“Certainly,” she said aloud. “I’ll go up and fetch my coat in a moment, if you’ll wait for me.”
“Let’s go now. I dunnae want someone else finding all the treasures.”
Well, she wasn’t terribly hungry, anyway. “Certainly. Give me two minutes.”
“I’ll wait fer that long, but nae any longer.”
This would be good. It would distract her, and perhaps one of the workers in the meadow might have overheard Sir Hamish discussing when he might be leaving. While Connell tried to recruit Brendan and Dùghlas and even Mrs. Giswell to join in the search for accidentally dropped treasures, Marjorie stepped around two cats and a rabbit and climbed the stairs again.
Pushing open the door she headed for her wardrobe—and stopped dead.
A large bouquet of thistles, late white roses, and long fern fronds stood on the table beneath the window, a ribbon of black, green, and red plaid around the neck of the vase. “Lovely,” she whispered, crossing to them as the mild spice of the roses touched her.
In her entire life no one had ever gifted her with flowers. And these were wild and lovely and unmistakably hers. She cupped a rose in her hand, inhaling again. Then, her fingers shaking a little, she picked up the folded paper leaning against the base.
She knew who they were from, of course; while she’d met several pleasant and even rather handsome men at the fair, none of them had cause to send her flowers. Of course the man of whom she was thinking had no reason to do so, either—unless he regretted something he’d said yesterday.
With the note half unfolded, she paused. She wouldn’t mind an apology for his rudeness, for the things he’d said that had made her question a lifelong dream. What if, though, the flowers were an apology for the kind things he’d said? What if she was about to read that he should never have suggested that she stay in the Highlands, because of course she belonged in London? What if he was apologizing for saying he liked her?
“Just open it, you coward,” she muttered to herself, took a breath, and unfolded it.
“Marjorie,” she read, his writing dark and surprisingly elegant, “The other night I called you mo boireann leòmhann. It means ‘my lioness.’ I reckon if I insult you in English, the compliments should likewise be in English. You fit here, at the Lion’s Den. As long as you’re here, I mean to keep pointing that out to you. Eventually maybe you’ll believe me. Yours, Graeme.”
Marjorie sat down in her chair and read the note a second time. And a third. It wasn’t an apology. In some ways it felt like a declaration of war. He knew what she intended to do, and he meant to convince her that she was wrong.
At the same time, he’d called her a lioness. His lioness. He’d said it to her in Gaelic nearly a week ago, and every night since then—until last night, of course. A lady wasn’t supposed to be flattered at being called a wild beast. But she did feel flattered. When he said it to her, even before she knew what it meant, the words had made her feel fierce and wanton. She’d liked being in his arms, liked being in his bed. Liked the feeling of him moving inside her. She craved it, even. When she didn’t want to hit him over the head with something, she craved him.
What he’d said, though, that she belonged here—he couldn’t know that. By an extreme oddity of luck and coincidence she’d ended up here, but to say she belonged at a place where she’d been—was still being—held captive? That was absurd. Arrogant, and absurd. She’d trained to be a lady, and now she had the chance to live like one. But not here. The Lion’s Den was not a place for a lady. No soirees, no evenings at the theater, no carriage rides through Hyde Park. No civilization. And that was what she knew—civilization.
“Are ye coming doonstairs?” Connell yelled from the direction of the foyer. “All the treasures will be gone!”
Marjorie shook herself. She couldn’t yell back, because that wasn’t ladylike, but she did stuff the note into her pelisse pocket, pull the old, borrowed coat out of her wardrobe, and hurry out of the room. If she was a lioness, she seemed to be a cowardly one.
Chapter Fifteen
A scattering of cotters and other workers had already arrived to begin removing canopies and benches and planking from the meadow, their efforts hindered by a light scattering of snow that had fallen overnight. While Brendan and Dùghlas divided their time between toeing the low grass for treasures and helping carry things to the waiting wagons, Connell clearly only had one thing on his mind.
He slowly trudged across the fairgrounds, bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees for balance. Marjorie wasn’t about to fold over like a rheumatic old man, but she did keep her head down and crouch to further explore any promising blemish in the white-dusted grass.
“We’re too late,” Connell muttered as he searched. “Naught’s left to find.”
Carefully Marjorie pulled a shilling from her pelisse pocket, waited until no one was looking, and pitched it into a small shrubbery before moving on. When Connell approached, she made a point of looking in a different direction.
“A shilling!” the duckling exclaimed, pulling it from the bushes and holding it high in the air. “I knew there would be someaught!”
“Well spotted, Connell,” she complimented, walking over to inspect his find.
“I’m a grand finder.”
“That you are,” she agreed, grinning at his excitement.
Over the next hour she managed to drop another shilling and twopence, which Connell found as surely as any hound. He also discovered a broken bead bracelet, a metal hair clip and, to his great delight, a small bone-handled knife.
“Ye should have Father Michael ask after anyone missing a knife,” Dùghlas suggested.
“But I found it.”
“But whoever dropped it might need it,” his brother returned. “Dunnae describe it to Father Michael, but tell him if anyone claims it, they can come here and describe it to ye. If someone does claim it, though, ye have to return it.”
The boy kicked a clump of grass, sending a small spray of white into the air. “Aye. I dunnae like it, but aye.”
“That’s very gentlemanly of you, Connell,” Marjorie said, with an appreciative nod to his brother.
“Ye’re English, aye?” one of the workers, an older man with short-cropped gray hair and a bushy mustache asked her.
“I am.”
“I heard there was an English lass aboot. Could ye tell me someaught?”
“I’ll certainly try,” Marjorie returned, smiling.
There was something about Highlanders she found refreshing. If they didn’t like someone, they didn’t hide it or pretend to be friendly. They asked direct questions, and expected a direct response. It was … pleasant to always know where she stood with both aquaintances and strangers. In fact, her only shaky ground was Graeme.
“I’m on my way north to put some windows into an old war castle. An Englishman, Lattimer, is hiring Scots builders from all across the Highlands. But I’ve nae worked fer an Englishman before. Do I have to bow when he passes, or nae look him in the eye? That’s what I’ve heard.”
For a moment Marjorie couldn’t find her words. “You’re … headed to Lattimer Castle?”
“Aye. It’s a bit north of here. Ye’ve heard of it, then?”
“Yes, I have.”
This man could take her away from here. She could be at Lattimer Castle before midnight. They could leave this very moment, and with the boys distracted and an ever-increasing number of men arriving in the meadow, it could be an hour or more before her absence was even noticed.
She looked across the meadow to see Graeme. He squatted on the ground beside Connell, his brown and red mane touching his brother’s red hair as they bowed over the duckling’s treasures. No, she didn’t fit here. She shouldn’t want to fit here. Why, then, did she spend so much of her time smiling and laughing?
“Miss?”
She shook herself. “No, you don’t need to bow,” she answered belatedly, “and I believe the Duke of Lattimer would appreciate
being looked in the eye. Are you going to be here for a while?”
“Fer a time,” he answered. “They put oot word at the Cracked Hearth fer extra hands today, and mine are willing.”
“May I ask your name, sir?”
He blushed, pulling his tam from his head to twist it in his hands. “I beg yer pardon, miss. Cooper’s my name. Samuel Cooper.”
“I’m Ree, Mr. Cooper. Would you excuse me for just a moment?”
“Aye. Of course.”
Trying not to hurry her steps or to look back over her shoulder, Marjorie returned to the house. Once inside she did run, gathering her skirt and racing upstairs to her borrowed bedchamber. Keeping in mind how little time she likely had before Mr. Cooper resumed his journey north, she pulled paper from the desk drawer and the pencil from the vase where she’d hidden it.
At her elbow her bouquet still sat, full of white roses and deep purple thistle and the soft green of the forest ferns. Hush, she reminded herself. She could admire them later.
“I expected to find ye stuffing yer things into a sack,” Graeme said from the doorway.
Marjorie started. “You’re very stealthy for such a big man,” she said, not turning around. “And no, I’m not packing. I’m writing a note.”
“To yer brother? So he can come and fetch ye and begin a war?”
“To my brother, yes. To begin a war, no. And since you knew Samuel Cooper was headed for Lattimer and you let him remain here anyway, I have to assume you were giving me the chance to flee.”
“Look at me.”
For a moment she continued scribbling. Unable to resist her curiosity or the timbre of the command, though, she turned around. “What is it? I don’t know how long he intends to be here.”
Graeme walked forward and knelt beside her chair, so for once he had to look up at her. He wanted to grab the pencil out of her hand, and take the letter she was writing so he could introduce it to the fireplace. But she was correct; he had known where Samuel Cooper was headed, and he was giving her a choice. Apparently she hadn’t taken the one he’d expected.
“Ye’re nae leaving, then?” he asked, trying to sound cynical and not like some orphan watching someone else take the last scrap of bread he would ever see.
“Sir Hamish is still residing two miles away, his gaze turned here while he waits for you to make a mistake. I told you I would stay as long as he remains here. I don’t wish to aid him in any way.”
She continued to make this about her word, her honor, rather than about her emotions. He wanted to shake her until she understood. Until she admitted that she did want to stay here—and not just because being at Garaidh nan Leòmhann made her happy.
And it did. He knew it did. She merely refused to see it. “If ye dunnae mean to cause harm, then show me the letter.”
Without any hesitation she picked it up and handed it to him. “Add something, if you like.”
Graeme turned it right-side up. “Gabriel,” he read to himself, “I wanted to inform you that I am presently in the Highlands. I’m staying with a friend half a day or so from Lattimer, and I do mean to come visit you and meet your Fiona. Be assured that I’m well—though I wish you’d bothered to inform me about the tensions between you and clan Maxwell. I just barely avoided trouble. You really do need to write more. If I choose to remain here longer than another week I shall inform you. Otherwise, you should expect me then. All my love, Ree.”
The last four words kept his attention for an absurd amount of time. She wrote them so easily, more easily than he ever could, and yet he wondered if she’d ever thought of those words with regard to him. He hadn’t said them to her, either, but that was about his own weakness, and not hers.
Slowly he handed the letter back up to her. “I dunnae need to add anything.”
“I wanted … I wanted someone else to know my whereabouts. So if I was to disappear, at least one person who cared would notice.”
He met her deep blue eyes. “I know yer whereaboots. And I care.”
Marjorie nodded, turning away as she wiped a hand across her eyes. She wanted the conversation to end there, then, before she had to talk about how she felt and what she truly wanted. He took hold of the chair and pulled it—and her—around to face him again.
“I didnae want to meet a lass who could twist me up inside. I didnae want my heart to pound or my breath to catch when a particular lass entered a room.”
“Oh, stop telling me why you don’t want to like me,” she snapped.
Hm. “I hadnae thought aboot it that way. What I’m trying to say, Marjorie, is that I only figured on the pain of it. Until I met ye I didnae realize there would be laughter, and arguing, and quiet, and calm, and peace, and heat, and strength, and two people feeling all those things at the same time, together.”
He spoke slowly, trying to fit all the pieces together as he went. It was like putting together a puzzle, seeing the picture, and only then realizing an entirely different puzzle lay on the backside, just as pretty and important as the first.
She wasn’t still protesting, and she hadn’t tried to turn away again or leave, so he went on. “I’m a man with more responsibility than I figured to have at my age, and so I’m cautious of making a mistake. But considering how I felt last night sleeping withoot ye in my arms, I think I would be making a bigger mistake if I didnae fight to keep ye here. With me.”
A tear ran down her cheek and then another, but she continued to sit with her hands folded in her lap. “I never expected to meet you,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I never meant, never intended, to find anyone with whom I wanted to share my life. I mean … who would want to? I didn’t even want to.”
“Marjorie, ye dunnae—”
“I do mean it,” she cut in, as if she could read his thoughts. “I hated what I did, but it was the only way I could think to earn an income. I couldn’t expect Gabriel to send me half his salary forever, and … he was a soldier. In a war. I couldn’t rely on his salary continuing indefinitely. I felt awful for thinking that, but if something happened to him, it would be just me in the world. I literally have no other relations.”
“I didnae realize that.” Aye, he and the lads had been orphaned, but they’d had each other, Uncle Raibeart, a scattering of cousins, and atop everything else, clan Maxwell. Kin, whether or not they were family. “Ye grew up having to look after yerself.”
She nodded. “It took the Crown six months to find an heir for the old Duke of Lattimer. That’s how alone we were. We didn’t even know.” Her mouth curved in a slight, winsome smile that he wanted to kiss so badly it physically hurt to stay still. “For me,” she went on, “one day out of the blue Gabriel appeared on my employer’s doorstep, showed me his new signet ring, and said he was duke, of all things. I didn’t even believe him at first.
“Within fifteen minutes he arrived, gave me the London house he’d just inherited, had his aide-de-camp write down his solicitor’s address and send them instructions to give me whatever I wanted, and left for his new estate in the Highlands. That was nearly four months ago. I haven’t seen him since.”
“I dunnae like that ye were so alone, lass.” It actually made him angry. Not at her brother or anyone else in particular, but at the idea of it. At the idea that a woman as compassionate and sensitive and clever as she was had had to be so … self-contained.
“I’m not after your sympathy, Graeme. I do have friends. Women I met at school. They’re nannies and governesses and companions and teachers now, scattered all across England.” She sighed. “It sounds petty and pitiful, and I don’t even know why I’m telling you this, but some of them feel that I lied to them or something because I have money now, and ‘Lady’ in front of my name.”
Holding his breath, he took both her hands and drew her forward. She followed without protest, sinking across his thighs so he could put his arms around her. When it came to talking about herself and how hurt and frustrated and lonely she must have felt, she was more skittish than the foxes. H
e wanted her to understand that he was a protector—of his people, his brothers, and her if she’d allow it. Her, most of all.
“I want to belong somewhere,” she went on, her voice muffled against his shoulder, her fingers twining into his coat. “I thought I had the secret password, once I owned a grand house in the middle of Mayfair and more money than I ever dreamed of. I knew what they knew: how to dance, how to chat, when to curtsy, how to dress—I didn’t cheat or lie to be related to the old Duke of Lattimer. I just didn’t know I was. But everyone in Mayfair thinks I’m an upjumped lady’s companion and sister to an upjumped soldier. They’re snobs. Mean, self-concerned, spoiled snobs.”
“Then why fer God’s sake do ye want to be one of them?”
A sob racked her slender frame. “It’s the only … dream I had.”
He kissed her lemon-scented hair. “Mo boireann leòmhann, ye need another dream. A better one. Mayhap I’m nae in it, but I’ll fight to convince ye otherwise. I love ye, Marjorie. And if ye think that’s easy fer me to say, then f—”
“I love you, Graeme,” she interrupted, crying harder. “I just don’t know what to do.”
Graeme closed his eyes for a moment, warmed and troubled all at the same time. “I can tell ye what I want, lass, but I cannae tell ye what ye want. I do reckon that fer all our sakes, ye need to figure it oot soon.”
She nodded against his shoulder. “I know. I will.” Clearing her throat, she straightened. “Goodness. I don’t think I’ve cried that much, ever.”
“Aye, ye nearly drowned both of us.”
With a damp smile she wiped at her face. “Mrs. Giswell would be very disappointed. A lady doesn’t weep in front of a man unless she wishes to be thought a weak-willed watering pot.”
“Who the devil are these ladies who dunnae do anything? They dunnae cry, they dunnae laugh, or get angry, or sleepy—what do they actually do, then?”
She looked him directly in the eye, her brow furrowing. “You know, I have no idea.” Abruptly she gasped and pushed away from him to climb to her feet. “Samuel Cooper! I need to get him my letter.”
My One True Highlander Page 23