How to Train Your Highlander

by Christy English

  Once again, his mother proved right. Harry shimmied down the trellis, avoiding as many rose blooms as he might, ending up on the ground in a silent crouch. Moving swiftly on the balls of his feet, he flanked the girl so as not to startle her and approached her from the front, so that she might see him coming and hopefully stab neither him nor herself in the ankle.

  She did not hear him, but she saw him clearly in the moonlight. For some strange reason of her own, she did not lower her blade. She held it in a defensive position and called out, keeping her voice low enough not to wake the house, “Who are you? Reveal yourself at once and I will not run you through.”

  Harry could not help himself. He laughed at that, even as he watched the moonlight gleam on the keen edge of her sword. He knew he should keep his eyes on her weapon, but instead he found himself drawn to the way the light fell on her golden curls, turning them silver.

  “It’s only Harry,” he said.

  “From the stables?” she asked, suspicious. The sword, the very one she must have raised against Grathton in Hyde Park, was still in her hand.

  “The same.”

  He stepped close and turned his head, so that she might see his profile in the dim light. She smiled then and lowered her weapon.

  “And what are you doing wandering about in the roses in the middle of the night?”

  “I might ask you the same question,” he answered, smiling in spite of himself. A duke did not smile so openly, but this once, he might make an exception, as there was no one nearby to see him do it save two cats, who would not tell, and a Scottish girl, who had no idea who he was.

  “I was practicing with Fireheart,” she said.

  “Is that your imaginary friend?” Harry heard the condescension in his voice and wondered where it had come from. Perhaps he was using it to defend himself against the curve of her cheek, where one curl rested—a curl he wanted to tuck back among its fellows if he were free to touch her. Which, of course, he was not.

  She gave him a glower and tossed the great sword into her left hand and then back again. “No,” she said. “Fireheart is my blade.”

  Now that he was closer, the sight of a blade in her hand made his body harden, and the sound of the word blade on her tongue made the situation worse. He wished to God he had never come down there.

  “Might you put that sword away?” he asked.

  “I might,” she said. “Why are you wandering through the rosebushes in the middle of the night?”

  “I came out to stop you from stabbing yourself.”

  She laughed at that and slid the long blade into a leather sheath that clearly had been specially made for it. She laid the sword and sheath safely on a nearby bench. The night had grown cooler, but she did not seem to notice, even in her low-cut gown and her cap sleeves. Clearly she had not changed since dinner.

  A woman, alone in the moonlight, wearing cream silk and brandishing a sword.

  Harry swallowed hard. He really should come down to dinner once while the Scots were in residence.

  She made no move to leave and did not seem at all concerned that she was alone with a man she barely knew. Of course, the entire household was within shouting distance, but Mary Elizabeth did not seem to feel the need to call for them, or to be aware that there might ever be such a need. He wondered how many milksops she had known, that no man had ever tried to steal a kiss from her in the moonlight.

  “Why are you not spoken for?” he asked instead.

  Mary Elizabeth did not take offense, as any other girl might have done, nor did she seek to avoid the question. She looked pensive, a shadow crossing over the maple of her eyes that was not a trick of the feeble light. She spoke in a level tone, as if she was discussing the weather, but somehow Harry knew that the subject was a painful one.

  “The men in Edinburgh were afraid of me,” she said at last.

  “And in London?” he asked, forcing himself to swallow hard to maintain his dignity. He knew that, even in the guise of a stable boy, he could not touch her. No matter how soft her lips looked, no matter that the lower one was a bit fuller than the one above it and fairly called for a man’s teeth to bite it.

  Especially then.

  “They liked me well enough,” she said. “But then, Englishmen are not known for their good sense.”

  She looked at him and seemed to remember that he was English. “Begging your pardon.”

  If Harry had ever heard of a well-born girl apologizing to a stable hand, he would not have believed it. And here was this lady—for a lady she was—apologizing for a slur on his countrymen. He found that the longer he stood in her presence, the better he liked this Highlander. Sadly, that liking did not stop him from wanting her, which was a nuisance. Still, he could not bring himself to walk away.

  “If Scots were afraid of you, I’ve no doubt that Englishmen were as well.”

  She smiled a little then, and he felt his heart seize, as if he had been brushed by lightning. Not struck by it, for that would kill him. He felt instead as if lightning had come to hit the ground close beside him, so that he could feel the heat of it and smell the sulfur in the air. Harry blinked as if to clear his vision, but he was afraid that his sight had never been so clear.

  “Lowlanders and Englishmen bear a good deal in common,” she said. “Still, the men in either place were too afraid to court me openly, which is just as well. For I am not the marrying kind.”

  In spite of all his good intentions, Harry found himself taking two steps forward. Perhaps it was the moonlight playing havoc with his wits. Perhaps it was the fact that the girl barely seemed to notice him at all. Under most circumstances, he would thank his stars if a woman did not notice him, in the moonlight or otherwise. But for some reason, tonight, he wanted this woman’s regard.

  Though he was standing within arm’s reach of her, Mary Elizabeth did not flinch nor did she step away. She smiled at him, a little bemused but completely unafraid. No attack of missish vapors assailed her, no fit of nerves made her back off. She simply watched him as if he were Sampson, getting up to some antics she had never seen before.

  “No man ever tried to kiss you in the moonlight?” he asked at last.

  She laughed a little then, while the cats watched from their perch on the low garden wall. Her laughter was as sultry as her voice. It was her laughter that did him in.

  “Every man I’ve ever met is too scared to kiss me anywhere,” she said.

  Harry thought he heard a note of longing in her tone that was not completely coated over with dismissal. It was that longing that brought him to take the last step forward and close the gap between them.

  “I’m not,” Harry said, and kissed her.

  Six

  Mary Elizabeth could not believe her senses, but the stable boy’s lips were on hers.

  At first, she thought only of defense and reached for the dirk she had tucked away in her garter, nestled close to her thigh. But even as she reached for it, she felt a sudden warmth spreading through her limbs, as if she were relaxing in a hot bath after a long day’s hunt. For some reason, she did not respond to this kiss as she would to an attack. His lips were soft against hers, not demanding at all. He seemed to be asking a question, a question she did not know the answer to.

  But she wanted to find out.

  Harry opened his mouth over hers, and his tongue traced the line of her lips gingerly, as if he feared to startle her. At first, Mary Elizabeth was not certain what he was about, but the warm well-being was still filling her senses, and she relaxed into it, wanting to see where it would take her.

  It took her one step closer to her stable boy, and into his arms.

  Harry’s arms were around her, and she forgot the roles they were born to play, who in the eyes of God and Society they were supposed to be. The thought of how badly she was behaving flickered somewhere along the edge of her brain, only
to be ignored as she opened her mouth to take his tongue into it.

  He shuddered then, like a man possessed, and clutched her close, only to relax his grip almost at once, just when she would have drawn the dagger from her thigh. Harry seemed able to read her moods, for though his tongue danced with hers as her sword had danced alone only minutes before, he did not take any other liberties. She found that she loved the kiss and wished it might go on forever. Of course, a girl needed to breathe. She discovered this as, to her disappointment, Harry pulled away.

  “You are a hellion,” he murmured, as if the term were an endearment, as if he offered her the highest compliment allowed a lady. But the word was like a cold bath in place of the warm one, like a blow delivered to her sternum. Mary Elizabeth did not think but stepped on his toes even as she drew a dagger from the gathered silk flounce at the small of her back.

  He let her go at once, but she felt her anger rising anyway, as if her anger might assuage the pain in her heart, a flash tide of humiliation and horror at herself and at him—at herself for trusting him, and at him for trampling that trust and for throwing a lovely moment back in her face with an epithet. She had heard that word one too many times from the gossips in London. She would be damned if she would stand by meekly and hear it from him.

  “I’ll thank you never to say that word in my presence again.”

  Harry stood staring at her as if he had been poleaxed. Mary Elizabeth stepped back and raised her dagger higher when he tried to catch her arm.

  “This hellion might have put a knife between your ribs, but did not. I’ll thank you to remember that when you go among the English, telling tales.”

  He drew himself up to his full height. “Mary Elizabeth, I will never speak of this to another.”

  “Do as you please,” she said. “But never use my name again.”

  She moved to pick up her sword, keeping her eyes on him. He did not move toward her, and she felt her hurt and humiliation keenly, but she swallowed them down. They were bitter medicine.

  “If you touch me again, you’ll feel the taste of my steel.”

  “Mary Elizabeth—”

  She glared at him.

  “Miss. Please. Do not leave like this.”

  “I am, and I will. It serves me right for trusting an Englishman.”

  She turned her back on him so that he would not see the tears that had come into her eyes. There were only two of them, and she swallowed them down. She walked back to the house, a blade in each hand. She did not look back.

  When she returned to her room, Mary Elizabeth did not brood about with a cup of tea as she was tempted to, but went straight to bed. As annoyed as she was, she managed to sleep. When anger and a sore heart threatened to break her reason and her good sense, she reminded herself that she was among the English, and that she should not indulge herself in too many moments of anger where Southerners were concerned. And that included stable boys who had almost become her friend.

  * * *

  She woke to an early dawn. The light of the rising sun slanted through her second-story windows and she rose at once and dressed in breeches. She did not go seeking Harry to join her on a ride, as she had planned to do before they met in the dark the evening before. Instead, she woke Mrs. Prudence from a sound slumber and got her dressed in breeches, too.

  “A lady does not wear men’s attire,” her companion said.

  Mary Elizabeth was not in the mood to argue, that morning or ever. But that particular day she wanted only to be out riding as early as humanly possible, and she did not want to bring a groom with her. Which meant Mrs. Prudence was coming along, will she or nill she.

  For as much as she wanted a ride, Mary Elizabeth would not go down to the stables alone. If she saw Harry—and she had never yet been in the stables without him lurking about in his annoying, silent manner—she might strike him. And that would be unacceptable. It was wrong to hit a man, for he, in all honor, could not hit back. Assuming the bounder had any honor.

  Mary Elizabeth sniffed, as she had so often seen Mrs. Prudence do. As a method of expressing displeasure, Mary favored her dirk.

  * * *

  Harry felt like a cad, a bounder, and a fool. He haunted the stables the next morning from the crack of dawn, for he could not sleep and he could not think. All he saw before him when he closed his eyes was the sweet face of Mary Elizabeth before he hurt her.

  He had been fool enough to kiss the girl, a debutante who was a guest under his roof. No matter that she did not know who he was. He knew. And Harry knew that he was a man of thirty, not some ne’er-do-well or young blood of eighteen with sap rising. He had enough sense to maintain his dignity, and the dignity of the duchy, without traipsing about in the moonlight with marriageable girls. No matter how beautiful that girl might be.

  Had they been caught, scandal and a hasty marriage would have been the best he could have hoped for. The worst would have been the censure of his mother.

  God help him.

  Harry was well into the fun of berating himself as he curried his favorite mare, Isolde, when his concentration was broken like so much porcelain on a tile floor. He lost whatever thought might have filtered through his mind in that moment, for he saw the Scottish girl.

  She was walking toward the stables, as bold as a bishop, as if she were ready to conquer the world and every man in it. This early in the morning, she wielded no blade, but she was wearing breeches.

  Had he not been a duke, and a man in control of himself, he might have swallowed his tongue. As it was, he simply stared.

  She ignored him, as any miffed lady might. Harry forced his gaze away from the beauty of her perfectly rounded derriere and noticed for the first time that her governess was with her. The staid lady wore glasses, but she had forgone the widow’s cap. She also sported breeches and looked quite fine in them. Of course, Harry’s gaze did not stay on her long, but turned back to Mary Elizabeth as if drawn by a lodestone.

  She did not deign to notice him or to acknowledge his presence at all. She smiled at Charlie, the youngest groom, but Charlie was too nervous to do more than bow in her general direction and run and hide from the glory of her thighs in those breeches. The breeches were not even particularly tight, but Harry could see that no man would approach her while she was wearing them.

  Before she lost her temper or got offended anew, Harry stepped up. As he was the lord of this particular demesne, it fell to him to stand in for his grooms and underlings in this regard. Also, he did not approve of any other man speaking to her when she was in such dishabille.

  “Miss,” he said, still uncertain of her last name. “Might we help you to saddle a horse?”

  She stood looking down her pert nose at him as if he were a bug on the tip of her boot. She raised one brow imperiously, reminding him of his mother, which almost made him laugh. He had the good fortune to restrain himself, however, for laughter at that juncture would only have made matters worse between them. He already had a great deal of ground to recover.

  Her companion seemed oblivious to the tension between them and thanked him prettily. He nodded to Charlie, who saddled a roan mare. Mary Elizabeth frowned at the sidesaddle.

  “My companion and I will ride astride,” she said. She turned her gaze on Harry. “As long as there is no objection.”

  Charlie blanched to hear his duke spoken to with such rude disregard, but Harry found himself smiling. “No objection at all, my lady.”

  She sniffed, and her companion looked at her curiously. It was not like Mary Elizabeth to be rude, and he knew it. No doubt her governess wondered why.

  “I am no one’s lady, I thank God,” she said. “Once you have saddled my friend’s horse with something that won’t tip her into the dust, you can saddle Sampson over there for me.”

  The silence in the stables became even thicker as the men hiding behind bales of hay and behi
nd stall doors stared at her anew. For the first time, her mode of dress was second in their minds to the fact that she wanted to ride a killer.

  “Miss,” Harry said, speaking calmly as Charlie resaddled Buttercup, “I am afraid that Sampson is unavailable.”

  She smiled then, and he saw the light of challenge in her eyes and knew that she did not smile at him but at the great beast, who, upon hearing his name, had poked his head over the door of his stall.

  “Sampson and I get along well enough,” she said.

  Mary Elizabeth lowered her voice and stepped close to Harry so that no one else might hear. His body tightened at her nearness, and he had to remind himself firmly that, not only was he a gentleman, but there were multiple other people present. Not to mention the horses. Harry took a deep breath and tried to focus on her words, finding himself instead engulfed in the soft flowered scent of her skin.

  “A ride on Sampson is my price,” she said.

  “Your price for what?”

  “For forgiving you for last night.”

  “You will forgive me for what?” he asked, wondering if she had rewritten history and had forgotten that though he had kissed her, she had also kissed him back.

  “For calling me names.”

  “I only called you one name, if you recall.”

  Her face darkened, and Harry regretted his blithe response.

  He could not seem to step fairly with this girl, even if he tried. And he was not used to trying, for anyone. “All right,” he said at last, conceding. “I am sorry to have offended you. Heartily sorry. But you cannot ride Sampson.”