A Highland Folly Page 5

  Four

  Mist inched down out of the mountains, clawing at each rock, devouring every tree like some great beast of ancient times. Cool, even for a late spring night, it smothered the stars and diminished the river’s song to a whisper. The fog swirled and contorted with a pattern only it knew.

  Anice pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and hunched within it. She would have preferred to be in the sheep barn, tending to the newest arrivals, but Sir Busby Crenton had been oddly emphatic when he’d paid a call to Ardkinloch that afternoon. With Neilli listening with avid interest, their neighbor, whose lands also bordered this side of the river, had urged Anice to come to the meeting tonight at the parsonage.

  “A most important meeting, my lady,” he had said, his voice taut with urgency, although his gaze slipped often toward Neilli. “Our individual complaints against the bridge being built across the river have not been heeded in London. We must unite our voices to gain sympathetic ears in Parliament.”

  As she walked along the path toward the village, Anice feared they were deluding themselves. The Regent’s government wanted this road project completed without delay. That had been stated in the letter she had received from London. She knew an identical letter had been sent to Sir Busby, because he had lamented about the shortsightedness of the government in ruining the beauty of the Highlands.

  Anice stopped to stare at the gray curtain of fog and took a deep breath to calm her swift pulse. If Sir Busby or anyone else discovered she was coming to this meeting only in hopes of offering a rational argument for caution, she was sure no one would heed her. She might be able to betwattle them. Thank heavens Lucais would not be attending this evening. She could not fool him, for he had an uncanny ability to gauge her thoughts.

  Anice tightened her cloak around her as she hurried along the road and into the village. The fog parted reluctantly to allow her to see the lights of Killiebige. Walking along the twisting street that followed the uneven course of the river, she hurried to the small stone house in the shadow of the kirk.

  Reverend Dole greeted her at the door of the comfortable parsonage. He was so tall and thin, she suspected his shadow could be mistaken for a tree’s. His long face broadened with his smile as he urged, “Come in, Lady Kinloch.” When he stepped back to allow her to enter, the candlelight glinted off his bald head and accented his white collar beneath his black coat.

  “How are you tonight?” she asked as she untied her damp cloak and placed it on a peg. She noted a pile of other wraps on a chair. She kept her sigh silent. How silly she had been to hope that no one else would attend.

  “We have been eagerly waiting for you,” the minister said. “Sir Busby asked us to do nothing until you arrived.”

  She was amazed. Reverend Dole was so flustered that he had failed to answer her greeting. As he motioned for her to precede him into the parlor to the left of the stairs, she noticed a tic by his right eye. Reverend Dole was clearly more distressed by the arrival of the road-crew group than she had guessed.

  As Anice had feared, the simply furnished room was full. Every chair was occupied. Mr. Tawes, a mousy man who served as Killiebige’s mayor, offered her his seat. Thanking him, she looked for Sir Busby. She smiled when she saw him sitting close to the hearth. He could not be more than a half decade older than she was. As round as Reverend Dole was spare, he had an elfish smile that hid the sharp mind behind his thick glasses.

  She did not have a chance to speak with Sir Busby because Reverend Dole came to stand by the room’s single window. The thick drapes had been drawn to shut out the fog’s gray light. He started to raise his hands as if to grip the sides of his pulpit but halted himself with a flustered expression.

  “My friends,” he said with an uneven smile, “it is my honor to host this meeting, but I shall step aside to leave you in the capable hands of the man who organized it. Sir Busby?”

  Sir Busby rose. Rubbing his hands nervously against his light brown breeches, he said, “Lady Kinloch, I would like you to speak first.”

  “Me?” When the dozen people in the room turned to look at her, she slowly stood. She did not want to speak first. She wanted to sit and listen and consider the opinions of others, but she should have known that as shy as he was, Sir Busby would seek someone else to address this group.

  “Good evening,” Anice said. When her voice did not quiver and crack on the phrase, she was able to smile. “Sir Busby and I had hoped to gather a consensus on the issues that surround the bridge project.”

  Quickly she realized she did not need to say more. The villagers were eager to express their opinions as to how the road would change the village and disrupt fishing on the Abhainn an Uruisg. When she saw heads nodding in agreement, she realized that the hatred of the project had rallied the cantankerous villagers who seldom could agree on anything. She wanted to beg them to heed her desire for clear thought, but she doubted if tonight was the time for good sense. Tonight these people needed to express their anger. Mayhap, if she were to call upon them individually, she might help them realize that rage would gain them nothing from the government. Calm facts were what they needed to send to London.

  She sighed. If she were to call on all her neighbors and take time to listen to their opinions of the road as well as the weather and each other, she would be still giving them a look-in by the time the road was finished. She had little time to spare even though the lambing was nearly over. This time of year the Kinloch family and their retainers were kept endlessly busy with that important chore. Although she had been amazed that everyone was expected to take a turn, she had come to look forward to the quiet hours she could spend in the barn, far from family and all their requests.

  “Do you agree, Lady Kinloch?” asked Reverend Dole.

  “I am sorry.” Her face burned, and she feared she was blushing, but she would not be false with the minister. “I was lost in my thoughts.”

  “We were speaking,” Sir Busby said with a smile, “of the worries we share about the disruptions that will be caused by blasting.”

  “Will it be near anyone’s house?”

  “That is not yet sure.”

  “Of course,” grumbled Catriona Tawes, the mayor’s wife, “this might all be moot if you had not saved that roadman’s life on the hill.”

  “What?” Anice glanced at Sir Busby. He was as puzzled as she was. “I don’t understand what you are talking about, Mrs. Tawes.”

  “’Tis not like a Kinloch to be coy, Lady Kinloch,” the gray-haired woman returned, her voice still sharp. “You should have left that man there on the hillside instead of helping him.”

  “I still do not understand what you are speaking of.”

  “Lady Kinloch, it is well known throughout the village that you saved that man from someone who was shooting at him on the hill near the old castle.”

  “I cannot speak to what you have heard, Mrs. Tawes, but the truth is that Lucais MacFarlane saved me. If not for him, I might be dead.” Anice frowned, then wished she had not. Lifting off her bonnet, she pointed to the bruise that was still tender and a variety of colors. “I suffered no more than this and a cut hand because he was there to push me away from the ball fired at us. No matter how I feel about the bridge and the road, I know that I owe him my life.”

  Conversations erupted from all corners of the room. Anice remained silent. She wondered how the truth had become so twisted so quickly. With a sigh, she knew her explanation would travel far more slowly than the rumors had. She owed Lucais the duty of a warning. Neither he nor his crew must be endangered because of this absurd tale.

  She glanced again at Sir Busby and saw his scowl. He acted disappointed that Lucais had not been the intended victim. She had thought he was wiser than this, but mayhap his abhorrence for the road crew’s plans for the bridge was blinding him to the truth.

  Anice hurried through the light refreshments the reverend had prepared for his guests. The small cakes weighed heavily in her stomach as she collected her
cloak. Tying the ribbons around her throat, she almost shrieked when broad hands settled the cloak across her shoulders.

  She laughed weakly. “Sir Busby, you startled me!”

  “I am sorry. I thought you saw me following you on your mad dash out of the parlor.”

  “Was I that obvious?”

  “I doubt if anyone else noticed.” He reached for his wool cap and tapped it onto his light brown hair. “May I escort you back to Ardkinloch?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She would have preferred to have the time to sort out her thoughts, but she could not help thinking that his offer meant there were other rumors flitting through Killiebige that might have done her damage in the villagers’ eyes.

  When he offered his arm, she put her hand on it. She walked by his side across the common to the narrow footpath leading toward the river. The fog had thickened to enclose everything in a strange silver light. Somewhere, far above the clouds, the moon must be shining, but very little of its light filtered through the mist.

  “How are you doing?” Sir Busby asked as they climbed the steep slope. “I saw how shocked you were at Catriona’s words.”

  “She’s a beefhead.”

  He smiled so fleetingly, she wondered if it had been a trick of the uneven light. “I am not worried about her. I am worried about you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you?”

  “I just said that I was fine!” Abruptly furious that he would question her also, she faced him. “I thought you were my friend.”

  “I am.”

  “But you listened to that poker-talk about Lucais and me.”

  He scowled. “I do not like to hear your names connected so.”

  “You should know that there is nothing untoward between Lucais MacFarlane and me. If you doubt me, you need only ask my cousins. Neilli abhors the very sight of him, and Parlan cannot bring himself to speak Lucais’s name.”

  “Neilli?”

  Anice could not keep from staring at Sir Busby. All anger had disappeared from his face, and he wore an expression that could be described only as wistful calf-love. For Neilli? Her cousin must be unaware of Sir Busby’s attraction to her. Certainly she would have spoken of it … unless she was so blinded by her desire to have a London Season that she could not see a potential beau right here in Killiebige.

  “Miss Kinloch is a woman of strong … um, opinions,” he hurried to add.

  She fought not to smile. He had almost said “passions.” How had she missed what must be a growing tendre for her cousin?

  This might be just the solution she had sought for the problem of Neilli’s nagging to go to London. If she could persuade her cousin to consider Sir Busby as a suitor … then her only problem would be the road crew.

  Only problem? She sighed, but she recalled her mother’s advice that had gotten them through many rough times. There always was a way out of any quandary. All one needed to do was find it.

  Lucais looked up when the canvas door of his tent was pushed aside. Hearing a lyrical voice thanking someone, he came to his feet and let the plans he had been reviewing roll closed with a snap. He smiled as Anice stepped in.

  Although she was dressed in a simple white gown with a lacy shawl over her shoulders, he thought of how charming she had looked in her loose shirt and trousers. He might have thought she was a lad, but when he had held her in his arms, those delightful curves had shown him how mistaken first impressions could be.

  “Do come in,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She looked around, not hiding her amazement.

  He clasped his hands behind his waistcoat, knowing quite well what she saw. A small table was set in the middle of the boards that made up the uneven floor. With a trunk and a narrow cot, there was barely room for a pitcher and ewer. He was not going to apologize for the rough conditions here. Not when he exulted in this chance to live right among the navvies who would be building the road. To him, this simple tent was a better place to live than his family’s house.

  “Oh,” she breathed, “this is grand.”

  “Grand?”

  “It reminds me of a bedouin’s tent that we lived in while my second stepfather was studying ancient ruins in the East.”

  “You lived in a tent?” He wondered what else this astonishing woman could say that would attempt to render him speechless.

  “Only for a year or so.” Laughing, she drew off her gloves. “It seemed prodigiously large to me as a child, but it probably was not as big as a bee’s knee. Not that it mattered, for I was seldom inside. My mother despaired of keeping me from burning as red as a soldier’s coat in that desert.”

  “This is my home at the moment.” He gestured to the wobbly table. “Would you like to sit and join me for a bit of tea?”

  “You have a stove here? You’re jesting.”

  “Only partly. This is my home just now. The stove is out behind the tent, which makes for interesting cooking on nights like yesterday’s, when the mist threatened to smother any fire I might start.” He chuckled. “I would gladly offer you a chair if I had one.”

  “You have no place to sit?”

  “I sit on the bed, but I doubt you would find that acceptable.”

  “Your doubts are quite correct.” She rubbed her hands together, then grimaced.

  “Your hand still hurts?”

  “It has not been long, Lucais. All things heal at their own pace.”

  “You sound as if you have said that often.”

  “It has been said to me often. Mother often despaired of me having no patience.”

  Knowing he might be probing in too personal a direction, he asked, “What happened to your mother?”

  “She and my most recent stepfather died in South America.”

  “Where you obtained your peculiar pet, Bonito?”

  “Yes, I received Bonito as a gift from my stepfather just weeks before they were killed.” Tears filled her eyes, but her chin remained high. “They were exploring some ruins, and they never returned. Apparently there were traps within the ruins to keep out trespassers.”

  “I am so sorry, Anice.”

  “Thank you.” She swallowed roughly. “Let me deliver my message, and I shall be on my way. I see you are working on plans for the road.”

  His smile dimmed. “Are you here to tell me, too, how wrong it is to build the road here?”

  “Is that what you think?” Anice shook her head, wondering how the conversation could have twisted in so many directions with just a few words. “I had thought you were more astute than those folks who swallow whole every clanker they hear.”

  “Like the one rumbling through Killiebige that you saved me from death up on the hill?”

  “You know about that?”

  “Not everyone in Killiebige is averse to the idea of building a bridge here, although most of the village leaders were part of the meeting you attended last night. There are a few people in the village who keep me informed of the on-dits flitting from lips to lips.” His smile returned, but with such little warmth she feared his expression would freeze her. “You need not look so amazed, Anice.”

  “I am not. If I were amid folks who wished me ill, I would keep my eyes and ears open. And you would be very wise to keep yours open at all times.”

  He chuckled. “I believe I owe you another apology.”

  “No, it is not necessary. I came here simply to warn you about the disquiet in Killiebige.” Whatever else she might have added went unsaid when he caught her hand between his.

  “I know of that, Anice. But do you know of the disquiet you cause within me when you are near? A disquiet that is like a slow-growing rumble that echoes within me until I think only of touching you.”

  “You should not speak so.”

  “Then I shall not speak.” Gently he stroked her hand as he curled her fingers over his broader ones. Lifting her fingers to his lips, he held her gaze as he brushed them with a swift kiss. Her fingers tightened on his as she was sure her heart h
ad been pierced with a bolt of splendid delight. His expressive mouth tilted in a heated smile when he kissed one finger, then the next.

  Her feet led her closer. Tipping her hand, he drew one finger down. He bent and slid his tongue along it. She could not silence her gasp of incredulity at the sensations that were drawing her to him, urging her to share this pleasure with him.

  When his other hand cupped her chin, she knew the danger she was inciting by not pulling away. She pushed that thought away as he drew her up against him. His thumb caressed her palm as his other one coursed along her jaw. The rough texture of his skin was a sweet caress, grazing her cheek with warmth.

  He breathed her name as he tilted her mouth toward his. She started to close her eyes, but halted when she saw his narrow.

  “Yes?” he said, his tone abruptly razor-sharp.

  Turning, Anice almost moaned in dismay. A short man who was as solidly built as the mountains around Killiebige was standing in the doorway of the tent. How could she have forgotten herself in Lucais’s touch? This was certain to cause all sorts of problems, for Sir Busby and the others would believe she was letting Lucais seduce her into accepting the road project.

  “Forgive me, Mr. MacFarlane.” The man continued to stare at her.

  Lucais cleared his throat, then said, “Lady Kinloch, this is my assistant, Tilden Potter.”

  “My lady,” the husky man said, dipping his head slightly toward her. He looked back at Lucais. “I need to speak to you, Mr. MacFarlane. Now.”

  “What is wrong?” Lucais asked, although from Potter’s expression, he knew. Things had been missing or found broken around the road camp in recent days.

  Potter glanced again at Anice, then muttered, “It will wait.”

  Anice took a step toward the door. “I shall leave you to your business. I said all I came to say.”

  “Wait!” The word burst from Lucais’s lips before he had a chance to halt it.