Snowy Night with a Highlander (7 page)

He did not look at her; he picked up the reins and wrapped them around his bad hand, then reached across himself to release the brake. With a whistle and a hitch of the reins, he sent the horses to trotting once more.

Fiona could not help but smile to herself. She’d put herself in a terribly shocking situation. Look at her, a woman who dined at the queen’s table, riding on a wagon’s bench with a servant or tenant of some sort! She could imagine herself relating this tale to the royal princesses, who would be all agog as they tried to imagine riding in a wagon in the company of a man they did not know.

Especially a man as enigmatic as Duncan. She stole a glance at him; he kept his gaze to the road. His eye creased in the corner with his squint; his jaw was square and strong. He had the growth of a beard that showed above his scarf that made him look even wilder than she imagined him to be. None of the gentlemen in London
looked like this. None of them had so much as a curl out of place. None of them could handle a team of four with one hand, or catch her in one arm and hold her so effortlessly. . . .

Stop.
This was insanity.

“Do you think we might reach Blackwood today?” she asked in an effort to make idle conversation that would take her mind from him.

“Aye.”

She spread her hands on her lap and looked at her fur-lined gloves, a gift from her aunt. “It seems a wee bit colder here than in London,” she remarked. “I didna remember it being quite so cold as this.”

He said nothing.

“Are you no’ cold, sir?”

“No.”

“Then your cloak must be a fine one indeed. Mine is lined with fur, yet still I feel a chill. When I was a girl, I never felt the chill. Then again, I was quite active, always out-of-doors, engaged in games with my brother. My father was of a mind that physical exercise was good for the body’s humors.” She looked at him for a response.

He kept his gaze on the road.

“What of you? Were you an active lad, then?”

He gave her a look that clearly indicated he found her prattle tiresome.

So did she, truthfully. But she
had
to talk. If she didn’t speak, she would dwell on the closeness of his deliciously masculine body, eyes the color of tea leaves, and unspeakable things. “Perhaps you were put to work at an early age,” she suggested. “Our housekeeper had three sons who worked alongside her. I shall never forget the sight of Ian
standing on his brother’s shoulders to light the candles in the chandelier, as steady as you please.”

Duncan turned his head and seemed to be looking at the trees as they passed them.

“I was always rather fond of Ian, in truth. He was a very likable lad. I have no’ the slightest notion what has become of him, as I’ve no’ been home in some time.” She paused. “Eight years it is now.”

Duncan gave her a passing glance before turning his attention to the road again.

Fiona shivered. “No doubt you are wondering why I’ve been in London all this time, but it’s all rather complicated. There are times I long for Scotland, but then again, there’s little for me here.” She laughed. “I’d be living in my brother’s home, Lambourne Castle, which, I can assure you, would be a trial. No one likes to be beholden, do they?” She looked at Duncan. “And besides, I should no’ admit it, for he’s my blood, but my brother is a wee bit of a rogue, he is, and always has been.” She smiled and looked forward again. He was a rogue, but she loved him dearly. “I followed him to London,” she announced, as if her mouth was suddenly connected to her thoughts. “Our parents were gone, and he’s my only family to speak of, really, save my aunt and uncle, but they are getting on in years, aye? I wanted to be close to Jack.”

For some reason, Duncan glanced at her when she said this.

“And now he’s the reason I’ve come back to Scotland,” she admitted, as if Duncan had asked her why. “I fear he’s gotten himself into awful trouble in London,” she added with a soft shake of her head. “Shall I tell you what he’s done? No, no . . . I should no’. The less you know, the better,
I suspect. But if he’s no’ at Blackwood, I donna know what I shall do.”

She realized that Duncan was looking at her curiously and she smiled. “He may be a rogue, but he’s always been right good to me. That’s why I followed him to London. Oh, aye, I suppose I would have remained here had there been any real prospects for me,” she continued, as if Duncan had inquired. “Society is rather small in the Highlands, is it no’?” she asked, thinking of her own coming-out. How many had been in attendance—perhaps one hundred people? That seemed so small in comparison to London gatherings, particularly those hosted by the Prince of Wales, which numbered well into the hundreds.

“It’s no’ that I had
no
prospects,” she added hastily with another shiver. “I had a few.” If one could count Mr. Carmag Calder a true prospect. He was a studious young man, interested in the Greek classics, and could name all of the Greek deities, which he had done for Fiona on more than one occasion. She admired him for his scholarly pursuits, but she’d also found conversation with him awfully dull.

Which, for some inexplicable reason, she decided to share with her driver. That, as well as some other startling moments in her life—such as the day she fell from the window at Lambourne Castle and broke her arm. And the night she was introduced to the Prince of Wales for the first time and couldn’t help but marvel at how intricately and perfectly his neckcloth had been tied. It was precise in a way that defied human nature, and she’d pictured a bevy of valets working on that neckcloth—until Jack nudged her with his elbow to make her stop gaping at the prince.

A hard dip in the road shook her and made her realize that she was indeed prattling on, and she suddenly felt rather silly sitting next to this man, speaking so openly about her life.

She watched the bare tree limbs that passed along over their heads for a moment, and then asked, “Have you been to London?”

“Once or twice.”

She waited for him to say more.
I liked it very much
or
London is very crowded.
But he said nothing. “Really, Mr. Duncan, I beg of you, please do stop nattering on!” she said. “Your endless chatter is beginning to wear on my poor nerves.”

She could see the skin around his eye crinkle. He was smiling.

“I’ve been to London, but that was several years ago,” he admitted.

“Aha!” she said brightly. “You are indeed capable of conversation!” He sounded, she thought, as though he belonged to the gentry. He was a tenant, she guessed—not a servant. She folded her arms tightly around her.

“Move closer,” he said.

“Pardon?”

“Move closer,” he said again. “You are cold. Sit close to me for warmth.” When she made no move to do so, but gaped at him, he put his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him.

Fiona made a sound of surprise; he removed his arm.

But that didn’t remove the feeling of him. Their bodies were touching, her shoulder to his arm, her thigh against his large one, her lower leg against the smooth leather of his boot. She was aware of every inch of their bodies that came
together. She did indeed feel warmer; in fact, she felt a deep warmth at the very core of her begin to spread, sliding out to her fingers and toes and tingling across her scalp.

It took her a moment to notice her fingers were digging into her palms.

Duncan glanced at her, and Fiona would have sworn he knew precisely the titillation she was feeling, because his eye seemed to glow with it. “Continue, then,” he said.

“Beg your pardon?”

“You were telling me of your life. Carry on, if you will.”

“Oh!” Her face felt flushed. She must sound perfectly absurd to him. “There’s really very little to say, actually. My life has been utterly uneventful.” She looked at him. “What of you, sir? How long have you been at Blackwood, if I may ask?”

She felt an almost imperceptible stiffening in his body and rather imagined it was because conditions at Blackwood were as bleak as she imagined, being under the thumb of such a reprehensible laird. He probably treated his tenants with complete disdain, walking over them as if they were objects instead of people and demanding exorbitant rents, whereas
she
had always taken care to treat her servants admirably. If Sherri were here, that bloody stupid girl, she would vouch for Fiona’s fair treatment, she was certain.

She looked at Duncan. “It’s quite all right—you may speak freely, you know,” she said. “I am well acquainted with the character of your laird,” she said with a slight roll of her eyes.

Duncan looked as if he wanted to inquire, but being a Buchanan man, he just clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead. Highlanders were notoriously loyal.

“Tell me, Duncan, is Mrs. Nance still in the laird’s employ? I—”

Her question was lost when the wagon hit something hard, sending it skidding behind the team and riding very rough.

“Ho, there,
ho, ho
!” Duncan shouted at the horses, reining hard. When he’d pulled the team to a stop, he quickly unwrapped the reins from his left hand and jumped off the bench in one fluid movement. He strode around the back of the wagon and around to Fiona’s side. With his hand on his hip, he stared down at the wheel, then muttered a Gaelic oath that, fortunately, Fiona could not make out.

“The wheel is damaged,” he said with a hard kick to the offending wheel.

She gasped and leaned over, bracing herself against the wooden armrest as she peered down at the wheel. She could see one of the spokes jutting out, perpendicular to the wheel. “Oh no.”

Mr. Duncan squatted down to have a closer look. Fiona could only see the crown of his hat and the wide rim. The hat was dark brown, and when the first fat snowflake fell and landed on the brim, it was so large it made her think of dandelions. But when another followed it, and another, she looked up to see that snow had indeed begun to fall.

“Oh, look!” she said with all the brightness one typically feels at the sight of new snow. “It’s begun to snow!”

Duncan lifted his head and looked up at the sky and said something in Gaelic that, if Fiona’s memory could be trusted, was loosely translated to mean
Bloody, bloody hell
.

Chapter Six

T
he sight of the broken spoke was bad enough, but when snow began to fall, a very bad feeling invaded Duncan. It likely would be impossible to reach Blackwood by nightfall now. Frankly, he feared they would not reach
any
place by nightfall.

He sent Fiona into the trees to gather wood before it became too wet from the snow in the event they needed to build a fire. He had her stack it in the back of the wagon, under the tarpaulin awning. He was both amazed and relieved that she did not argue, but only voiced her opinion that she was being sent on a fool’s errand so that she’d not be underfoot while he tried to repair the wheel, and went off cheerfully to do as he’d asked.

She wasn’t wrong. It was difficult enough to repair a spoke in the wheel cog, particularly when one arm refused to cooperate. It took him much longer than it would an able-bodied man, and as a result, the lady had stuffed the wagon with as much wood as she could find without wandering too deep into the woods, and was now sitting on a rock beneath the bows of a towering Scots pine.
From his position on his back beneath the wagon, where he was working to force a spare spoke into the fittings on the wheel, Duncan could see a pair of ankle-high boots that were attached to a pair of very shapely legs covered in thick woolen stockings. Legs that disappeared beneath the dirtied hem of her gown and cloak.

Her arms were wrapped around her knees, drawn up to the chest, and her chin perched atop her knees. She watched him work, chattering on about something to do with a ball in London. He’d been unable to follow her conversation as his attention was diverted by the task at hand and that pair of shapely legs peeking out at him from beneath her skirts.

He might have gone on all day stealing glimpses of that tantalizing view, but she suddenly dipped her head, catching his attention. “I said, I’d never been to a proper ball before I attended the one at Gloucester.”

Duncan had no idea what he should say to that and grunted. He’d positioned himself around the wheel, tucking it in between his body and his bad arm so that he could keep it from moving. With his good arm, he worked to set the spare spoke into the notches of the wheel.

Fiona stood and began to pace just beyond the wheel, kicking what was, fortunately, a light accumulation of snow. “I rather thought London would be different somehow,” she said. “I rather thought the whole of society would be different, but it’s really rather remarkably similar to society in the Highlands—what wee bit exists here, that is.”

He could not imagine that the Highlands were anything like London. Her small boots passed by his face, turned sharply, and passed again. “I truly believed there would be some sort of enlightenment in London,” she
continued, one hand waving airily. “But I discovered that while there are good souls to be found in London society, there are others who can be as mean-spirited and churlish as the Laird of Blackwood.”