by Julia London
That was the way of the English—or Sassenach, as they referred to them here. They seemed to appear out of the mist to take this or that, to demand change to a way of life that had been known in these hills for hundreds of years. But of all the English reavers Cailean knew, none of them were quite as striking as this one. Her eyes were shaped like those of a wily cat, the color of them as green as new pears. She had a fine figure, too—frankly, she was beautiful.
She’d been quite a surprise to him, in truth, and Cailean was not a man who was easily surprised. But with rumors swirling fast and furious about another attempt to restore a Stuart to the throne, tensions were quite high between Highlanders who disagreed about it, and between Scot and Englishman. For a beautiful English lady to suddenly appear in the Highlands was an invitation for trouble.
Aye, she was surprising and beautiful—and unforgivingly, unacceptably English. Poor MacNally was no match for them.
“Aye, then. Wait there,” Cailean said. He stepped inside, slammed the door and marched across his half-finished house toward the back to leave his brother a note.
As MacNally was on foot, they walked the mile or so to Auchenard. They came through the woods, emerging near the drive. Weeds had sprung up among the gravel, and as they neared the lodge, Cailean could see the windows were unwashed, the lawn overgrown. Cailean paused and looked pointedly at MacNally.
MacNally read his expression quite accurately. “I’ll put it to rights, laird. I will.”
Cailean grunted at that and continued on. He didn’t believe it for a moment, but MacNally was not his worry.
He strode up to the front door and rapped loudly. Several moments passed before a man wearing shirtsleeves and a leather apron answered the door. “Sir?”
“Lady Chatwick,” Cailean said.
The man blinked. He looked at MacNally, then at Cailean. “Who...who may I say is calling?” he asked uneasily.
“The laird of Arrandale.”
The man seemed shocked. He hesitated, casting a disapproving look over MacNally.
“Be quick about it, lad,” Cailean said impatiently. “I havena all day for this.”
The man’s throat bobbed with a swallow. He nodded and disappeared into the dark and dank foyer of the lodge.
Several moments passed. Cailean could hear male voices, and then a sudden and collective footfall. It sounded as if an army were advancing on the door, but there appeared only the lady, the butler and two other men. One of the men was familiar to Cailean—he’d brandished a sword yesterday. The other man was a stranger to him.
Lady Chatwick, who led them, looked worried as she approached the door, but when she saw him standing there, a peculiar thing happened. A smile lit her face so suddenly and so sunnily that it startled him. “You again,” she exclaimed, and her voice was full of...delight?
She should not be delighted to see him, and Cailean eyed her suspiciously. She was dressed plainly, her hair tied up under a cap. Her slender neck was unadorned, and he could faintly see the pulse of her heart in the hollow of her throat.
He looked away from her neck, shifted his weight onto his hip. “Aye,” he said impatiently.
Her smiled deepened. What was she doing, smiling at him like that? He didn’t like it—it unbalanced him. She should not be smiling at him; she should be trembling in her silly little boots.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, touching a wayward strand of hair. “We’ve only just arrived, as you know, and I’m afraid we’re not ready to receive callers. I had hoped to be here a week earlier, but the journey was so arduous from London that we were delayed. First the rough sea, then all these hills.”
Why was she nattering? “These hills,” he said brusquely, “is why the area is called the Highlands. One might have expected it. And I’ve no’ come to call.”
Her green eyes widened with surprise. And then she laughed, the sound of it soft and light in that cluster of men. “I thank you for not couching your opinion in poetic phrases, sir. Of course you are right—I should have expected it.”
Just then a lad pushed his way through and latched onto her skirts, staring up at Cailean with trepidation. “Ah, there you are, darling.” She turned slightly, put her hands on lad’s shoulders and moved him to stand in front of her. “May I introduce my family? My uncle, Mr. Alfonso Kimberly,” she said gesturing to the taller of the two men. “And of course, Sir Nevis you have met,” she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
Sir Nevis stood with his hand on the hilt of his sword. Both men glared at him with wariness, as if he were the intruder here. Cailean grunted at them. He didn’t care who they were, was not interested in introductions.
“And my son, Lord Chatwick.”
The lad stepped back into her, practically hiding in the folds of her skirt, but she gently pushed him out again. He looked to be about seven or eight years old, slight and pale, his blond hair sticking to his head. Cailean wondered if the lad was ill.
“Ellis, might you bow to the gentleman?”
The lad clasped his hands behind his back and bowed woodenly. “How do you do.”
“Latha math,” Cailean said absently.
The lad blinked up at him.
“I said, ‘Good day, lad.’ Have you no’ heard a Highlander speak?”
“I thought you might be English,” his mother said.
“English!” he very nearly bellowed. By God, he looked nothing like an Englishman! He was wearing trews, for God’s sake. “No,” he said gruffly, feeling slightly injured by the insult.
“Well, it’s not as bad as that, being English,” she chirped and gave him a lopsided little twinkle of a smile.
It was at least as bad as that. “I am a Scot,” he said stiffly.
She pulled the lad to stand in front of her again, putting her arms over his shoulders and holding him there. “You must admit you do sound a bit English,” she pointed out.
What was happening here? He’d come to speak to her about MacNally’s employment, not about the manner of his speech. As it was, MacNally was looking at him with horror. Cailean could imagine how the story would travel up and down the glen and evolve somehow into one of his being sympathetic to the English or some such nonsense. Tongues in this glen wagged with the force of gale winds. “My mother is English,” he bit out.
“Is she, indeed?” Lady Chatwick said happily. “Who is—”
“I’ve no’ come for pleasantries, madam,” he said curtly, cutting her off. “MacNally tells me you’ve released him from service.”
“Perhaps I ought to discuss this with the gentleman,” her uncle said, moving to stand beside her.
“Oh no, that’s not necessary,” she said pleasantly. “I think the gentleman means no harm.”
Of course he meant no bloody harm, but how could she possibly know what he meant? He was a dangerous man when he wanted to be, and he thought perhaps he ought to point that out...but she was talking again.
“I did indeed release Mr. MacNally from service,” she said, with a gracious incline of her head, as if she was accepting his praise. “I thought it imperative that I do so, as I explained to him. Did I not explain it, Mr. MacNally? I think we might all agree there are certain expectations when one employs another as an agent in their stead.”
MacNally looked at Cailean. “Do you see?” he asked in Gaelic. “She says so many words, and with much haste.”
Cailean ignored him. “The man has been caretaker here for nigh on fourteen years.”
“It is true that he has been employed as the caretaker here for that long...but somewhere along the way he quite forgot to take care of it.” She looked meaningfully at the broken window over her shoulder.
“I had no money,” MacNally said in Gaelic, understanding more than he was apparently willing to admit.
“He informs
me your husband did no’ provide the funds for repairs, aye?”
“Did he, indeed?” she murmured, and one finely sculpted golden brow lifted above the other. “My husband has been dead for more than two years. I have not received any requests for funds to repair Auchenard, and yet I’ve seen to it that Mr. MacNally’s stipend has been sent to him with unfailing regularity.” The second delicate golden brow rose to meet the first in a direct challenge to Cailean to disagree.
That subtle challenge stirred something old and unpracticed inside Cailean. He looked away from her green eyes, glanced at MacNally and asked in Gaelic, “Is this true? You’ve not asked for the funds?”
“How was I to know to ask for funds?” he returned nervously. “No one has come round.”
Now Cailean glared down at MacNally. “Yet you’ve managed to put your hands on the stipend. Surely you know from where that has come.”
MacNally shrugged, scratched his scraggly beard and looked off contemplatively at the hills. “Did the best I could, I did,” he said defensively.
“Pardon? What does he say?” the lady asked politely.
Cailean had a sudden intuition and glared at MacNally. He asked in Gaelic, “Have you been making whisky here?”
MacNally colored.
Cailean responded with a colorful string of curse words. It was dangerous enough that he and Aulay were storing as much wine and tea as they were at Arrandale. But to have an illegal distillery on land an Englishman owned was reckless. “You’re lucky you have your fool head,” he snapped. “Off with you now. Go to Balhaire and see if there is work for you, but leave here at once before the authorities are summoned.”
At the mention of authorities, MacNally did not hesitate to stumble away.
Cailean looked at Lady Chatwick and the men behind her. She was smiling. They were not. “I beg your pardon,” he managed to say. “It appears we have bothered you unnecessarily.”
“There is no need to apologize,” she said, her eyes twinkling with delight once more. Diah, she acted as if this were all some sort of lark. He turned to go.
“My lord! May I inquire...from where did you come, exactly?”
Cailean paused. He slowly turned back to look at her and the two men behind her. Why did she ask him that? He was suspicious—after all, he was a Scot whose English grandfather had been tried for treason. He was also a man who practiced the fine art of smuggling goods into his country, outrunning British naval ships on at least a dozen occasions. He’d not put it past the English authorities to install a well-bred lady to spy, to root out the smuggling they’d failed so miserably to catch thus far. He was therefore not inclined to answer any questions posed by her.
She seemed to sense his distrust. She turned her son about and sent him into the lodge, then hopped out of the doorway and onto the flagstones. “I’m curious,” she said and leaned against a pillar that held up the portico, her fingers skirting across her décolletage, drawing his eye to the creamy skin swelling above her bodice. He slowly lifted his gaze, and she smiled. “Is it a secret?”
Was she trifling with him?
She clucked her tongue and smiled again. “It’s just that you seem unduly suspicious. I ask only because you rode away yesterday and I never expected to see you again. And yet here you are.”
“You willna see me again,” he assured her.
“No? A pity, that.”
Her smile turned sultry, and Cailean’s pulse leaped a beat or two. He was astounded by her cheek, really. He rarely met a woman so bold, and, by God, he was from Scotland—he knew more than a few bold women. “Aye, you willna. And for that you may thank your saints and pray others leave you be.”
“What others?”
Now she was being ridiculous. “Are you daft, then?” he asked disdainfully. “You shouldna be here at all.”
“Why?”
Good God, she was daft. Utterly addlepated. “Because we donna care for Sassenach here. I should think someone would have told you before you made such an arduous journey,” he drawled.
“Sassenach...” she repeated thoughtfully. “What does that mean, precisely? Does it mean ladies?” Her smile deepened into dimples. She was amusing herself.
“It means English.”
“Come in, milady,” Sir Nevis warned her. “Let him go.”
The incredibly cheeky woman ignored the man. She stood there, tracing that invisible line across the swell of porcelain skin, smooth and pale, considering Cailean.
She looked delicate. Fragile. Completely unprepared for a man like him. An appearance that belied the things that came out of her mouth. What sort of highborn woman flirted so blatantly with a stranger? What sort of woman trifled with a stranger twice her size? And yet she was not the first Englishwoman he’d known to behave in that manner, and the sudden, unwanted image of another delicate rose who’d once held his heart in her hands flooded his thoughts.
He tensed. He took a step forward. “Are you so foolish, Lady Chatwick? There is no’ a Scot in these hills who will want you and your kind here, and yet you behave as if you’re attending a garden party, aye?”
She laughed softly. “Oh, I assure you, sir—this is no garden party. There’s no garden! I am determined to have one, however, because I do find the landscape quite lovely—the scenery is unsurpassed.” Her eyes brazenly flicked over the length of him, and she grinned, saucily touching the corner of her mouth with her tongue.
That unpracticed part of him was rousing from its slumber.
“Won’t you tell me from where you came?”
Impatience and disbelief radiated hotly through him now. He had stayed longer than he’d intended, and he was not going to stand here and be interrogated by her. “Good day, madam,” he said coldly and turned about, striding away.
“Good day, sir! You must come again to Auchenard!” she called after him. “We’ll have a garden party if you like!” She laughed gaily at that.
Unbelievable.
Cailean fumed on the long walk to Arrandale, exasperated he’d been put on his heels by the Englishwoman, astounded that it had happened before he knew it, and amazed by her cheek. Och, she was barmy, that was what. And bonny. A barmy, bonny woman—the worst sort to have underfoot.
Funny how a long, hot summer could be made suddenly interesting in the space of a single day.
CHAPTER FOUR
July 28—One of the chimneys must be rebuilt, which Uncle assures me that he and Mr. Green will know how to do, but I don’t care for him to be on the roof. He has ignored me thus far and urges me to keep my thoughts to what must be done inside. My thoughts will be much crowded, then, for there are many repairs to be done. Every day we discover something new, which sends Belinda into fits of panic. I have assured her that we will manage, but I confess I spoke with far more conviction than I felt. Ellis is fearful of the deep shadows in the lodge, which cannot be avoided due to the lack of proper windows. But he is happy that he can see the night’s sky so clearly from his room and is busily charting the stars under Mr. Tuttle’s tutelage. The poor boy sneezes quite a lot, and Belinda fears the dust will make him ill. She is quite concerned there is no real village to purchase sundries and frets that she didn’t bring with her enough paints for her artwork, which she is very keen to begin when the repairs have all been made.
I know that Belinda and Ellis are not happy with the lodge, and I do so hate that I was clearly wrong to bring them to such a disagreeable place.
The Scotsman came in defense of Mr. MacNally. He does not care for me, I think it quite obvious, for he does not smile at all and did not find me the least bit humorous. His face is a lovely shade of brown, as if he has been often in the sun. It rather makes the blue of his eyes that much brighter and the plum of his lips that much darker.
I rather like it here in a strange way. It is quiet, and the l
andscape unmarred. I should think that it would be a lovely place to live, if one could live without society.
IT WAS TRUE that Daisy felt quite badly for having dragged her household here. She’d known the lodge was remote and had been uninhabited for a time—but she’d not been prepared for just how remote and how uninhabited. Because she hadn’t given the matter proper attention when her husband’s agent tried to explain it to her.
The truth about Auchenard was buried in the papers that he’d wanted to review with her shortly after Clive’s death. At the time, Daisy had found the discussion of a remote hunting lodge so dreadfully tedious that she could scarcely keep her eyes open. She’d been exhausted from the details of Clive’s funeral, and Scotland had seemed as far removed from her as the moon. Moreover, the estate had existed for the purpose of hunting—an activity that held no interest for her whatsoever. She had not paid the matter any heed.
Not until she had needed someplace to which to escape.
And now? More than once Daisy had considered putting her son back in the coach and returning to England, no matter how exhausted they all were.
On their first tour of the lodge, she’d been appalled by what they’d found in the lodge—a dim interior, deteriorating furnishings. And the decor! Turkeys and stag heads seemed to lurk around every corner.
“Well, then,” she’d said when they’d seen it all. “There is nothing to be done now but begin work.” She’d said it confidently, as if her occupation was that of a woman who routinely walked into deteriorating hunting lodges and rejuvenated them. “We will muster our little army and work, shall we?”
“Assuming none of us is made ill,” Belinda had said darkly from beneath the lace handkerchief she kept pressed to her nose and face.
In that moment, the prospect of defeat before Belinda was enough to spur Daisy into turning this lodge into a highland jewel.
In the days that followed, Daisy worked as hard as anyone to restore the lodge. She and her household polished and scrubbed, tore down old wall hangings, washed windows and sashes, and carted out unsuitable furnishings. Carpets were dragged outside and beaten, mattresses turned, linens placed on beds. Sir Nevis, who meant to return to England after a week, scouted the area while they worked, and returned with a craftsman to repair the windows. He also returned with information about Balhaire, the large Mackenzie estate and small village where sundries—and, thankfully, paints—could be purchased.