Sarah Gabriel (14 page)

“There is safety in secrets,” he answered.

“Now and again it is a relief, and a joy, to share them with someone.” Her glance was clear and perceptive. He felt again that she understood more about him than he had revealed, and far more than anyone else knew.

“Not everyone is trustworthy,” he murmured. He had not started out trusting Elspeth MacArthur, but now he wanted very much to do so. She turned away calmly to regard the painting.
Secrets indeed
, he thought.

“Do you remember your parents?” she asked.

“Not well, but for a few excellent memories,” he said. “I try not to think of them. It is best that way,
I find.” He preferred to avoid the sharp sense of loss that remained, though sometimes a deep voice might remind him of his father, and he would recall his calmness, his support, his fairness. Lavender and gentle laughter reminded him of his mother, and he always felt her absence keenly.

“Lavender,” Elspeth murmured, lifting her head. “Do you smell it? It’s lovely.”

Startled, he looked away from her. “No.”

“I have no siblings,” she went on, “and do not know much about my parents. Grandfather says little about them. The loss of his only son…hurt him deeply. They are like shadows to me. Sometimes I dream about them, and I wonder if they were like the parents who appear in my dreams. My grandfather says aye. But he wants me to be happy, so perhaps he agrees for that reason.”

“Knowing you,” he said, “your dreams are very accurate.”

Her return glance was bright. “But you do not believe in such things!”

“A little.” He was as surprised as she was, just then, and he looked at the painting again. A detail caught his attention, and he pointed. “Did your mother model for your father? One or two of the girls looks like you. There,” he said. “And there as well.”

With a delighted gasp, she rose on tiptoe, peering upward, but was unsteady on her injured ankle. James took her arm in support and she leaned into him. “I see! This one, that one, and a third—they all have dark hair like mine, and are about my age now.”

“More than that, their hair is black, and glossy as silk, like yours. Their faces have the same sort of deli
cate heart shape. Look at the one on the left. Her eyes are a pale, silvery green, much like yours.”

Her smile was enchanting, her features delicate, and her irises were a luminous, remarkable color. She was lovelier than the girls in the painting. “Do you think so?”

“I do. There is something about the features, the shape of the chin, the eyes”—he swept his fingers gently along the side of her face. She caught her breath, closed her eyes, tilted her face toward him. “The resemblance is there.”

Touching her was heaven. He lifted her chin with his fingers, bent closer, nuzzled his mouth against her hair. She smelled wonderful, like cool rain and warm woman. The feeling that shot through him was intoxicating, and he wanted it to continue.

“My mother,” she breathed, focused on the painting, though her fingers tightened on his arm. “Do you think he did paint her? I have never seen an image of her.”

“Not even a portrait? How sad,” he murmured. At least he had that, hanging on the wall of his town home in Edinburgh.

“I do not know her family. The circumstances of my birth were…unusual.”

“I see.” He assumed she meant illegitimacy, or a dispute between families over eloped lovers. “If your father painted her here, then she was a beauty, and you favor her.”

“Thank you,” she breathed. “You have given me something of my parents that I did not have before.” Resting her hands on his lapels, she rose and kissed his cheek.

He drew in a quick breath, for the touch was tender and loving. He set both hands at her waist and pulled her toward him, and before he even knew what he was about, he was kissing her fully, overcome by the pulsing heat that moved through his veins, the feelings that so easily overcame him when she was close, and in his arms.

Elspeth did not resist, despite her arguments and protests earlier, but lifted her arms and sighed, and seemed to melt against him. Pulsing heat moved through his veins. She moved her hands up over his coat lapels, sliding her fingers along his collar.

She pulled away. “I must go soon,” she whispered, though her eyes were closed.

“You do not have to leave,” he said, kissing her mouth, her cheek, her hair.

“I do,” she gasped, and pushed at his chest a little. But she stayed in his arms, her hand resting at the back of his neck as she gazed at him. He could lose himself in those eyes—silvery pools, something magical in them.

She stepped back. “I must go, if the weather and the roads allow. They will be worried about me at Struan, and may send word to Margaret’s if I do not return today. I am sorry to have been so much trouble to you here, sir, that you felt you needed to…to marry me.” She twisted her mouth a little. “No need for you to take a bride you do not really want.”

“On the contrary. You are not the only one who finds a compromise convenient.”

She blinked. “You?”

He shrugged. “In a few days, my great-aunt will arrive here with family and friends to take a tour
of the Highlands. They will stay here, then travel elsewhere.”

“Lady Rankin?” she asked. “Will your sister come along as well?”

“Aye, and our youngest brother. Miss Sinclair also plans to be with them.”

“I remember her. She has set her cap for you. And she has your aunt on her side.” Her glance was astute.

“So you noticed. Did you also notice that I am not keen on the match?”

“I thought perhaps—but Miss Sinclair is beautiful, wealthy, and a part of Edinburgh society. She would be an ideal viscountess for you.”

“So would you,” he said. “Charlotte and I do not…suit.”

“So both of us want to avoid other engagements.” She tilted her head.

“Exactly. Shall I ask you again?”

“Will you drop to one knee?”

“If you want,” he said.

She tilted her head. “What do you want? Do not bother with any of this if you do not mean it.”

“In all honesty,” he said quietly, “I want to mean it. I would not mind at all if we married. I am…glad, in a way, to be obligated to you.”

She nodded. “Thank you. But do not let me keep you from your work any longer. Soon we can leave, I think. I will read until then. Did you say that you have other books on fairy lore in your study?” She chattered a little too brightly, and stepped back, skirts swirling, hands clasped in front of her.

Wondering what changed her mind when she seemed on the brink of agreement, he led her into the
study, with its desk littered with books and papers. “My grandmother’s manuscript,” he said, and showed her the book. “As a condition of the will, I have agreed to finish it. For the most part it is done, save for some research and annotations.”

She traced her fingers over the books, glancing at titles, and then touched the manuscript. “But you do not believe in fairies, or in any part of Otherworld.”

“It makes no difference for this project. The book is a compilation of accounts and stories. The readers must decide for themselves what they accept.”

“One must believe wholeheartedly in what one does,” she said.

Her simple statement gave him pause, knowing she was right. But he shrugged. “If one is a rabble-rouser, true. But anyone may write objectively about a subject with which they do not necessarily agree.”

“Just as one may make a marriage without love. Obligation is enough.”

He inclined his head. “Touché, Miss MacArthur.”

She flipped through the pages of one of the books. “I suppose we could assist each other,” she said softly, “in our mutual…compromise.”

“In our what?” He was studying her lovely neck as she bent her head. Where the glossy ink of her hair gathered in a braid, her neck was small and vulnerable; the pale shell of her ear, her delicate jawline were beautiful. He stood so close that her gown brushed his thigh, and he felt the warmth of her body beside him. “What did you say?”

“Which road shall we take?” Her fingers traced a verse in the open book. “As in the ballad of ‘Thomas the Rhymer.’” She drew a breath to read.

Entranced by her quiet voice, James read aloud as he stood beside her.

“The second road is more interesting than the first.” He rested a hand on her shoulder, and when she allowed that, he traced a finger along the line of her neck. Then she turned into the circle of his arms, sighing softly, and he bent closer.

The kiss happened gently this time, expected, deepening with a tenderness that went beyond ruse or agreement. He knew the risk. He could lose his heart, his very soul in the depth of that kiss. He brushed his lips over her cheek, her earlobe, and then, coming to his senses, remembering the passion of the night before, he forced himself to draw back casually, unwilling to show what was truly happening within him.

“We could agree,” he said, tracing his fingers over her shoulder, down her arm. “To an engagement, so long as it suits. A wicked sort of bargain, but it may do for now.”

She tapped a finger on his chest. “Never make a bargain with the fairies.”

“‘’Tis the road to fair Elfland, where you and I this night must go,’” he said, quoting another line from the poem. “It seems a fair bargain to me.”

“I cannot.” But she sighed and looped her arms around his neck. He could not resist her then, felt a spinning within, and he kissed her, pulled her close, felt like a man drowning, and she his only hope. The immersion was his own choice.

“Any more of this, my girl, and we had best marry quick.”

“Only if we both agree.” The door to the study pushed open then, and Osgar entered, with Nellie and Taran trotting behind.

“Enter the fairy hound,” James said, reaching out to scratch Osgar’s head as he butted between them. Laughing, Elspeth drew back.

“I must go home,” she said. “The time has come.”

He felt disappointed, wanting their solitary haven at Struan House to last far longer. “There’s no need to hurry.”

“We will not be alone for long,” she said. She closed her eyes, her back to the windows, so that a halo of bright light seemed to surround her. “Someone is coming to the house. A girl on foot. There’s a coach not far behind her. And…my grandfather is making his way along another road in his gig. He will be home tonight.”

Narrowing his eyes, James walked past her to gaze through the tall library windows, where the view spanned eastward. At first glance he saw only drizzle and mist on the hills.

Then, far off, he saw the small figure of a woman walking along the crest of a hill. Within moments, a
coach came around the curved base of the hill, slowly making its way along the muddy track. It stopped, and after a moment the female disappeared inside, and the vehicle resumed its course.

“Your ghillie, or perhaps the groom, is driving back here,” Elspeth said, joining him by the window. “He saw the maid, who was walking here alone, and is bringing her to the house.”

Puzzled, James looked at her. “Even if you had the eyes of a hawk, you could not have seen that from the study. Your back was turned.”

“Now will you believe me, James MacCarran?” she asked quietly.

He wanted to, so much—the desire rose in him like a wave, a feeling like hope, rusty yet there. But he would not. Everything had an explanation, and he would not make a fool of himself by falling for nonsense.

“I should get you home soon,” he said. He gestured for her to proceed ahead of him. At the door, just as she was about to cross through, the feeling welled up in him again, an overwhelming demand, a mingling of physical desire and an inner craving that he could not, dare not name. He touched her arm. “Elspeth—”

She turned, and they brushed hands, and James took her into his arms to kiss her, long and thoroughly, until he felt her surrender, and heard her sigh. Her eyes were closed and she looked innocent yet alluring. He brushed her hair back from her brow. “Let us agree on an engagement. I will speak to your grandfather.”

She opened her eyes, a flash of silvery green. “I think not.”

“Fickle,” he said wryly. “I was sure you were about to agree.”

“That’s the fairy blood in me,” she said lightly, and swept past him. Osgar came toward them, and the girl put a hand on the tall dog’s shoulder. She glanced back at James.

“Fairy blood,” he murmured. “If only that were true.”

She smiled, and walked ahead of him.

W
hen they met the ghillie’s coach on the road past Struan House, Elspeth waited as James pulled on the horse’s lead, stopping their gig to have a word with the driver. James turned toward her as they waited for the other vehicle to halt. “If you are right about the Buchanans, others will soon know that we were alone,” he told her. “We cannot change that. Good afternoon, Angus,” he said. “And Mrs. MacKimmie! I’m surprised to see you returning so soon.”

The housekeeper, who sat in the coach with a maidservant, leaned forward. “My lord! Aye, I’m back. My daughter has enough help, and with the guests arriving next week, I am needed at Struan House. Mr. Mac Kimmie came to fetch me. This is Annie MacLeod, the lass who will be a maidservant at Struan. Good to see you, Miss MacArthur,” she added, nodding.

“Mrs. MacKimmie,” Elspeth said, feeling herself blush. “Lord Struan has offered to take me back to Kilcrennan,” she went on in a rush.

“Aye,” James said, without offering an explanation. Elspeth sensed that the housekeeper was bursting to know, her eyes flickering from the viscount to Elspeth.

“How did you fare on the roads, Angus?” James asked.

“Well enough, sir, though the way is not easy, depending on where you go. Over to Kilcrennan, you may have some trouble at the bridge.” He peered toward Elspeth. “Good afternoon, Miss MacArthur,” he said, tipping his hat. “Nice to see you.”

Elspeth smiled, and an awkward silence followed. “Miss MacArthur had a bit of a mishap in the storm and is unable to walk the rest of the way home,” James said then.

“Oh dear!” Mrs. MacKimmie said.

“There’s mud gushing doon the hills to swamp the road in some places,” the ghillie said, “and trees down here and there. The auld stone bridge is nearly washed over. I wouldna go that way, sir.” Again he peered toward Elspeth, as did his two passengers.

James thanked him, and Elspeth was relieved when they parted moments later. As the gig rattled beneath them on the muddy road, she glanced at him. “Thank you for not telling them more than that.”

“I saw no need to explain,” he replied, his eyes intent on the road.

“The Buchanans were a bit too interested, I know,” she said.

“I doubt Mrs. MacKimmie will ask. We will explain only what is necessary.”

“I do not know Mrs. MacKimmie well, just through acquaintanceship in the kirk on Sundays, but
it’s said she’s a good-hearted soul. But now that Willie Buchanan and the kirk minister know, everyone will hear sooner or later.”

“Then they will soon hear of an engagement, and no harm done. Few things can be kept secret for long in a small glen like this one.”

“The fairies here keep their secrets.” She laughed when James glanced at her.

“I think you have more secrets than anyone in this glen,” he murmured.

“You have a few of your own, sir.”

“Have you not sniffed them all out with your Highland powers?”

She lifted her chin, a bit hurt. “Everyone but you takes me at my word.”

He huffed. “I am a cautious sort. Now, I have a question for you.”

“I will not,” she said, “marry you.”

“So you’ve made clear. What I want to know is when you might be willing to assist me with the research and work to be done on my grandmother’s book.”

She tilted her head to look at him past her bonnet rim. “When do you need me?”

His keen glance told her his thoughts—he needed her. Wanted her. She caught her breath, almost hearing the unspoken words. A small voice within answered that she wanted to be with him more than she would admit.

If she accepted James, he and her grandfather would agree that she should live in the Lowlands. “I could come to Struan during the days,” she ventured, unable to resist the chance to see him at least once more.

“Excellent. I can fetch you whenever you like.”

“What about the guests that Mrs. MacKimmie mentioned?”

“My aunt and a few others will arrive in a week or two. I intend to work on Grandmother’s papers until then, and complete that work as quickly as possible.”

“So after you entertain your guests, you will leave for Edinburgh again.” She knew his plans without his telling her. The Sight or none, it seemed obvious.

“I have lectures to prepare, and my own work to see to.”

She nodded, then bounced on the seat when the gig hit a rut. James murmured an apology. “The roads are poor, just as Angus warned.” He guided horse and vehicle around an upward curve in the road, and paused the gig at the top. The descent on the other side was steep, and the road was marred by runnels of mud. A constant drizzle thickened the mist, and dampened everything—her bonnet and shawl, the lap robe tucked around her, the crown and brim of James’s hat. The road was dangerously slick, the fog as thick as clouds in places.

James slapped the reins, pulled on the brake a bit, and guided the horse downward in silence, focused and capable. Elspeth gripped the side support and hung on.

“Devilish weather,” James muttered. “I have yet to see the glen in sunshine. It’s been mist, rain, or the deluge of the Apocalypse ever since I arrived. Perhaps your wee fairies thought to bring us together when they sent you down the mudslide into my arms,” he drawled, glancing at her.

“Of course not,” she said, but frowned, wondering for just a moment. Her grandfather had taught her to see the meaning in everything around her. Nothing, Donal often said, was as simple as it seemed.

She craned her head to see the bridge through fog and slanting rain. As they rounded another difficult descending curve, James concentrated on his task, while Elspeth looked ahead to see water, rushing and foamy, swirling in the distance.

“James!” she cried out, placing her hand on his arm. “There’s the bridge—and the water is even higher than Angus said.”

He drew back hard on the reins to halt the horse. “Wait here,” he said, and leaped out of the gig to stride along the road.

Not about to wait, Elspeth climbed down, lifting her skirt hems to follow him along the road toward the area where the bridge spanned a gorge. Her boot heels sank unevenly in mud, her walking further impeded by her stiff ankle. Her skirt snagged on wet heather as she walked to the edge of the gorge to join James.

The gap was twenty feet or so, spanned by a wooden bridge only slightly arched, its stone pylons embedded deep in earth and rock. The full stream gushed high enough to lap at the sides of the bridge, splashing water over the planks. The stream was the color of tea with milk, its current swift and foamy.

“Careful, Ellie,” James murmured in a distracted tone, taking her elbow. His shortening of the name—just as her grandfather often did—hinted at affection and familiarity. She wrapped her gloved hand over his arm and felt strength there, and surety.

“The burn is rarely this high,” she said. “Only once
or twice do I remember seeing it like this.” Along the sides of the deep gorge, tree roots and bracken thrust up out of the water, and fallen branches were sweeping along in the current.

James stepped backward with Elspeth. “There must be another place to cross.”

“There’s a level place a mile or two from here, where the gorge ends. But the burn is wide at that point, and one must step from rock to rock to cross on foot. The going for a vehicle is very difficult.”

“We don’t have much choice, unless we return to Struan and wait days or even weeks for all this water to subside. Is there no other access to the other side?”

“Not close by. Sometimes people jump the gap,” she said. “Downstream there’s a leap, where one side of the gorge is higher than the other.” She pointed that way.

He laughed. “I won’t chance it, and you shouldn’t try, either…though I suspect you’ve probably given it a go in the past.”

“Ah, you have the Sight yourself,” she said.

“Just logic, Miss MacArthur.” He tipped his head as he spoke.

She smiled a little. She was learning more about him in each moment, and she knew that he had warmth and heart beneath his cool exterior, and that, despite how staunchly he maintained his skepticism, he did not dismiss her. “It’s true, once I did try the Leap with some friends when I was young. They made it, but I fell and broke an arm. I could make it now, I think.”

“Out of the question.”

She remembered his leg. “Of course,” she murmured.

“You have a turned ankle, and the horse can’t jump with us. But I wonder if we could walk the horse over the bridge, without the gig.” James moved forward to step tentatively on the bridge. He jumped up and down several times to test its soundness, then walked toward the middle.

Elspeth heard the low groan of wood and iron. “No, stop!” she called, running forward.

He stepped back to the grass. “It might hold long enough, but it’s not stable, and is too much risk. We’ll cross farther upstream, as you said—or else return to Struan.”

“The bridge will hold my weight. You can return to Struan with the horse and gig. You need not escort me home from here.” Yet she did not want to say farewell so soon.

“The viscount keeps you alone at Struan, and then casts you out to walk home with a poor ankle, in a storm, over an unsafe bridge? My girl, they write ballads about cruel lovers like that,” he said. “And your grandfather would be after me to hang me.”

Lover,
she thought, thrilled at the way he had spoken with such casual acceptance. “Grandda would bring a reverend, not a rope.”

“Which is worse, in your opinion?” he asked wryly. Elspeth did not answer, walking with him toward the gig. He lifted her inside, his hands firm through the cloth of her gown, and took up the reins to turn the placid dark mare.

“That way,” she said, pointing, and he guided horse and vehicle along the earthen track that ran beside the gorge. So much water and mud rushed down from the higher hills to the west and north that the gap brimmed nearly to its banks.

When they reached the fording place, where the sides of the gorge disappeared, Elspeth saw that the run-off had spilled out to flood the moorland to either side. “Over there is where we usually cross on foot,” she told him. “We can walk over the flat rocks without getting our shoes wet. But we have the gig and horse.”

“Aye, and the water is too high for an easy crossing of any sort,” James said. The burn had overflowed its banks to create a swampy area to either side, and the familiar rocks that Elspeth had looked for were all but submerged. James pointed downstream. “I think the horse can pull the gig across. Hold tight.”

He sent the horse forward before Elspeth could protest; under his skilled and certain hands, the gig rattled steadily across the boggy ground. With one gloved hand, Elspeth grabbed the side of the seat, and with the other she grabbed James’s sleeve, his arm tense beneath the cloth as he held the reins taut.

Then they were fording the burn, the horse obediently stepping into the flow, the gig following. Elspeth squealed in alarm at the swirl and rush of the current. “James!”

“We’ll be fine,” he said, and proceeded. Within moments, the water swirled to the hubs, then nearly the tops, of the wheels, splashing over James’s boots and soaking Elspeth’s hem.

“Turn back,” she said, clutching the seat.

“That, my girl, would be worse than going forward.” The horse stepped through the surge. As water sluiced over the floorboards, Elspeth shrieked faintly.

Halfway across, the horse stopped, and the wheels seemed stuck fast, the gig shaking with the current.
Water slopped over the floorboards by now, and Elspeth’s shoes and skirts were wet. The horse pulled again, whinnied, stopped.

“Stay here,” James told Elspeth, and stepped down into water that surged around his boot tops, and then his thighs. The tail of his frock coat floated behind him as he walked toward the horse’s head and took the bridle. He spoke quietly to the horse, patting the mare’s nose. When he moved forward, the horse followed.

Soon the gig lurched free, while Elspeth bounced and slid on the seat. “Hold on!” James called back over his shoulder, over the rush and swirl of the burn.

Elspeth drew her feet up and bent her legs to sit cross-legged on the seat, pulling up her skirts, her low boots and cotton stockings exposed. The horse, a calm beast, gave a hesitant whicker or two, and plowed steadily through the water.

Holding the bridle, James led the horse cautiously, testing the way first. Once he faltered and went down in swirling water to his chest, his hat tipping off his head as he rose up. Elspeth leaned down and snatched up the hat as it swirled past.

Then James surged out of the water, dripping, the horse behind him, and the gig rolled onto the opposite bank with a great lurch, water draining. James sloshed back to the vehicle and climbed inside.

“Well done,” Elspeth said. “Your hat, sir.” Grinning, he took it and placed it on his wet hair, water running from its brim. She laughed, and bent to wring her skirts. “Kilcrennan is only a little way,” she said, and pointed northward.

“There’s something to be said for putting funds into roads,’ James said, as they continued along the rutted, muddy road.

“As laird of Struan, you can pay for repairs and not wait for the Crown to fix the roads. They are slow about such things in remote Highland glens.”

He nodded, but was silent when she hoped for a reply, and as they rode to Kilcrennan in relative quiet, chilled and damp, Elspeth wondered what she would tell her grandfather when the time came.