She was going to die… She was going to die in Scotland…
She was plucked straight up into the air just as the bull swerved off away from the blanket.
“I’ve got you.” The scent of heather enveloped her as she was pulled sideways across a saddle. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”
“Ian.” She clutched at him, her heart pounding, her eyes closed tightly as Ian’s horse carried them swiftly toward the gate. Fiona swung it open for the horse to pass through then immediately closed it behind them when Ian brought the horse to a halt.
“You’re safe,” Ian growled. “You’re both safe. What in God’s name were you thinking, picnicking in a bull’s pasture?”
“It’s not his pasture.” Fiona was frowning up at them, her little face pale. “Romeo has the other side of the hill.”
“Then he was napping in the grass off his usual turf,” Ian said. “You should have taken a closer look around, Fee.” And while he lectured the child, Augusta remained right where she was, bundled into his heat and strength as tightly as she could hold on.
“But Uncle Ian, somebody had to open the gate between Romeo’s paddock and this pasture. His gates are always secured with both a rope and a latch because he likes to—”
“I know what he likes to do, Fee.”
“We’re all right,” Fiona said, pique and bewilderment in her voice. “Why are you yelling at me? Miss Augusta had a visit with Romeo, and I got out, and then you came along, and it’s… it’s… all right. Ma is going to yell, and yell and yell…”
She sat down abruptly in the grass, bringing her pinafore up to her face.
“Ian, help her.”
He tightened his arms around Augusta momentarily, a little taste of bliss not entirely composed of safety, and then he put the reins in her hand. As he leaned forward to dismount, his chest crowded against Augusta.
He was a big man. A wonderfully, comfortingly, arousingly big man.
“I don’t mean to yell, Fee.” He hoisted the child to his hip, and she burrowed against him. “You’re safe now, and you won’t go wandering into a pasture again without keeping an eye out for lonely bulls.”
“He wasn’t there,” she muttered against his neck. “Uncle Ian, I know to keep my eyes sharp, and he wasn’t there when we chose where to have our picnic this morning. Uncle Gil says Romeo needs the shade on the other side of the hill.”
Augusta glanced over at the bull, who was now sporting the ends of a clover chain dangling from his mouth. He was chewing as bovines do, as much side to side as up and down, and looking almost harmless.
She got situated more securely in the saddle, a leg on each side of the horse, her skirts arranged as modestly as possible. Inside her body, where warmth ought to be, she felt cold and shuddery. What if Ian hadn’t come along?
“Up you go, Fee. You’ve had a fright, and I’m glad you’re safe.” He hefted the child to sit before Augusta. “Keep Miss Augusta company, and I’ll retrieve your things. Romeo’s had his fun for now.”
He shrugged out of his coat and handed that to Augusta as well. She bundled it up to hold between her and Fiona, when he snatched it back and shook it out.
“Around your shoulders, madam. You and I will talk later.”
He vaulted the fence in one lithe, fit movement then moved toward their blanket in a no-nonsense fashion. “None of your malarkey, laddie. You’ve had your sport for the morning, chasing heifers that don’t belong to you. For shame.” Ian continued his scolding while he gathered up their little picnic and tossed their blanket over his shoulder. Whether it was because the animal recognized authority, or didn’t feel a mere human male worth his notice, Romeo kept at his grazing without so much as flicking an ear.
When Ian had their effects piled on the safe side of the fence, Augusta resumed breathing.
“You’re squashing me, Miss Augusta.”
She also loosened her hold on the child. “Apologies. I am discommoded by our adventure. A hot cup of tea is in order, I think. Will you join me?”
Fiona squirmed around to peer at Augusta. “You want me to join you for tea?”
“A private tea, with a whole tray of tea cakes. My favorites have chocolate icing and crème in the center.”
“I like the ones that are chocolate everywhere. Inside, outside, and on top. So does Uncle Ian.”
Augusta smoothed a hand over the girl’s silky crown and looked down to find Ian staring up at them with an odd expression on his face.
“You ladies stay right where you are. We’ll send a groom for your things and get you back to the house.” He lifted the horse’s reins over the beast’s neck and led the gelding from the pasture.
“Uncle Ian?”
He didn’t even look back. “I’m going to have to tell her, Fee. She’s your mama, and I don’t lie to my family.”
“But then she’ll try to watch me again, and I hate it when she tries to watch me. I don’t want to dust and polish and trot around the house all day. We’ve company and I’m not supposed to let them see me and it’s boring.”
“Boring?” Augusta knew a reaction in a child when she heard it gathering steam. “How could it be boring to hold court for a little while in your castle after having such a brush with disaster, Fiona? Your uncles Gil and Con will want to hear exactly what happened from you and you alone. They’ll wish they’d been the ones to come to the rescue, and they’ll try to steal some tea cakes while you tell your tale. You can scold them for their sorry manners. What is the Gaelic word for scold?”
Fiona had a little dialogue on the topic with Ian in their mother tongue while Augusta caught the occasional sentence or phrase. As relief replaced her earlier upset, she let the sound wash over her.
Ian should always speak his first language, she decided. The music of it rumbled from him in a natural flow, more lyrical than the hard edges and clipped intonation of his public-school English, more resonant.
Augusta tugged his jacket closely around her, taking a deep inhale of the scent of Ian and safety: his beautiful voice, his lovely scent, the sight of his muscular shoulders moving under his clothes as he walked the horse along and kept up a conversation to soothe his rattled little niece.
As Augusta had been standing in that pasture, heart pounding, certain her own death was imminent, she’d had the thought she was going to die in Scotland.
And now she’d died and gone to heaven, if only for a few guilty moments.
***
Augusta and Fiona would have their little tea party—a great kindness on the part of the adult toward the child who should have been more alert to pastoral dangers—but Ian was going to have a goddamned dram of the good stuff. Several drams.
And not just because the bull had damned near trampled two defenseless females.
Bloody damn…
Ian’s heart had almost pounded out of his chest when he’d topped the rise and seen Augusta Merrick standing ramrod straight, staring that bull in his bovine face, putting herself squarely in danger for the sake of the child.
And if anything had happened to Fee… She was their heart. She was their hope for a happier future, a more secure future where children had enough to eat and felt safe in the love and protection of family.
The third blow to his composure had come when he’d gathered up their hamper, blanket, and sketch pad, and seen what Augusta Merrick had drawn. He’d barely had time to riffle through the pages, but what she’d rendered had trampled him as surely as any bull could have.
She was a talented artist, better even than Con, whose accuracy brought to mind daguerreotypes. She had an ability Con lacked to render emotions incisively, even in inanimate objects.
Balfour House was sketched on its rise, majestic and inviting all at once. A fortress and a refuge,
a home of dignity and warmth. She saw it the way Ian felt it, not the gutters threatening to sag, the myriad chimneys to keep unclogged, the windows in need of a thorough glazing, but the home where his family loved and lived out their lives.
She’d drawn Con and Gil, catching both their humor and a lurking sort of despair, a restlessness overlaid with determination and sheer healthy Scottish male good looks.
Mary Fran was a different sort of study, in humor and in fatigue not just of the body, but also of the… heart. And pretty. There was lavish female beauty unstintingly portrayed, enough to make Ian see his own sister in a different and more honest light.
Mary Fran was going to waste, frittering away her best years with a broom in one hand and a tot of whisky in the other.
Augusta Merrick, whose own youth was slipping behind her, saw Mary Fran’s life clearly, while Ian—the man responsible for Mary Fran’s well-being and happiness—had not.
And then the final page.
Him. Ian, but not any version of Ian MacGregor ever seen in his own mirror. This man was smiling slightly, a warmth in his eyes that belied fatigue and disillusionment, though both were there as well. She’d gotten his nose right too, and yet in her eyes he was a handsome devil, full of mischief and possessed of some wisdom too. He was a leader a family could be proud of, eager for challenges, but patient when needs must, and willing to take on any burden for those he loved.
As he led his horse into the stable yard, Ian realized Miss Augusta Merrick was a romantic. She was a woman who could have argued poetry with him all morning, probably in several languages, and she was a woman selfless enough to protect another’s child when children had been denied her.
“Do you have to tell Ma right now?” Fiona sat on the horse, looking perfectly miserable, probably just to twist Ian’s heartstrings.
“I’ll tell her.” Miss Augusta brushed a kiss to the girl’s crown that Ian felt in the center of his chest. “I’ll tell her after dinner, over tea with the ladies. I’d like it if you could join us, Fiona.”
Ian watched as Fiona weighed the options. “I want it over with before bedtime, but if all the ladies are there, Ma won’t yell as much.”
Ian reached up and lifted the child from the saddle. “Down you go and off to the kitchen. Tell Cook you were out riding with me, and she’ll make you a tray.” He patted the child’s bottom as she scooted off, not exactly gently, which had Fee grinning at him over her shoulder.
“See you at teatime, Miss Augusta!”
“You next.” Ian reached up, wondering why—when he’d helped any number of ladies from the saddle—he was tempted to catch this one to him when she put her hands on his shoulders and slid to the ground.
Except he knew why. “Steady?”
She nodded, and he stepped back but let himself take her hand as he led her toward the gardens. When he closed his fingers over hers, he noted two things. First: Her hand was cold in the middle of a bright summer day. Second: She was wiser than he, sensing an attraction Ian hadn’t wanted to admit, much less name. Why else had she silently been putting distance between them ever since their chat on the moonlit terrace?
“You don’t need to avoid me,” he said. He meant the words too. Meant them sincerely.
“Avoid you?” She didn’t withdraw her hand, and yet he felt her withdrawing in some intangible way.
“I’m a gentleman, Miss Merrick, and one attempting to court your cousin. I would not trespass… I wouldn’t presume…” He fell silent and led her to a bench they’d occupied before. It sat behind a high privet hedge, shaded and secluded. When she’d gingerly lowered herself to the bench, Ian took the place beside her without asking her permission.
He also took her hand again, lest she stalk off after she’d slapped him.
“I like you, Augusta Merrick. I like you, and I respect you, and what you just did for my niece puts my entire family in debt to you.”
It wasn’t what he’d meant to say. The two things were separate, the liking her and being in her debt. He’d never been good at delicate innuendo, never would be, but he’d seen those sketches, and they made him a little reckless.
“I like you too, Ian MacGregor.” She smiled as she said this, a soft, secret female smile that lit up those violet eyes with some joy known only to her. You’d think she’d never liked a fellow before.
Maybe she hadn’t, which was an inordinately cheering thought.
“If you like me, then why haven’t you let me show you any more of the woods? Why do you move your place at the table every morning so we no longer converse over breakfast? Why are you from the house for most of every day unless it’s pouring? You are my only ally in this endeavor with your cousin. I look to you for guidance, you know.”
It was true, in a manner of speaking, but the real truth—the truth a man could tell a friend—popped into his mind as a whole thought: “I’ve missed you, Augusta Merrick. It has been a very long week, trying to be agreeable to everybody, to fathom the undercurrents in your family and mine, to keep the estate business running smoothly while being the devoted suitor and the charming host.”
She was still smiling to herself, her gaze on their joined hands. Her fingers were gradually warming.
“I’ve… not wanted to impose. Not wanted to overstep. You’re the earl.”
“I’m Ian to you, if you’ll recall.”
“Ian.”
And God bless her, she said it the way Fiona or Mary Fran might. Not E-an, but nearly one syllable and almost rhyming with rain.
“Augusta.” It felt good to say her name, but he didn’t let himself dwell on that. “You bring your sketchbook when we go on our walk.”
“Tomorrow morning?”
“That would suit.” That she wasn’t going to beg off had his blood bubbling along more happily in his veins. He had missed her. It hadn’t just been words or a polite sentiment—nor even a purely naughty sentiment either, come to that.
They sat like that, side by side, hands joined, while something shifted in Ian’s thinking. She was brave enough to take these small risks to propriety in the name of friendship, brave enough to walk his property with him without benefit of chaperone or family.
A woman who’d face down a courting bull might be willing to chance even greater risks in the name of something greater—more intimate—than friendship.
He dropped her hand and rose to his feet, the direction of his thoughts unworthy of them both.
Also damned hard to ignore.
“You’ll be wanting that tea tray, won’t you? I shouldn’t keep you out here when you’ve had such a fright.”
If his abrupt return to sanity disconcerted her, she hid it well. She rose and linked her arm through his. “A tea tray and maybe an afternoon in the library. I’m in the mood to read some Catullus, I think.”
Was she challenging him? “Translations or in the original?”
“The original. I prefer to puzzle out the translations on my own.”
He did not dwell on all the implications of such a statement, but escorted her up to the house. Only when she’d disappeared from view did he realize he’d never caught sight of his errant sister and her latest Englishman.
***
Four years ago, when they’d had their first summer of paying guests, Mary Fran had given herself permission to like the occasional Englishman or Englishwoman. Her own English grandmother had had no patience for prejudice, saying the rules of Highland hospitality forbade such pettiness.
“The battlefield is one thing, home and hearth another.”
Would that the distinction was as easy for Mary Fran to make. Gordie’s perfidy hadn’t helped, but it was hard to know if he’d been such a tramp out of maleness, Englishness, or his own simple venery.
Or all three.
The spinster—Miss Augusta—held up her cup. Mary Fran poured carefully, wondering when the lecture would come. The other ladies had departed for their beds, leaving only Augusta, Mary Fran, and Fiona lingering over the teapot. Fiona had been dogging the woman mercilessly for several days, which was only to be expected.
While Mary Fran held most English in contempt on principle, Fiona was understandably fascinated with her father’s people. The child sat in a corner quiet as a mouse for once, a delicate cup and saucer balanced in her lap.
“I wanted to tell you of an adventure I had today while out with Miss Fiona,” the spinster said. “You’re going to be quite proud of your daughter.”
Miss Fiona? Nobody save Vicar called the child that, and never in tones presaging pride.
“I am often proud of our Fee,” Mary Fran replied, but she cast the child a sidelong glance. She was proud of her daughter—why didn’t she ever tell the girl as much?
“I was determined to sketch the prettiest meadow we could find, and chose my spot without regard for the dangers it might pose.” The woman took a sip of her tea, not even realizing that for a mother, that single sentence would create worry.
“Danger, Miss Augusta? Were you on the goat track up to the tor?”
“Nothing so daring as that. We were in a meadow to the east of the house, a lovely place full of clover and sunshine, our picnic not even unpacked when a gentleman came calling.”
Gentleman? Who among the local landowners… unless it was someone from Balmoral. Please, God, let Fee have remembered her curtsy before the prince or his progeny.
“Another fellow out walking?” Mary Fran took a sip of her tea, only to find her cup empty. She glanced at the dregs, resenting the need to listen patiently to a woman with whom she had nothing in common.
“He was out courting. Fiona tells me he goes by the name of Romeo. Fiona did exactly as I asked her, though, and nobody came to any harm.”
“Romeo got loose!?” Mary Fran’s cup went clattering to its saucer. “Fiona? You were in a pasture with that bull? What…” She realized she was nigh shouting and got to her feet, the need to move undeniable. Fiona was so little, and that damned bull was the biggest, lustiest specimen her brothers had been able to purchase.
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