The heifer lowed as she swung slowly around and began lunging halfheartedly toward firmer ground. She must have been towing a hundred pounds of mud along with her, but once she felt hard soil beneath her hoofs she lifted her head and surged forward. The Sassenach slapped her on the rump and sent her up the bank.
For a moment Fiona wondered if she’d be the next one to get her arse slapped. He’d already put muddy handprints on her bosom. The soldier—an officer, by his epaulets—though, only plowed back to where she stood knee-deep in the mud. “Now let’s get you out of here,” he said, and offered an arm.
Ha. She’d gaped at him enough already, and she was not going to grab onto him so she could make a bigger fool of herself. Damn all Englishmen, anyway, thinking they could waltz in and do … everything better than anyone else, simply because they’d been born south of Hadrian’s Wall. Gathering her sodden skirts in her hands, Fiona slogged around him and up the bank. “I didnae ask ye fer help,” she stated again, shoving heavy mud from the front of her gown before striding over to pull the rope off the heifer.
“You needed my help, whether you asked for it, or not,” he returned, from closer behind her than she expected. “And now that it’s done, I think it’s only fair that you return the favor firstly by giving me your name, and secondly by pointing me in the direction of Lattimer Castle.”
“Lattimer?” she repeated, her voice gulping the word. “What do the likes of ye bright red Sassenach want with old Lattimer?” She forced a grin. If he thought her some dim female who didn’t know better than to go slogging about in mud, then she’d be one. For the moment. “Though ye’re nae so bright red, now. More brownish, with some green algae.”
“You’re wearing the same attire, miss,” the major said coolly, his gaze drifting down the length of her and back up to her face again. “And my business is between Mr. Kieran Blackstock and me.” He swung onto the bay and, despite the mud and water clinging to him, made the motion look both graceful and deadly.
For the briefest of moments she looked up at him, considering her answer. More than likely old Lattimer’s damned solicitors had sent him to chase down the estate’s ledger books, but if they’d resorted to using the military … Well, that wouldn’t do at all. Cooperation, though? With the English army? That went against everything for which she stood, and more so because she liked his looks. She didn’t like any Sassenach. Especially one who’d manhandled her and told her it was for her own good. They treated all of the Scottish Highlands the same way.
Steeling herself, she met his gaze, past that hard mouth and a straight, statue-perfect nose, to his pale gray eyes. The thin, straight scar that ran through his left eyebrow, skipped over the eye, and shallowed and disappeared down his cheek, made him look rakish, the sort of man who’d steal a lass’s heart with nothing but a smile.
Fiona lifted one arm, gesturing northwest beyond the heather-covered hillside. “That way, aboot two miles. Keep the stream on yer right. And now we’re even. Dunnae expect any more help than that.”
“And your name?”
“Ye’d have that if I asked ye fer yer help. I didnae.”
He gave a half salute as he wheeled the bay about. “You’re a stubborn lass. I like that.” His precise mouth curved a little at the corners. “You should take a bath. If you change your mind and want my company, you’ll find me at Lattimer Castle.”
Debating whether she felt more aggravated or more flustered, Fiona lifted her chin. “I intend to take a bath. Nae with the likes of ye aboot, though.”
“We’ll see about that.” With a nod of his chin he and his companion rode off toward the sloping hillside, arrogant man. Fiona bent down to collect a handful of mud and throw it at him. Evidently he had eyes in the back of his head, because at the last possible moment he shifted sharply sideways. The mud ball hurtled past his shoulder and thudded into the lavender-colored heather beyond. As the two men trotted out of sight, she swore she could hear them chuckling.
“Laugh while ye can, Sassenach,” she murmured, “because ye’ll nae be amused fer long.”
She gazed after them for a time, trying to shove her worry aside. Lord knew there would be a plentitude of time for it later, when the pretty Sassenach eventually found his way to his destination. Unless he simply vanished into the bog toward which she’d sent him. That would be a fine conclusion to the day—though not for the muddy officer, of course. Still swiping mud off her skin and clothes and refusing to feel any guilt for sending such a fine-featured man into harm’s way, she collected her shoes and headed off quickly northeast, keeping the stream on her left.
* * *
“If there ever was a castle here, it sank into the bog long ago,” Adam Kelgrove observed, as they made their way around yet another deceptively shallow-looking pool.
With a noncommittal grunt, Gabriel pulled up Union Jack. Clearly the woman had lied to him; a foul repayment for a rescue. Of course even before he’d waded into the mud he’d known that she hadn’t wanted his assistance, but firstly she’d needed it, and secondly, she’d looked as enchanting as a mud mermaid. Most people, friend or enemy, didn’t attempt to lie to him, and he supposed he’d assumed she would be no different. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. The question then became whether she’d merely attempted to send them away, or whether she’d meant to see them drowned in this damned bog.
He’d been a great many places in his thirty years, and he couldn’t recall one that felt as utterly … desolate as the wide, shallow valley that surrounded them. No trees, no birds, no wildlife of any kind touched his sight. The overcast sky had begun to sink into the mountaintops, blending into the bog and surrounding moor to form an endless, gray nothingness. The hair at the back of his neck pricked, but he couldn’t be certain whether it was the emptiness, or the sensation that it wasn’t as empty as it appeared.
“What do you say, Major? Do we keep following the stream until we reach the sea?”
“No, we do not,” he returned. “We turn around and find the cow’s mud puddle again, and then we head northeast from there.”
The sergeant followed as Gabriel wheeled Jack about. “Why northeast? It could be any direction but due south, since we came up that way.”
“Because she lied. And when she lied, she faced squarely southwest, as if she were protecting whatever lay directly behind her. And I imagine it was close enough that she figured she could get there and warn Kieran Blackstock of our arrival before we discovered her ruse and turned back.”
He felt his aide’s glance. “You’re being circumspect about all this, considering where she sent us.”
“I’m not being circumspect,” Gabriel countered, tightening his dirt-coated fingers around the reins. With most of the mud dry, he felt more like a statue than a man. But not on the inside. On the inside he seethed, both with anger and with something more primal. While he’d been admiring her backside and other attributes, the petite lass had looked him in the eye and lied to him. That required a response. And the one he wanted to give had more to do with sweat and sex than asking for an apology. “I’m being patient,” he said aloud. “Being reckless here would be both useless and unsatisfying, and potentially dangerous.”
“You do mean to get angry, though—when the situation presents itself.”
“As you know, Sergeant, no one makes a habit of lying to me. Nor do I approve of having my time wasted.” Adding to that the matter of not even being thanked for his efforts and having a clump of mud thrown at his head, and perhaps he could admit, just to himself, that he was as angry at himself for being duped as he was at the black-eyed woman for attempting the deed. Successfully managing the deed, actually. If she hadn’t had mud plastering her dress against her skin and showing every curve like some erotic chocolate statue, he likely wouldn’t have been as willing to believe her—and that rankled, too. He didn’t make a habit of thinking with his cock.
“I imagine this would not be a good time, then, to point out that I only just got the last
of the bloodstains out of that coat you’re wearing,” Kelgrove said after a moment.
“No, it wouldn’t be.”
“I didn’t think so.”
The heavy clouds continued to settle lower as fog rose to meet them, reducing visibility with every passing minute. If the weather continued to worsen, the two of them would have to camp overnight or risk wandering directly into a deep bog. Gabriel cursed the black-eyed woman again. He’d expected trouble at Lattimer, but for the devil’s sake, he hadn’t even set eyes on the place yet.
Finally they spied the churned-up mudhole by nearly walking straight into it. With no sun, determining north from east had become a task all in itself. Gabriel paused, re-creating the scene, the position in which the woman had stood, and then kicked Union Jack into a trot again. He might be mistaken, but he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts. The error earlier—when he’d believed her in the first place—well, he wouldn’t be repeating that.
“This fog’s beginning to make me nervous,” Kelgrove noted, after a half mile of silence. “I keep thinking we’re being watched.”
“We are being watched, I reckon,” Gabriel returned. “Lobsterbacks in the middle of the Highlands? They’d be fools if they weren’t keeping an eye on us.” He felt it, too, the unseen, hostile eyes through the drifts of fog and mist. The rifle in his saddle, the pistol on his belt, and the saber at his hip—they would suffice, though certainly not against a coward’s shot from hiding. But then death loomed everywhere he went. The prospect didn’t trouble him. The idea of failing before he’d even begun, did.
Adam Kelgrove cursed under his breath, but Gabriel ignored it. The soldier knew what they were likely to be in for, and he’d been given the choice to remain in London to argue with the paper men. The Highlanders in the British army had a reputation for being fierce, fearless, proud, and supremely suspicious of their English comrades. At the moment, he happened to be banking on that pride to keep a ball from between his shoulder blades. A true Highlander, according to Highlanders, preferred a straight-up fight to a knife in the shadows.
Still, keeping a close watch had never done a man harm. Halfway up the grassy, shallow slope, though, something else caught his attention. “There,” he said, pointing at a deep gray spire that seemed to appear and disappear in the fog like a faerie’s castle.
“I don’t see … Ah. Thank God. And your sharp eyes.”
Gabriel leaned a little sideways to loosen the rifle in its scabbard. Then he deliberately straightened again, his hands empty. “My sharp eyes also see two men on the hill to the left,” he said quietly. “Just behind that cluster of trees. We won’t begin any trouble here, but we will be ready to meet it.”
“Us, not beginning trouble? You’ve gone soft, Major.”
With a grim smile Gabriel slowed Jack to a walk. “This is my first time being in hostile territory that I actually own. But don’t fret; my saber’s ready to rattle.”
“I wouldn’t call that comforting.”
Keeping his back straight, Gabriel led the way to the medieval monstrosity that slowly emerged from the gloom. In the damp air the slick stone walls looked almost black, with ivy crawling up the old stone all the way to the roof in places. No windows decorated the bottommost floor, which likely meant the castle had once served as a fortress, a bastion against the English and other clans, in the past.
Higher up the gleaming walls, though, tall, narrow rectangles covered by thick glass appeared at regular intervals. If the fog ever lifted, the view through them would likely be spectacular. Today, though, the dark stone with its twisting ivy tentacles seemed like a living, malevolent beast. Gabriel narrowed his eyes. He’d been called something similar, himself.
“I’m getting the shivers,” Kelgrove commented, on the tail of those thoughts. “As the new owner, you might consider tearing the place down and starting over with something a bit … friendlier.”
Though he’d spoken about Lattimer several times over the past few days, for the first time it felt like more than words on paper. He did own the castle. He likely owned the cow’s mud puddle and the bog, as well, and quite possibly the cow, too. The paper men had said Lattimer and its surrounding ten thousand acres were his, but until now it had just been another number being spat at him. “Keep your voice down,” he ordered. “I imagine Sassenach who suggest razing ancient castles don’t live long.”
“But you—”
“Halt and declare yerselves, Sassenach!” a voice bellowed from somewhere in front of them.
Gabriel squared his shoulders but continued his approach. “I’ll declare myself and my business to Kieran Blackstock, and no one else,” he called back. No sense leaving room for cleverly worded misunderstandings.
“Shit,” Kelgrove muttered beside him, but continued forward, as well.
“Well?” he pushed, into the silence. “You’d best decide whether to murder me or not, because I’ll be at the front door in two minutes.”
“You didn’t need to suggest murder,” the sergeant whispered.
“Yes I did. Murder implies a cowardly act. I’m certain they’d much rather kill me in a fair fight.”
“I do not feel reassured.”
In the fog-dampened silence he could practically hear the Highlanders thinking, wondering what to do with an English officer who didn’t threaten or attack, but persisted in his advance. Mentally he counted down, from twenty to three, two, o—
“Approach, then,” rang out as the count reached zero. “But keep yer hands well away from yer weapons or ye’ll find a hole in yer chest.”
“I don’t mean to begin trouble,” Gabriel returned. “But I will answer it in kind.”
The castle’s massive double doors, twice the height of a man, came into view. Seeing them, he was half surprised there was no iron portcullis to slam closed from above for additional security against invaders. This afternoon, though, the security consisted of a half-dozen men, four of them with bristling beards, all of them in kilts of green and red and black plaid, and most significantly, all of them armed.
The weapons varied, and he made note of that as he swung down from the saddle. A nasty-looking blunderbuss, two muskets, a rifle, a two-handed greatsword, and a pitchfork. From the bits of straw clinging to the last fellow’s coat, Gabriel presumed he either worked in the stables or was a farmer—which didn’t make him any less a warrior. Not up here.
With Kelgrove three feet behind him and slightly to his right, giving them both a good field of fire if necessary, Gabriel advanced to the doorway. The mud had stiffened his trousers and sleeves, and considering both his appearance and the additional trouble the black-eyed woman had caused him, he should have left both her and the cow to wallow about while he rode directly on to Lattimer. No one would have been able to run ahead and warn the castle of his approach, and he would likely only be facing one or two startled men. The ungrateful female hadn’t done him any favors, and he dearly hoped he would run across her again to repay her for the ill turn. He’d repay her several times, if fortune favored him.
“What do ye want with Blackstock then, Sassenach?” the largest fellow, the one with the blunderbuss, demanded.
“Are you Blackstock?”
“Me? Nae.”
“Then what I want isn’t any of your affair. Produce Blackstock, or stand aside.”
The big man grunted, muttering something in Gaelic that sounded insulting and had the other men chuckling, then half turned to rap three times on the massive door. “The muddy English wants Blackstock or he’ll break doon the door,” he called out. “I reckon he’s nae a threat, except to the clean floor.”
Gabriel didn’t feel disposed to correct anyone about the level of threat he posed. Rather, he listened to the distinctive sound of an iron bolt sliding free, followed by the deep-set groan of one of the doors swinging slowly inward.
With such perfect timing he might almost be watching a play, a figure emerged from the gloom of the hallway. No kilt for this fellow, but rat
her a gray jacket, black trousers, and a lighter gray waistcoat flecked with yellow embroidered flowers—attire that Gabriel imagined would have served the man perfectly well in any of the finer houses of London.
The salt-and-pepper dark hair marked him as too old to be one of Wellington’s tag-along, sycophantic lordlings, but he had that look about him—someone who thought himself just a little better than his fellows, not because of anything in particular he’d done, but because of who he was. Or thought he was. Gabriel had an inch or two on him, but they both still managed to be dwarfed by the Highlander with the blunderbuss.
“You’re Blackstock, I presume?” Gabriel prodded, when the other seemed content to regard him from light brown eyes beneath straight black brows.
“Nae,” a female voice took up, and the black-eyed woman stepped out from the shadow of the doorway, put her hands on her hips, and gazed at him levelly. “I’m Blackstock. Surprise.”
Chapter Three
She’d upended him, the overconfident redcoat. Fiona Blackstock kept her shoulders straight and glided forward, glad she’d washed and changed into a clean gown. And yes, it was one of her finest, a deep green muslin with light green and yellow flowers throughout, because she’d known this soldier would eventually find MacKittrick—Lattimer—Castle. She had no intention of showing a single damned spot of weakness in front of a Sassenach. Even one covered in mud but otherwise not much the worse for his adventure through the bog.
“You are not Kieran Blackstock,” he stated, his low voice accusing.
She met his light gray gaze, wishing again that he wasn’t as tall as he was. And that he looked foul instead of so devilishly handsome. “I’m Fiona Blackstock. Kieran’s dead.” Dead, or fled the Highlands. Either way, she was finished with him.
“You’re his widow, then.”
Fiona lifted an eyebrow. No condolences? Straightforward and brusque. But then she’d yet to meet an English soldier with anything resembling a heart, so she couldn’t claim to be surprised, either. “I’m his sister. And who the devil are ye, Sassenach, to ride in here and make demands? This is clan Maxwell land, and I’ll nae have anyone here threatened by a lobsterback.”
Hero in the Highlands Page 5