My One True Highlander

by Suzanne Enoch

  With a hand on the door, she faced him again. “Why don’t you wear your kilt more often?” she asked, her cheeks darkening.

  “Because the Maxwell and I arenae seeing eye to eye, and I suppose it’s my way of protesting his nonsense.” Though with the way she kept looking at him this morning, he meant to wear the tartan more often.

  “Ah.” She turned away again and pulled open the door, then abruptly shut it again and strode back up to him, not stopping until she’d wrapped her arms around his shoulders, lifted up on her toes, and kissed him openmouthed. Then she fled the room, pulling the door closed soundly behind her.

  Graeme blew out his breath. No, this wouldn’t be complicated at all.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I think if you look at it as items rather than numbers, you’ll have an easier time of it.”

  Connell scowled. “What the devil are ye talking about?”

  Stifling a grin, Marjorie stood up to pull a jar of smooth river pebbles off a shelf. “Put five of them on the table.”

  “I ken how many five is, woman. And ye’re only pretending to be my tutor.”

  “True enough. But if someone should ask what I’ve taught you, I’d like you to be able to answer without having to lie.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” the eight-year-old said grudgingly. “But I dunnae like it. I have to let ye know that.”

  Marjorie wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t have so readily dismissed the idea of being a governess back in finishing school. Connell in the short time she’d known him was already more interesting than Lady Sarah Jeffers, and she’d spent nearly a year with that moldy-smelling woman. “I completely understand. Put five more pebbles on the table, separate from the first ones.”

  She sat back to watch as he placed three more piles of five pebbles on the tabletop. Yes, he was definitely funnier and more sharp-witted than Lady Sarah. And, as she’d been discovering, he had no qualms over dishing out interesting tidbits about his oldest brother, a man the boy clearly adored.

  “I’ve put yer damned—yer blessed, I mean—rocks on the table. Now what?”

  “What is four times five, then?”

  “I told ye that I dunnae know.”

  “But you do.” She indicated the first pile. “How many?”

  “Five.”

  “And here?” She pointed to the second stack.

  “Five, fer God’s sake. And five, and five again.”

  “Push two of the stacks together. How many are there, then?”

  He moved his mouth, otherwise counting silently. “Ten. What good does that—”

  “Push the other two together.”

  Connell did so. “Fine. And there are ten here, too, so dunnae ask me.”

  “I won’t. Push the two tens into one pile. How many are there?”

  “Ten and ten is twenty. I’m nae a bairn.”

  “Separate them into four equal piles again. How many are in each pile?”

  “Five. Did ye think I’d ferget?”

  “No, I didn’t. What is five pebbles times four stacks?”

  He looked down at the stones, then up at her again. “It’s twenty. How did ye do that?”

  She chuckled. “Well done, Connell. I didn’t do anything. You did.” As she spoke the hair on her arms lifted, and she turned her head to see Graeme leaning in the doorway and gazing at her. Warmth swept through her like a summer breeze.

  For heaven’s sake, she wasn’t even certain she liked him. She craved him; especially after this morning. Especially since he’d donned his kilt again, and she knew what lay beneath it. In her defense, he had a great deal to recommend about him. Firstly, he was handsome as the devil, with that careless hair and graceful physicality that reminded her of a lion on the hunt. In addition to that, he’d taken on the task of raising his own brothers, doing that while seeing to the wants and needs of a hundred other families scattered in valleys and villages for miles around.

  At the same time, she remained a prisoner here, unable to leave the mansion and with her own lady’s companion still locked in a room upstairs. The most reasonable explanation for her attraction seemed to be that she’d simply lost her mind. If she accepted that idea, at least she could follow her impulses and fall into bed with him at the next—and every—opportunity. Madwomen did mad things, after all.

  “Graeme!” Connell said, heaping up the pebbles again. “I can multiply now.”

  “I saw ye. Keep those river rocks handy fer a time.” He pushed upright. “Do the other equations I gave ye while I have a word with Ree.”

  Marjorie had no idea where he’d discovered her nickname unless it had been from the letter she’d written to Connell. He definitely hadn’t been present when she’d told his brothers to call her Ree. She liked the way he said it in his deep brogue, when only a very few of her schoolmates and her brother had ever addressed her that way. Only her friends. And lately those had been very hard to come by.

  “Yer grandness?” Graeme prompted after a moment, both pulling her out of her reverie and reminding her that they weren’t precisely friends. Not precisely, and not yet. What they were was something she hadn’t quite figured out yet. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d encountered something so … out of her realm of experience. And given the results, perhaps she should venture there more often.

  Leaving Connell to his pebbles, she rose and walked over to join Graeme in the hallway. “Have you reconsidered Mrs. Giswell’s prison sentence?” she asked.

  “That’s why I’m here. She demanded to see ye and then turned her back on me. Now she willnae speak, and she’s better at silence than ye ever were.”

  Marjorie allowed herself a brief smile. “Oh, dear. She’s given you the cut direct. It’s the greatest show of disdain a lady can give a gentleman.”

  He lifted a straight eyebrow. “Ye’ve nae cut-directed me,” he returned. “I recall a slap direct, though.”

  She’d begun to wonder if he was baiting her on purpose. “There’s no such thing. And a slap isn’t ladylike. I blame you for inspiring my misbehavior, though.”

  His grin warmed her insides. “I’ll accept that responsibility. And I’ll be encouraging ye again, I imagine.”

  Desire touched her, heady and welcome. But she was still a prisoner, and until that altered, she couldn’t be certain how much of this was her free will, and how much she merely wanted it to be. “Perhaps a cut direct would teach you some manners, sir.” With a sniff she preceded him up the stairs.

  Graeme caught hold of her elbow and pulled her around to face him. With her a step above him, for once they stood eye to eye. “Ye can turn yer back on me, mo boireann leòmhann, but dunnae stop talking. I like the sound of yer voice.” On the tail end of that, he leaned in and kissed her.

  Now that she knew what lay beyond his kisses, they seemed even more intoxicating, like the heady scent of fine brandy and melted chocolate. Touching him made her want to forget or excuse what he’d put her through, made her want to believe that Dunncraigh was a force so evil and powerful that kidnapping a female first to assuage him and then to stand against him not only made sense, but was perfectly logical.

  After a delicious moment he straightened a little. “Of course there are occasions when yer silence suits me, too,” he murmured, gray eyes dancing as he grinned.

  “Arrogant man,” she muttered back at him, turning around again and stomping away from him up the stairs so he wouldn’t see her grin.

  She stopped in front of her companion’s room and made a point of knocking politely. “Mrs. Giswell, you wanted to see me?”

  “Is that insufferable Highlander with you?”

  “Yes, but he’s agreed to wait in the hallway.” She sent him a pointed look.

  “Thank heavens. Do come in please, dear.”

  Graeme pulled the key from his pocket. “If ye mean to convince her to nae make trouble,” he whispered, “do it soon. I’ve an appointment with Father Michael and two of my cotters in twenty minutes.
“Ewen Sturgeon and Kitty Howard want permission to marry.”

  “Permission from you?”

  “Aye. I’m their chieftain. I approve all the marriages on my land.”

  “Do you ever deny your permission?”

  “Once.” Rather than elaborate, he gazed straight back at her, as if daring her to continue a discussion of marriage in his presence.

  Well, she hadn’t done anything wrong in that respect. “Are you allowed to approve your own marriage, or does Dunncraigh have to do that? Because that might have put a damper on your grand plan to marry me and defy him.”

  “He should be the one to approve my marriage, aye,” he returned easily. “But part of the defiance plan would have involved defying him, ye ken.”

  She made a face at him. “Insufferable.”

  In truth, the way he didn’t seem angry over his botched wedding plans left her relieved. Odd though it might be, she didn’t want him as an enemy. Someone with whom she could argue, yes. But not someone she disliked. Oh, it was very complicated, and her few remaining propriety-minded friends would be fainting left and right if they knew what she’d been up to and with whom she’d been doing it. She, on the other hand, wanted to do it again.

  “What are ye thinking aboot?” he murmured, and she shook herself.

  “Kilts,” she answered, half truthfully, and then refused to drop her gaze as he turned the key and opened the door. She removed the key herself so he couldn’t lock her in with Mrs. Giswell, and then slipped into the room.

  The lady’s companion had turned her chair to face away from the doorway, but after a glance over her shoulder, likely to see if Graeme had indeed waited out in the hallway, she stood and turned around. “I’m glad that man permitted you to see me again. After I refused to bow to his demands earlier, I wasn’t certain he would.”

  And while Mrs. Giswell had been worried over their captivity, she’d been eating in the breakfast room and helping Connell with his mathematics. Guilt pinched through her. “Lord Maxton is only worried about his brothers’ safety, I believe. If you would give your word that you’ll stay inside the house here and not speak to anyone outside of the residents and staff, I believe he would remove the shackle and let you leave this bedchamber.”

  “If he’s worried over his brothers he should have raised them not to kidnap highborn ladies. And he shouldn’t have rolled me into a blanket like a sausage and then toted me over his shoulder like I was no more than a sack of potatoes.”

  “I agree. I think a lady would have found a much more diplomatic way to deal with this. Perhaps arranged to have a conversation with you before resorting to kidnapping.” In response to that she was almost certain she heard Graeme in the hallway muttering something in Gaelic, but if he continued to think kidnapping was the first solution to trouble, the house would be stuffed to overflowing by the end of the week.

  “I would certainly have been willing to listen to him. And I might have taken a moment to tell Stevens and Wolstanton to remain at the inn while I came to see you. I might have been able to offer a diplomatic solution. Now I have no idea what your men will be doing, after awakening to find me gone.”

  That probably wasn’t the most helpful thing she could have said. Marjorie stifled a frown. “The situation is as it is,” she said aloud. “This isn’t where I planned on being, by any means, but I believe I’m safer here than I would be anywhere else except for Lattimer itself. Agree, give your word not to go about shouting to all and sundry that I’m the Duke of Lattimer’s sister and we require a rescue, and you may have the run of the house.”

  Graeme hadn’t explicitly promised any such thing, but locking people up wasn’t aiding anything. When he didn’t barge in to counter her statement, she had to assume he agreed.

  “You’re being held captive in a heathen household of barbarian Highlanders,” Mrs. Giswell countered. “And you hired me to help you find your way in proper Society. These two things couldn’t be further apart. What am I to do about that?”

  “Be patient,” Marjorie returned. “And in the meantime, civilize the barbarians.”

  Mrs. Giswell grimaced, but finally nodded. “Very well. I agree. I will remain in the house and not reveal your identity to anyone—which I haven’t done anyway, by the by.”

  “And for which I sincerely thank you, Mrs. Giswell. I shall be back in a moment.”

  She ducked out of the room to see Graeme leaning back against the near wall, arms crossed over his chest and his head bowed. Even with his height and muscular frame the pose made him look oddly … vulnerable, as if she could see the weight that rested on his shoulders. He bore it so well that even though she knew about his responsibilities, this was the first time she’d seen the toll they took.

  Abruptly he lifted his head to look at her. “I didnae agree to that,” he said beneath his breath.

  “She gave ground and so now you give ground. Give me the key to the shackle.”

  “Ye’re quite the diplomat, Ree.”

  “Thank you.” She held out her hand.

  “Ye’re also relentless.” With an exaggerated sigh he put the key into her palm, running a finger up her wrist. “Ye ken I’m trusting ye with the safety of my brothers.”

  Marjorie nodded. “I understand.”

  “Ye’d leave in a heartbeat if ye could, aye?”

  That was a strange question coming from a jailor to a prisoner, but neither was the answer as straightforward as it would have been a few short days ago. “Not in one heartbeat,” she whispered, and went to go release her conscience and fellow captive. And for one more heartbeat she wished Mrs. Giswell hadn’t agreed to anything and would stay locked up in a room, away from this odd little … refuge she’d found from the world.

  * * *

  “Ranald the innkeeper says the Sassenach still at the inn dooned aboot half a keg of rum yesterday and havenae stirred from their room except to eat and piss. I reckon ye’ve the right of it; they’re nae going anywhere.”

  Graeme nodded at the groom. “Thank ye fer riding into Sheiling fer me.” He patted Clootie on the withers as Johnny led the gray gelding back into the stable. With only two saddle horses at the house, Clootie was as likely to carry the lads to the loch for fishing as he was to carry him on his rounds to visit the cotters.

  “I needed to see aboot getting a bridle mended, anyway,” Johnny returned. “Couldnae find the blacksmith, though. Ranald says Robert Polk’s been stomping aboot the countryside fer two days, bellowing fer some lass named Hortensia.” The groom grinned. “Sean Moss said he figured that might be a cow, and that Rob’s finally gone oot of his head.”

  Hm. Hortensia sounded like an English name to him. And as it didn’t belong to Marjorie, that narrowed down his suspicions considerably. It meant more trouble in his path, but at the same time he found it hilarious that the gruff, determinedly unmarried Robert Polk was roaring after a proper, mature Englishwoman.

  Then again, he was a determinedly unmarried lad roaring after an English lass himself, and he’d wager his prospects were much poorer than Rob’s. He had a newly minted heiress desperate to fit into Society, while he lived literally and figuratively as far from proper as anyone could get.

  That shouldn’t have mattered when he meant to be rid of her as soon as he could do so safely, both for her and for him and his. Except that she’d given her word to keep the Maxtons out of any story she told, and he believed her. He’d kept her there, especially over the past four days, because he wanted her there. Because he didn’t want to let her go. What that meant, he refused to consider.

  Back inside the house he heard her laughing about something, Connell’s giggle mingling with hers. For as long as he could remember the mansion had been chaotic and wild, and overwhelmingly masculine. Marjorie seemed to like the chaos, but even with the circumstances of her arrival she’d brought a peace and a thoughtfulness that filled the house with unexpected warmth. She brought him a … contentment mixed with excitement. He’d never experienced the l
ike. It was addictive, and he craved her, craved being around her. And he would continue telling himself it was because he enjoyed bedding her, and nothing more. Nothing more was allowed.

  “Laird Maxton,” Cowen said, from the direction of the kitchen, “I’ve been instructed to tell ye that young Connell requests an audience with ye, at yer convenience.”

  “Well, that was pretty.”

  The butler blushed. “That was how the duckling said it, and he made certain I would tell ye the same thing precisely.”

  “Ye sounded very proper. Was Lady Marjorie anywhere aboot when this conversation took place?”

  “Oh, aye.”

  Of course she had been. “I’ll see him now, then. Do ye know the wheraboots of Mrs. Giswell? I request an audience with her, at her conv—”

  “God’s sake, m’laird. Please dunnae. All these polite, twisty words are giving me the shakes.”

  Graeme chuckled. “Ye’re a man after my own heart. Just go find her, will ye?”

  He expected to find Connell and Ree in the downstairs sitting room, but the continuing laughter led him upstairs to Connell’s bedchamber. The door stood open, but considering the formality of the request, he knocked before stepping inside. “Ye wanted to see me, duckling?”

  His brother and Marjorie sat on the floor, scooping the trio of baby rabbits he wasn’t supposed to know about into a basket. Connell stood up, squaring his shoulders. “Aye. I did want to see ye.”

  “Here I am, then.”

  Glancing down, the lad took a deep breath. “Garaidh nan Leòmhann is yer responsibility, and ye need to know what’s afoot beneath yer own roof. I have a duty to tell ye, then, that I rescued three rabbit kits when a hawk carried off their ma. Their names are Fluff, Gray, and Hop, and even though ye said we had enough animals in the hoose, I’d like to keep them. They’re very nice, and Daisy and Pete havenae tried to eat them yet, and the cats think they’re cats. I’m teaching the lot of them to be friends.”

  Marjorie knelt behind the boy, her expression proud as she practically mouthed the words of the speech along with him. She was back in the first gown he’d found for her, the pale blue one. Damnation, he needed to find her more to wear. A lady required more than two gowns. And he liked taking them off her.