Just then she saw a glint among the rocks, and even thought she saw movement. Gasping, startled, she paused—then told herself the gleam came from the varieties of rock crystal so common in the area. The cliffs, she was sure, were primarily limestone and sandstone, and would house not only tiny crystalline structures, but many fossil remains.
Did the hills also hide fairies, and handsome, rich Highland lairds ready to sweep her away? Then perhaps her grandmother’s spirit would feel pleased, and Fiona could help her brothers earn the fortune they needed far more than any of those dear fellows would admit, even to one another.
She had work to do, and fairies to seek out. Smiling a little, shaking her head in bemusement, she lifted her knapsack to her shoulder and walked onward.
Chapter 2
The woman moved like a dream through the mist, lovely as a fairy sprite in a gown and bonnet gray as the fog. Just a glance told him that she was all he could ever desire in a woman—graceful and beautifully shaped, with a mysterious allure that could endlessly fascinate a man. With such a woman, the days, and the nights, too, would be filled with the happiness that had so long eluded him. He wondered who she was—and how quickly he could convince her to leave the hillside, and the glen.
Dougal MacGregor, laird of Kinloch, leaned a shoulder against the cave entrance and looked down, watching the young woman take the steep slope upward to where the foothills met the great, dark mountain. Inside the cave behind him was a valuable cache, and within arm’s reach, a loaded pistol with which to protect it. He stood still and silent, breathing slowly, waiting.
Whoever she was, he had to send her away from the mountain and Glen Kinloch quickly. She had come too far into the foothills, and wandered still higher, though her companion had left not long ago. For a moment, Dougal wondered what sort of fellow would abandon a lady in the wild hills of Kinloch, where rogues even worse than the laird of Kinloch roamed, day and night.
The lady must be a willful creature indeed; observing their conversation earlier, he had noticed how earnestly the young gentleman tried to convince his companion to go with him. She seemed to steadfastly refuse, sending the lad on his way, preferring for some unknown reason to remain so that she could collect and chip away at rocks. He did not know the lady, but the man had looked familiar—
“The new gauger,” he muttered under his breath. The Lowland excise officer, whose name he could not recall, had accepted a post at the lower end of Loch Katrine. Dougal had seen him once or twice in the town, without meeting him. Why would that fellow escort a lady into these hills? Every customs officer in the region knew that whisky-smuggling scoundrels lurked here.
Being one of the worst of those scoundrels, Dougal frowned. Whatever had brought the couple into the hills overlooking Glen Kinloch, he would bet it was not tourism.
With a charming disregard for her skirts, the solitary young woman now sank to her knees and reached into the knapsack, taking out a small hammer. She struck hard at a pale rock, breaking off one or two pieces efficiently. Chink, chink, thunk echoed over the mountainside.
Bemused by the incongruous sight of a lovely girl wielding a hammer with such a sure hand, Dougal reminded himself that she had no business here—especially if she knew a customs man. He wondered briefly if she might be the teacher his cousin, Reverend MacIan, had hired for the glen school. Like others in the glen, he expected an older woman to arrive in the next week or two; he had not seen Hugh lately to learn the status of that.
Narrowing his eyes, he watched her. The young woman was no tourist enjoying the scenery; her path had purpose and her glances were observant. She dropped to her knees to examine the ground, then took a small notebook from the knapsack on her shoulder, and made notes or sketches.
If she and the gauger were spying in the area, that was of great concern. An accurate map would enable excise men to locate caves and niches where valuable goods were hidden.
Gaugers—and willful young ladies—had to be prevented from sketching and exploring here, Dougal thought. He would have to dissuade her, and quickly.
The girl headed upward again, lifting her skirt hems over sturdy boots—she was serious about her hill walking, he saw, having dressed for the occasion. Her path brought her closer to where he stood in the recess of the cave. In her fog-colored dress, with its jacket and bonnet of darker gray, with her nimble grace, she seemed part of the mist and the rock.
For a moment, Dougal thought of the sylphlike fairy folk, the Daoine Sìth said to inhabit the hills and hidden places throughout Scotland. If he possessed a romantic nature, which he did not even if he allowed for fairy magic, he could believe she was part of the magic in the hills he loved so much.
But he had seen the ones who inhabited the hills, and she was none of those. Earthly, she was, and beautiful. In that moment, she removed her bonnet and looked up at the mountain.
Dougal pulled in a breath. That plain bit of haberdashery was unworthy of her, he thought. Her oval face was as serene as a Renaissance Madonna, her features delicate, her eyes large. The dark gleam of her hair was pulled smooth to frame her face and coiled in heavy braids at the back of her neck; he wanted to loosen that thick silk and sink his fingers into it.
But he could not let his thoughts go there. The sooner she left, the better for all.
Easing away from the cave entrance, Dougal set out down the hill.
Absorbed in her work, Fiona knelt without heed for the muddy splotches on her skirts, and uncaring that breezes played her hair into loops that spilled to her shoulders. Instead she focused her attention on what she saw impressed in the rock under her hand. Sweeping gloved fingers carefully over the rock, she was pleased to find more excellent preservations of the exoskeletons of several tiny trilobites, the little sea creatures whose preserved tracks were clear evidence that the area had been covered by water, long ago.
“James will be so pleased,” she murmured to herself. Using the hammer, she tapped all around the section with the traces. Limestone by nature was grainy and soft, as rock went, and the piece broke away easily enough. She tugged it free.
“Miss.” The male voice was deep and rich, and startled the very devil out of her. Gasping, she looked up. A man stood on the rise above her, one booted foot propped on a rock, and his kilt draping over powerful thighs. Leaping to her feet so quickly that she almost tripped, she grabbed the protruding edge of a boulder before she could fall.
“Who—are you?” she asked breathlessly.
He stepped downward, moving through a thick veil of fog, and he extended a hand toward her. “Come up to me,” he said, beckoning with his fingers.
Fiona gaped. Just above her on the steep, rocky slope, he looked fierce, powerful, and wholly not of this earth. Tall and dark-haired, dressed in a kilt of muted dark tones with a brown jacket, he was the very image of a Highlander from a century ago, as if he had stepped out of time. His legs were strong and well made, swathed in thick stockings to his flat knees; chestnut-brown hair sifted in waves to his shoulders, and his jaw was dusted with the shadow of a dark beard. His eyes, narrowed beneath straight black brows as he glared at her, seemed greenish.
“Who are you?” she managed again, heart pounding. She had heard stories of the Sidhe—an ancient fairy race of tall, magnificent beings. They sometimes appeared to humans, even stole them away. James’s wife, Elspeth, claimed that her own grandfather and father had been taken by fairies, but Elspeth was a charming storyteller, and no one really believed it.
But as Fiona stared up at the handsome stranger who had appeared out of the mist, beings of the Otherworld seemed all too possible. “Are you one of the Fey?” she asked tentatively.
He gestured again with long, nimble fingers. “Miss. Come up to me.”
She stepped back again, her gaze never leaving his—somehow she could not look away—and then she turned to run. But she stumbled on the rocky terrain, and the Highlander stepped down and grabbed her arm. He drew her toward him, his grasp strong.
> “Come with me,” he said.
“No!” She pulled her arm away. “You would steal me away!”
“I would what?” He looked down at her, the steep angle making him seem tall as a giant. “Just who the devil do you think I am?”
“One of the, ah, Sidhe.” Then she realized how foolish she sounded.
His chuckle sent shivers through her—delightful rather than dreadful, for his laugh was warm and enticing. “Not terribly likely,” he said.
Fiona felt herself blush. The man was perfectly real, of course, and she looked a perfect idiot. “What was I to think when you stepped out of the mist like that, looking like a ghost, or a legend?”
“I would credit you with more sense. Have you never seen a Highlander wearing the plaid?”
“Of course,” she snapped. “But you could have given me some warning of your approach.”
“Beg pardon, Miss.” He inclined his head, dark hair sliding over his brow, and looked amused. “I did not mean to startle you.” He released her arm.
Setting her bonnet back on her head, she stepped away. “I must go.”
“I think you must come with me.” He reached out again, but she evaded him, bending to pick up her knapsack and hammer. Before she could turn and run, he stepped toward her and took her arm, drawing her toward him, his grasp at once threatening and somehow protective.
She gasped. “I am expected by my companions. They are looking for me even now!”
“Aye?” Clearly he did not believe her. He turned with her in tow and walked across the slope rather than downward. Alarmed, Fiona tried to break free, but his strong hand guided her, even half dragged her, along the hillside.
“Let go!” Still clutching the hammer in her free gloved hand, she struck at his forearm, and heard a bruising thunk as the iron hit thick wool over taut muscle.
The man swore in Gaelic. “Give me that,” he said, snatching it from her to drop it in the pocket of his jacket. “I mean you no harm. I just want you out of here. The hills are not safe.”
“I was quite safe until you accosted me,” she said, stumbling along beside him. “You have no right to order me out of here.”
“This is my glen,” he said. “I am MacGregor of Kinloch.”
“You own the glen?”
“It is deeded to me. And I do not permit tourists to wander the area.”
“I am not a tourist, Mr. MacGregor. I was invited to stay in Glen Kinloch.”
“Tourist or visitor, the terrain is treacherous but for locals who know the paths through the hills. Rogues and smugglers are sometimes about, both night and day.”
“Such as you?” She looked at him. He had confiscated her hammer, but her bag held some hefty rocks that she could use for a weapon, if need be.
“Give me that knapsack,” he said then, as if he had read her thoughts. He took it from her shoulder and then shook the bag, its contents clunking. “What is in here?”
“Rocks.”
“Ah, from my own glen?”
“I will put them back if it disturbs you.”
“Keep them. I do not care about rocks. If you are searching for gold or treasure, there is none here. We would all be wealthy in this glen if so.”
“I do not search for gold. I am an amateur fossilologist.”
“A what?” He seemed distracted as he pulled her along. “Never mind. Come this way. It is a shorter distance to the road, and to wherever you are staying. Is there a carriage waiting to take you back to Auchnashee and the hotel there?” He led her onward.
“Auchnashee? No,” she said. The man had the manners of a beast, she thought, and did not seem like any privileged landowner she had ever met. “You claim to own the whole of this glen, Mr. MacGregor? Then you must be an earl or a viscount, to possess so much land.”
“I do not own it outright. In Scotland the land, but for certain regions, is owned by the Crown and deeded back to the Scots. I hold the inheritable rights to Glen Kinloch, but I have no fancy title such as you are likely used to in the Lowlands.”
“I am not used to any such thing,” she replied.
“Your father must be someone of note, I am sure, to have such a fine lady for a daughter.”
“My father died when I was small. My grandfather was a viscount, which passed to my twin brother. It is not much.”
“It is enough, and your family is fortunate for it.”
“True,” she admitted. “We are.”
He paused, looking at her keenly, head tilted. His irises were a clear hazel-green, framed in thick lashes and straight brows of deep black; they were striking and beautiful eyes for a man, especially a brusque and roguish one. He nodded.
“My father died when I was a boy. My sympathies to you and yours.”
“Thank you,” she said, surprised.
“My father left me a plain lairdship with a house and some land. Kinloch is a small glen, far from the main roads and the civilized world. Earls and such—few of that sort would live here.”
“I know one or two who might like it here very much. In fact, an earl has purchased the hotel down the loch at Auchnashee,” she said of her cousin.
“So I have heard. Some buy land for their shooting lodges and sheep runs, and to attract tourists to gape at our homes and our hills. But I will not sell. If you think to tell your friends about this place, do not bother. Come ahead, and hurry.”
“Why hurry? Is someone after you?” She glanced over her shoulder.
“Bogles, ghosts, and the Fey,” he answered wryly. “Or perhaps smugglers.”
“Ha! Your own ilk.” She dug in her heels and stopped again, forcing him to stop, too. “Give me my things and I will trouble you no further.” She pulled, but he held her arm. “There are rogues here, so I understand, led by the laird of the smugglers, or some such. Are you one of his men?”
“If I was, would I say? Have no fear of me—I am only warning you to leave the hills now. People, especially tourists, do not venture through this part of the glen late in the day or evening, without reason.”
“What is your reason?” she persisted, curious, despite the risk of a direct question; the answer might reveal something she was better not knowing.
“Since I own the land, I have the right of it. And you?” He tipped his head politely.
“I came out here to search for…fossils,” she said. “The imprint of ancient flora and fauna left in masses of rock. They provide a geological record of the earth.”
“I know what fossils are,” he said, sounding impatient. “You can study those elsewhere in Scotland, not just here, just now. Come.”
Tugged along by his strength, hurrying in his wake, Fiona concentrated on her path, for the terrain was rugged and uncertain. Thin, drifting mist obscured the way as they hurried along.
MacGregor stopped then, his fingers tightening on her wrist, and Fiona stopped, too. Hearing the clop of horse hooves and the rattle of a cart, she turned her head, trying to determine the sound and its direction through the fog.
“What is that?” she asked.
“A pony cart,” he answered. “It is coming along the drover’s track that runs from the slopes down to the road that runs beside the loch. This way,” he said, tugging her along again, so that her booted toe hit a rock and she stumbled.
MacGregor caught her around the waist, and she fell against him, off balance. He felt so solid and sure that she leaned against him, but reason prevailed and she straightened away. He pulled her along over hillocks and stones, then stopped short, so that she bumped into his back. She paused with him, her shoulder pressed against his.
“Hush.” He turned his head warily, fingers tightening on her wrist. Sensing danger, she moved closer to him, gazing about as he did, feeling blinded in the fog, which was deeper farther down the hill.
To the left, she heard the rumble of the cart, and then it came into view—a boxy wagon stacked with hay, pulled by a sturdy brown horse. Two men sat on the cross bench, one in a plaid, one in tr
ousers, both in nondescript jackets; dark, flat bonnets were pulled low over their heads. The driver was a lean young man, his passenger robust and older.
“Are they farmers?” she asked. “Or smugglers with a load of illicit spirits?”
“Riding along a main road like that? Going home to supper, most like.”
“I hear that smugglers go about day or night quite openly. And it is nearly twilight.” She glanced at the fading light through the fog.
“Those are my kinsmen. Farmers and herders like me, and most of the glen folk.”
“Not dangerous then?”
“Not to us. But those fellows, on the other hand—” He stopped.
MacGregor was looking in the opposite direction, and now she, too, glanced there. Far along the loch road, two men emerged from the fog. They wore dark jackets and trousers and stiff-brimmed hats. One of them carried a heavy object, either a pistol or a cudgel. Fiona gasped.
“Smugglers!” She edged closer to MacGregor. He exuded a reliable sort of strength, despite all. Strange though it seemed, she felt safe near him.
“The men walking along the road?” He sent her a quick glance. “Gaugers.”
“Revenue officers? Then we have nothing to worry about.”
“Aye,” he drawled. Taking her arm in a new grip, he led her down the slope. Seeing the cart approaching from one direction and the king’s officers from the other, Fiona angled her steps toward the men who would know her brother.
But MacGregor tugged her in the other direction. Then he gave a low whistle and began to hurry forward, rushing Fiona with him.
In that moment, she realized that the laird of Kinloch was not the upstanding landowner he claimed, but the smuggler both Patrick and Mrs. MacIan had warned her about. Whenever the Laird and his men walk the mountainside, Mrs. MacIan had said, we all keep away.
Sarah Gabriel Page 3