The Secret Gift (20 page)

And she did.

She kicked off her shoes, and lay back on the pillow, closing her eyes with a sigh. In seconds, it seemed, she had fallen asleep.

Graeme ducked out of the bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. He turned and very nearly collided with Mrs. Middleditch.

“Oh, sir! You gave me a fright!” She was carrying towels, other linens. “I was after bringing you and your wife some extra towels and blankets. Poor wee thing looked quite done in.”

Your wife.

Graeme decided it would be best not to correct her. “Thank you. You’re right, she is quite exhausted. In fact, I was just coming to tell you she wouldn’t be coming down to tea after all. She’s already fallen asleep.”

“Has she now? The poor wee dear. Well, then, the tea’s in the guests’ lounge if you’d like a cup yourself. Otherwise, if you won’t be needing anything else, I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

Graeme bid her good night and waited until she’d gone back down the hall. Then he turned back to the bedroom ...

... and the bed he would be sharing that night.

When Graeme awakened, it was early morning, a single beam of sunshine stretching its light through the parted curtains. He could feel the softness of Libby’s hair brushing against his face, could hear the whispered hush of her slumbered breathing, and he lay there, not daring to move.

He could think of many worse ways to have woken, but in that moment, he couldn’t think of a single one that would have been more pleasurable.

During the night Libby had tucked her head against his shoulder and flung one arm loosely around his waist. Even now he could feel the warmth of her against him, the softness of her breasts nestled close to his side. In fact, he felt himself growing aroused just thinking about it, and realized it had been nearly six months since he’d been with a woman, and even longer than that since he’d woken with one beside him. For all his efforts to avoid just this same situation, he now found himself relishing it, reluctant to move so much as a muscle for fear he might wake her and spoil this wonderful, stolen moment.

Before his brother’s death on that treacherous ski slope, Graeme had had what one might call a steady relationship in his life, although, in truth, it had been more of a “comfortable arrangement” than a relationship. They’d been “available” to each other when needed, both in and out of the bedroom. They would accompany each other to the necessary social functions and occasionally would find themselves accompanying one another into bed if ever the compulsion struck. But it seemed as soon as the news hit of Teddy’s accident, she’d changed, virtually immediately. She’d suddenly suggested that they move in together, suggested, too, that he might take her home to meet his mother and his uncle.

And then Graeme had happened upon that scrap of paper in the desk drawer at her apartment, written in her familiar flowery script.

Lady Amanda.
The Marchioness of Waltham.
Her Grace, the Duchess of Gransborough.

Had it been anyone else, Graeme might have put it off as a flight of female fantasy. But he had “been with” Amanda for nearly five years. And though their relationship had been more casual than close, he liked to think he knew her, knew her probably better than even she realized. When she had wanted, desperately wanted, a promotion at her work, she’d written her name along with the new job title on scraps of paper and stuck them all over the place—on her refrigerator, in her Day-Timer, even making it her laptop monitor Screensaver, in a belief that she could somehow make the promotion manifest itself.

And the funny thing was, it did. She’d gotten the promotion, almost as easily as if she’d written herself a prescription for it.

So she’d turned her determined sights in much the same way on him—rather, on his title, because none of those names he’d seen decorating the paper had been written as Mrs. Graeme Mackenzie.

And Graeme had ended their relationship that week, with a Post-it note stuck on her bedroom mirror.

It had seemed the most appropriate way of doing it.

When he allowed himself to fall in love,
if
he ever allowed it, it was going to be with a woman who wanted him for him, Graeme Mackenzie, not for the titles, the prestige, or even the social stature. And over the past eight months, as he’d been pursued across a good-sized stretch of the free world, he’d nearly convinced himself that such a woman didn’t exist.

Nearly.

Lying there in the quiet solitude of that bed, Graeme allowed himself to consider for the first time that perhaps he’d been mistaken. He closed his eyes and pressed his face into Libby’s hair, feeling her stir. Her lashes fluttered, and he watched her come awake.

“Good morning.”

She didn’t immediately notice that she was wound around him. He certainly wasn’t about to point it out to her.

She blinked against the light. “The rain has stopped?”

Graeme nodded. “The sun has even decided to make an appearance.”

She closed her eyes, breathed deeply. He looked at her, unspeaking, for several moments. It would be so very easy to kiss her. Just close his eyes and lower his mouth to hers and ...

“Hallooo!”

The knocking on the door sent them both jerking upright.

“I’m so sorry to wake you,” came a voice from the other side of the door, “but I’m afraid I must ask you to please move your vehicle. It’s blocking the way for the sheep, you see.”

Stifling the urge to groan, Graeme called that he’d be right out, and slung his legs over the side of the bed. Libby was already sitting on the bed’s opposite side.

He opened the door onto the cheerfully waiting face of their proprietress, Mrs. Middleditch.

“Good morning to you,” she said, glancing quickly at Libby behind him. “Oh, good. You’re already dressed. I’m so sorry to disturb. Hiram’s just got to get the sheep out when it’s his turn on the common grazing ground, you see. Else he’ll miss his turn, and the poor beasts won’t have any grass to eat.”

“That’s all right,” Graeme said.

“Would you be wanting the full breakfast this morning then?”

“Porridge would be fine, if you’ve got it,” Libby answered quickly.

“Sir?”

“Yes, porridge is fine,” Graeme said, and grabbed his keys, heading down the hall to move the Land Rover.

After a chatty breakfast of porridge and scones with the other guests in Mrs. Middleditch’s dining room, Graeme and Libby were back on the road for Wrath Village. The dip in the road that had been washed out by the storm the night before was mostly clear, with just a couple of inches of water still covering the lowest point. As they drove, Libby found herself staring out the window at the coast, watching the sparkle of the sunlight on the water.

She’d slept well the night before, better than she had since her mother had passed away. At first she’d thought it must have been because she’d just been so tired the day before, but there was something else. That something else could only have been Graeme.

The ride back to the village went quickly, and before long Graeme was dropping her at the door of the Crofter’s Cottage. He had some work to get to, he’d told her, a statement that Libby echoed. So she had a quick bath before heading for the church, laptop tucked under her arm. Sean MacNally was already there when she arrived.

“Good morning, Libby,” he said as she walked into the churchyard. Several sheep went trotting away as she approached. They were brought inside the churchyard every couple of weeks to keep the overgrowth at bay, and they munched happily amongst the carved crosses and tilting headstones.

“How are you, Sean?”

“On this fine day, how could I be anything but?” He looked at her. “Did you have a pleasant day of sightseeing yesterday?”

Libby spent a few minutes chatting about the estate sale and her success in finding a few truly remarkable editions. She ended with the tale of their getting caught in the storm and staying the night at Mrs. Middleditch’s B and B.

“Well, sounds as if you had quite an adventure.”

Indeed.

Libby passed the better part of the day going through the church records, transcribing the handwritten information into a fully searchable database similar to the one she kept for her work. At the same time, she had started compiling a family tree for herself, tracing her own ancestry back through time. The church records were a true treasure trove of information.

The most amazing thing to her was the realization that for more than two hundred and fifty years, these people,
her
people, had endured in this same tiny corner of the world. While the Mackay side of her family was much more well documented, given the fact that they had been the lairds of this land, she was equally proud of her maternal line, hardworking, crofting people who had forged a life and had continued to flourish despite drought, famine, and even war.

Her mother, in fact, had been the first of her family to leave it, albeit unwillingly, and what a terrible decision it must have been for her. She’d been alone, expecting her first child, having just lost her husband, and she’d had to leave everything she had ever known to travel to a completely unknown corner of the world. And all of it had been because of the jealousy and resentment of Lady Venetia Mackay.

Libby left the church shortly before the supper hour with an aim to stop in at M’Cuick’s store. When she walked in, two of the local ladies were standing at the corner display. They nodded to Libby in greeting as she walked by. But as she turned for the front counter, she caught a snippet of their conversation.

“I hear she’s been out with the new laird.”

“Aye, spent the night with him. More than once, too.”

Libby felt a flush of color rise to her face, and strode across to the counter.

“Ah, good day to you, Libby.”

It was Ian who came forward to greet her, and they shared a few moments of pleasant conversation.

“So,” Ian said, “I’m sure you didn’t come here just for conversation. Anything I can get for you?”

“Actually, yes. I was hoping you might have a telephone jack adapter in one of those mysterious drawers on the wall behind you, so that I might access the Internet with my laptop. I should have thought to ask you about it before, when I was in for the power convertor, but I hadn’t thought of it.”

“No trouble,” he said. “U.S. to U.K., of course.”

He poked through one of the drawers, then another, and another. “Hmm ...” He rubbed his narrow chin. “Looks like I’m out of them. I could order one for you. Would take a week, maybe even a fortnight ...”

Libby frowned. She had hoped to have access to her e-mail sooner than that. “Well, I suppose there’s not much else I can do. So, yes, please, order it for me if you would.”

“Does this mean you’ll be staying on in the village for a while, then?”

“It would seem so.”

She glanced at the two women who had been gossiping when she’d come in. She waited while they paid for their purchases, bid their farewells to Ian, then left the shop.

“I noticed there isn’t any library in the village, Ian.”

“Nae. Just the newsagent, but she doesn’t carry much in the way of fiction. The mobile library comes through every other month. Always a wait list for the latest Ian Rankin mystery, of course.”

“I was asking because I was hoping I might be able to access the Internet there.”

“Och, no, lass. Afraid not.”

“What about at the school? Do they have an Internet hookup?”

“Nae. They’ve been saving up for it. There was talk of having a whist night fund-raiser to help fund it, but I think it is more a training issue than anything else. Esme Macafie, the school administrator, is”—he looked at her—“well, she’s getting on in years. The technological advances of the modern age are a bit beyond her, I’m afraid.”

Libby tried to think of another solution. “I suppose I’ll have to take another day and go to Inverness, then.”

“Actually, I do know that shortly after Mr. Mackenzie took up residence at the castle, there was a British Telephone technician sent for. He was up there three days straight, told Janet Mackay o’er at the café that he was setting up a fully outfitted office—fax, computers, all state-of-the-art.”

“Of course. I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you for the information,” she said. “You’ll let me know when that adapter comes in?”

“Oh, aye.”

Ian watched Libby turn for the door.

A moment later he heard his wife Betty come into the room behind him, poking about in the drawers.

“Ian M’Cuick!”

He turned to see her standing behind him. There was a small white adapter sitting in the palm of her hand.

“Isna this the adapter the lass was just after looking for?”

“Well, would you look at that? Hmm. Wonder how I missed it ...” His eyes, however, were twinkling with mischief.

Betty gave him a stare. “You dinna learn from your last attempt at matchmaking?”

Ian frowned at her. He didn’t much like being reminded of that particular failure, especially since it had resulted in the loss of one of his closest friends, Fraser Mackay, and the subsequent banishment of another.

But he wasn’t giving up just yet.

“All the more reason to make this one right, dear Betty.”

Libby held up a bottle when Graeme answered the door.

“I’m afraid they didn’t have much of a selection of wines at the local store, so I hope an ale will do.”

“Ale is good,” he said, smiling. “To what do I owe this unexpected surprise?”

“Well, I was hoping I might borrow some of your Internet time. I understand you’re the only one for miles with a dial-up connection.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.”

Libby walked into the castle, set her coat on the hook, “I just have a few e-mails to send, and I need to check and see if there’s anything earth-shattering I must attend to at work. I’ve never been away from e-mail this long before. I’m afraid I’ve grown to live by it.”

Graeme showed her up to his office, where he was working before he heard her knock. The stereo was still playing his favorite Eric Clapton CD, his drawing pencil still lay atop the sheet.