Snowy Night with a Highlander (13 page)

Bonnethill!
Good Lord, did Jack ever stay in one place? Was nothing easy? “Might you know when he will return?”

“I canna say, my lady, but Mr. Angus Buchanan is expected back for Hogmanay.”

“Hogmanay! I canna wait as long as that! Is it possible to have a message delivered to him? It is rather urgent that I speak with him.”

Gaines bowed and gestured toward the entrance. “I shall inquire of the laird straightaway. Shall I show you in?”

“You might show me to a hot bath, sir, if you please,” she said, and turned to say good-bye to Mr. Nevin.

Before she could do so, however, a footman appeared at the wagon carrying a large bundle, which he presented to Mr. Nevin.

“What’s this?” Mr. Nevin asked, surprised.

“The laird sends his gratitude for your hospitality, Mr. Nevin,” Gaines explained. “He sends these gifts to you and your family with the hopes you will enjoy them at Hogmanay.”

Mr. Nevin looked down at the bundle. “
Diah
 . . . what is it, then?”

“Some toys for the children, a bolt of fine silk for Mrs. Nevin, and one of the laird’s prized hunting knives for you, sir.”

Mr. Nevin gaped at the butler. “No, sir, I canna accept it—”

“The laird is quite insistent, Mr. Nevin. You did him a great service, and he should very much like you to accept these gifts, which are a token of his appreciation.”

“You must take it, Mr. Nevin,” Fiona urged him.

“It is too much,” Mr. Nevin insisted, and looked at Gaines. “You must tell him it is too much, sir. We did only what he would do in our shoes, aye?”

“Take it, Mr. Nevin. You were so very kind to us,” Fiona said again.

He shook his head as he looked at the bundle, but could not help his smile. “The children will be right pleased, aye?” he said excitedly, and put the bundle on the bench. He climbed up, took the reins in hand, and waved
at Fiona. “Good day, milady, and a very happy Hogmanay to you!”

“Good day, sir, and thank you!” she called after him. As she watched him pull away, Fiona didn’t know how happy her Hogmanay would be, but if Mr. Nevin’s beaming smile were any indication, his family’s Hogmanay would be a very happy one indeed thanks to Duncan’s generosity.

*   *   *

Bathed, shaven, and somewhat rested after a night spent lying in front of the hearth in the Nevin home, Duncan was in better spirits. He’d gone about his business, reviewing his accounts and the plans for the Hogmanay celebration. At Fiona’s request, he sent a messenger to Bonnethill, requesting that Angus and his guest return to Blackwood at once, as an urgent matter had arisen.

The underbutler, Ogden, who had become a passable valet after the fire, helped Duncan dress for supper that evening. When he had finished tying Duncan’s neckcloth, Duncan did something he rarely did—he looked at his face in the mirror. It made him ill, but tonight, of all nights, he felt the need to be completely honest about who and what he was.

As he walked through the hallways of what was left of his house, his boots striking a steady rhythm on the pine floors, Duncan tried to see Blackwood through Fiona’s eyes. This part of the house was still rather magnificent—portraits, fine works of porcelain art, and carpets imported from Belgium adorned every room.

In the red drawing room, he allowed Gaines to pour him a tot of whisky, which he quickly tossed back before extending the tot to Gaines once more. He glanced at his hand—he could detect an almost indiscernible tremble.
Bloody hell, but he was as anxious as a goose at Christmas about this meeting with Fiona Haines. It astonished him that he could not recall a time he’d really cared what a woman thought of him, but
this
woman had crawled under his skin and rooted there. He cared very much what she might think.

He cared very much.

Too much—such desire would only lead to crushing disappointment. He had to remind himself of this during his interminable wait for Fiona.

When at last she arrived, she made quite an entrance. The doors of the drawing room swung open and she stood there in the threshold, her arms held wide as she gripped both doors, staring at him with glittering gold eyes, full of a woman’s ire. She was wearing an emerald green velvet gown that picked up the flecks of green in her eyes. It was tightly—and magnificently—fitted to her. The flesh of her bosom swelled enticingly above a low décolletage. Fiona looked as if she belonged in a king’s court, every lovely inch of her.

Bloody hell, she looked as if she belonged in his arms.
Now
. He could feel his body react, could feel that unconquerable male urge roar inside him. But it was insanity to hope—Fiona Haines would fare far better than him, and besides, the way she was looking at him now was a far cry from the way she had looked at him on the cold, snowy night they’d shared under the stars. She looked as if she could and might strangle him with her bare hands, here and now.

Duncan braced himself for it, clasping his good hand behind his back.

Fiona folded her arms, lifted her chin, and walked imperiously into the drawing room, her eyes narrowing on him as she neared.

Duncan swallowed. Whatever she would say, let her say it—just
say
it. He wanted this over and done so that he might return to his lonely existence and forget her.

Fiona cocked her head to one side. “You
left
me.”

“Good evening,” he tried.

“You forced poor Mr. Nevin to accompany me to your home as if I were a wayward orphan!”

“I assure you, that was no’ my intent. I thought to spare you any question of impropriety.”

She snorted and walked in a slow circle around him. “Perhaps you sought to spare yourself any questions from your friends about your traveling companion.”

His
friends
? He had no friends, not any longer. “No’ at all,” he assured her. “I thought only of you.”

She came to a halt before him, tilted her head back, and peered up at him. Her eyes were sparkling with her wrath, her lips, plump and red, curved in a devilish smile. “If you thought only of
me,
laird, then why did you no’ tell me?”

“You were sleeping.”

“No’ that!” she cried, punching him in the arm. “You know very well what I mean!”

He rather supposed he did, and no less than one thousand responses sloshed about in his brain. “I did no’ want to alarm you.”

She arched a brow high above the other. “No’ even when I was telling you what a wretched man you were?”

He could not help the tiny smile that curved one corner of his mouth. “Especially then. By that point, I was too mortified to admit it was I for whom you held such contempt.”

“You were no’ the only one to be mortified, I assure you,” she said low, and spun away from him.

“I offer you my sincerest apology. I should have told you.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “
Aye.
You should have indeed.” She smiled thinly. “But I suppose the damage is done. We should no’ dwell on it, aye? Let us just . . .”—she made a whirring gesture with her hand—“go on from here, shall we?”

He felt a current run through him, the first wave of crushing disappointment. “Of course.” He gestured toward the door. “Shall we dine?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said, and gave him such a brilliant smile that he felt a bit weak at the knees.

In the dining room, he said very little. He felt incapable of conversation. He felt like a shell of a man, his body shrinking under the glow of her countenance, which brightened considerably over the course of the meal. She was animated, laughing at something Mr. Nevin had told her.

He could sit for the rest of the night and watch her talk, her hands moving expressively, her face lit with her smile. Not once did she look away from his face. It almost seemed as if she did not see the ravages of the fire there. When she spoke, she looked him directly in the eye. Occasionally, while she was talking, she would touch his damaged hand and seem not to notice it at all. She was, he slowly realized, remarkably unfazed by the awful sight of him.

Fiona then unabashedly mentioned her shock at seeing Blackwood, and her walkabout in the ruined wing this afternoon. “You could rebuild it,” she suggested.

That brought his head up. It was a difficult subject for him. Part of him wanted to leave that burned shell to remind himself of his folly, of the shallow man he once was. Another part of him feared his ability to make it right.
The two parts had left him paralyzed with indecision.

“There is a home near Bath that I recently had the pleasure of visiting,” Fiona said airily. “It was built in the French style, with lots of windows and turrets. The French style with turrets would be quite lovely here, set against the hills, do you no’ think so?”

Turrets
. Why she thought them particularly French, he could not guess. He cleared his throat, glanced at Gaines, and nodded for him to begin clearing the dishes. “I have no’ decided.”

“But the fire was quite a long time ago, was it no’?” she asked. “The girl who tended my bath said it was very long ago.”

“Aye, but . . .”

“But?”

“Lady Fiona, it is a rather complicated matter,” he said, looking at her once more.

She drew a breath, but seemed to think the better of responding, and nodded.

With the meal concluded, Duncan could think of no reason to keep her. He feared any polite parlor games, feared being remotely close to her because then he would want to touch her and he would lose himself to a false hope all over again. As it was, he could not take his eyes from her. He could not
breathe.
“It is late,” he said, rising from his chair. “You’ve had quite a long journey. I will leave you to retire at your leisure,” he added as a footman stepped forward to help Fiona out of her chair. “Gaines will see you to your rooms.”

He bowed his head and made himself turn. He quit the room without looking back, leaving his beating heart behind with Fiona.

Chapter Eleven

T
he supper had seened interminable to Fiona. Duncan hardly spoke and had kept looking at her as if he could not understand what she was doing at his gold inlaid dining table.

She’d wondered that a time or two herself. But as she watched him stalk from the dining room—he could scarcely wait to free himself of her, she thought—it occurred to her that it was ridiculous to wait for Jack at Blackwood. She could just as easily wait for him at Lambourne Castle.

“If you would like, mu’um, I could have a tot of whisky sent up to your rooms,” Gaines offered.

“Where is the laird going?” she asked the butler, ignoring his offer.

“I canna rightly say, but it is his habit to repair to the morning sitting room after supper.”

“The
morning
sitting room?”

“It is where he has situated a library,” Gaines explained. “The library was in the west wing before the fire. A wee bit of whisky, then?” he asked, holding up the decanter.

“Actually, Mr. Gaines, I shall have it now,” she said, and
held out her hand for the tot. She extended the other for the decanter. “All of it.”

He looked surprised by that, but handed it all to her nonetheless, and watched, his brows almost to his hairline, as Fiona poured a tot and tossed it back. “Thank you,” she said hoarsely as she handed him the empty tot. She smoothed the lap of her gown and marched from the dining room, gripping the decanter. But instead of turning left toward her suite of rooms, she turned right, toward the morning sitting room.

When she reached the door at the end of the corridor, she rapped lightly, then leaned forward, listening.

“No whisky, Gaines, thank you,” he said from within.

“No whisky indeed,” she muttered, and opened the door.

“No whis . . .” Duncan’s voice trailed off when he turned his head and saw her there. He hastily came to his feet; the newspaper he was holding in his lap fluttered to the floor. “I beg your pardon,” he said, and put his good hand behind his back, standing stiffly.

“No, laird, I beg yours,” Fiona said smartly, emboldened by the tot of whisky. “I must thank you for seeing me to Blackwood, but as my brother is no’ here, I have come to a decision.”

“Oh?”

“I see no reason to burden you further with my presence. I see no reason for us to continue this . . . familiarity, aye? Lambourne Castle is but a half day’s drive from here, and I shall be perfectly fine there until the earl returns from his hunting or . . . or whatever he is doing at Bonnethill,” she said with a dismissive flick of her wrist. “If you would be so kind, I should like to go home for a time.”

“Home,” he echoed.

Was he daft? “Aye,
home.
The house where I was brought up. The house where I shall now reside. Lambourne Castle.”

Duncan swallowed. He glanced at his bad hand, then at her again. “Do you mean . . . do you mean to say you intend to remain in Scotland, then?”

What did he care if she did or did not? She shrugged and set the decanter down with a
thwack.
She hadn’t thought it through entirely, but it suddenly seemed the place for her. She could be the little spinster who lived at Lambourne Castle. She would tend her garden and make remarks about society and people would flock to her to hear her tales of spending a few years in the highest reaches of London society. Perhaps Lady Gilbert would call on her here, and she would have a large soirée.