A Highland Folly

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  “I am Lucais MacFarlane.” He bowed his head toward her again. “Now,” he said with a broadening smile, “we have been properly introduced, so you do not have to flush so prettily.”

  Dash it! Her blasted red hair and the pale skin that went with it had attracted too much attention everywhere she had traveled with Mother. Mother, who had had black hair and skin that could tan as darkly as Mr. MacFarlane’s if she did not take care, had attempted not to let her child become an object of curiosity in the East, but every effort had been futile. Mother had had handsome offers to sell her child, and those offers had become more common as Anice grew out of her childhood. Anice had never had any interest in becoming a pampered curio in a maharajah’s palace or a special pet in a sheikh’s harem or the mistress of a wealthy landowner in a vast South American hacienda, and she did not want Mr. MacFarlane teasing her about what she could not alter.

  Struggling to curb her temper, which, unfortunately, matched her red hair, she said, “If you will be kind enough to give me your address, Mr. MacFarlane, I shall have your handkerchief returned to you after it has been laundered.”

  “Very kind of you, my lady.” His fingers tightened on the barrel of his gun, and she wondered what she had said that caused such tension in his face. She understood when he continued. “You may have it delivered to me at the road camp.”

  “The road camp?” She glanced over her shoulder and down at the valley where the river twisted through wherever its swift current chose, changing every spring. Even more often than she had heard her name repeated in requests for decisions within the Kinloch clan, she had heard curses aimed at the English workmen who had invaded the valley with their intentions of building a road and bridging the Abhainn an Uruisg.

  No one in Killiebige and no one in Ardkinloch wanted the road or the bridge. There had been no need for one during all the centuries the Kinlochs had overseen this side of the valley and the small village. If there had been a need, the folks here would have built it. No English government should be forcing the road and bridge on Killiebige.

  “I am the chief engineer on this project, my lady.” His mouth quirked. “I had hoped to call upon you when I arrived, but I found no welcome at your door.”

  “Or any other, I would suspect.”

  “Exactly. Now you can understand why I was justifiably outraged to be shot at.”

  Anice laughed tersely. “One need not be an English road engineer, Mr. MacFarlane, to be disturbed at the prospect of a gun aimed at one’s heart.”

  “My lady, I—” He paused as Pippy whined. “What is wrong with your dog? Was it hit?”

  “No, he’s fine.” She gasped and grabbed Mr. MacFarlane’s arm as the glitter of sunlight off steel caught her eye. “Look out!”

  “For what?” A gun fired, and the ball hit the tree again. “Get down, my lady. Behind the rocks.”

  “Pippy—”

  He seized her and shoved her to the ground. Pain hit her again, this time in the skull. A ball? She could not answer before all thought vanished into endless shadow.

  Two

  Lucais MacFarlane hated days like this. The problem was that he had had too many of them of late. Not that every day had included someone shooting at him, but the complications of building a bridge across the river Abhainn an Uruisg here in Killiebige often made him believe he would be better off if someone did shoot him. He wondered if Thomas Telford’s previous engineers had endured all this abuse and resistance as the English government constructed roads through the Highlands.

  When another ball whizzed overhead like a maddened bumblebee and struck the tree, he whispered through his clenched teeth, “Stay down.”

  No need, for Lady Kinloch was showing good judgment in not moving. Apparently even a Kinloch did not always want for sense. A third shot was fired, and he pressed his face against the earth. When a beguiling fragrance flavored each staccato breath, he wanted to curse. How could he be thinking of how lovely the lady’s perfume was, when they could be killed at any moment?

  To own the truth, the invisible shooter must not want to kill them, just frighten them. In that, the shooter had succeeded. Beside them, the dog was whining again with fear. It seemed to showcase its mistress’s emotions, scared now, angry when Lucais had confronted them with his accusations.

  The fragrance washed over him again. If these had to be his last sensations, he could not complain. He could take with him into death Lady Anice Kinloch’s sweet perfume, the brush of her auburn hair against his cheek, and her intriguing curves through the outrageous clothes she wore. He doubted she was as appreciative of him close to her. No wonder she had turned her face away from him and did not so much as glance at him. Since early morning, he had been walking across the hills, making sure he stayed off Kinloch private lands, as he surveyed the route the road would take and viewed the river. He had carried his gun as a ruse, so no one would suspect what he was doing and be furious.

  The blasted gun was not even loaded. If it had been, he might have been tempted to fire a round into the air back toward whoever was shooting at them. He glanced at the gun by Lady Kinloch’s outstretched fingers. The lady was more intelligent than he was. Keeping low and not retaliating should prove to be the wisest course. There was enough anger in this valley without exacerbating it by teaching a witless chucklehead a lesson.

  Lucais forced his rapid breathing to slow. Beside him, Lady Kinloch’s breathing was steady. Wasn’t she scared? She must have courage as sturdy as the rocks that would make up the bridge over the river.

  Slowly he raised his head. The birds were settling again in the trees. Whoever had been tramping in the bushes must be gone. Rat it! Even though he knew protecting Lady Kinloch had been his first priority, he would have enjoyed trailing the fool. Once he got his hands on the pluffer, he would have taught him a lesson about scaring folks.

  The dog whined again.

  Lucais held out his hand to the dog cautiously. The red dog sniffed it, looked up at him with wide brown eyes, and whined.

  “Don’t be scared now, pup,” he said with a smile.

  The dog lay down beside Lady Kinloch again, propping its snout on its paws and watching her forlornly. He patted its head. A feeble wag of its tail was the only sign the dog had noticed him. It whined, hushed, and from high in its throat came a keening sound that was almost as unsettling as the whiz of balls fired at them.

  Lucais frowned. The dog was a puzzle, but he did not have the interest in solving it now. He needed to get off this steep hillside. Work waited back at the camp. After his walk, he had many ideas he wanted to discuss with Tilden Potter, his assistant on this project.

  “Lady Kinloch?” He could not take his leave when she was still lying on the ground, for he owed her an apology.

  She did not answer.

  He shook her shoulder gently, and her head tilted toward him, revealing a red spot on her temple. Sitting back on his heels, he cursed once, then louder. How much more complicated could this day get? He had intended to save the lady from being hurt but had ended up hurting her himself. Had he learned nothing during his time in London about how fragile a lady could be? He had vowed to gain a fine polish in Town and set aside his rough-diamond Highland ways. It seemed he had not succeeded.

  Smoothing her hair back from the bruise and the small cut that was oozing blood, he sighed. Mayhap his father was right. No matter how Lucais tried to forget his past, it remained a part of him. He might have learned to speak without a Scottish burr staining every word, and he might have obtained a fine education at Oxford, but the heritage of the Highlands added fire to his blood. His thoughtless actions here had wounded Lady Kinloch.

  Now there would be perdition to pay with the Kinlochs, who were, he already had been warned, vehemently against the road project. They did not want their precious solitude disturbed, longing to live in a Scotland of centuries past instead of joining the future. War chiefs and ferocious clans and raids on the Borders—that was over and fortunately buri
ed with those who had believed the law was something to obey only when it suited them.

  Taking Lady Kinloch’s gun, he fired it into a tree a few feet along the hill. He set it on top of his gun.

  “Are you out of your mind?” gasped Lady Anice.

  He looked down to see her trying to push herself up to sit. Her eyes had a glaze that warned him that she was not seeing clearly. It was time he did so.

  Squatting beside her, he put his hand on her shoulder. “Do not strain yourself, my lady.”

  “Did a boulder fall on me?”

  “I believe you struck a boulder when we were trying to avoid the balls fired at us.”

  Her eyes widened, and he realized they were a color he could describe only as violet. “I shall not stay here and be shot at, Mr. Mac—” She frowned. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Lucais MacFarlane, but I daresay you should call me Lucais. I don’t think you can handle much more.”

  A frown rutted her forehead more deeply, and she winced. “I can handle your name far better than I can handle you firing back at some beefhead on this brae.”

  “I thought relieving the gun of its ball would be wiser than toting both you and a loaded gun back to your family.”

  She pushed herself up. “You need not worry about toting me anywhere. I am quite able to—” She sat back in the dirt with a jar that made his head ache. Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

  “Oh, indeed.” He placed the two guns in her arms. Slipping his arms under her, he lifted her cautiously.

  When her head rested against his shoulder, her hair fell over his arm. It was as red as any strands belonging to a proud Scot, but she did not speak with the brogue that he had tried to forget. Everyone else he had met in Killiebige had that accent that sounded both familiar and vexing in his ears.

  So who was she? Lady Kinloch? That could mean almost anything, or … He groaned as he stood, not from her weight, which was slight when he was accustomed to helping wrestle stones for a roadbed, but from a memory that had stayed elusive to this very moment.

  He had not been in Killiebige more than an hour before he learned how things functioned on this side of the river. Around Killiebige, the Kinloch family was looked upon as something distinct from the other residents. No decision was made in Killiebige without consulting the Kinlochs.

  How many times had he heard that? And how many times had he heard that the Kinlochs made no decision within their stone manor house without consulting the head of the Kinloch family? And the person who was the head of the family was Lady Anice Kinloch, who had returned to Ardkinloch after many years away from Scotland. That explained her lack of accent, and he hoped her travels had given her more of an open mind than the old woman who had been her predecessor and who had threatened to hang, draw, and quarter anyone who tried to complete the road and the bridge over the river.

  Lucais took a single step and nearly stumbled as the dog ran in front of him, barking as if it were mad. Mayhap it was. Everything was mad in these mountains that clung to a past that was as dead as the chieftains who had fallen before the English in his great-grandsire’s time.

  “Be off with you, dog,” he ordered.

  “Pippy’s just worried about me,” Lady Kinloch whispered, her words a warm breath against his skin. “He doesn’t know you or trust you.”

  “Nor do you.”

  “You are very plainspeaking, Lucais MacFarlane.”

  “A habit that is necessary in these Highlands.” He watched the dog run away a few paces, then turn and bark again. “What does the pup want?”

  “He’s trying to show you the way to the cottage.”

  “Cottage? What cottage?”

  When she shifted to point at a copse that was nearly overgrown with briars, Lucais gritted his teeth to keep from dropping her.

  “’Tis right there,” she said.

  “Your house—”

  “I would rather not return to Ardkinloch with blood flowing down my face. There will be enough questions as it is.”

  She was showing rare good sense, he decided. Mayhap she was not as stubborn as rumor suggested the rest of the Kinlochs were.

  “Very well,” he said.

  He took another step. When the dog ran in front of him, he cursed under his breath. It rushed down the hill before pausing in front of the copse and looking back at him with a loll-tongued grin.

  As soon as he reached the edge of the briars, he realized how silly he had been to heed her request. A path had been broken through the bushes, but it was barely tall enough for Lady Kinloch. He would have to bend and try to carry her as well.

  The day was just getting worse and worse.

  Glancing at the manor house below, he almost turned and walked down the hill. He looked back at Lady Kinloch and saw that her eyes were closed, lines of pain creasing her forehead. The blood accenting those lines warned him that she needed attention right away.

  The cottage door was even lower than the path through the briars. A pain scored his back as he bent nearly double to enter. He had spent too many days moving rocks when his workers refused to work in fear of their lives. Shaming them by toiling alone until they came to work beside him allowed for progress on the road. At the same time, these aches reminded him how long he had spent in England doing nothing more strenuous than trying to pound sense into stubborn heads.

  Lucais grimaced as he stood, and his head struck a low rafter. Although sunshine slipped through the greenery clinging to the cottage, it was dim. The floor was surprisingly clean.

  “Are you all right?” Lady Kinloch asked.

  “My sore head will give me more sympathy for yours.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He hid his surprise at the words he had not guessed, from the stories he had heard, any Kinloch would say. He should know better than to heed poker-talk, but the lack of welcome here in this valley had led him to believe this gossip was true.

  “It isn’t your fault, my lady,” he said with a rueful smile. “If you recall, I was shot at first.”

  “I didn’t realize there was a contest on this.”

  “There isn’t, but I didn’t want you to feel worse than you already do.”

  “That may not be possible.”

  Lucais did not answer as he noted how pale her skin was, an ashen shade that warned she was being honest. Had he been want-witted to bring her here instead of to Ardkinloch, where she could have been tended to in more genteel surroundings? As he set her down onto the pallet by the window, the puff of dust that he had expected did not rise to tickle his nose. He touched the pallet. It was chilled from the air along the hill, but it was not rotting. Someone had brought it here recently.

  “Does someone live here?” he asked, glancing at the door with a scowl. Mayhap the person who had fired on them lived here. He picked up his gun.

  When she put her hand on his arm, the quiver of her fingertips sent an answering sensation through him. She had been right. He was out of his mind to react like this to Lady Kinloch. She was lovely and, he had to own, a most pleasant armful, but he had come to this valley to work, not mix up his life again with some woman who cared more for what his family was than the man he was.

  “This is my cottage,” she said quietly.

  “Yours?”

  “I come here when I need to hear in my head no voice but my own.” She gave him a weak smile. “I am constantly at the beck and call of those within Ardkinloch.”

  In spite of her words, he hastily loaded his gun. He would not be caught unprepared again. Setting it beside the pallet, he said, “My lady, I should examine the wound on your head.”

  “Do so with care.”

  “I shall.”

  Her fingers laced together over her coat and tightened when he checked her forehead. The cut was not deep, but he suspected she would have a large bruise on the morrow. He reached to loosen the collar of her coat.

  She batted his hands away. “What do you think you are doing?”

  �
��Your head needs to be bandaged to protect it. I thought your shirt—”

  “Disabuse yourself of the notion that I shall undress in front of you.”

  Egad! She was a most impossible woman. Mayhap she was just like the rest of her family.

  He drew off his coat, tossed it on the floor, and pulled his own shirt out of his breeches. When she gasped, he looked down to see an expanse of tanned belly visible between his waistband and shirt. This was no time for her feminine sensibilities. Despite that thought, he drew his shirt down over his breeches as he ripped a strip of material off the bottom. The shriek of the fabric resounded through the small cottage. This was the third shirt he had ruined since his arrival, the other two at work. He would send home and ask Marden to send him some more. That would make his valet, who had fretted at being left behind, feel useful.

  “Sit still,” he ordered as he reached to put the bandaging around her head.

  She mumbled something he could not understand, but she sat still. Wrapping the linen around her head, he tried to tie it as the dog struggled to push past him.

  “Stay back, boy,” he said softly.

  The dog looked at him, its eyes filled with an expression that in a human would be concern. Don’t be fanciful, he warned himself. A dog had even less wit than the Scots who believed they could put a stop to this road with threats.

  Or had it become more than threats? The shots on the hill might have been a warning to him. He frowned as he looked down again at Lady Kinloch. There were some, at least it was rumored there were some, folks in this valley who did not agree with the Kinlochs’ determination to keep out the road. None of those people would dare to speak out. Mayhap one had thought to upset the Kinlochs’ hold on this river valley with the death of its matriarch.

  Matriarch? That was a name reserved for aged women who had grown gray with time and gathered wisdom to share with future generations. It did not belong to a winsome redhead who dared to dress like a lad when she strolled along the hillside looking for only she knew what kind of adventure.