A Highland Folly

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  “Yes, my lady.” He fired a guilty glance in Neilli’s direction before he rushed off to follow Anice’s orders.

  Anice struggled not to give voice to her frustration. She appreciated the importance of the family’s traditions, but she would not allow them to be used as an excuse to force the road crew out of the glen. Her obligations to help those in need outweighed any absurd heritage.

  Neilli stuck out her lower lip as she grumbled, “This is insane.”

  “As it was insane to welcome the help of Lord Chesterburgh’s retainers to help put out the fire?” She shook her head. “If Parlan had not delayed them with his ludicrous protests, some of the road camp might have been saved instead of everything being lost in the fire.”

  “He did what was right. The Kinlochs do not—”

  “Spare me another lecture on the silly traditions belonging to this family.”

  “How can you deride what belongs to this family?”

  “I will not perpetuate anything that contradicts common sense.”

  Neilli turned on her heel and walked away.

  Anice had to own that she was pleased. Her cousin had been shadowing her all afternoon, complaining endlessly about everything Anice did. No doubt, Parlan had encouraged his twin sister to speak to Anice. Parlan had most pointedly said nothing to her since she had welcomed assistance from the men of Chester Hills in fighting the fire.

  She realized anew how deep the antipathy was between the two families when she handed a footman a folded page and asked him to have it delivered to Chester Hills to await the marquess’s return. The simple note, which expressed her gratitude to Lord Chesterburgh’s men for helping fight the fire at the road camp, brought horror to the footman’s face.

  “My lady, if you truly wish this delivered, I can give it to Reverend Dole, who will see that it is taken over there.”

  She could not mistake the loathing in the footman’s voice. That he questioned her order as no one had in Ardkinloch warned that she had been foolish to ask for any contact with Chester Hills. Folding the note, she said, “No need to bother Reverend Dole.”

  “Very well, my lady.” The footman smiled. “Very wise of you, if I may say so.”

  “Thank you.” She suspected he did not take note of the tension in her voice, because he continued to smile as she walked up the stairs. The page crumpled in her hand as her fingers curled into frustrated fists. She could not batter sense into these stubborn heads. Looking down at the paper, she sighed and stuffed it in her bodice. To ignore the bravery of Lord Chesterburgh’s men would be a faux pas that would guarantee enmity between the two families for another generation or more.

  For now she must focus on the problems of getting the roadmen settled in Ardkinloch. There were rooms to be aired, although the very air reeked with smoke, and there was water to be brought and instructions on meals to be given and—

  “Whoa,” said Lucais, taking Anice by the shoulders before she could walk right into him. The odor of smoke was strong from him, as he was still wearing the clothes scorched by the fire.

  Dismay pricked her, as hot as an ember, when she realized that everything else he possessed must have been destroyed in the fire. “Sorry. I did not see you.”

  “I thought as much. You were deep in thought.”

  She plucked at his sleeve. “I shall have Webber look through the closets for clothes for you and your men.”

  “I appreciate the kindness you are showing us, Anice. Can I speak with you alone for a moment?”

  “No one else was in the parlor when I passed by it earlier.”

  He nodded and went with her into the parlor, where she had been sitting before the shouts of “Fire!” had intruded on the day. Motioning for him to sit on one of the scarlet settees, she went to the low sideboard where Parlan kept the brandy that he enjoyed on the occasional evening that he did not go down to Killiebige to the tavern. She was amazed that she could not recall the last evening he had not gone out. Keeping that thought to herself, she poured a glass of the brandy and carried it to Lucais.

  “Again, thank you,” Lucais said, taking a sip. “You are a gracious hostess.”

  “I was raised to believe that one helped those in need.” Anice smiled and sighed tiredly. “I cannot believe it is any different in Scotland. After all, in some of the countries where we traveled, it was deemed a great honor to host one’s enemies as well as a sign of courage.”

  “Are you saying we now are enemies?”

  “No.” She walked past him to close the French windows to keep out the foulness of the smoke that clung to the glen. “I do not believe we ever could be enemies, Lucais. Mayhap because we are both outsiders in Killiebige.”

  “It is now your home.” He continued to stare out the windows in the direction of the burnt-out road camp.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I had just started going over with Potter the plans for beginning construction of the first supports for the bridge, and suddenly everyone was yelling that the camp was on fire.” His mouth twisted. “I will have to send to London for another set of plans for the bridge and the road leading to it. This will delay further construction at least a fortnight.”

  Anice laced her fingers together. “A fortnight? That is enough time for all kinds of trouble.” Coming back to where Lucais was sitting, she said, “Especially if your men are bored.”

  “It will also give those who are trying to halt the bridge from being built time to think up more ways to harass us.”

  “Then it would behoove us to find something to keep everyone busy. Some sort of gathering.”

  “I do not believe that you will persuade the residents of Killiebige to sit down for a meal with the road crew.”

  “Of course not, but I thought we might arrange for a friendly competition among the road workers and the villagers.”

  “A competition?”

  She laughed at his expression of disbelief. “A friendly one.”

  “Friendly anything would be a welcome change.”

  When he sighed, she walked behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. She kneaded the tight muscles along them as she said, “Lucais, you cannot be certain that this was a prank that somehow got out of control and went beyond what was intended.”

  “I am not certain of that.”

  “It may have been, as Reverend Dole told me he hopes, an accident.”

  “Mayhap.”

  “But?”

  “I do not believe that in the wake of what we discovered in the old castle, four fires beginning all at once was an accident.”

  “All at once?”

  He nodded and sighed as her fingers dug more deeply into his rigid shoulders.

  “Then it could not have been an accident. I did not believe it was accidental, but I had hoped so.” She hesitated, then asked, “Have you learned anything else about what we found during our walk up the hill?” Like him, she was careful not to say too much when they might be overheard.

  “Nothing save to find yesterday morning that all the handles on our tools were broken and our supplies strewn about as if some beast had slipped out of the river to create havoc in the camp. Then these fires started today.”

  “Relax,” Anice ordered as he tensed more with every word. “Don’t think of it now.”

  “It is not easy to think of anything else.”

  “Mayhap I can change your mind on that.” She leaned forward and whispered near his ear, “Do you think I might be able to?”

  Turning, he grasped her hands and drew her around to face him. “I do not doubt that.”

  “You are a rogue, Lucais MacFarlane.”

  “Do you think so?” He laughed. “What persuades you to call me that?”

  “The expression you are wearing.”

  “The one when I am thinking about how I want to hold you like this?” He set himself on his feet and clasped his hands behind her, drawing her to him.

  She stared up into the mysterious, too-reveal
ing depths of his eyes. A quiver rippled through her as his finger slid slowly along her bare forearm. When it traced a sinuous path along her palm, she sighed at the sweetness flowing within her.

  He whispered her name, and she gazed up at his smile as his fingers flowed like a silken web along her. With a moan she brought his mouth over hers. She wanted every part of her against every part of him, and she strained to be even closer to him.

  When he lifted his mouth from hers, he smiled. Her lips tipped upward as well. She wondered if this was the definition of happiness, this joy that asked no more than it gave, this communion of two hearts that needed no words.

  “What have you stuffed into your dress, sweetheart?” he asked.

  She laughed as she touched the crumpled note. “I did not suspect it would be such a difficulty to have delivered to Chester Hills a letter expressing my thanks to Lord Chesterburgh. The estate is not more than a league from here.”

  “There is a wide gap between Ardkinloch and Chester Hills, wider than a flooded Abhainn an Uruisg.”

  “So I am beginning to see, but I could not fail to acknowledge their efforts in fighting the fire.”

  “A decision that could be no more popular in this house than your offer for us to stay here until we can get replacement supplies.”

  She locked her hands behind his nape. “Why are you babbling about something so silly, when you could be kissing me, Mr. MacFarlane?”

  Again, as during the fire, myriad emotions flickered through his eyes, but she cared only about the sparkle that remained. He laughed quietly. “Why, indeed?”

  She had no chance to answer as he captured her lips again. She savored his eager kiss, knowing how precious this interlude was and how long it might be before she could be in his arms again.

  The call of her name by her aunt drew her out of Lucais’s arms. His fingers brushed against her cheek, and she gave him another smile before she hurried out of the room to see what was disturbing Aunt Coira now. She knew what it must be, for as long as the roadmen were within Ardkinloch’s walls, her family would be upset.

  She looked back at Lucais, who winked at her. Her breath caught. Her family would not be the only ones unsettled, for her heart thudded against her breast when her gaze met Lucais’s.

  Finding something to keep the villagers and the roadmen and the residents of Ardkinloch so busy they did not have time to think of all the anger in the glen would be the best for everyone … including her.

  Anice glanced at the glass by the door in the front hall of Chester Hills. When she had come here after telling Mr. McNab a few bouncers so he would not suspect her true reason for taking his ferry across the Abhainn an Uruisg, she had expected to leave her note for the marquess with a footman and hurry back to work in the sheepfold. She tugged at her work dress, knowing she would have worn something different if she had suspected that the marquess would be at home.

  “Lord Chesterburgh will see you now, my lady,” a footman in his green livery said, bowing his head.

  “Thank you.” She thought it was the man who had spoken up at the fire, but she could not be certain. She did not want to do anything to suggest she was more witless than she already appeared by calling here in less than her best. If the marquess was offended, it might perpetuate this silly feud that no one in Ardkinloch could honestly explain. Was she really supposed to believe that all this anger was truly about choosing different sides in a war that had happened almost two hundred years ago? There must have been something more than that. Scotland had a long history of allies becoming enemies and enemies becoming best friends, so there must be something more to the division. It seemed to her that if nobody understood what had truly started this dissension, then it was time to put it to rest.

  In spite of her resolve to appear serene and polished when she met the marquess, Anice gasped as she stepped past the footman and entered an elegant room. The room was lit with sunlight. Furniture was gracefully arranged on a patterned carpet of the deepest blue. A huge portrait of a young woman and a child was set above the hearth. She noticed all of that in the moment before she saw a bronze sculpture on a table in front of the middle window of a tall bay.

  “Welcome to Chester Hills, Lady Kinloch,” came a deep voice from the other side of the room.

  Anice had to pull her gaze from the elephants, successively smaller ones stacked atop a large one. She offered her hand to the man walking toward her. Only hints of his one-time dark hair remained amid the gray. A set of glasses on the tip of his nose twinkled as brightly as his pale blue eyes.

  “I hope you will excuse my uninvited call, my lord,” she said quietly.

  He took her hand and bowed over it with a grace that brought Lucais to mind. She was glad he could not hear her thoughts, as she found it odd that she should compare a road engineer and a marquess. “I must own that it is unforeseen for a Kinloch to pay a call here.”

  “In my opinion, it is long overdue.”

  “Plainspoken, I see.”

  “I see no reason not to be.” Anice smiled when his eyes widened, and she hurried to add, “My intention is not to send you up to the boughs, my lord. I came here to express my thanks for the help your retainers gave the villagers and people from Ardkinloch in putting out the fire in the roadmen’s camp.”

  Lord Chesterburgh motioned toward a chair. “Please sit, my lady.”

  “Thank you, but I do not wish to impose when I called uninvited.”

  “Nonsense! I would not have asked you to join me here if I saw you as a bother.” He laughed.

  Anice went toward the chair, but her steps slowed as she passed the elephants.

  Slowed too much, she realized when Lord Chesterburgh asked, “My lady, does that statue intrigue you?”

  “I saw something familiar when I was in India as a child. I never thought to see its like in Scotland.”

  He smiled. “It should not be a surprise that you saw something similar in the East, for that sculpture is from India. I traveled there as a young man, and I found it a fascinating place. Mayhap you would call again and speak with me of your impressions of that country.”

  “I would be honored, my lord, although you should know I was not much more than four or five years old when we left India.” Sitting on the chair, she folded her hands on her lap and grimaced when she saw the patched seam on her skirt. She looked like a petitioner coming to call on the marquess. “And I wish you to know how grateful I am that your men came to fight the fire that could have damaged more than the road camp.”

  “Which was completely destroyed, as I understand.”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “It is a true shame. Mr. MacFarlane has had to send to London for new supplies and plans for the project.”

  “Mr. MacFarlane?” A quizzical smile stole years from his full face.

  “The chief engineer of the project is Lucais MacFarlane.”

  “Ah, now I understand.” He sat across from her and leaned back to smile. “Are you in favor of this road project, Lady Kinloch?”

  “I do not share the opinions of those who believe it will mean the end of this glen.” Her hands in her lap clenched. She had wanted to ask his opinion, not voice hers.

  “But you are not sure of the results?”

  “Who could be?”

  He pyramided his fingers in front of his face. “You astonish me, if I may say so. I have never heard of a Kinloch being so openminded.”

  “If you knew my grandmother—”

  “I never met the late lady.”

  “You never met her?” Anice was sure her eyes were wide enough to pop from her face.

  “Never. You are the first of the Kinloch family to call here in almost two hundred years. Save for the descriptions others gave to me, I would not have recognized the late lady if we had chanced to meet.”

  She faltered, then said, “I am not sure what to say.”

  “It is astounding that something so silly could separate two families that once were distant cousins and now are sim
ply distant.”

  “I agree. That war was over long ago.”

  “War?” He frowned. “Are the Kinlochs still filling everyone’s heads with that out-and-outer?”

  “It’s a lie that the dispute began when the families took opposite sides in the Civil War?”

  “Yes.”

  Again she hesitated. She had to own that she had not found it easy to swallow the tale Parlan had told her of what had begun this quarrel. Yet she had no reason to trust this man.

  Lord Chesterburgh’s eyes grew sad. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed his eyes. Then he met hers steadily. “My lady, I see how you are torn. Why should you heed me over the counsel of your family, which you have heard since you were born?”

  “To own the truth, I had not heard of any of this until less than a fortnight ago, when my family discovered that I wanted to ask all my neighbors, including you, my lord, their opinions of the bridge project. I returned to Ardkinloch only a few months ago, for I spent the previous years with my mother, traveling around the world.”

  “Including India.” He smiled, but his eyes remained sorrowful. “I would suggest, my lady, that you seek among your late grandmother’s possessions and see if you can find an old letter there.”

  “From you?”

  He shook his head, his white hair fluttering into his eyes. Pushing it back, he said, “It was written before I was born and represents the last time any of my family had communication with anyone from your family. Read it, and, if you wish, return here and give me your thoughts on it.”

  Anice wondered why he was making this a puzzle but only nodded. She could not be so rude as to demand why. Coming to her feet, she held out her hand again as Lord Chesterburgh stood. “Thank you for receiving me, my lord.”

  “The gates of Chester Hills are always open to those who come in good faith.”

  Her brow ruffled, for she was unsure what he meant. Mayhap she would understand all of this when she found that old letter. If it was still about.

  “Lady Kinloch?” he called as she turned to go.

  “Yes?” She faced him and saw he was smiling.