She decided she detested garden work just as much as did Aggie. The tiny black flies bit mercilessly and the stooping caused her back to ache. She marveled that her life could come to this: a scrap of garden and a small cottage spelled existence. Yet she’d become convinced that if the kale failed to flourish she and Aggie would never survive the winter.
With a sigh, she shifted along the row of struggling plants and thought about Dumfries. More precisely, she thought about Geordie, as she had ever since Laird MacAllister’s visit yesterday afternoon.
What sort of letters could Geordie have written to his friend? What had they said of her? And what had she seen in Finnan MacAllister’s eyes when he spoke of them?
The man was an enigma, a mystery, layers upon layers, each more bewildering than the last. He might smile at her, a seemingly winsome smile, even while that light which bespoke anger flared in his eyes. He professed to be a practical man, a soldier, even while he spoke of fairies, boogies, and ghosts. She considered herself a very fair judge of human nature, but she could not begin to guess what to make of the man.
Nor did she quite believe his claim that the spirit of her husband had persuaded him to call off his cruel campaign against her and allow her to remain here in peace. It made no sense.
Then again, the man was a highlander…
She sat back on her heels and brushed the hair from her forehead. She had met very few highlanders in her life. Geordie had been one, but Geordie now seemed as unlike his friend as day like night.
She remembered the first time she had seen Geordie MacWherter, big, burly, covered with cuts and bruises at the time. Appalled that her father should bring home a crony from the alehouse, she had tried to keep her distance.
But as he so often did, her father had called on her to provide hospitality, and she glimpsed something unexpected beneath Geordie’s rough exterior—a gentleness, a longing, an almost childlike expectation. Yes, from the first, Geordie had disarmed her.
But she had never loved him.
Oh, she had cared, and she had felt for him, even pitied him. But pity did not win a woman’s heart, at least not hers. It would be difficult, anyway, to love a man who spent most of his time drunk, who wept when in his cups and sometimes muttered about the past in a brogue too thick to let her understand.
Something rode Geordie MacWherter hard, a fool could see that. And as the tales went, troubled spirits were most likely to return to this world after their death. But the idea that Geordie had come now to speak to his friend—well, it seemed absurd.
She spoke aloud to the sunny day, there in her poor excuse for a garden. “If you are going to show yourself, Geordie MacWherter, do so now, here, when I need you.”
Nothing. A breeze ruffled the stalks of kale, and a bird took wing at some distance and sang a sweet, heartbreaking song. No more.
She called a picture of Geordie up in her mind, as if that could summon his spirit. Well over six foot of strapping male he had been, a warrior out of training and beginning to go soft, the ale putting extra weight on his large frame.
His friend had not fallen out of training. It would be difficult to imagine a man in better form than Finnan MacAllister. And she had seen all of him.
But Geordie—Geordie had reminded her of a bear, big, slightly bewildered, and drowsy, but still very dangerous if roused. She had lost count of the brawls in which he had been involved during their acquaintance.
But certain things about him remained the warrior, no matter how intoxicated he became. He wore always a highland dirk in the cuff of his boot and could draw it before a man might blink. He wore his sandy hair long in the highland fashion and often half-braided like a man going into battle. And those sleepy hazel eyes could, in an instant, turn to granite.
He had never been anything but unfailingly gentle with Jeannie—sweetly earnest and mildly gallant. Her heart twisted just thinking on it. Had she loved him after all? Maybe, the way one loved a brother or a child.
No wonder Finnan MacAllister wanted to protect him. There had been that quality about Geordie, after all. But the very idea of him writing letters to the man… Geordie should have been far too inebriated to put pen to paper. Anyway, she did not believe Finnan MacAllister. She could not give credence to a word the man said, whether it concerned ghosts or otherwise. His lips might smile, but the look in his eyes suggested deceit.
She looked up again as Aggie hove into sight, a basket over her arm. Impatient, she demanded of her maid, “Where have you been? I wanted your help with the weeding.”
Aggie made a face. Servants were not supposed to pick and choose their duties; Jeannie had let things get sorely out of hand.
“The ground is wet from yesterday’s rain,” Aggie pointed out. “You will be all mud.”
“True, but the soil is soft, and the weeds pull out most easily.”
“I have brought us eggs from Avrie House. We can have a good breakfast come morning.”
Or a good supper tonight. Jeannie knew all too well not much else lay in the larder.
“And”—Aggie lowered her voice to a near whisper —“I have news.”
“More gossip, you mean.” Jeannie sighed. As well keep Aggie from gossiping as halt the rain in this place.
“No, legitimate news got from Dowager Avrie herself.”
“You spoke with the Dowager Avrie?”
