Page 15 of Highland Fire

Some days were to pass before Rand returned Glenshiel’s call.

It was not done without forethought. Having made it his business to find out that Glenshiel and Mr. Donald Randal would be in Ballater that morning, he ordered his horse to be saddled and brought round.

He had invited John Murray to accompany him as a diversion for the mother while he sized up the girl, but Murray was obliged to spend the day with a married sister and her family who farmed at Aboyne, so Rand set off alone.

When he arrived at the house, his card was taken in hand by a buxom, goggle-eyed young maid who gave the impression that she had never seen such a thing.

It came as no surprise to Rand when she told him, in response to his inquiry, that the gentlemen were not at home.

His expression was so crestfallen, his manner so gentlemanly, that Maisie could not bear to see the young laird disappointed.

It was her suggestion that, if he would be so kind as to wait in the library, she would take his card up to the ladies, though she did not think they were receiving visitors.

“Mrs. Randal and Miss Fiona,” said Maisie artlessly, “are still in their beds.”

“I don’t mind waiting,” said Rand, and flashed the maid a bold, potent smile which, she later confessed to Cook, made her clean forget what she was supposed to be doing until the Randal gently reminded her.

Even then, she ascended the stairs as in a trance, and wandered about blindly until she was recalled to her duty by the card which was clutched, in a death grip, to her frantically beating heart.

In the interim, since this was the first time he had crossed Glenshiel’s threshold, Rand was looking about him with interest. What he saw impressed him favorably, for here were no blighting portraits of former generations of Randals scowling down at their innocent descendants but a magnificent collection of prime stags’ heads mounted on the walls.

Having studied the several specimens with the appreciation of the true connoisseur, Rand pushed open the door he assumed led into the library.

Someone was there before him, the little mousy girl from the church, the one who had sat in Glenshiel’s pew and whom he had taken for a serving woman.

She was standing at one end of a long table strewn with papers and books.

From time to time, she consulted these before making notations in the margins of the handwritten page she was perusing.

Silently, Rand watched her, studying her with far greater absorption than he had studied the stags’ heads.

He was thinking that if he had the dressing of the girl, he would never permit her to wear the drab grays she seemed to prefer.

Her milky white skin and raven-black hair would show to better effect with clear, vibrant colors.

Nor would he permit her to wear a style that was a good twenty years out of date.

It wasn’t that the plain round wool gown did not set off her womanly figure to admiration.

Rand could not find fault there. But it made her look too much the dowd, too unaware, too indifferent to what a male might find pleasing, as indeed did the thick plait of hair which dangled to her waist. It was as if the woman wished to efface her femininity.

The thought gave rise to all sorts of interesting speculations.

She was humming some Scottish air under her breath.

He did not know why he was smiling or why, having discovered his error, he did not simply slip away without disturbing her.

As it was, with all the arrogance of one of his position and experience, he advanced upon the girl.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “the maid told me I might wait in the library.”

At the sound of his voice, Caitlin started. The pencil slipped from her fingers and Rand bent to retrieve it. That gave her a moment to get herself in hand. Even so, when he straightened, towering over her, the words on her lips died unsaid. She had never been so afraid in her life.

She wasn’t plain, precisely, Rand decided, as his eyes made an unhurried assessment of each unremarkable feature.

A dab of rouge to bring a little color to those high cheekbones, a little shaping to thin those straight black brows and the girl would be quite passable.

He wouldn’t do a thing to alter those intelligent gray eyes, unless it was to teach her to lower her lashes when a gentleman openly stared.

As for her lips…Rand stopped there. He could feel his body tightening in the beginnings of sexual arousal.

Caitlin saw his eyes widen the moment before his lips curved, and the tension across her shoulder blades gradually relaxed. The Randal had not recognized her. That bemused expression denoted a pleasant train of thought. He seemed to be laughing at some private joke.

It was fortunate, Rand was thinking, that the girl could not see the pictures which flickered behind his eyes, else she would run screaming from the room.

In his imagination, he was stripping her naked, unbinding her hair, lowering her to the table, watching her expressive eyes darken with awareness as he bent to her.

He had never before experienced such a vividly intense response to any woman, and that it should be this little mouse of a girl who provoked it both amused him and filled him with awe.

Caitlin’s thoughts had taken a different path.

She observed his vacant smile and reflected that the Randal had plenty to laugh about.

As far as he was concerned, the attack on his coach and the destruction of his property had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

But how could they have known that his lordship had come into Scotland with not one carriage, as was his wont, but with three, and that two of those carriages had remained at Inverey while he had pressed on to Strathcairn?

He had turned the tables on them. Far from being made a laughingstock, he was being touted in the neighborhood as a great sport, a gentleman who wasn’t above laughing at himself.

His wearing of the kilt had been a masterly stroke, as had his subsequent refusal to permit the redcoats to track down his assailants.

Young bucks at a loose end are naturally attracted to mischief-making .

He had laughed it off to Meg Duguid when he had stopped in at her pie shop.

Meg had passed his words along, and those who should have known better were completely won over by his lordship’s winning manners.

It was all she could do not to snort like a horse. She’d had a taste of his lordship’s winning manners, and her bottom still smarted from them.

“The library,” she said pointedly, enunciating each syllable with careful precision, “is next door. This is Mr. Randal’s office, Mr. Donald Randal, that is, and he is not here.”

Humor and delight filled his eyes. He was smiling at her in a way she couldn’t understand, studying her as though she were some exotic moth he had pinned to a card and which he could not for the life of him catalog.

“Your voice has a trace of mist in it, did you know? It makes a man think of mysteries and feminine secrets.”

Her heart gave a great lurch. Mysteries and secrets?

Oh God, he was onto her! No. That could not be it, or he would not be grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Then what was he up to? With a supreme effort of will, she managed to say evenly, “Would you like me to show you where the library is? It wouldn’t be any trouble. ”

His eyes captured hers in a compelling stare. The sensation was not unlike the one she had experienced when she had looked down from a great height, from one of the peaks of Lochnagar, and had frozen in terror, knowing that one misstep and she would fall to her doom.

“Your pencil,” he said and held it out to her.

She gazed with unwavering intensity at the object in his hand, and slowly reached for it. As their fingers touched, she jerked as if an electric current had passed between them.

Rand could hardly credit the effect the girl had on him.

The instant rush of desire was not new to him.

Beautiful women who projected an aura of sensuality had been known to stir his blood almost as a matter of course.

But this girl was not beautiful. There was no invitation in her unblinking stare, not a trace of the provocative seductress about her.

Yet, he was too experienced to be mistaken.

When their fingers had touched, something had leapt out at him.

A sensible man, he was thinking, would be taking to his heels.

Abruptly moving away, he began to take stock of the room. On every available surface there were bundles of loose papers bound with tapes. He recognized the order amidst the apparent chaos.

“What are you, a scholar?”

“A scribe,” she answered at once, grateful for his matter-of-fact tone.

Her sense of relief was almost palpable.

The queer light had faded from his eyes, and the threat in that predatory half-smile had been converted into something more pleasant.

She inhaled lengthily several times and felt her heartbeat gradually return to normal.

As the conviction took hold that her secret was still safe, her confidence returned in full force.

“What do you do, exactly?”

“I transcribe notes, verify facts, and so on.”

He was leafing through the books and papers on the table. “ A History of the Leading Families in Deeside ,” he read, “by Donald Randal.” His brows rose questioningly. “I take it Mr. Randal is the local historian?”

“Yes.”

“Is he any good?”

“The best. His knowledge is prodigious. His memory is phenomenal.”

“What are these?” He pointed to the bundles of manuscripts which littered the top of the sideboard and spilled over on to various tables set against the walls.

“Those are the histories of every family of any note that ever lived on Deeside.”