Читать книгу Sinful Scottish Laird - Julia London, Julia London - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

THE SOUND OF Fabienne’s barking brought Cailean’s head up from his task. He lived alone at Arrandale—he was almost single-handedly constructing his home—but rarely did anyone come by that was not hired on to help put up a roof or lay a floor. Today, however, he was expecting his brother Aulay—but he would be arriving by boat, up the loch. He would be bringing the wine and tea they’d recently brought in from France...without registering their cargo with the tax authorities.

All the more reason to be suspicious of whoever was now at his front door. He strode forward, grabbing up a musket on his way.

“Arrandale!” he heard someone shout as he neared the door. He pulled it open and swung the musket up onto his shoulder, sighting the man standing there.

Padraig MacNally threw his hands up and stumbled backward, almost tripping over Fabienne, whose tail was swishing madly, so pleased that someone had come to call.

“What do you want?” Cailean demanded gruffly.

MacNally began to prattle in Gaelic, something about a foreigner and the years of his life devoted to serving others with no reward for it.

With a groan of exasperation, Cailean lowered his gun. “For God’s sake, take a breath, lad. I donna understand a word of it.”

MacNally paused. He drew a deep breath. He said, in Gaelic again, “A lady has come and released me from service!” He took a cautious step forward, nervously rubbed his hand under his nose. His plaid was filthy, and from a distance of a few feet, Cailean could smell whisky on him. That was not surprising—everyone knew that the MacNallys of this glen were drunkards. “I’m without situation!”

“Aye, and whose fault is that?” Cailean sighed.

“I’ve looked after Auchenard for fourteen years!” he wailed.

“Looked after it? The place is a pile of rocks.”

“The old man refused to send money for repairs,” he insisted, seemingly on the verge of tears. “What was I to do? There was naught I could do, laird! I need your help,” he said, clasping his dirty hands together and shaking them at Cailean. “Please.”

“Aye, and what can I do, then?” Cailean asked, annoyed. MacNally was not a member of the Mackenzie clan, and he didn’t like him being here. The man could not be trusted, and Aulay would be arriving at any moment with their goods. They would store it here until they were ready to sell it. Which meant when they were certain no one was in pursuit of them for having “forgotten” to declare their cargo with the authorities.

“I tried to reason with her, but my English isn’t very good,” MacNally begged. “And she talks, laird. She talks without a breath so that a man can’t say what he might.”

Diah.

He thought of the woman he’d met on the road yesterday. The one who had looked at him as if he were a beefsteak and she a starving orphan. She’d not been at Auchenard for as much as a day and had let go the man who’d kept a watchful eye on a property all but abandoned?

That was the way of the English—or Sassenach, as they referred to them here. They seemed to appear out of the mist to take this or that, to demand change to a way of life that had been known in these hills for hundreds of years. But of all the English reavers Cailean knew, none of them were quite as striking as this one. Her eyes were shaped like those of a wily cat, the color of them as green as new pears. She had a fine figure, too—frankly, she was beautiful.

She’d been quite a surprise to him, in truth, and Cailean was not a man who was easily surprised. But with rumors swirling fast and furious about another attempt to restore a Stuart to the throne, tensions were quite high between Highlanders who disagreed about it, and between Scot and Englishman. For a beautiful English lady to suddenly appear in the Highlands was an invitation for trouble.

Aye, she was surprising and beautiful—and unforgivingly, unacceptably English. Poor MacNally was no match for them.

“Aye, then. Wait there,” Cailean said. He stepped inside, slammed the door and marched across his half-finished house toward the back to leave his brother a note.

As MacNally was on foot, they walked the mile or so to Auchenard. They came through the woods, emerging near the drive. Weeds had sprung up among the gravel, and as they neared the lodge, Cailean could see the windows were unwashed, the lawn overgrown. Cailean paused and looked pointedly at MacNally.

MacNally read his expression quite accurately. “I’ll put it to rights, laird. I will.”

Cailean grunted at that and continued on. He didn’t believe it for a moment, but MacNally was not his worry.

He strode up to the front door and rapped loudly. Several moments passed before a man wearing shirtsleeves and a leather apron answered the door. “Sir?”

“Lady Chatwick,” Cailean said.

The man blinked. He looked at MacNally, then at Cailean. “Who...who may I say is calling?” he asked uneasily.

“The laird of Arrandale.”

The man seemed shocked. He hesitated, casting a disapproving look over MacNally.

“Be quick about it, lad,” Cailean said impatiently. “I havena all day for this.”

The man’s throat bobbed with a swallow. He nodded and disappeared into the dark and dank foyer of the lodge.

Several moments passed. Cailean could hear male voices, and then a sudden and collective footfall. It sounded as if an army were advancing on the door, but there appeared only the lady, the butler and two other men. One of the men was familiar to Cailean—he’d brandished a sword yesterday. The other man was a stranger to him.

Lady Chatwick, who led them, looked worried as she approached the door, but when she saw him standing there, a peculiar thing happened. A smile lit her face so suddenly and so sunnily that it startled him. “You again,” she exclaimed, and her voice was full of...delight?

She should not be delighted to see him, and Cailean eyed her suspiciously. She was dressed plainly, her hair tied up under a cap. Her slender neck was unadorned, and he could faintly see the pulse of her heart in the hollow of her throat.

He looked away from her neck, shifted his weight onto his hip. “Aye,” he said impatiently.

Her smiled deepened. What was she doing, smiling at him like that? He didn’t like it—it unbalanced him. She should not be smiling at him; she should be trembling in her silly little boots.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, touching a wayward strand of hair. “We’ve only just arrived, as you know, and I’m afraid we’re not ready to receive callers. I had hoped to be here a week earlier, but the journey was so arduous from London that we were delayed. First the rough sea, then all these hills.”

Why was she nattering? “These hills,” he said brusquely, “is why the area is called the Highlands. One might have expected it. And I’ve no’ come to call.”

Her green eyes widened with surprise. And then she laughed, the sound of it soft and light in that cluster of men. “I thank you for not couching your opinion in poetic phrases, sir. Of course you are right—I should have expected it.”

Just then a lad pushed his way through and latched onto her skirts, staring up at Cailean with trepidation. “Ah, there you are, darling.” She turned slightly, put her hands on lad’s shoulders and moved him to stand in front of her. “May I introduce my family? My uncle, Mr. Alfonso Kimberly,” she said gesturing to the taller of the two men. “And of course, Sir Nevis you have met,” she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

Sir Nevis stood with his hand on the hilt of his sword. Both men glared at him with wariness, as if he were the intruder here. Cailean grunted at them. He didn’t care who they were, was not interested in introductions.

“And my son, Lord Chatwick.”

The lad stepped back into her, practically hiding in the folds of her skirt, but she gently pushed him out again. He looked to be about seven or eight years old, slight and pale, his blond hair sticking to his head. Cailean wondered if the lad was ill.

“Ellis, might you bow to the gentleman?”

The lad clasped his hands behind his back and bowed woodenly. “How do you do.”

“Latha math,” Cailean said absently.

The lad blinked up at him.

“I said, ‘Good day, lad.’ Have you no’ heard a Highlander speak?”

“I thought you might be English,” his mother said.

“English!” he very nearly bellowed. By God, he looked nothing like an Englishman! He was wearing trews, for God’s sake. “No,” he said gruffly, feeling slightly injured by the insult.

“Well, it’s not as bad as that, being English,” she chirped and gave him a lopsided little twinkle of a smile.

It was at least as bad as that. “I am a Scot,” he said stiffly.

She pulled the lad to stand in front of her again, putting her arms over his shoulders and holding him there. “You must admit you do sound a bit English,” she pointed out.

What was happening here? He’d come to speak to her about MacNally’s employment, not about the manner of his speech. As it was, MacNally was looking at him with horror. Cailean could imagine how the story would travel up and down the glen and evolve somehow into one of his being sympathetic to the English or some such nonsense. Tongues in this glen wagged with the force of gale winds. “My mother is English,” he bit out.

“Is she, indeed?” Lady Chatwick said happily. “Who is—”

“I’ve no’ come for pleasantries, madam,” he said curtly, cutting her off. “MacNally tells me you’ve released him from service.”

“Perhaps I ought to discuss this with the gentleman,” her uncle said, moving to stand beside her.

“Oh no, that’s not necessary,” she said pleasantly. “I think the gentleman means no harm.”

Of course he meant no bloody harm, but how could she possibly know what he meant? He was a dangerous man when he wanted to be, and he thought perhaps he ought to point that out...but she was talking again.

“I did indeed release Mr. MacNally from service,” she said, with a gracious incline of her head, as if she was accepting his praise. “I thought it imperative that I do so, as I explained to him. Did I not explain it, Mr. MacNally? I think we might all agree there are certain expectations when one employs another as an agent in their stead.”

MacNally looked at Cailean. “Do you see?” he asked in Gaelic. “She says so many words, and with much haste.”

Cailean ignored him. “The man has been caretaker here for nigh on fourteen years.”

“It is true that he has been employed as the caretaker here for that long...but somewhere along the way he quite forgot to take care of it.” She looked meaningfully at the broken window over her shoulder.

“I had no money,” MacNally said in Gaelic, understanding more than he was apparently willing to admit.

“He informs me your husband did no’ provide the funds for repairs, aye?”

“Did he, indeed?” she murmured, and one finely sculpted golden brow lifted above the other. “My husband has been dead for more than two years. I have not received any requests for funds to repair Auchenard, and yet I’ve seen to it that Mr. MacNally’s stipend has been sent to him with unfailing regularity.” The second delicate golden brow rose to meet the first in a direct challenge to Cailean to disagree.

That subtle challenge stirred something old and unpracticed inside Cailean. He looked away from her green eyes, glanced at MacNally and asked in Gaelic, “Is this true? You’ve not asked for the funds?”

“How was I to know to ask for funds?” he returned nervously. “No one has come round.”

Now Cailean glared down at MacNally. “Yet you’ve managed to put your hands on the stipend. Surely you know from where that has come.”

MacNally shrugged, scratched his scraggly beard and looked off contemplatively at the hills. “Did the best I could, I did,” he said defensively.

“Pardon? What does he say?” the lady asked politely.

Cailean had a sudden intuition and glared at MacNally. He asked in Gaelic, “Have you been making whisky here?”

MacNally colored.

Cailean responded with a colorful string of curse words. It was dangerous enough that he and Aulay were storing as much wine and tea as they were at Arrandale. But to have an illegal distillery on land an Englishman owned was reckless. “You’re lucky you have your fool head,” he snapped. “Off with you now. Go to Balhaire and see if there is work for you, but leave here at once before the authorities are summoned.”

At the mention of authorities, MacNally did not hesitate to stumble away.

Cailean looked at Lady Chatwick and the men behind her. She was smiling. They were not. “I beg your pardon,” he managed to say. “It appears we have bothered you unnecessarily.”

“There is no need to apologize,” she said, her eyes twinkling with delight once more. Diah, she acted as if this were all some sort of lark. He turned to go.

“My lord! May I inquire...from where did you come, exactly?”

Cailean paused. He slowly turned back to look at her and the two men behind her. Why did she ask him that? He was suspicious—after all, he was a Scot whose English grandfather had been tried for treason. He was also a man who practiced the fine art of smuggling goods into his country, outrunning British naval ships on at least a dozen occasions. He’d not put it past the English authorities to install a well-bred lady to spy, to root out the smuggling they’d failed so miserably to catch thus far. He was therefore not inclined to answer any questions posed by her.

She seemed to sense his distrust. She turned her son about and sent him into the lodge, then hopped out of the doorway and onto the flagstones. “I’m curious,” she said and leaned against a pillar that held up the portico, her fingers skirting across her décolletage, drawing his eye to the creamy skin swelling above her bodice. He slowly lifted his gaze, and she smiled. “Is it a secret?”

Was she trifling with him?

She clucked her tongue and smiled again. “It’s just that you seem unduly suspicious. I ask only because you rode away yesterday and I never expected to see you again. And yet here you are.”

“You willna see me again,” he assured her.

“No? A pity, that.”

Her smile turned sultry, and Cailean’s pulse leaped a beat or two. He was astounded by her cheek, really. He rarely met a woman so bold, and, by God, he was from Scotland—he knew more than a few bold women. “Aye, you willna. And for that you may thank your saints and pray others leave you be.”

“What others?”

Now she was being ridiculous. “Are you daft, then?” he asked disdainfully. “You shouldna be here at all.”

“Why?”

Good God, she was daft. Utterly addlepated. “Because we donna care for Sassenach here. I should think someone would have told you before you made such an arduous journey,” he drawled.

“Sassenach...” she repeated thoughtfully. “What does that mean, precisely? Does it mean ladies?” Her smile deepened into dimples. She was amusing herself.

“It means English.”

“Come in, milady,” Sir Nevis warned her. “Let him go.”

The incredibly cheeky woman ignored the man. She stood there, tracing that invisible line across the swell of porcelain skin, smooth and pale, considering Cailean.

She looked delicate. Fragile. Completely unprepared for a man like him. An appearance that belied the things that came out of her mouth. What sort of highborn woman flirted so blatantly with a stranger? What sort of woman trifled with a stranger twice her size? And yet she was not the first Englishwoman he’d known to behave in that manner, and the sudden, unwanted image of another delicate rose who’d once held his heart in her hands flooded his thoughts.

He tensed. He took a step forward. “Are you so foolish, Lady Chatwick? There is no’ a Scot in these hills who will want you and your kind here, and yet you behave as if you’re attending a garden party, aye?”

She laughed softly. “Oh, I assure you, sir—this is no garden party. There’s no garden! I am determined to have one, however, because I do find the landscape quite lovely—the scenery is unsurpassed.” Her eyes brazenly flicked over the length of him, and she grinned, saucily touching the corner of her mouth with her tongue.

That unpracticed part of him was rousing from its slumber.

“Won’t you tell me from where you came?”

Impatience and disbelief radiated hotly through him now. He had stayed longer than he’d intended, and he was not going to stand here and be interrogated by her. “Good day, madam,” he said coldly and turned about, striding away.

“Good day, sir! You must come again to Auchenard!” she called after him. “We’ll have a garden party if you like!” She laughed gaily at that.

Unbelievable.

Cailean fumed on the long walk to Arrandale, exasperated he’d been put on his heels by the Englishwoman, astounded that it had happened before he knew it, and amazed by her cheek. Och, she was barmy, that was what. And bonny. A barmy, bonny woman—the worst sort to have underfoot.

Funny how a long, hot summer could be made suddenly interesting in the space of a single day.