She pulled at a thread, snarling her stitches further.
She huffed and resisted the urge to throw the whole lot—hoop and all—at Master MacTavish’s head.
He tsked and held out his hand. “May I?”
With another roll of her eyes, she sent the embroidery skimming across the table to him.
He studied it, turning it this way and that. “Ye arenae much of a dab hand with a needlework, are ye?”
“Master MacTavish—”
“Ye always said how much ye hated embroidery. Ye can sew a straight seam like a professional, but this? It doesnae suit your personality at all, I ken.” He waggled the embroidery hoop in his hand, tangled threads dangling down. “You’re a bit too high-spirited to tame all that energy into fancy stitches on linen.”
Eilidh breathed in and out.
For one, she hated the sense that he might be right.
Two, she deeply disliked that this man knew her so well, and yet, she knew him not at all.
Three, she detested how readily he aimed another winning smile at Mrs. McKay.
He was far too free with those deadly smiles. He was likely to incapacitate an unwary widow or blind a debutante with them.
“Mrs. McKay,” he said, “I have set up a memory test for Miss Fyffe down in the forecourt. Ye can see it through the window.” He waved a hand to the small window to the right of the fireplace. “I was hoping tae encourage Miss Fyffe tae join me.”
Eilidh shot a wide-eyed look at Mrs. McKay, hoping against reason that the lady would object.
“Outside over yon? I cannot imagine that would be a problem,” Mrs. McKay smiled, dashing Eilidh’s hopes. “It’s most gallant of ye to assist Miss Fyffe in recovering her memories. I’ll sit by the window to keep an eye out. The sea air doesn’t quite agree with my old joints.” She flicked her fingers at Eilidh. “But nothing cheers a young heart like a bit of sun.”
Thirty minutes later, Eilidh stood before a carpenter’s bench in the sunny forecourt of Kilmeny Castle, wearing one of her old, cast-off dresses.
She had been utterly outmaneuvered.
Master MacTavish, in shirt sleeves, neckcloth, and a blue linen waistcoat, beamed triumphantly at her side.
The sun beat down on the forecourt, the high walls trapping the radiated heat. The bluebell sky had Eilidh squinting and pulling her poke bonnet lower to shield her eyes. Servants called back and forth from over the wall . . . something about fetching cheese and eggs from the cold cellar.
Eilidh all but glared at Master MacTavish, disliking how the wind tousled his dark hair into a boyish mop and pressed the fine cotton of his shirt against his upper arms, molding to the lean muscle there. And why did alackof a coat make his shoulders appear even broader?
Ugh.This was utterly ridiculous—
“You cannot have everything your way simply for asking,” she muttered to him, turning to wave at Mrs. McKay looking down on them from the window above.
Mrs. McKay waved back, beaming happily.
“You prey upon the trusting nature of an elderly lady,” she continued, turning back to him.
“I cannae help it that the lasses find me so charming.” He grinned, wicked and unrepentant, his pale blue eyes flashing. “It’s always been my lot.”
“Aye.ThatI remember well. The stories my father used tae tell . . .”
His smile didn’t so much slip as morph from charming to ardent. His gaze focused entirely on her, as if there were nothing so fascinating in the world as herself.
“Those stories are my past, lass, a past I had repented of long before I met yourself. Only one woman holds my heart now, only one whose trust matters tae me.” The heat in his gaze left no doubt as towhomthat was. “I have been a true and faithful husband to ye.”
Eilidh’s eyes dipped to the shadow of her wedding ring, dangling on its chain under his shirt.
A symbol of her own past trust.
