“But she still cannae remember anything,” Mr. Mactavish said from the window seat, reminding her, should she require it, of her most powerful reason for needing to leave this house.
He’d been kind last night, and he’d been a gentleman. Those competent hands hadn’t encroached any further than was necessary to attend to her needs.
But Fiona had learned in a hard school to recognize masculine interest. Despite his gentle touch, he wanted her, and that terrified her.
She came to believe that Diarmid Mactavish was a good man, as far as that went. He’d treated her well, and she could see that the people here loved and respected him. At Bancavan, sullen resentment and constant fear infected the atmosphere, whereas here at Invertavey, the ease in human relations spoke volumes for a fine and capable master.
But the laird was a man, and she couldn’t trust him. When a man wanted something, he took it. She needed to be away from Invertavey before his hunger broke free of his principles.
“Och, I’m sure her memory will come back soon enough,” Dr. Higgins said. “There’s a reason she can’t remember. Some shock. Perhaps the shipwreck itself.”
“But people will be worried about her,” Mr. Mactavish said. How she wished he’d leave the subject alone. “I should write to the papers in Glasgow and Edinburgh, perhaps even London, and place advertisements to see if we can locate her kin.”
“No!” Fiona said sharply before she could stop herself. Shaking hands tangled in the sheets, and a towering wave of terror made her head swim. If her host traced her family, she was lost—and so was Christina. She struggled up against the pillows and with difficulty forced her tone back to its usual level. “That’s too much trouble.”
Those clever black eyes fastened on her with alarming interest. “Och, nae trouble at all.”
“I’m sure I’ll remember who I am. I’m trying.” Which was an out-and-out falsehood.
Dr. Higgins frowned, as he carried the glass of medicine across to her. “That’s just what you mustn’t do. Turmoil and worry will only delay your recovery.”
“But surely the lassie will do better with people she knows and loves, rather than remaining a nameless waif among strangers, however well intentioned,” Mr. Mactavish said, that impressive jaw setting in stubborn lines.
She plucked nervously at the bedcovers gathered around her waist, then made herself stop when Mr. Mactavish focused on the betraying action. “I don’t want my private troubles made public in the world. I’m a lady. A lady doesn’t make a spectacle of herself.”
The angle of those expressive black brows told her that he found her argument unconvincing. “At least ye remember that much, then.”
Dr. Higgins cast a disapproving glance at the man who was clearly his friend. “Diarmid, don’t badger her. After the wreck, she’s lucky to be alive. Rest and quiet are essential for her recovery. If the lady…” He emphasized the word. “…finds the idea of a notice in the papers distressing, you need to respect that. I believe her memory will return of its own accord.”
“And what if it doesnae?” Mr. Mactavish asked in a deliberately neutral voice. “Is she to become a permanent resident in my guest bedroom, like a family ghost?”
Fiona hid a wince. She couldn’t blame her host for his frustration. If only she could tell him that she’d be gone the moment she was capable of travel, but that, too, would bring her lying story down around her ears.
Her quest loomed ahead, never forgotten, but suddenly overwhelming as she came to understand what a disaster the shipwreck was. She was sad Colin was dead—there were few enough good men in this wicked world. But now she faced a journey across Scotland without a man at her side. She had no illusions about the dangers a lone woman might meet on the open road. A penniless woman, at that. What little money she’d managed to scrape together over the past months had gone down with the fishing boat.
“Stop it, Diarmid.” Dr. Higgins stood beside the bed and lifted Fiona’s hand to count her racing pulse. “You’re upsetting my patient.”
Mr. Mactavish rose. Despite her dark thoughts about him, Fiona’s heart skipped a beat over what a magnificent sight he made. Today he wore the kilt in the purple Mactavish plaid, and the loose white shirt did nothing to hide his broad, straight shoulders and powerful chest and arms.
She waited for him to deliver a blistering response to that rebuke from a social inferior, but to her surprise, he ran an elegant hand through his inky black hair and the taut line of his shoulders loosened. “I apologize, John. And to ye, lassie. I spoke out of turn. It’s barely a day since I found ye half-drowned. It’s nae wonder you’re still buffle-headed.”
Buffle-headed? She was speechless with shock.
Fiona tried to think of another man she’d met who might be willing to admit to a fault and say sorry for it. Even her father who had been a man of principle, unlike most of the men she’d encountered since, had been stiff-necked with pride. He’d never admitted he was wrong.
Not for the first time, she felt a twinge of guilt for all the lies she told these decent people. It didn’t make her question what she did, but it was strong enough to make every word taste sour in her mouth.
Her daughter’s happiness, perhaps her very life, depended on Fiona finding her. So she had to return to health in a hurry, then continue her journey. That wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped either. It was apparent that both these men had assumed responsibility for her safety. That spoke volumes for their generosity and kindness, but she could already see that Mr. Mactavish wouldn’t send her on her way alone with a mere wave and good wishes.
She’d need to leave in secret. That would take some planning, but it wasn’t impossible. She wasn’t a prisoner. Although flitting off without a farewell was a shabby return for the treatment she received at Invertavey.
What alternative did she have? Explain her difficulties and throw herself on her host’s mercy? Mr. Mactavish might be a superior example of his sex, but it was likely he’d take the conventional view of her rebellion and force her back into purgatory.
If he did that, Christina was lost.
No, she hated to lie, but lying was her only option while she was here. She just had to ignore her conscience’s protests over how she took advantage of Mr. Mactavish’s hospitality.
“I’m sorry I can’t be more help,” she said, meaning it more than she could tell him.
“Och, it’s nothing, lassie.”
“And I’ve disrupted your household.”
“The household needed disrupting. Before all this excitement, the servants just sat around, gossiping about how dreadful the laird is.”
She smiled at that. This house was well run, and the laird was firmly in charge, even if he ruled with a light hand. She’d witnessed enough bad management in her time to recognize the opposite when she saw it.
Regret stuck its claws into her. Regret and envy. How different her life would have been if she’d come to a place like this after her father’s death. How different Christina’s life would have been.
“At least they’re not drinking your whisky when they do it,” Dr. Higgins said.
“Aye. Only because I keep it under lock and key, laddie.” Mr. Mactavish glanced across at her, and the brief amusement drained from his dark eyes. Which was lucky for her equilibrium. She despised the male sex, but it was hard to remember that when this handsome man treated her like they shared a joke against the world. “We still need to call the lassie something. I cannae have my guest room occupied by a lady I ken only as la bella incognita.”
Dr. Higgins smiled at Fiona with an approval she knew very well she didn’t deserve. “Indeed she is bonny.”
She knew he meant only to compliment her, but fear iced her blood. Her unusual looks had always been more curse than blessing.
“Thank you,” she made herself say, but she caught Mr. Mactavish’s curiosity at her lackluster response.
“What about Nita?” Dr. Higgins suggested, not seeming to notice the und
ercurrents flowing through the room.
Her host studied her before he nodded. “I suppose it will do as well as anything else. What do ye think, lassie?”
Fiona didn’t much care. She wasn’t staying at Invertavey long enough to become a significant part of the household. “I’ll answer to it.”
“Grand to hear.” Again that hint of irony. She knew her host didn’t trust her, which spoke volumes for the acute brain beneath that gorgeous exterior. “Nita the lady shall be.”
Dear Lord, how she wished a stupid man had come to her rescue on that beach. If Mr. Mactavish put his sharp wits to work against her, she had no chance of prevailing.
“Now it’s time for Miss Nita to drink her medicine and get some sleep. All this sparkling conversation is tiring her out.”
“Aye, I can see that,” Mr. Mactavish said. “Perhaps with rest, she’ll soon be able to tell us more.”
Not likely. But Fiona obediently swallowed the draft Dr. Higgins gave her, wincing a little at its bitter, herbal taste, and rested back on the pillows. She closed her eyes, welcoming the drowsy drift of sleep as the medicine started its work.
“As Miss Nita regains her health, I hope her memory will come back,” Dr. Higgins said. “In the meantime, we need to be careful not to test her stamina.”
“Aye, I bow to your orders, John. I’ll stop pushing the lassie to remember.”
She heard the men moving away. Without opening her eyes, she spoke in a low voice. “I do appreciate all you’re doing for me. I wouldn’t have survived on that beach if you hadn’t found me, Mr. Mactavish. And you and Dr. Higgins have looked after me splendidly since.”
All of which was true. For once, it was nice not to lie.
“Don’t fret, Miss Nita,” Dr. Higgins said. “We’ll get you well, never you fear.”
“Aye, lassie, you’re safe here,” Mr. Mactavish said, in the black velvet baritone that always made her bones melt.
She stifled a grim laugh. Safe? If only what he said was true. But she’d long ago learned the hard lesson that she wasn’t safe anywhere.
Chapter 5
“I still think you’re better off staying here at the house.” Diarmid stared in frustration at the woman sitting on the bed with her pale hands folded in her lap and a mulish expression on her delicate face. “Ye haven’t yet recovered your strength.”
His mermaid was dressed in a gown that belonged to Mags. It had been dyed black and altered to fit her. The frock was plain and practical, its high collar edged with a thin line of lace. The dress of a respectable shopkeeper’s wife or an upper servant.
The dress had never looked so good on his portly housekeeper, he was grimly aware. The clothes Miss Nita had washed up in were irreparably ruined. He supposed he should be grateful they’d found anything in the place for her to wear. The house was very much a bachelor establishment these days. In those fraught, wretched weeks after word came of his mother’s death beside her rakish lover, his father had burned all her clothes.
“Och, let Miss Nita go if she wants to, Mactavish,” Mags said. “We’ll be there to make sure she doesn’t try her strength too far.”
Mags stood beside the bed, and Peggy was fluttering around the bedroom, tidying something or other. After those disturbing moments during his guest’s first night under his roof, Diarmid had made sure he’d never been alone with her since. It was galling to admit that he couldn’t trust himself with her.
“The man traveled with me. It’s my duty to attend his funeral,” Miss Nita said stubbornly. “I’m much better. You know I am.”
Diarmid released a huff of scornful amusement. “You’d blow over in a slight breeze, lassie.”
“You’ll be there to catch me.”
During the last two days, he’d learned to respect this delicate creature’s will. After sleeping for most of her first day, she’d spent yesterday trying to walk. First to the screen, then to the sitting room attached to this chamber. Then along the corridor.
Mags had told him about the first two excursions. He knew about the last because he’d found her close to collapse, clinging to an old oak hall chair. He’d swung her up in his arms, called for a maid, and carried her back to bed.
He could still feel the frail weight of her body and smell the subtle lavender of her soap. His sleep last night had been disturbed by feverish dreams of a slender, lavender-scented woman coming to him where he lay and kissing the soul out of his body. Dream Nita had enveloped him in flaxen tresses of silky hair, hair now pulled back in a simple knot that emphasized the stark purity of her features.
“The way I was there yesterday when ye got ten feet down the hallway before your legs gave out?”
“I’m stronger today.” As if meaning to prove it, she rose to her feet.
“Be careful.” He surged forward, even as he reminded himself that touching her was dangerous.
By heaven, she deserved his protection, not his lust. She was fragile and exhausted and at his mercy. He felt like a satyr every time he looked at her and imagined stripping that too-thin body bare and rolling her under him.
The girl raised a trembling hand to keep him at bay, and his gut cramped with shame as he waited for her to call him out on his shameful yearning. But instead she only offered more pride and obstinacy. “I’m fine.”
His hands clenching at his sides, he battled the impulse to help her. He watched her bosom rise as she sucked in a shaky breath, then forced himself to look away out the window. In his turmoil, he hardly registered that the day was bonny, not at all funereal.
When he turned back to the room, the girl stood at the dressing table, tying the ribbons on an old-fashioned black bonnet. Another piece courtesy of Mags.
He met shining ice-blue eyes in the mirror, and a jolt of desire hit him so hard, he feared his knees wouldn’t hold. Right now, he was the one who needed propping up.
The girl straightened and forced a smile to those soft pink lips. “I’m ready.”
“If ye feel faint, tell me,” he said.
“Och, Mactavish, stop fussing over the wee lassie. You’re like an old hen,” Mags said. “We’ll see nae harm comes to her.”
“This is against my better judgment,” he said to the girl. “You havenae come near to recovering your strength.”
She stiffened her spine and tilted her chin, as she pulled a pair of black gloves over her hands. “Whoever that man we’re burying today may be, he was my companion. I owe him my respects.”
Diarmid was convinced she knew exactly who the drowned sailor was, just as he was convinced she remembered her name and where she’d come from. Two days of sheltering a genuine invalid in the house hadn’t changed his mind on that at all.
“Aye, verra well. I’ve ordered the carriage around, so ye just have to walk downstairs and out the front door.”
“Thank you,” the girl said, as collected as a queen, despite her frailty and simple clothing.
Lowering her eyes, she stepped away from the dressing table. She looked the perfect little mourner, modest and demure. Yet Diarmid would wager his next ten years that under that unassuming demeanor, she was all fire.
She made it halfway across the blue and red carpet before she showed any sign of wavering. Diarmid bit back a curse as Mags turned to him.
“Och, Mactavish, where are your manners, laddie? Give the lady your arm.”
He set his jaw so hard, it ached. Damn it, he didn’t want to touch the girl, largely because the devil inside him wanted nothing more. But Mags was glaring at him as if he’d gone mad—he wasn’t sure he hadn’t—and Peggy regarded him with a puzzled frown.
Biting back an imprecation that consigned all females to perdition, he crossed to his guest’s side and extended his arm. “My lady?”
“Thank you,” she said in a tight voice and curled her fingers around his elbow. The tight grip betrayed how close she was to falling down, but determination squared her shoulders. “Once I’m out in the fresh air, I’m sure I’ll feel better.”
“Are ye indeed?” Diarmid asked grimly, but he matched his progress to her halting steps as they left the bedroom and made their way toward the main staircase.
***
Fiona wasn’t used to kindness or consideration, at least since she’d left her father’s house. When Mr. Mactavish treated her like a fragile princess, she found it profoundly unsettling. Nice, to be sure, but a threat to her purpose. His gentleness might deceive her into thinking that the world wasn’t a dangerous, cruel place.
Her perpetual war with life became even more difficult to maintain when he handed her up into an open carriage with a care that made her feel precious. He settled a fur rug over her knees.
“It’s a warm day,” she said, even as she pulled off a glove to bury her fingers in the silky soft pelt.
“Aye, but I dinnae want to take any chances with your recovery. Dr. Higgins expected ye to come down with pneumonia after I brought you back from the beach.”
She hadn’t known that. Dear heaven…
Her hand clenched in the fur throw, as she came to terms with how lucky she’d been—and how easily her story could have found a different ending. She might have drowned, or died of exposure on that wind-swept beach. She could have come down with a fever that trapped her here for weeks or, worse, killed her.
Without her intervention, Christina was doomed.
From beside the carriage, Mr. Mactavish watched her steadily. She didn’t trust him—he was a man after all—but without his assistance, her quest would already have failed.
So the smile that curved her lips conveyed genuine gratitude. “You’ve been very good to me, sir. In fact, I owe you my life.”
“Och, I didnae do anything special. It’s Highland tradition to offer hospitality to strangers.”
His discomfort with her thanks charmed her. And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d found a male charming. The admiration glowing in his eyes made her blood flow with lazy warmth. She knew he wanted her, but at this precise moment, even that didn’t seem too frightening.
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