Elaine Coffman - [Mackinnons 06] (17 page)

“When did you say you were leaving?”

“In two days’ time. Are we agreed, then? You will stay here
while I go to St. Abb’s?”

Fletcher stood. “Yes, although I still have some
reservations,” he said, walking toward the door.

“Dinna fret about it,” David said, opening the door for him.
“I am glad that is settled.” He clapped Fletcher on the back. “Now I’ll see
what bonny Cathleen has to say when I tell her that I am leaving.”

“And that I am staying on a bit longer.”

“Aye, that too.”

Fletcher smiled. “She might not be too receptive to my
staying on here as her guard dog, so for that reason I’m glad it is you who
will be telling her.”

“Aye,” David said, looking as grim as a severed head. “I ken
she willna be all too happy about it, but there is nothing I can do to change
that. A man can do little more than stand reproved, can he?”

The next morning dawned cool and sunny, as perfect a Sunday
morning as Fletcher had ever seen, but it wasn’t perfect enough to make him
accept David’s offer to ride into Glengarry to attend St. Andrew’s Church with
him and Cathleen.

Reminding David that he had told him at their first meeting
that he was a sinner, Fletcher saddled his horse and rode out to inspect a few
old graves that he had heard lay near the ruins of an ancient castle—graves
that proved to be of no value, since none of them bore the name Ramsay.

It was late afternoon when he arrived back at the crofter’s
hut, feeling his usual reaction of disappointment and frustration, only this
time he also felt bewildered. He didn’t know what to do next.

Fletcher wasn’t ready to give up by any means, for he was as
strongly dedicated to the task as ever, but he was feeling mighty irritable
over the fact that he had not found even one shred of proof.

He dismounted, and had just put his horse in the paddock
behind the house, when he met David coming down the path. “How was church this
morning? Did Robert stick to traditional Presbyterian theology, or did he hit
you with a few surprises?”

“No surprises at church,” David replied, “but we had one
when we got home.”

“Oh?”

“Seems we had a visitor while we were gone.” Fletcher’s
expression was grim. “Your house was searched?”

“Aye, searched, and wrecked this time. Cathleen is trying to
put things in order now.”

“The trunks?”

“Still there, but all the papers are gone. They burned the
lot of them in the fireplace.”

Fletcher tried to suppress his anger in front of David, but
it was damn hard. He wanted to throw back his head and curse Adair Ramsay for
the bastard he was. Well he knew that Adair was doing everything he could to
draw him out into the open, to force his hand. He was like a fly that won’t
give up, and sooner or later Fletcher would have to take a swat. However, this
understanding did not make it any easier to accept. “I’m sorry,” he said with
sincerity. “Was anything of yours destroyed?”

“No, nothing destroyed. Things were just tumbled.”

Fletcher frowned. “This changes things, you know. I cannot
in all consciousness allow you to go to St. Abb’s for me now—not after what has
happened.”

“I suspected you would feel that way, and I have been
thinking about it,” David said. “I think I’ve come up with the perfect
solution.”

Fletcher crossed his arms. “Which is…?”

“We cannot alter our very lives out of fright. The Bible
teaches us to ‘fear not’. I ken it would be a good plan for me to go to Abbey
St. Bathan’s as planned, only instead of staying here in the crofter’s hut to
keep an eye on Cathleen, I think it best if you would return to Caithness.”

Fletcher was astounded. “
What?
Leave her here, alone
and unprotected?”

“Hear me out. If Adair is doing these things to use your
concern for us as a way to force you to stop, then what better way to make him
think that you have given up? If you have returned to Caithness, he will think
you have given up your search—at least as far as Glengarry goes. Our lives will
then return to normal and things will be as before. With you gone, Adair will
have no reason to suspect us. I will go on my trip as planned, and Cathleen
will remain here as she always does, going about her charitable work. None will
be the wiser.”

“I don’t know.”

“It is the perfect solution,” David said. “I know it is.”

Fletcher thought about that for a moment. Perhaps David was
right. “As much as I would like to say you are wrong, I know you and Cathleen
would be safer if I returned to Caithness.”

“Yes, because it is the only solution. You cannot stay here
and to go to the Lowlands about the same time that I go would raise suspicion.
The wisest choice, then, is for you to return to Caithness Castle.”

“I will agree to one thing. My remaining here would only
increase Adair’s interest in what I am doing.”

“Aye, Adair will be watching you, I am certain. You must
take care when you leave here. They know you are here now, Fletcher, and they
know why.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Because of the condition of their cottage, Cathleen had to
ignore the biblical admonishment against working on the Sabbath. The moment she
and her grandfather had returned from church, she removed her bonnet and her
Sunday best. Wearing her oldest dark blue dress, she tied a white apron about
her waist, put her hair into a knot on top of her head, then gathered her
cleaning supplies.

She was down on all fours cleaning out the ashes in the
hearth—the ones left from all the burned documents—when she heard a noise
behind her.

She turned and saw Fletcher coming into the room. He was
alone. Her eyes dilated, and she felt herself shrinking back at the sight of
his beloved presence, fearful that she might smile a bit too brightly, or that
her eyes might follow him a bit too much…and then he would know.

“Where is my grandfather?” she asked, more to distract him
than from any real curiosity.

He gave her a look that said her ploy had not worked and she
found it exceedingly frustrating that he seemed to know what she was thinking.

“He said to remind you that he had been invited to dinner at
the MacPhearsons.”

Distracted by her earlier thoughts, she could only stammer,
“Oh… I-I think he told me about that…but I forgot.”

“He thought you might, seeing as how you were quite busy
when he told you.”

She was sitting on her knees now, still in front of the
fireplace, her gaze upon him as he walked around the room, taking in the
disorder that lay about. Love-smitten and dizzy with the intensity of her
feelings for him, she could only stare at him as dazed as a goose. Then a pain
so intense that she almost doubled over stabbed into the heart of her, and
Cathleen wondered if she would ever be able to get over her feelings for him.

True, he was a handsome devil, but it really wasn’t his
looks that attracted her, nor was it his long legs, his engaging smile, the
generally good nature of him, or any of a hundred other things she could
readily list to describe him. In fact, she had trouble deciding just what it
was about him that fascinated her so.

She sighed, in such a daze thinking about all the reasons
why she felt as she did about Fletcher that she did not, at first, notice that
he had picked up the broom. It wasn’t until she heard the bristles sweeping
against the floor that she realized it was a broom she heard, and that it had
to be connected to someone.

She could not contain her gasp of surprise when she looked
up and saw who it was. The sight of Fletcher sweeping absolutely astounded her.
Her eyes grew large and round. Her mouth dropped open. Never had she seen a man
sweep the floor. Stunned with disbelief, she could only ask, “What the devil
are you doing?”

He did not miss a stroke as he went on sweeping around her
grandfather’s chair, making what she considered a fairly adept attempt at it.
“I’m giving you a hand.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I am doing it because I want to, Cathleen. I also feel
responsible for what happened here.”

“It wasn’t your fault, and sweeping the floor is woman’s
work,” she said, coming to her feet and dusting the ashes from her hands.
“Here, let me do that.” She reached for the broom, but he drew it back. “Give
me that broom!”

He grinned, moving the broom behind him. “Come and get it.”

Cathleen did not miss the invitation in his voice. She
tilted her head and looked at him. She could withstand anything but this
humorous, boyish quality he had. She would have bet that if anyone stacked end
to end the women he had felled with that charm, they would reach all the way to
London and back.

“I don’t intend to play games with the likes of you,” she
said. “Put the broom back where you found it. I refuse to allow a man to sweep
my house.”

He laughed heartily at that and kept on sweeping. “Don’t go
looking a gift horse in the mouth. You go on with cleaning your ashes,
Cinderella, and I’ll see to the sweeping.”

“But…”

He stopped sweeping and leaned on the broom, and for a
moment she thought she had never seen him looking as handsome as he did
standing there in that blue shirt that brought out the color of his eyes. He
was dressed casually in a pair of buckskins and riding boots, with his shirt
open at the collar. His hair had been ruffled a bit by the wind, and she
wondered what he would do if she ran her fingers through it to smooth it back
in place.

“Cathleen,” he said, “I don’t want to hear any more. I am
angry enough over what happened here to chew up nails, and if you don’t let me
take out my anger on this broom, then there is no other way for me to vent it,
save riding over to Adair Ramsay’s and calling him to task.”

Cathleen understood that. “Well, why didn’t you say that in
the first place?” she said. Then, giving him her back, she leaned down and
scooped up the last of the ashes and dumped them into the hopper, her mind not
on what she was doing but on Fletcher.

Here he was, showing her yet another side of himself.
Just
how many sides are there?

Never in her wildest imaginings would she have thought he
even knew which end of a broom to pick up, and here he was sweeping. Everything
about him was so different, so dear. She could grow old with a man like that.
Aye, she surely could.

She picked up the hopper full of ashes and was about to
carry it outside when Fletcher said, “Here, let me take that out for you.”

Cathleen was stunned. Her mouth parted with surprise as she
watched him prop the broom against the wall and cross the room to where she
stood. He moved with the quiet grace that she had come to associate with him.

Stopping in front of her, he looked for a moment like he was
about to bend over and pick up the hopper, but something stopped him. He
reached out and traced the shape of her mouth with one finger before dropping
it beneath her chin and lifting it as he gave her a look that was warm enough
to suck the air from her lungs.

“Close your mouth if you don’t want to be kissed, sweet
Cathleen.”

She snapped her mouth shut but was able to do little more than
that. He did not say anything, nor did he move. He simply stood there looking
down at her for a time before reaching out and catching a loose tendril of
hair. His hand brushed her neck, which set her heart to racing.

“Don’t be afraid of me,” he said. “You should know by now
that I would never hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, “but more of myself, of
the way I am when I am with you.”

His gaze searched her face so intently that she found
herself wondering what he saw there. Did those deep blue eyes of his see into
her? Did they see the feeling she had for him, the fabrications her mind
created of how it would be to be loved by him?

Her gaze fixed upon his mouth, she began to feel
lightheaded, as if her blood had suddenly grown thin and warm. How long had the
memory of those lips upon hers filled her with longing and despair? And once he
was gone from her life, would the memory be enough to last throughout all the
years that he would not be with her?

“What are you thinking?”

Her gaze flew quickly to his and she saw a look that she
could only call desire. Stirred by her feelings of love for him, she felt her
heart beat as constant as a flame burning steadily in the hearth. The love that
she felt for him was so consuming, so intense, that it was something physical,
something like pain. Sensing that he might see that written in her eyes, she
turned her face aside.

“Cathleen, look at me,” he said, his words coming like a
breath touching the side of her cheek.

“I can’t.”

“Then let’s see if I can help you.” He took her hands in
his, brought them up to his mouth, opening her fingers one by one, then kissing
each palm and folding the fingers back, as if by doing so she could hold the
kisses there.

Running his thumbs over the sensitive skin of her inner wrists,
he felt her tremble, and drew her hands up to his neck. Then he brushed his
lips across the skin of her forehead, and she swayed, leaning into him. He
kissed her mouth lightly before whispering, “I would love to see where this
leads, but something tells me you wouldn’t like that.”

Releasing her, he stepped back, giving her a soft look and
one full of regret. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I came here to help
you, but judging from the expression on your face, I see I have succeeded only
in adding to your confusion.”

She gave him a blank stare.

Hugging her to him, he said, “Ahhhh, Cathleen…my bonny
Cathleen…my desire knows no rest.” He released her and turned away, crossing
the room quickly.

Before she could call him back, he was gone, and she was left
alone, standing in the middle of the room where the air was heavy with the
smell of ashes.