so hideous that you cannae look at me straight on?" he asked.

  He smiled when his question startled her into a gasp.

  "Are you looking for empty compliments, my lord? You must know you are the bonniest man in the castle.” The shy creature who’d barely spoken to him in the garden was long gone. “If you come to me looking for pretty words about your pretty looks, you have come walking on the wrong night."

  The fire in her thrilled Blane's blood. But he felt a surge of victory when she turned to him to ask the question, her pale green eyes burning into him more than any fire could.

  "Not at all, my lady." Then he paused what he was going to say. "May I know your name?"

 
; She shook her head and kept walking. "And you chase after women whose names you don't know. I dinnae ken the heir to the Lairdship was so addlepated. You might as well be chasing ghosts."

  "Nay," he said with a smile, enjoying this game. "Only an angel."

  The quarter moon was high enough and the stars so bright that Blane wouldn't have needed her light to see the smile that curved her pretty mouth. But the golden lantern bathed her face in even more beauty and made her seem like a creature truly of another world, one he could not reach. But he wanted to reach her. Needed to. Even something as small as her name.

  "I am Blane," he offered with a wider smile, a pointed invitation to give her own name in return.

  He tucked his hands behind his back, aware of the coolness of the night washing over his bare chest and the stretch of his legs under his kilt. But it was nothing to him who had spent nights and early mornings with his father stretched out on the ground, running through the mud and snow, fighting in the thinnest possible clothes after traveling long journeys to beat back encroachers on their land. But this feeling, his heart beating wild in his chest with the object of his desire so very close, was very similar to those moments.

  She walked on for long moments, the sway of her at his side hypnotic and very welcome. Her light scent reached him again, oranges and heather and warm woman. They had walked far enough from the castle now, its turrets and battlements looming over them, but this path they took was a familiar one. As a boy, he’d roamed nearly every inch of the grounds surrounding the castle as well as a bit farther afield.

  “Annabel,” she said at last when they were within sight of a crumbling circle of stones he’d climbed in his youth. “’Tis my name.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Annabel.”

  At the pile of stones he was well familiar with, she put aside her lantern and, gathering her skirts in one hand, clambered up in the tallest one. Amazed, he watched her from the ground for a moment before easily doing the same.

  With the sliver of moon and starlight, the deep green landscape was easily visible, a beautiful ocean of grass and small trees rolling out toward the sea.

  "My family lives there," she pointed. "I've been given to Campbell Castle and I know my duty, but I miss them." Her clothes rustled as she twisted to look all around them, the breath leaving her on a sigh. "I come here sometimes to just look down on them and send them my prayers."

  Blane couldn't imagine leaving his family, but he'd done his duty enough to understand. Fighting in the border wars with and for his father. Sitting in on mediations between aggressive and opposing folk in the village, leaving his uncle be when he wanted to throw him from the castle and give his father some peace.

  "It makes me feel good to know they still have the land they worked so hard on for so long. I’m proud I could make that happen for them."

  This beautiful lass shouldn’t have had to give up her family simply for them to keep the place where they had lived and worked their whole lives, but some things couldn't be changed. And he liked the loyalty, the love, and determination to fulfill duty that sat well on her narrow shoulders.

  "They are proud of you, to be sure," he said.

  Her breath gusted again, but she said nothing more on the matter. "Now you know my reason to be here on such a night," she said. "What is yours?"

  "I think you already know. Dinnae pretend you are not the most beautiful lass in the castle." He brought back the same words she had flung at him earlier. "I would very much like to bring you flowers and walk you wherever you need to go, dark or light."

  The moonlight created silver of her features as she looked up at him, a faint smile on her pink lips. "You dinnae have to woo me, lairdling," she said. "If you want me, I'm already yours."

  He stared so long at her that she blushed and looked away. She was like no one else he'd ever met. With a trembling hand, he touched her flushing cheek. "Tell me."

  When she finally looked up at him, her soft smile was back. "The time I've been at Campbell Castle seems so very short when you are here for me to listen to and admire," she said. "And I like your pretty speech."

  He laughed, filled with a wild and sudden exhilaration. She actually wanted him. "If you let me, I'll happily give you all the pretty speech you can stand to listen to," he said.

  “Truly, you are the best thing Laird Alistair has ever created."

  “You have some pretty speech of your own,” Blane said in the midst of his own unexpected blush. She only laughed at him.

  Blane shook his head, unable to believe this prickly angel, this glorious Annabel, felt the same for him. He leaned in close to her.

  "May I kiss you?"

  Her cheek heated up once more beneath his tentative caress. "Please."

  Their lips touched. And, things would never be the same.

  Chapter 4

  Blane crept into the heart of the castle as silently as he could, breaths relaxed and even despite the galloping gladness in his blood. He took slow and careful steps, being mindful of not letting his boots make too much noise against the stone floors. Quietly, he climbed up the stairs to the above-stairs chambers. But his head was still in the clouds. Or more precisely, out on the moors with Annabel, and still in that magical moment when their lips had touched, and she confirmed without any single doubt that she was as drawn to Blane as he was to her.

  Her taste was like what he'd imagined heaven to be; her delicate touch a balm to his soul. And, God in heaven, she was beautiful.

  "What are you doing creeping about the castle so late?"

  His mother stood at the top of the stairs holding a candelabra aloft. She was fully dressed as if it were still full day and the light she carried glowed around her face, turning her aspect to gold. Blane winced. He must have been distracted indeed not to have seen the light she carried glowing from the top of the stairs.

  "I am not creeping," he said although he really wanted to ask her what was she doing walking the castle at this time of the night. "I was merely taking in the night air."

  "I see you were taking something in all right," his mother said. She stood with her back to the long hallway and the stairs leading from farther up in the castle, a higher vantage point that would have allowed her to see the moors and ancient formation of rocks he and Annabel had taken as their very own for the last hour or so. Her own rooms were on the same floor as Blane’s. The only rooms in this part of the castle were Duff’s and a few of the higher ranked servants.

  Davina must have been spying on him and Annabel.

  But had she done it deliberately?

  "Then why did you ask me the question if you already knew what I was doing?" he asked her.

  "I wanted to see if you were as much of a liar as the other men in your family." Her eyebrows rose, and she seemed to be trying to look combative, but she just looked hurt. Was there something else going on here that he knew nothing about?

  Lying men… "You mean Duff?"

  His mother flinched but did not look away. "Campbell men have strong appetites,” she said. “Satisfy them if you will, but know that you are meant for Effie, Blane, not to be wasted on a peasant. “No matter how pretty she is."

  Blane ignored his mother's spiteful comment with difficulty, clenching his teeth hard enough to make his jaw hurt. "I never agreed to marry Effie," he said. "If you have made that agreement in my stead then you were most...unwise."

  Although she tried to hide it, his mother was furious. But it was plain in every beautiful line of her face, in the tension of her fingers clenched tight around the stem of the candelabra.

  Blane wanted to walk away from her as he often did to his uncle whenever the man started in on his foolishness. But she was his lady mother and, despite all the things she did that he did not agree with, he had too much respect for Davina to turn his back on her.

  "I haven't made an official betrothal pact with Effie’s family if that is what you mean, my lord son." Blane was only "my lord son" to her when she was angry. "But you do
know that I have talked about it with her family, and they have agreed that you two would be a very good match."

  "Did you talk with her, too, because this is the first time we have occasion to speak on the matter with seriousness."

  "What woman in her right mind would refuse you?" She looked him up and down, and her eyes glittered in the light as if she were beholding a statue made entirely of gold, a statue that she owned.

  But Blane shook his head and allowed a bit of his mocking laughter through. "Not every woman is like you, mother."

  "I won't ask what you meant by that." She lowered the candelabra and sent a quick glance down the halls. "I am suddenly very tired, my lord son. I suspect an attack of the headache may be coming on."

  Blane bowed low and stepped back. "In that case, I will bid you a good night, my lady mother."

  She frowned mightily at him, and then turned away, grasping the length of her gown in one hand before clomping down the hallway, her back stiff and unyielding. Lady Davina must have been truly angry to walk away from the direction of her bed chamber. Blane mentally shrugged.

  He knew this would not be the last of the matter he would hear from her. But there was nothing to be done about it. He waited until she had disappeared around the corner before he continued his way up the stairs to his own chambers.

  In the privacy of his chambers, he stripped down to his skin and washed himself with the basin of cold water saved from the night before. The fire crackled behind the grate and lent some warmth to the room. Still, he shuddered from the cold when the sheets hit his bare skin.

  Blane lay on his back while the fire popped and sparked, his mind going over the events of the night.

  His mother had never made a secret of wanting him to marry Effie. Two years before, it had been the Balmoral lass, a young girl with bright red hair and malice in her eyes. She too had been much like his mother in her ambition to be with a Laird. Blane had counted himself fortunate that the lass had set her sights upon and caught another man, a well-landed baron. Though her new husband was not a laird, the lass had seemed satisfied enough at the wedding. And now, his mother was cultivating Effie to grow into the role of Blane’s new bride-to-be.