A Highland Folly

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  A Highland Folly

  A Regency Romance

  Jo Ann Ferguson

  For Chris,

  my POSSEE partner and dear friend,

  thanks for helping me keep the balance

  And thanks to Kathie Sprout

  for sharing information about her llamas

  One

  “Lady Kinloch will want to hear about this.”

  No, I do not want to hear about it.

  “Why don’t you ask Lady Kinloch to decide if you should make more butter or use the cream for custard?”

  I honestly do not care which. We could use the butter, but custard is always a treat.

  “That’s not fair! I’m going to ask Anice what she thinks about this.”

  I don’t want to think about it. Not at all.

  “Lady Kinloch? Lady Kinloch? I need to speak to you right away.”

  Anice Kinloch pulled her hat down lower over her ears. It still could not shut out the repetition of her name or her own rebellious thoughts. She rushed past the byre and out onto the brae. Those voices, each belonging to a member of the Kinloch clan or to a retainer, rang through her head every night when she tried to sleep. Even slumber was not a place where she could find peace and quiet. Last night, her cousin Neilli had come in two hours past midnight and had wanted to know what Anice’s plans were to find her a titled husband.

  “I don’t have any plans,” Anice said aloud.

  Hearing a yip, she turned to see her dog Pippy running toward her. Here was a companion who would respect her yearning for serenity and help her enjoy a hunt across the brae. She reached down to pat Pippy, whose hair was the same ruddy shade as hers.

  She nearly ran up the hillside as she heard her name shouted from the manor house. Now she understood why her father had left Scotland before she was born and why her mother had not returned after she was widowed for the first time, when Anice was no more than a babe. Even when Mother was widowed four more times, she had never suggested they might return to this small village and the family estate in the Highlands.

  Mother had liked to have things her way, something she could not have done amid the eccentric relatives who called Ardkinloch home. A constant hubbub filled the seventeenth-century manor house that was near the base of the hill, shadowed by the ruins of Dhùin Liath.

  Anice smiled up at the old castle. One of these days, she was going to take the time to explore what remained of the once-proud building. Empty windows were draped with the sky’s blue and looked down at the rubble left by the walls that had surrendered to time.

  She had been here almost six months, but she had not had a moment to herself to explore the ruins beyond a single visit the week after she had arrived. Instead, she had been enmeshed in a family that seemed incapable of making any decision without her. She should be honored. She had been told that over and over, but she was not. Mayhap her grandmother had enjoyed being the matriarch of the Kinloch clan, but Anice was accustomed to solitude, not a dozen cousins with dozens and dozens of dilemmas.

  Shifting the hunting gun to her other shoulder, she clambered up the hillside. Aunt Coira would be outraged to see Anice dressed in a cast-off cap that hung down around her ears, loose pantaloons, and a man’s coat, but Anice knew that climbing up the brae required her to dress outrageously. A muslin gown à la modalité would not serve here.

  She paused at an outcropping and turned. Beyond Ardkinloch, the family’s manor house, was the village of Killiebige and the river that roiled down the mountains surrounding this narrow valley. The thatched roofs of the stone houses looked like giant haystacks propped one against the other. A kirk was set in the very heart of the village, right next to the baker’s shop. She took a deep breath, although she knew the luscious aroma of Mr. MacTavish’s sweet rolls did not reach all the way up here.

  Here were only the scents of greenery and animals and sunshine. And here she could be alone.

  Calling to Pippy, she saw him racing across the hill toward where the sheep grazed. He would not frighten them, for he had taken to guarding the herd as if he had been raised here instead of in far-off America. Mayhap because he had always guarded her.

  When she’d received the missive from her grandmother’s solicitor urging her to come here to claim the heritage and obligations that were hers, there had been those who suggested she leave her pets behind her. She had not heeded them. Pippy and Bonito were the only ones who had been with her before she came here.

  She looked out into the field, where sheep were like intermittent puffs of cotton. As she had expected, Bonito, her pet llama, was standing on the edge of the herd. She could easily pick him out from among the sheep. With his tall neck and regal mien, he had made himself as comfortable among the sheep as amid his own herd back in South America. How Reeves would have laughed to see Bonito here! Her mother’s latest late husband had found something amusing in just about everything. He would have hated grim Aunt Coira but would have delighted in Neilli’s enthusiasm.

  Voices drifted up the brae. The only thing she understood was her name.

  She hurried toward the stone cottage half hidden in bushes that might once have been planted between it and the foundation of what she guessed had been a byre. The cottage had been abandoned when she chanced upon it. Over the past six months, she had secretly brought a few odds and ends here. Some pots and a pallet and an old chair that no one would miss in Ardkinloch. This had become her hideaway when she could no longer tolerate the chaos in the stone manor house.

  Pushing past the bushes that begrudged her even a narrow path to the door, she ducked her head to enter. She was not tall for a woman, but the cottage had been built for someone not much bigger than a child. The single room could not be more than eight feet long on any side. Throwing open the battered shutters on the only window, she smiled as sunlight streamed in through the branches.

  Pippy barked behind her, and she turned, smiling.

  “Patience, Pippy,” she said. “I know you want to chase the birds by the castle, but they will still be there when we climb up.”

  The dog wagged his feathered tail before vanishing back into the bushes. Another bark warned that he had discovered something interesting.

  A shot echoed across the hillside.

  Anice frowned. That had not been too far away. Parlan, Neilli’s brother and twin, had told her that no one outside the family was allowed to hunt near the castle ruins. Mayhap the stone walls of the cottage had betwattled her ears. The shot may have been fired down closer to the river or even on the next ridge.

  Hearing Pippy’s excitement, Anice decided she had better enjoy her own hunting before the dog’s barking caught the attention of someone in the manor house. Where Pippy was, Anice could be found. That was something every member of the family had learned quickly.

  The sun grew stronger, but the wind still had a chill in it as she strode up the brae. The freedom of the trousers served her well, and she did not worry when briars caught at the old coat. She wished she had a man’s boots to wear instead of her high-lows, for they did not reach much past her ankles. Here on the hillside, she did not need to worry about appearing in less than her best. No one of the ton would see her now. Her aunt Coira warned that one must not make an error in the presence of the Polite World even here in Scotland.

  “Slow down!” she called to Pippy, for the dog had vanished up the hill, intent on some breast-high scent that must be leading him on.

  Anice tried to catch up with him when he paused and turned, his tongue lolling out of his mouth in an idiot’s grin. Her own lips twisted in a grimace as something pricked her leg just above her low boots. Dash it! What could have gotten her now?

  Bending, she reached to pluck a double-pronged briar out of her s
tocking. Something buzzed overhead and struck the tree in front of her. Bark exploded.

  She threw herself behind a stack of rocks. By the elevens! Who was being so careless to shoot in her direction like this? The first lesson she had learned from Obediah, her second stepfather, was never to fire a gun without making sure no one was within its range. Unless, for some reason, you want to kill them. He might have been jesting or mayhap not. With Obediah Higgins, she had never been sure.

  Another ball struck the tree in almost the exact spot as the first. She cowered as bits of bark pelted her. Once was a slipshod error. Twice … Her teeth clenched. Why was someone shooting at her? She gripped her gun, but what could she do with it? Fire back? That was too absurd an idea.

  Pippy yelped. Anice motioned for him to come to her and stared at the broken bark on the tree. It was exactly at the height of her breast. Heavens above! If she had not jumped behind this cairn, she would have been hit. She could have been killed.

  “Hush, Pippy,” she whispered so low, she was not sure if any sound emerged from her lips. Motioning for her dog to lie down beside her, she was glad she had spent the time to train him well.

  He crouched next to her, but tension tightened his haunches. When he glanced up at her with his liquid-brown eyes, she put her finger to her lips. She grimaced when she saw blood on her palm. Pain scored her, and she knew the cut was deep. Dash it! This was insane.

  She strained to hear, but the only sounds belonged to the birds settling again in the trees and some insect that was chattering to itself, oblivious of anything but the search for a mate. Was the shooter still nearby? Would he or she fire again? Tonight, when the family gathered at the huge oak table in the old hall of Ardkinloch, there must be a discussion of this. She did not like the idea that someone in her family had fired in her direction—twice—but who else would be up here?

  Anice tensed as tightly as Pippy when the gun fired again. Not at her, she realized, for the echo rolled down to her from farther up the hill. The hunter must have gone in that direction. She must get up and leave. Now.

  Her legs refused to move as she tried to stand. Her fingers quivered on Pippy’s head. Leaning her gun against the pile of rocks, she took a slow breath and released it. She flinched and choked back a gasp as the gun higher on the brae fired a second time.

  Again she told herself she needed to leave before the hunter came back. Again her legs would not lift her off the ground. When Pippy stood, a low whine in his throat, she glanced up the hill. Was the hunter returning in this direction?

  A branch cracked beneath a boot. Pippy’s whine became a growl. To her left, bushes rattled as if caught in a high wind. She could see a man coming through them.

  Anice forced her knees to lock under her, and she stood as the man ducked under a branch. Her anger gave her the strength that fear had sucked away. As infuriated as she was, she could not say what she must without being on her feet. Also, she needed to be ready to run in case he tried to shoot her again. She silenced that frightening thought. He could not miss from this range.

  “Sir, what—?”

  “How dare you shoot at me!” he said as he stood straight. His deep voice was devoid of the brogue that colored every word that Anice had heard others speak since she arrived in Scotland.

  “Me shoot at you?”

  Pippy growled more loudly, and Anice took a step backward from the tall, dark-haired man. She should heed her dog’s instincts about this stranger. Who was he? She was sure she had not seen him in Killiebige before.

  If the man had not been frowning like a furious father with a recalcitrant child, he could have been considered handsome. Now his sharply chiseled face warned he was struggling to control his temper, for sparks glittered in his blue eyes. His hunting coat, which was as red as if he were riding with hounds, strained across his shoulders as he pushed aside another branch between them.

  “A lad of your size should know how to handle a firearm safely.” He held his gun with the ease of a man accustomed to using it.

  “A lad?”

  “Must you repeat everything I say?”

  Stung by his icy stare, she retorted, “I might not question everything you say, sir, if you would speak one word that wasn’t laced with misconceptions.”

  “Now, see here, lad—”

  “And that is your first.” Anice balanced her gun in her arms and met his glower with her own. “I am Lady Anice Kinloch.”

  “You? Lady Anice Kinloch?” He laughed. “Lad, you need to spin a better tale than that. Otherwise, how do you expect me to believe whatever bangers you are going to devise to explain why you are firing at me?” His sapphire gaze swept over her, leaving a sensation as chill as the breeze. “A lady doesn’t dress so.”

  “She does when she is hunting on this brae.” Coming out from around the rock, she flicked back the floppy brim of the hat. He was taller than she was, but she would not be intimidated by that. During her travels throughout the world with Mother and her husband at that time, she had seen that a man could be dangerous no matter what his height. And she had learned that a façade of courage could be as convincing to a human as to a lion.

  “Well, I’ll be,” he muttered as his eyes narrowed. “You appear, on closer examination, although not too close you will take note, to be a woman.”

  “And, I must say, that on closer examination, although not too close,” she answered in the same sarcastic tone he had used, “you are no gentleman.”

  When he chuckled and leaned the butt of his gun against his boot that still held remnants of a recent polishing, she was not tempted to laugh along with him. His eyes remained cool, even though the corners of his lips tipped up. She had liked him better when he was furious at her instead of amused.

  “Like you, my lady, I am far from the halls of the Polite World and here obey the rules of the hunt far more than the canons of propriety.” He reached to doff a hat as he bowed to her but smiled coldly when his finger found nothing. “It appears I have misplaced my chapeau, my lady.”

  “As well as yourself.” She refused to relent, even though his nicely spoken words countermanded her assertion that he was no gentleman. He had the air of quality, along with the very turn of a phrase that Auntie Coira despaired of Parlan ever learning so he might spend a Season in London. And Pippy had stopped growling. Why? There was no reason to trust this man. She risked a glance at her dog.

  Pippy was sitting, tail as still as the rocks behind him, but the silly grin was back on his face.

  Traitor! Anice wanted to shout.

  “Is that so?” the man asked. “How am I misplaced?”

  “These are my family’s lands. My family’s private lands, I should say. You should not be here.”

  “I was on the far side of the hill, which is not part of the Kinloch lands, as you probably know.”

  “Of course I do.”

  He smiled again. This time his smile was laced with triumph. Let him delight in goading her into a defensive retort. He would not delight in that again, for she would keep her wits about her. “I came here only to find out why you are being so careless with that gun, my lady.”

  “I did not shoot at you. You shot at me.”

  He arched a single brow in a silent denial.

  “Check the barrel, if you wish,” she asserted, holding up the gun. “You will find it as cool as when I took it out of the gun case at Ardkinloch.”

  “It has been some time since you fired on me.”

  “Not that long. No more than two or three minutes.” She pulled the gun back to her chest. “And I did not fire on you!”

  “But you know how long since the shots—”

  “Sir, I heard the shots fired higher up the brae while I was hiding here from the person who fired at me.”

  His indulgent, irritating smile vanished. The intense frown returned to his face. “Fired at you?”

  Anice leaned her gun against the cairn and walked to the tree where pale spots marked the wounds left by the ba
lls shot at her. “You have eyes, sir. Use them.”

  She stepped aside so he might examine the tree. When he reached under his coat, he drew out a short knife. She watched as he pried the ball out of the wood. He examined the flattened piece of lead, then tossed it to her.

  “Oh!” she gasped as she foolishly caught the ball in her hurt hand.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The tree isn’t the only thing that’s going to be scarred after today.” She held up her bloody hand.

  With a curse, he pulled a handkerchief from a hidden pocket. He wrapped it around her hand, his touch surprisingly gentle … and pleasurable. Amazed at how much care he used as he tied the corners of the handkerchief, she raised her eyes toward his. Something flickered in his, and they grew a bit warmer.

  “You should,” he said in a near whisper, “include a lad’s accoutrements when you dress the part. You never know when a handkerchief might be needed.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For the fashion advice?”

  She laughed. “No, of course not. For bandaging my hand. I appreciate your kindness.”

  “And I appreciate your kindness in not jumping to conclusions as I apparently did.” His sun-bronzed skin crinkled around his eyes as he smiled. “You could have accused me as well of shooting at you.”

  “I was about to, but when you said that you had been shot at, I knew it was unlikely you had shot without checking to make sure no one was in range and then would accuse me of the very same unthinking deed.”

  “You have kept your head quite well in this jumble, my lady. Most women I know would have swooned quite dead away at the very idea of someone aiming a gun at them.”

  Not wanting to own how her knees continued to tremble, she said, “It was not something I had the luxury to consider when I was trying to keep my soul within my skin.”

  “And such charming skin it is, if I may say so.”

  Anice realized, belatedly, that he continued to cradle her hand in his broader one. Drawing back, she wondered if her wits had fled when her legs could not. “I would just as soon that you did not, sir. I do not know you.”