The Beautiful Stranger (20 page)

Arthur stroked the horses neck for a long while before he went down again on his haunches to examine the injured leg. After a moment, he stood again, stroked the horses neck and shoulders once more before turning and striding purposefully across the heath. His gait was long and sure, so sure, that Kerry could not help but smile with pride as she watched him.

Unthinkingly, she glanced around her, starting inwardly at Baron Moncrieffes piercing look. Who is he?

he asked curtly.

Her smile faded; Kerry couldnt think. An Englishman, my lord. I, ah, he Och, hes naught but a wanderer.

Surprised, Kerry turned to look at Thomas, but he was looking at Moncrieffe, his expression inscrutable.

A wanderer? Moncrieffes voice was full of disbelief.

Aye, an English wanderer he is, in search of poetry, naught more.

Moncrieffe eyed Thomas suspiciously before turning around to greet Arthur as he strode into their midst.

Well sir, he said, exaggerating a low bow, it appears I owe you a debt of gratitude. He extended his hand and smiled thinly. You must allow me to thank you properly at Moncrieffe House.

Arthur glanced at his proffered hand, hesitated brieflyenough for Moncrieffe to noticebefore accepting it.

You owe me nothing, sirIm rather fond of horses all in all.

You are an Englishman, Moncrieffe noted as Arthur let go his hand. Weve not many visitors to our little corner of the world particularly Englishmen. You really must come for a wee dram buidheach. My man will take the horse now.

Thank you, but I shouldnt want to impose on your hospitality.

Its no imposition, Moncrieffe continued smoothly. Especially for the late McKinnons English acquaintance. He glanced over his shoulder at a weathered old man and nodded curtly.

I beg your pardon, sir, but you are mistaken. I never met the late Mr. McKinnon, Arthur responded.

Moncrieffe shrugged indifferently. No, then? I was quite certain McKinnon mentioned an English acquaintance. Ah, well then, Moncrieffe sighed, if you willna accept my hospitality, then you will surely let me pay you, my lord ?

As I said, you owe me nothing, but you do owe the roanhis leg was injured long before today. Hes a gash on his fetlock that is festering and requires immediate attention, Arthur coolly informed him.

That pronouncement clearly surprised Moncrieffe; his gaze instantly flew to Charles, who scruffed his toe in the dirt, smiling sheepishly at Kerry.

Mrs. McKinnon, might I find oats in that sack? Arthur asked impatiently, and took the sack from her hand. He did not wait for Moncrieffe to gain his composure; he was already striding across the heath before Moncrieffe could say more.

The baron was not amused; he turned to Kerry, his eyes blazing. I willna be fooled, Mrs. McKinnon! he snapped. Fraser McKinnon looked to England and it served him naught!

Fraser had looked to England? What did that mean? Kerry glanced at Thomas, but he looked just as baffled.

Will the horse be all right? Charles asked.

Aye, Charles! Moncrieffe responded hotly, and leveled another heated gaze on Kerry as he clamped a hand on his sons shoulder. Doona be coy, Mrs. McKinnon. You may think your Englishman will help, but it changes nothing! Come then, Charles, he said, and pushed his son in the direction of a waiting carriage. He cast one last scathing glance across her as he followed Charles, and Kerry felt it rake her to the bone. Her stomach twisted; she looked away from the sight of Charles. Never. Never would she go to him, not for her clan, not for anyone. She needed to breathe, sucked in the air, but Thomas was in front of her, his expression dark.

What did he mean, then, that it changes nothing? Thomas demanded suspiciously.

She shrugged, shifted her gaze to Arthur, who was on his haunches again, inspecting the injured fetlock as the horse munched happily at his sack of oats. I really canna say that I know, she lied. At Thomass skeptical look, she threw up her hands. Hes got some maggot in his head, Thomas! I canna read his mind! That only made Thomass eyes narrow with more suspicion, so Kerry looked around him, to where Arthur tended the horse. Hes quite good with horses, is he not?

Aye, Thomas growled, reluctantly shifting his gaze to watch Arthur soothe the horse and wrap his fetlock with a cloth one of the barons men brought him.

Kerry watched him, too, careful not to show any emotion in spite of being greatly bothered by something Moncrieffe had said. She could not imagine that Fraser had an English acquaintance, for surely she would have known it. And even if he had known an Englishman, what could it possibly signify? It was obviously nothing more than Moncrieffes intimidation of her, an attempt to confuse her.

Still, it puzzled her.

She fretted over it, turning it around and around in her mind, trying to make sense of it as she watched Arthur finish his work and give the roan over to Moncrieffes man.

As the last of the group dissipated, Arthur, looking rather pleased with himself, strolled up the hill to where Kerry and Thomas stood waiting with the wagon. I daresay the boy will feel much improved on the morrow. Hes a fighter, that one. Wont let a nasty gash or a stubborn Scot get him down, he quipped.

Aye, youve got a way with the horses, Thomas grudgingly admitted.

That caused Arthurs grin to broaden impossibly. Good God, McKinnon, do my ears deceive me, or did I hear a kind word fall from your mouth? he asked, then laughed roundly when Thomas rolled his eyes, muttered his opinion in Gaelic, and fairly vaulted onto the wagon.

Still chuckling, Arthur smiled down at Kerry. Ill have that old goat you name cousin eating haggis from my hand before Im gone, watch and see if I dont, he said, and casually put a hand on her back to help her up after Thomas.

Kerrys legs moved, but for once, there was no strange flash of heat that she seemed to experience every time he so casually touched her. She barely felt his hand on her back at allhis words had stunned her, rumbling like thunder through her, rattling her to the core.

before Im gone

It was the first time she had allowed herself to think of it, the first time she had seen the image of his back as he walked out her front door in her minds eye.

Never to return again.

How? How could she stand there and watch him leave?

An odd sense of panic swept her; she felt a hard urge to fling herself into his arms and beg him not to go, to never leave her or Glenbaden but her head worked to overrule her foolish heart as Arthur climbed up beside her, settling comfortably against her, and reminding Thomas that he also had quite a way with milk cows, which immediately gained an argument from Thomas, who flatly refused to praise his skill that far.

As the argument raged, Kerrys practical head calmly told her heart that he would walk out her front door in a matter of daysof course he would!for what was there in Glenbaden for a man like Arthur Christian?

Oh aye, he would walk out of her door, and when he did, she would have to face the inevitable fact that she would never see him again. His presence here was nothing more than an interesting quirk of fate, a moment in time that had brought her an unexpected measure of comfort in her darkest hour.

He had woken her up one morning, shown her the sun. How could she now watch him leave, knowing that with his departure she would slip into an eternal sleep again?

For as much as she loved him, adored him, Lord Arthur Christian of the English Sutherlands was as far removed from simple Kerry McKinnon and Glenbaden as any one human being could be. For as much as she desired himand oh God, she didhe was never meant to be here. Not now. Not ever. Not with her.

This interlude would end.

He would walk out her door, leaving her broken heart in his wake.

And she convinced herself, as they bounced along the rutted road home, that it was perhaps quite all right that he should leave her heart in piecesshe certainly had no other use for it.

Not after him.

Arthur rose before dawn the next morning, thanks to another hazy nocturnal visit from Phillip, who stood to one side as Arthur doctored the horse in the heath. Except that the horse had been shot and was dying, and Phillip stood, twirling his hat on one finger, yawning with boredom at Arthurs efforts to save the horse. You wont save himhe prefers death to this life, he remarked nonchalantly, and Arthur had jerked around, intent on strangling Phillip for his indifference.

He had awakened before he could reach him.

He had also awakened before anyone else in the glen. So having had a breakfast of cold bread, he was sitting on a tree stump just in front of the white house, where he paused in the task of buffing his boots long enough to admire the sun rising above the horizon. He had discovered, having been in Glenbaden more than a week now, that much to his great surprise, the early morning hours were among the finest of the day. He loved the morning, a simple truth he had never known.

He had never risen with dawns first light before now. But in Glenbaden, he did so each day and would wash and shave, dress in the simple clothes that allowed him enormous freedom of movement, then walk quietly down the hall, following the scent of ham May prepared for the men before they began their work.

But he would always pause before the door of Kerrys room, which she left slightly ajar, and push it open just enough so that he might gaze at her sleeping. She was angelic in those morning hours of sleep; she slept with her hair unbound, spilling all around her and framing her lovely face. Arthur longed to touch one of the delicate curls at her temple, touch two fingers to the place where the skin was tender and soft But he always continued on, taking care to keep his steps light so as not to wake her.

At the scarred wooden table, Arthur would devour the oats and ham May put before him, tending to eat twice as much food as he had ever had in London. He found this particularly interesting, because his trousers were looser than they had ever been in his life, despite his eating as much as the enormous sow they kept.

Once he had his fill of the hearty breakfast, he would join Thomas and Big Angus in the yard, where Thomas, having abandoned his considerable efforts to kill Arthur, would divide the chores among them.

And then he would be off, walking briskly through the crisp, cool morning. It pleased him tremendously to watch the mist lift as the sun made its slow path across the morning sky, and he remained quietly astonished at how the light would begin to dance across the dew-soaked grass, its warmth spreading throughout the glen. It was a beauty he had not often seen in his six and thirty years on this earth, and only then as he approached it from a night of revelry. But in London, the air was often so thick with smoke and other unhealthy vapors that he wasnt entirely certain anything like dew existed.

Dew.

Good God, what was happening to him?

He was adrift in strange waters, that was what. He was floating and bobbing merrily around a question to which he had no answers. Astounding, but he enjoyed this existence in the Scottish glen. He relished the hard work, the sense of accomplishment the sense of purpose. Yet this life was alien to him, and really, wholly unsuitable to a man of his stature in the ton. He was the proverbial fish out of water, the English gentleman playing at a bit of rustic farming. Yet he liked it, liked it very much indeed; there were so many things that touched him here, he thought, as he watched the sun chase away the morning mist.

Touched him deeply.

A sound to his right caused him to turn, a smile slowly spread his lips. Kerry walked sleepily across the small yard toward the pump, her hand covering a yawn. She was barefoot; the hem of her gray skirts wet from dragging across the morning dew. She paused at the pump, stretched her arms high above her head for a moment, and then leaned forward, her back strong and lean as she filled a bucket with water.

That was, he thought idly, exactly what he found so beautiful about her. The more he watched Kerry in the midst of Glenbaden, the more he found her completely and utterly irresistible.

She had, in the course of these days, come to embody all the qualities of a woman he now realized he craved. Kerry McKinnon was real; there was no pretense about her, nothing false. She was not afraid of work, and in fact, he would wager that she worked as hard as any man he had ever known. It hadnt taken him long to realize that it was she who kept this little glen alive, kept them all moving, working, living. Even he, a jaded veteran of the highest reaches of cynicism, believed her cheerfulness when she greeted her neighbors and remarked on another fine dayeven those that were miserably cold and wet.

But that was what was so unique about Kerryhe truly respected her unwavering ability to endure hardship without the slightest complaint, and moreover, he truly admired her grit to survive when it was so painfully obvious that there was no money.

He had known men who could not and did not endure the hardships Kerry McKinnon seemed to balance on the tip of one finger.

She was the very soul of this glen, the single light shining on its meager existence, and the reason, he suspected, that many of these poor souls remained, inspired and rallied by her determination. Arthur had no doubt whatsoever that she was partly the reason Thomas McKinnon had never left the glen as he threatened to do at least twice daily.

And he could only thank God that Regis had defied his order and gone to Fort Williams instead of coming straightaway to Glenbaden as he had instructed him to do. He could no more evict Kerry McKinnon than he could cut off his right hand. Oh, he no longer doubted it was Kerrys eviction he had ordered; he had seen enough, heard enough to know.

It was astounding, if not oddly comical, that he had happened upon Phillips land in such a bizarre fashion. It was so unbelievable that a man had to wonder if there hadnt been some sort of divine intervention. If Kerry hadnt shot him in the road that evening, he never would have known who he evicted, much less stopped it. He never would have known the simple pleasure and beauty of this glen.