Highland Hero (15 page)

“I understand. Ye ken that ye can talk to me about anything.”

“Och, aye. Even Mother used to laugh and say ye were a blunt-tongued wretch who ne’er seemed to be embarrassed by anything.”

“Aye, she was verra fond of me.” Once they were inside the cottage, Mary secured the door as Rose moved to bank the fire. “ ’Tis a verra fine place,” Mary said as she looked around. “ ’Twill be easy to call it home. Weel, I am to bed. See ye in the morning, lass.”

Rose wished her aunt a good sleep and, after securing the house, made her way to her own bed. Her aunt was lively, loving, and sometimes far too outspoken, but it was good to have her at Rose Cottage. Although a part of her was delighted by her aunt’s prediction that she and Adair would be wed, Rose forced herself not to put too much faith in that. There was a lot she was yet unsure of, and there was also his aversion to magic. Neither obstacle was a small one.

Chapter 7

Adair dismounted in front of Rose Cottage. He felt embarrassingly eager to see Rose. It had been a full week since he had last seen her. Even though the week had been full of hard work, his mind had often been filled with thoughts of her. Once he had often awakened in the night asweat with fears caused by nightmares. Now he often woke all asweat with desire for Rose. She had faithfully sent an evening meal to him, Robert, and Donald for the whole week. Even though he was not sure he wanted to give them up, he had taken her advice, followed the men who had consistently missed the meal in the great hall, and found himself a new cook. He knew it was only right to tell Rose she no longer needed to do all that extra cooking. It also provided an excellent reason to visit her.

Just as he was ready to rap on her door, he noticed her four cats arranged in various indecent positions on the top of the sun-drenched garden wall. A neatly stacked collection of kegs and barrels revealed how they had gotten up so high. He had known some men who treated their hunting dogs better than they did their children, but Rose took the spoiling of her animals to new lengths. The woman had far too soft a heart.

Then he heard a soft familiar voice drifting up from behind the wall. Strolling over to the garden gate, he found Rose in the middle of one of her raised plots just beneath the wall the cats were sprawled on. He grinned as he entered the garden and moved up behind her. Her skirts were tucked up, exposing a fine pair of slender legs to just above the knee. When he realized what she was saying he had to bite back the urge to laugh.

“This is your last warning, Sweetling,” Rose muttered as she used her small garden spade, a hand-sized one the annoying Geordie’s father had once made for her, to remove a clump of dirt from the garden. “Ye are to cease using my garden as a privy. Aye, ’tis fine, soft dirt and ye ne’er hurt the plants, but I dinnae like finding it. Have I nay set ye aside a fine, large plot of dirt in the garden behind the cottage? Use that, ye wretch.” She tipped fresh dirt into the small hole she had made.

“I dinnae think he is listening to ye,” Adair said.

Rose gave a soft screech and stumbled as she tried to turn. Adair moved quickly to catch her around the waist and lift her out of the garden. He set her down on her feet, keeping his hands on her waist, and grinned. Rose’s face was smudged with dirt. Long strands of hair had escaped the loose braid she had forced it into to tangle around her face. There was even the faint gleam of sweat upon her face and neck.

“I didnae mean to startle ye,” he said.

“Ye shouldnae creep up on people that way.”

“I didnae try to be stealthy. Ye didnae hear me because ye were too busy scolding your cat.”

It was not easy, but Rose suppressed the urge to curse. She had a very good idea of how poorly she looked, dirty and disheveled. That was embarrassing enough. To realize he had heard her talking to her cat was almost more than she could bear. She tugged free of his grasp and went to the well in the heart of the garden. If she cleaned herself up a bit, she might be able to regain some small scrap of dignity.

“Just why are ye here?” she asked as she pulled a soft rag from a pocket in her skirts and used the water from the well’s bucket to wash her face.

“Would ye believe me if I said I missed ye?” He smiled at the way she rolled her eyes. “I did. Howbeit, I also felt ye should ken that Duncairn has a new cook. Ye were right. When I took the time to notice who didnae eat in the great hall, then followed them, I found a cook. ’Tis Sorcha, Colin the shepherd’s eldest daughter. She and her family consider it quite an honor I have given her.”

“Oh, aye, it is.” Leaning against the side of the well, Rose idly wiped her hands and neck with the wet cloth.

“Her sister will help.” He stepped closer, placing a hand on the rim of the well to either side of her and lightly caging her. “I offered Meghan several other places, but she didnae want them. Didnae seem to care that she had been replaced, either.”

“Does she think she can just live at Duncairn and nay work at all?”

“Nay. She has gone to work at the alehouse.” He slowly smiled at her shock. “It seems Meghan does have one skill. As Sorcha told me, the lass spends more time on her back than a dead beetle.” He grinned when she laughed. “Sorcha feels Meghan intends to gain a few coins now for what she oft gave away for little or naught.”

“Oh, dear. Grizel willnae be pleased. So, ye came to tell me my plan worked and that I dinnae need to cook your meals again.” Her last word ended on a gasp as he moved closer until their bodies touched and began to kiss her throat. “Adair.”

“ ’Tis but a wee kiss I seek. One to show ye how verra grateful I am that ye didnae let me starve.”

Even as she opened her mouth to inform him that a simple thank ye would do, he kissed her. Rose rapidly lost the will to object, as well as the ability to think of any of the very many reasons why she should push him away. She wrapped her arms around his neck and returned his kiss.

“Weel, this must be the new laird then.”

The sound of her aunt’s cheerful voice startled Rose so much that she suspected she would have tumbled back into the well if Adair had not kept such a tight grip on her. She quickly eluded his grasp to stand beside him. As she lowered her skirts and brushed them off, she introduced Adair to her aunt.

“ ’Tis good that Rose is nay longer alone in the cottage,” Adair said, idly deciding that the Keith women aged well, for Mary Keith was still a fine figure of a woman.

“Oh, Rose was ne’er really alone here,” murmured Mary.

Adair decided to ignore that and looked at Meg, who stood next to Mary. “I met your father in the village, lass, and since I was coming here, he asked me to tell ye to come along home now. He is sorry he was away longer than he had planned, but he is weel.” He smiled faintly as Meg babbled out her gratitude for everything to the two Keith women, then raced off.

“She was beginning to fret o’er him,” said Rose.

“He feared she might have. He also wished me to convey his deep thanks for watching o’er her whilst he was gone.”

“She was far more help than hindrance.”

Mary nodded. “She has a true feeling for the garden.”

“ ’Tis one of the best gardens I have e’er seen,” Adair said. “Holding both beauty and purpose.”

“And ever so much more. Cannae ye feel none of it, laddie?”

Rose sighed, realizing that her aunt intended to bludgeon Adair with all manner of talk about magic. It was, perhaps, not such a bad thing to be blunt, to speak the truth as one saw it, be it good or bad. She just wished her aunt had warned her that she was going for the throat. Since she was still reeling from the effects of Adair’s kiss, Rose did not particularly feel like getting into an argument. She was not sure her aunt ought to be calling the laird
laddie,
either.

“ ’Tis a verra peaceful place to visit.” Adair began to suspect that Rose’s aunt was about to make Rose look like a complete nonbeliever.

“Stubborn, stubborn lad. Your fither ne’er cared one way or t’other. But, ye do, dinnae ye?”

“My father wasnae so verra fond of the trouble it all caused.”

“He kenned full weel that the trouble didnae come from Rose Cottage.”

Adair glanced at Rose and caught her watching him with the glint of sadness in her fine eyes. If he had made any progress at all with Rose in getting her to cast aside all this foolishness about magic, Mary Keith would steal it all away. That made him angry. He decided he should leave, but not before he got this stubborn woman to see the risks she was taking, that she was endangering herself and her niece.

“Where the trouble has started doesnae make a great deal of difference when it kicks in your door,” he snapped.

“ ’Tis good that ye worry on the lass’s weel-being.”

Rose’s aunt was one of those women who could make a man crave the oblivion of drunkenness, Adair decided. “Ye refuse to see reason.”

“Oh, I often see reason.” Mary smiled faintly. “Too often, ’tis said. The trouble here is that ye refuse to accept that there are some things that defy reason, things that one cannae always explain. I dare ye to tell me that ye dinnae feel the wonder of this place or taste it in the food. ’Tis a magic place, my braw laddie, and ye can scowl, mutter, curse, and growl all ye like, it willnae change that fact.”

“To speak of magic and fact together is foolishness. ’Tis also foolish to speak of magic at all. It stirs fears, Mistress Keith. Dark, violent fears. If ye continue to spit in the eye of that truth, it could cost ye verra dearly.”

“The Keith women of Rose Cottage have faced trouble before and won.”

“Weel enough, then. Ye keep talking and bring that trouble down upon your heads. Just dinnae expect me to put out the fire after they set the kindling about your wee feet.”

As she watched Adair stride out of the garden, his anger clearly visible in every lean line of his body, Rose had to bite her tongue to stop herself from calling him back. She realized how dangerously close she was to giving up her heritage, a large part of herself, just to make him happy. It was not good or wise to want a man so much that she was willing to consider changing all she was. When she caught her aunt watching her with concern and sympathy, Rose suspected she looked as if she was about to burst into tears at any moment. She certainly felt inclined to do so.

“Weel, that rather settles that, doesnae it?” she murmured.

“Nay, child, that was just an argument,” said Mary.

“He was verra angry, Aunt.”

“Aye, and I suspect he will get angry a few more times ’ere he comes to his senses. That is a stubborn mon. He kens the food from this garden has helped heal his heart and loosen the grip of the dark memories he brought back from France, but he willnae call it magic.”

“How did ye ken about his troubled soul?”

“The scars are still there to see, lass. ’Twill be awhile ’ere he is completely free, but he can sleep now, I suspect. And he can do that because of the food from this garden and he kens it weel.”

“But doesnae wish it to be magic.”

“He will, lass. He will.”

“Mayhap. As ye say, he is a verra stubborn mon.” She sighed. “I think I will go for a walk.”

“A walk can be verra good for hard thinking. Where do ye go?”

“Down to the river that marks the eastern boundary. I think I might e’en walk into it.”

“What?”

Rose smiled faintly and shook her head. “Nay for any dark reasons, but because ’tis a hot day and I am dirty.”

“Ah, of course.” Mary followed her out of the garden. “Dinnae be gone too long or I shall worry.”

“Duncairn is a peaceful place, Aunt. I shall be safe.”

Mary shrugged. “E’en peaceful places have their dangers.”

It was not until she had been walking for a few moments that Rose began to wonder if her aunt had sensed something to prompt that subtle warning. She shook her head and continued on. It might not be something her aunt had ever done at her home, but Rose had often walked alone throughout Duncairn and had never come to harm. Duncairn was, she suddenly realized, unusually peaceful. Mayhap the fairies had something to do with that, too, she mused with a smile.

She grimaced when she had to admit that she truly did believe in all the magic of Rose Cottage. Despite her moments of trying to ignore it all because she so badly wished to be just like everyone else, she had always believed. As a child she had even danced in the garden with the fairy lights.

Of course, she had had few children to play with, Rose thought. The mothers of Duncairn were reluctant to let their children get too close to the ladies of Rose Cottage. She inwardly cursed. That thought tasted of resentment, and she had to admit that such feelings had gained strength in her over the years. It was true that the garden was a burden at times, a weighty responsibility, but it was also a blessing, and one the Keith women had willingly shared with the people of Duncairn. If she was going to resent anything, she decided, it should be the ignorance and ungratefulness of those in Duncairn.

It felt better to have faced that truth about herself, but Rose doubted anything could make her feel better about the problems between herself and Adair. Even if she tossed aside all other doubts about their relationship, there was still the magic to contend with. Adair’s angry response to her aunt’s talk of the garden and its wonders told Rose that Adair’s uneasiness about that magic went deeper than a simple concern for her safety.

Once at the river, she sat down to take off her shoes. Rose stood up, tucked up her skirts, and cautiously dipped her toes into the water. It was a lot colder than she had anticipated, but she decided a little wade would probably feel very nice.

She had barely gotten her feet wet when someone grabbed her braid and yanked her back so forcefully, she felt as if she was about to be snatched bald. Her first reaction was to reach for the braid to try and free it or, at least, grab enough of it to try and ease the pain in her scalp. As she stumbled around, she came face-to-face with her attacker.

Rose decided that, in a strange way, being found alone by Geordie was almost to be expected. The day had begun badly and was about to end very badly indeed. Despite the tears slipping from her eyes due to the pain he had caused her, she glared at him.