The Legend of Lady MacLaoch (16 page)

CHAPTER 22

I
left a few moments later after giving all my measurements, even shoe size—Wanda ushered me out so she could get to work right away. I felt great heading back to the B&B—not only had I secured a dress but Eryka had actually helped me get a dress that had the potential to be better than one I could have bought ready-made. For the second time, Eryka had inadvertently helped me out.

Suddenly, I realized I was squinting. The sun was finally out! It was lighting rainbows on the clearing horizon, the rain moving off into the mountains.

The sun did miraculous things to the isle, reflecting off the water on the sidewalks, the plants, the streets, the roofs—everything sparkled. I carried my camera with me for such occasions and, in an instant, I was putting it to good use.

I spent the better part of the afternoon capturing the sun and the shimmering, late-spring greenery. When late afternoon came, I grabbed a sandwich lunch from the local grocer and headed to the twenty-six-mile long trail I had read about in the book of walks. The trail began at Castle Laoch, and while I had hiked that part just the other day, when I first met Rowan, I was planning to head the other way today.

I meandered along the trail, reading interpretive signs relating significant geological and historical information, taking pictures, and looking for a park bench to enjoy my late lunch. The trail was packed with the young, the old, and their dogs. It seemed forever before I found a bench.

The low afternoon sun shone brightly above the horizon, giving the sky and sea a shimmering warmth. I sat and ate with glee; I was almost alone in this perfection. I found myself curious about Rowan, what kind of a man he was underneath it all and why hadn’t he ever brought a date—or a friend, even—to what seemed like a very important event. The answer came swimming up from my memory.

The letter I had read back at the administrative building—it was addressed to this man whom I was starting to see more as a person, an everyday person and not just the powerful figurehead of the MacLaoch clan. That letter had been written as Rowan’s uncle lay dying and knew that he needed to impart knowledge to his heir before he passed.
Do not love
, were his uncle’s words—then Lady MacLaoch can take from you nothing that you do not have.

Then there was me.

Maybe I was truly just a guest to the clan chief—it made sense, especially for my research purposes and definitely for his. He was sure that I was the descendant of the Minory line and would no doubt want to have my family line mapped. If not him, I was sure his historian wouldn’t let me leave without getting that information.

But, what if
—and before my mind could cut off the silly thought, I thought it—
he liked me more than as just a guest?

And with that thought, I shoved the last of my sandwich into my mouth, sucking remnant jam off my fingers.

Movement caught my eye to the right. Someone had been leaning on a boulder in the distance below the trail, and now was moving. As the figure made his way toward me I recognized the gait and stride, sure-footed and confident.

Rowan’s face was a mixture of humor and trying to be serious as he approached, as if he’d heard a great dirty joke and wanted desperately to share it, but knew he shouldn’t. “I would pay a king’s ransom to know what tha’ last thought was tha’ crossed your mind, Cole.”

The use of my shortened name caught me by surprise, and in the same breath made my heart ridiculously joyous that he felt we were on first-name basis. Of course—I argued sarcastically with the feeling—how could we not be, after he bribed me with money then asked me to be his date?

Ignoring his question, because I sure wasn’t going to answer that, I said, “Actually, my middle name is Ransome. As in, I am worth a king’s ransom.” I leaned back against the bench, folding my arms across my chest and regarding him right back. I was hoping that this would buy me some time, as I was racing to figure out how long he had been watching me, what I had been thinking, and had it really shown on my face?

“Nicole Ransome Baker,” he said, trying out my middle name felt on his tongue.

I tried an aristocratic slow blink and arched brows. “And that’s spelled with an
e
, as in R-a-n-s-o-m-e,” I said nasally.

This got a full-wattage smile from the chieftain. “Then I would buy you from your kin just to know what it was tha’ ye were thinking just a moment ago.”

My breathing failed me. I coughed and said, “I, it, was nothing of importance.” Unhelpfully, I remembered the night before, his fingers dragging along the palm of my hand.

“Aye,” he said, sitting carefully at the farthest end of the bench. “And yet . . . ” He watched me, his eyes begging me to say,
And yet what?

“How long were you watching me?” I asked instead, hoping to turn the tables.

“I saw ye a little after ye sat down. Ye didn’t see me?” he asked.

“No.” I said, “I was a bit wrapped up in my own thoughts, I guess.”

“So, ye really won’t tell me about what ye were thinking?”

This was a side of the chieftain I found incredibly distracting. He was insanely good with mixing my mind up, muddling it with simple smiles and what I could gather was flirtation. It was such a contrast to the man he seemed to be the majority of the time.

“I don’t see how it could possibly seem interesting, just from my facial expression.” Then realized I left the door wide open to continue the subject. What was wrong with me?

“Ye didn’t see your face,” he said slyly.

“And I’m not sure how you did at that distance!” I said, exasperated, gesturing at the rock he’d been hidden on.

“I have very good eyes, and your face was most expressive at the end of your sandwich. Especially that . . . last . . . morsel . . . ”

I remembered that last taste, sucking Nutella and jam from my fingers, thinking about love and what I meant to the MacLaoch chieftain. I felt the heat rise in my cheeks, and the chieftain’s miss-nothing, know-all gaze on them.

The low rumble of contained laughter had me looking over at him. “What?” I demanded

“Ye just thought it again.” His eyes narrowed to slits, daring me to say no when the truth was so obvious on my pale skin.

I just shrugged. “My thoughts are my own. If you really want to know them, I’m afraid all you’ll be able to do is guess at them.”

I gave myself a mental kick—I’d done it again.

MacLaoch leaned in, an arm across the back of the bench. “How many guesses?”

Oh god, this was not happening.

“None.” I said and changed the subject. “Isn’t this weather nice?”

He was not distracted. “The last time I saw ye blush like that,” he dragged out his words, “ye were thinking about asking my gardener on a date.”

I cursed under my breath and rolled my eyes as another flush of heat gave me away. What I’d give to be something like
100
percent Cuban right then, with nice chocolaty skin that belied nothing.

I turned to give him a piece of my mind and instantly regretted it. Rowan looked directly into my soul, and those metallic eyes saw everything, down to the most delicate portion of my inner self. He didn’t hide his thoughts either, and they were telling me several things.

I laughed—I couldn’t help myself, spurred by a moment of clarity. “Not only does my skin give me away, so does my face, apparently. But before you think that I was removing your clothes in my mind while I removed jam and Nutella from my fingers,” I said bluntly, “I’ll have you know that I was just curious as to how a man like you has stayed single for so long. Many people have said that you’ve never had a wife or girlfriend, and of course there are a lot of assumptions and rumors flying about with you taking me as your date. I was merely weighing them as I polished off my sandwich. My very innocent sandwich.”

The smile faltered on Rowan’s face as if clean, cold water had doused him. He closed up, the remnants of his smile faded, and he leaned back to face the ocean, slowly and silently retreating back into himself.

I may have won that round, but I couldn’t help but feel like an ass.

“How well do ye know of the Lady MacLaoch legend, besides what we spoke of last night?” he asked me after a while, almost as if he had been debating the pros and cons of that question and where he planned to go with it.

“Well, I’d say I know the basics. I’ve read the version at Castle Laoch, and I think on some level we agree that’s a biased version of the story. The only other version I’ve heard is the one the MacDonagh brothers told me. The way they tell it, Lady MacLaoch left Castle Laoch on her own with the Minory, then there was a battle of some sort where the Minory, her betrothed, was killed violently. She returned to Castle Laoch, wept a river of tears—as we discussed yesterday—cursed her father on her deathbed for killing her betrothed, and the curse continues to hang over the clan.” I surmised from his face that this version was the one he believed. “Is it close?”

“Aye, close,” he said. “Her pain is very well known as one of heartbreak, no’ disappointment in a late rescue.”

“Do you believe in the curse? I mean, do you feel that
you
are cursed?”

MacLaoch weighed my question and asked one in return. “Have you ever been in love, Ms. Baker?” MacLaoch looked not at me but out at the ocean, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees with his hands clasped.

“I’ve—” I started, and then stopped. “Really and truly in love with someone?” The personal nature of his question caught me by surprise, yet the way he held himself, closed up and cold, said that this was not a romantic moment.

“Aye.”

“Have you?” I held my breath. Odds were one in ten that this clan chieftain would tell me the truth.

He quietly studied the horizon.

It was a while before he responded, so long I wasn’t sure he would.

“No,” he said. “Not in the way ye think, but I had a life I loved many years ago, and from the instant I inherited the seat as clan chief, I lost it all. My father, or rather the man who raised me as a son, the man whose footsteps I follow as laird and chieftain of the MacLaochs, died a painful and slow death. One tha’ he blamed on the curse.” He paused, then reluctantly continued, “I used to be a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force and the instant my predecessor’s last breath left his body—making me the thirty-fourth chieftain—my wings and the closest thing I’ve had to a brother were taken from me.”

He turned, giving me a rueful smirk. “I think tha’ each person makes the bed he lies in, but mine, no matter how well I make it, will always have a thorn. The eternal reminder from Lady MacLaoch tha’ she has not forgotten—and tha’ I cannot either. So ye ask why is it tha’ I’ve kept single for so long? I’ll be honest, it’s fear. Fear tha’ I will lose yet another person I love.”

The sun delved deeper in the afternoon sky.

“I’m sorry,” was all I could think to say.

“I don’t need yer pity, Ms. Baker—I’m simply trying to tell ye tha’ while ye have just run across this fairy tale, as ye may see it, we here have lived with it our whole lives.”

“I didn’t say sorry out of pity—”

“Does not matter. The reason I’m telling ye all this is tha’ tomorrow you will meet people who believe tha’ there is no reason for making their own plans for their lives because the curse will come as a death sentence once they or their children step into my shoes. They will not take lightly the news tha’ ye are a Minary and possibly the descendant of Iain Eliphlet Minory—and they won’t care tha’ it’s one letter different.”

It was as if that massive brick wall had come shuddering down between us again. Rowan was a private man, and I could respect that, but I didn’t want him thinking for another moment that I pitied him.

“I appreciate your warning,” I said and then added, “Rowan, I don’t pity you. It’s more like admiration. You aren’t hiding under a rock waiting to be beaten again. You’ve risen to the challenge and met it head on. But you can’t really believe that you have no hand in your own destiny, that everything is decided by this legend.”

This earned a small tug at the corner of his mouth. “I may have been raised here, spoon-fed the history of our clan, but I’ve spent the better parts of my life strapped into a cockpit doing twice the speed of sound over nations all over this world. I know tha’ I guide my own destiny, Ms. Baker—but I’ll live my life with a heavy dose of caution, if ye don’t mind.”

“That’s fair, but easy for you to say as a MacLaoch,” I said, feeling the need to lighten the mood. “From what you said earlier, I’m scared about how tomorrow will go—I’m not sure you’ve decided not to throw me in the dungeons after all. It sounds like you’ll be feeding me to the lions.”

I stood and gathered my things. Rowan stood as well, and we started the journey back. “What does the clan have in place for a plan once you do find a Minory?” I asked.

“Dinnae know, actually,” he said as he kept pace with me, hands safely in his pockets. “I suppose no one has thought much beyond them knowing how to remove the curse.”

“Or what if the other version of the legend is correct, that Lady MacLaoch was heartbroken over her lost love and not over her horrible ordeal? Then, isn’t she supposed to remove the curse once the clan chieftain has walked in her shoes or some such?”