Once Upon a Highland Autumn (23 page)

“Good evening.” He turned to see Megan in the doorway. She wore an elegant gown in coral muslin, her hair twisted up high on her head. She looked as English as he did. She indicated a seat at the table, a heavily carved chair, the remarkable arms and legs made of yet more antlers. “Will you sit down? Jeannie is ready to serve.”

He assisted her into her chair, set to the right of his own. Her seat was a perfectly ordinary dining chair of fine polished mahogany with elegantly turned legs.

“It’s a simple meal, I’m afraid—roast lamb with tatties—potatoes, that is—” She blushed, and sent him a watery smile.

“It sounds delicious,” he said, and it turned out it was indeed. Perhaps the air and the hard physical work had made him hungry. He let Jeannie refill his plate when he’d finished, and couldn’t recall when he’d taken more pleasure in a meal.

“What would you have had for your supper if you’d stayed in the glen?” she asked.

“Probably whatever was left over from breakfast. Or I might have caught a fish and cooked it over a campfire. This is far more—civilized,” he said. Not to mention that he hadn’t so much as tried cooking a fish since he and his brothers had done so when they were boys. It had been half raw, and Kit still bore a scar on his thumb to remind him of the experience.

“There’s a lot to be said for civilization, I suppose,” she said. “I’m sure a hot bath was more pleasant than a cold swim in the loch.” She put a hand over her lips, her eyes widening, and Kit looked up at her in surprise. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“You saw me? You watched me this morning?”

Her blush was fiery in the candlelight. “Quite by accident, I assure you. I saw something moving in the water, and merely looked—glanced, really—to see what it was. I thought it was an otter, you see.” She fidgeted with the stem of her wine glass. “I mean, I wasn’t really
watching
—besides, it was you who dropped his clothes in full view of the cottage window, and stood there stark naked.”

He pictured her in the window, staring down at him as he stood on the shore of the loch, drawing a breath and bracing himself for the plunge into the icy water. He imagined her eyes roaming over his naked flesh, and felt desire flare.

Kit shifted in his chair, cleared his throat, and counted to ten. “Do you swim?” he asked trying to keep the timbre of his voice even. “I don’t imagine it’s common among girls the way it is with boys—at least my sister never swam, though she used to hide in the bushes and watch us—her three brothers. At least she did until her governess caught her and boxed her ears.” He was aware he was babbling. He’d begun to speak, hoping to ease the sudden tension that crackled in the air between them. Her hand lay on the tablecloth, inches from his own, and he had the oddest desire to clasp her fingers in his. He gripped the arms—antlers—of his chair instead. “I remember the poor governess arriving to find her wayward charge, then realizing what Arabella was looking at. We were as horrified as she was. Her eyes popped, she grew as red as a beet, and then she fainted dead away.”

“I can imagine,” Megan said, and blushed again. “I mean, I’m sure it was a dreadful shock to everyone involved.”

Had she been shocked when she looked out the window that morning, spied on him, or had she felt—breathless, the way she was now, her eyes bright, her lips soft, slightly parted? His arousal rose higher still. He was as stiff as the damned antler under his palm.

“There’s a loch at Glenlorne, too, and my sisters and I swam,” she said. “It was too tempting on a hot day
not
to swim. We wore our shifts, of course, and the lads wore their long shirts.”

“Lads?” he stared at her.

“The village children,” she said.

“Eachann too?” The words were out of his mouth before he’d thought not to say them. She looked up at him sharply.

“Yes, I suppose so. I don’t really remember.”

“Then he wasn’t your childhood sweetheart?” he asked.

“No. That came later. Just a few months ago, really. We danced together at the spring fair, then again at Midsummer. He began to wait for me, to walk me to and from the village when I went to listen to tales.”

He laughed. “And let me guess—one fine evening he stopped and stole a kiss.”

She sent him a look from under her lashes. “It was morning.”

“Bold lad,” Kit murmured.

Her eyes sharpened. “Did you never steal a kiss from a lass, my lord?”

She was flushed and pretty, her lips reddened by the wine. No wonder Eachann couldn’t resist. He was having trouble resisting himself.

“It’s Kit,” he reminded her, his eyes fixed on her mouth. “And no, I never stole a kiss, for I was far too shy as a boy. My brothers got all the girls. I had to wait until a lass finally stole a kiss from me. Actually, she was a widow, a friend of my mother’s.” She gasped, and he looked up to meet her eyes. “Have I shocked you? I apologize. I wasn’t thinking what I was saying.”

“I don’t know,” she said slowly, and dropped her eyes to her hands. “Was it just a kiss?”

He grinned. “She taught me a number of things, as a matter of fact—discretion above all.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, I wasn’t prying. It’s just that I forget sometimes that I hardly know you. I can imagine—” She paused. “Actually, I can’t.”

“What can’t you imagine?” he asked, leaning toward her, curious.

“I imagine that you’ve led a far different life than mine. Perhaps I am too used to listening to other people’s stories, or I’m a busybody at heart. She twisted her napkin in her hands. “Perhaps we should change the subject.”

“Then what shall we talk about?” It had been quite some time—well, never—since he’d shared anything so personal with anyone else. He pondered why he’d told Megan McNabb of all people. She made him think, and imagine—and do—the damnedest things. He wasn’t himself with her. Or perhaps he was, more than ever before, and that was the most unsettling thought of all. He straightened in his chair, squared his shoulders.

“I am conversant on any number of topics more suited to polite company. Gardens, architecture, the weather, the price of corn . . .” It’s what he spoke to his mother about, or the gentlemen at his club, or the females who cornered him and didn’t really listen to a word that came out of his mouth. But Megan was listening. Her eyes were on his, interested and engaged. He pushed away the word “engaged” at once. “Perhaps we should set rules for conversation.”

She pursed her lips. “More rules? All right then—honesty. I insist on that.”

He swallowed. “Shall we limit our honesty to one true thing per meal?”

“Done.”

He raised his glass in salute and touched it to hers.

“Tell me about England,” she said.

“If you’ll promise to tell me one of the tales you’ve collected.”

He sat back to listen, captivated by the soft burr in her voice, her facial expressions, the way she used her hands as she spoke, the contagious, hypnotic, delicious sound of her laughter.

The hours passed before he knew it, and Kit rose form the table realizing he’d never enjoyed a meal more than this one, and it wasn’t the food or the wine.

It was Megan McNabb.

K
it dreamed he was swimming. Not alone, but with Megan, their arms and legs tangled together in the water, her dark hair floating around him like seaweed, her mouth on his, hot and sweet in the cold water.

He woke with a start, alone in his bed in the cottage. He gripped the sheets in his fist, expecting them to be as wet as the loch, but they were dry in the moonlight—and tented over his hips like a marquee. He rubbed a hand over his face, and rolled over, pressed his erection into the lumpy mattress, and willed it away as he buried his face in his pillow.

It was no use. The soft images of the dream clung. He could smell her perfumed soap on his own skin, remembered the way her mouth had tasted of whisky in his dream, just the way it had when he’d kissed her in the market square. He tossed and turned until dawn, then rose and dressed, lest she catch him in bed again. This time, he wouldn’t be able to resist . . .

By the time the sun was up, he was halfway to Inverness.

M
egan was careful to arrive at Glen Dorian a full hour later than she’d come the morning before. She hoped that Kit was up, dressed, and ready to receive company. To her surprise, there was no answer when she knocked loudly on the door.

“Kit?” she called, but no one replied. She looked at the castle, and wondered if he was there already, working. He had come out dust-smudged and looking content yesterday. What did he find to do there all day? She pursed her lips, felt a small ball of resentment form in her chest. She’d never know, since he’d forbidden her from setting foot in the old castle. She sat on the bench and stared at the ruin, watched the otters and wondered if he’d come out to look for her, but he did not.

She opened the door and went into the cottage. It was tidy, but the bed was unmade. She crossed to remedy that, and as she moved the bedding, the scent of him surrounded her. She picked up his pillow and held it to her face again, remembered how he’d looked, lying in bed, staring up at her in the window yesterday. She tried to imagine him here, and dropped the pillow and turned away with a gasp at her wicked thoughts. She felt as if someone was watching her, and she spun, and cast a quick glance out the window at the loch—but there was no one there. She was entirely alone. She felt a fizzle of disappointment.

She rubbed her eyes, tried to gather her composure. She hadn’t slept well, and that was surely the explanation for why she was so addled this morning. She’d been plagued with dreams of Kit swimming naked, then walking toward her up the hill, unclothed, the water glinting on his skin. In her dream, he’d taken her in his arms, kissed her, and she’d kissed him back. She woke with her heart pounding, her body hot and restless. It was Eachann, she told herself—the man in her dreams—but he’d never kissed her like that. No one had. She touched a hand to her lips and cursed her too-vivid imagination. It wasn’t like that, in her experience. Kissing Eachann had been more a mashing together of mouths, and a somewhat breathless crush of one body to another. The kisses they’d shared were pleasant, but they had hardly evoked the kind of unsettling desire she’d imagined in her dream.

She backed out of the cottage, took a deep gulp of fresh air, and sanity. She hurried down the path to the lodge. Safer there today, where she could nap, or write, or plan just how she was going to face Kit when she saw him at supper, without blushing, or making a ninny of herself by throwing herself into his arms to see if it was true, that kisses were indeed more akin to fire than air.

A
ngus Grant’s Inverness office was dark, smoky, low ceilinged, and filled with untidy stacks of paper and decanters of whisky. Kit tapped his fingers on his knee as he waited for the solicitor to appear. His clerk had told Kit that his master was having breakfast, it being very early in the day, but that his lordship could come in and wait, and the clerk would give him tea, then go on to Mr. Grant’s home and fetch the man himself.

A half hour later, the clerk flung open the door yet again, and Mr. Grant hurried through it. “Good morning, my lord, I trust all is well?”

“Quite well, thank you,” Kit said. “I have some questions.”

Grant’s eyes widened as he took his seat and leaned across the desk. “About Glen Dorian? Has anything of an unusual nature, shall we say, occurred there?”

Kit ignored the cryptic remark. “In a manner of speaking. It appears to be a prime location for sheep and cattle. I was wondering why there are no tenants in the glen.”

Grant sat back. “Well, there were once, of course, but that was long ago. The people who lived there—MacIntoshes, they were—removed.”

“Removed?”

“They were driven out after the battle of Culloden, declared traitors. Their cottages were razed, the castle burned, their cattle and sheep taken.”

Kit recalled the tales of the government forces marching through the Highlands after the battle, looking for Jacobites, plundering, raping, and destroying all in their path. He wondered if Nathaniel Linwood had been part of that. “I understand, but why did they not return?”

“I daresay there was no one
to
return. Most of the men of Glen Dorian were arrested, many transported—or worse. Lady Mairi MacIntosh took to the hills with the folk she could save when they burned the castle. She swore she’d come back to wait for her husband’s return, and so she did, but there was really nothing left to return to. There were no sheep, no cattle, no folk.”

“Does no one else graze their stock there? There are farms nearby.”

Grant brightened. “Oh, aye, there are indeed. Some do, but it’s seen as cursed land. In truth, I’d say you’re most fortunate in that, my lord.”

“How so?” Kit asked, frowning.

“So many landowners have the opposite problem. They’ve got too many tenants, and they wish to be rid of them, so there’s more land for the lucrative raising of livestock for meat and wool. In my opinion, it does the poor wretches good to turn them off the land. It forces them to shift for themselves, make new lives. Who’s to say they won’t find a better life elsewhere?”

“Where do they go?” Kit asked.

Grant chuckled. “Who knows? The land being better used for other things is the point.”

Kit imagined city slums crowded with destitute families. He frowned and Grant tutted. “It’s not so tragic. Many landowners are modernizing. Some fools cleave to the old ways out of some misplaced loyalty to the old clan way of life, but I can see you’re a man of modern thinking, an English lord, instead of a Scottish laird.” He laughed at his own joke, but Kit remained sober. “My point is that there are possibilities to make a fortune here.” He took a sheet of paper out of the desk drawer and leaned across the desk. “I could assist in drawing up a plan . . .”

Kit rose to his feet. The low ceiling was suddenly oppressive, the room airless. “I’ll consider it,” he said, and turned to go without bidding the man of affairs good morning, or waiting for his farewell.