Page 32 of To Love a Scottish Lord (Highland Lords #4)

W hen Mary entered the tower room, she found it empty.

Hamish wasn’t there. Nor had he been in the courtyard.

Had he gone hunting, then, as he promised?

A movement to her right captured her attention.

Going to the window, she pushed open the shutters and stared in fascination at the sight that met her eyes.

Hamish was emerging from the sea, like a creature from a tale, half man, almost beast. His skin was colored so brightly that she could see the twisted shapes from there.

But it wasn’t the pattern of Shiva that she concentrated on as much as a look on his face.

A bright and disarming smile, one whose origin was either amusement or enjoyment, altered his face, making it something youthful and carefree.

In his right hand he carried something that looked like a spear.

Naked, he looked like one of the first warriors, a long ago ancestor of the people who’d lived in Scotland and fought against the Romans. Even in depths of her imagi nation, she could never have envisioned anyone like him.

As she watched, he tilted back his head, raised the spear as if challenging the world itself.

She wondered if he’d always been this way, serenely himself.

Not selfish as much as centered in himself.

Confident and strong, certain in a way that most people are not.

Or had this knowledge of himself been thrust upon him during his imprisonment?

Either way, it didn’t matter. He was who he was.

A little of his assurance must have rubbed off on her. The longer she remained at Castle Gloom, the less she cared about what other people thought. What, after all, could they say to her? Nothing that would, in any way, offset the sheer joy she felt.

She’d experienced physical pleasure before, but never to this magnitude.

Nor had her mind ever been so free and her thoughts so unfettered.

It was a heady mixture, a seduction of all her senses.

She didn’t care what she revealed to him, silly notions or incomplete wonderings, or secret musings that she’d never shared with another soul.

With each conversation, each laughing quip, each somber moment shared, he began to occupy a place in her mind as real and as uniquely his as if she’d invited him into her house and given him a room.

She was too honest with him, too giving of herself.

This morning, she’d dressed in full view of him, asking for no privacy as he watched her.

Until today, her body had simply been part of her, but as she had dressed with him watching her, she had the most curious sensation of being distant from herself, almost as if she hovered at the doorway, looking back on both of them.

That curious feeling of being detached had lasted as long as it had taken to dress.

She’d watched herself stand and don her shift, knowing that the garment offered no shield from his gaze.

Then once more she’d sat, rolling up her stockings, patting them in place and securing them with her garters, all the while feeling him watching her.

He hadn’t said a word and neither had she, and when she was dressed she’d gone to him and kissed him slowly.

For long moments they’d simply stood there together, holding each other.

She’d tasted new ale once, and it had peppered her nose.

The feeling she’d had inside was similar, something effervescent and sparkling.

The day was a gray one, and Hamish the brightest object in it. The weather was too cold for him to be naked, and she didn’t doubt that the water was near to freezing. Yet he stood on the rocky shore, his head tilted back, smiling at the sky as if God Himself grinned back at him.

Mary stepped away from a window before he could see her.

It was Elspeth’s turn to go to market, and Brendan asked if he could accompany her.

“Of course you can,” Mrs. Grant interjected, smiling broadly. “You can help Elspeth carry the parcels home. Take Jack with you as well.”

He’d not yet left Inverness, finding a dozen or more excuses to remain in the city.

The Grants had proven to be wonderful tour guides.

A few days ago, they’d taken a carriage ride to visit the ruins of Craig Phadraig Hill, visible from their home.

The walls of the fort, originally made of granite, had somehow become vitrified, a fact that mystified any visitor.

Yesterday, all six married sisters and their husbands had accompanied them as they’d visited the Clava Cairns, just outside Culloden Moor.

“My grandfather fought at Culloden,” Brendan said when they’d passed it. “As well as my father, although on opposite sides.”

“You’re part English, then?” Elspeth had asked, surprised.

“Does it make a difference to you if I am?”

“Of course it doesn’t,” she said, and he wondered at his relief.

Beyond those outings, he was fast running out of reasons to delay his departure. He’d called on Mr. Grant often, genuinely growing to like the older man. They’d engaged in many long conversations during which he sat on one of the settees in the parlor, Elspeth and her mother opposite him.

From time to time, she would look up and smile at him with those blue eyes of hers, and he’d lose his thoughts.

Mr. Grant would only grin and nod, as if such stupidity on his part was to be expected.

Neither he nor Mrs. Grant ever commented on the fact that Brendan had remained here long beyond his original plans.

A good thing, because he didn’t know what he would tell them if asked.

He could understand why he was loath to return to Gilmuir, but he’d never before been so reluctant to go to sea.

The day was clear and bright, and in the distance Ben Wyvis sparkled with its cap of snow. They crossed the bridge spanning the River Ness, taking a moment to study the fast-moving water beneath them.

Jack pulled on Elspeth’s sleeve. “Robbie’s waiting for me,” he said impatiently.

She nodded an assent, both of them watching as he ran off to join a companion.

The Inverness market was composed of rows of stalls separated by aisles. He and Elspeth walked together, one of them occasionally stopping to remark on an item.

“You’ll be going back to sea soon, Captain MacRae?” she asked, toying with a selection of ribbons. He wanted to tell her that the dark blue would look best on her silvery blond hair, and match the shade of her eyes, but such a remark might be construed as too personal.

He nodded. “My crew is no doubt enjoying their holiday.”

“And your brother? Will he sail with you?”

There was silence while he searched for an answer. “Hamish had his own ship, but it was lost in India.”

She turned concerned eyes to him. “Was he badly injured? I hope not. I would hate for you to suffer any grief on his account.”

He didn’t want to lie to her; at the same time, he was constrained by propriety in what he actually said. “I would say that his recovery is nothing short of miraculous,” he answered carefully.

“No doubt due to Mary,” Elspeth said loyally. “Mary is quite an accomplished healer.”

“Yes,” he said.

They spent some time strolling through the stalls, until Elspeth turned and looked at him quizzically.

“What is your brother like, Captain MacRae?”

“What is he like?” Mary had asked him to describe Hamish, and he’d failed miserably at the task. What did he tell the young woman at his side?

She smiled, but it didn’t ease his sudden feeling that he’d walked into a trap of words. “He must be a formidable man indeed, to keep Mary with him. Especially since I doubt he’s very ill.”

“Why would you think that?” he asked, surprised.

“You wouldn’t have left him,” she said simply. “Or, once your errand was done, you would have returned to his side.”

He felt warmth rise to his cheeks and wondered if he’d ever before been as embarrassed as he was at that moment. Elspeth continued to look at him with her innocent wide eyes, the silence stretching out between them as she waited for him to speak.

“He’s a complex man,” he told Elspeth truthfully. “Although he’s my brother there are times when we seem to be little more than strangers. His time in India changed him profoundly. He could, indeed, benefit from Mary’s attentions.”

“Is he a compelling man, Captain MacRae? Mary had planned for months to meet with Mr. Marshall. To miss that meeting would require a very good reason.”

“Didn’t you say she was an accomplished healer?” he asked, feeling as if he were floundering.

She slanted a look at him. “But she’s never treated anyone this long.”

He glanced at her and then away, trying to find a way to answer her so that she would no longer question him, while at the same time not speaking of things that were too indelicate for her ears. Unlike Mary, Elspeth was innocent.

She consulted her list, directing him to the butcher shop not far away. They entered, ducking beneath the lintel and into a small, smoky room where a multitude of meats hung from the rafters. Only then did she speak again.

“I’ve not seen as much of the world as you, Captain MacRae, but I do know that Mary is acting unlike herself. Is she in love with him? Women give their hearts easily while men only loan theirs.” She turned troubled eyes to him.

He thought about the men in his family, how they’d altered their lives for the women they loved. But what Hamish felt was need, or lust, nothing more. Hadn’t he as much as made that confession himself?

He was interrupted from having to answer her by the painful exclamation of a girl at the other end of the store.

“What am I to do with this?” she said. “I can’t carry this back to the house. He bites!” She stood holding a squawking chicken by the neck, looking as if she were terrified of the fowl.

“You’ll take it and be grateful you have food in your mouth.”

Elspeth glanced at the two of them, speaking in an aside to Brendan. “It’s Betty,” she said. “Mary’s maid.”