Nan pulled back and gave him a knowing look. “Ach, I ken ye better than that.”
He still remembered the day he’d met her. Her hair had been mostly gray, and she’d stood over him as he’d sat crying, his scraped knee throbbing. It wasn’t until after she’d patched up his knee and his britches that it had occurred to him to ask for her name. “Ye can call me Nan,” she’d replied kindly.
Now her hair was white, her back stooped, her round face lined with wrinkles. But the passage of time hadn’t dimmed the perception in her gaze.
He gave her a roguish smile. “I met yer granddaughter.”
She set a hand on her chest. “Arabella? Ye didn’t.”
“I did. She was just as lovely as ye said she’d be.” With her lustrous dark hair and sea-blue eyes, Gavin had found himself quite taken with her. Until she’d opened her mouth.
“How? Where?” she demanded.
All these years she’d been waiting, hoping to meet heronly grandchild. What Gavin hadn’t known that first day they’d met? That she was lonely, grieving the daughter who’d cut her off. But fate had been kind, bringing him and Nan together. He’d filled an empty part of her heart just as she’d come to fill an empty part of his.
“At The Fox and Crown. There was a mishap with her carriage.”
“Well, where is she?”
Gavin had the good sense to look a bit remorseful. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I left her there.”
“Left her there...in the hands of cantankerous auld Mr. Ferguson? Gavin Alexander McKenzie! Whatever for?” Nan gave him a hard stare.
He crossed his arms over his chest, remembering the snobbish look on the young woman’s face. “Tae rid her of some of her prejudices against Scots.”
Deep grooves formed in the old woman’s forehead. “It’s as I feared, then.”
“Worse than ye feared, I think.” Gavin guided her over to the settee by the window.
She sat down heavily, sighing. “Do tell.”
Gavin sat beside her and leaned forward, forearms resting on his thighs. “If ye’d heard how she talked aboot Scots, as if we are a species barely above coos or sheep. She used the words ‘swarthy’ and ‘brutes.’”
If it had been anyone else, Gavin would have found the whole situation quite comical. What did he care for the young chit’s opinion? But this was Nan’s granddaughter. The young woman she’d ached to know for as long as he could remember. If her prejudices hurt Nan in any way...thatwould be another matter entirely.
His mouth tightened into a hard line. “Ye’d have been tempted tae disavow her.”
Nan clasped her gnarled hands together. “Her mind is made up, then. Her parents have poisoned her against me. Against her own roots.”
He couldn’t bear the note of defeat in her voice. “Well, we’ll just have tae change it then, won’t we?”
“We?” One corner of her mouth lifted. “Based on what ye’ve told me, I doubtyeare in her good graces.”
Gavin shook his head. “I don’t think ye . . . or we . . . should try tae get in her good graces.”
She cocked one white eyebrow. “Go on, then. This plan sounds more and more promising by the moment,” she said, words laced with sarcasm.
He leaned back and stared at the wainscotting on the ceiling, a strategy forming in his mind. “It seems tae me that since she’s expecting the worst...” A smile crept over his face. “We should give her exactly that.”
“Ye really think leaving her tae rot in that inn will endear her tae me? And Scots in general?”
“Not exactly. But the alternative is what? Beg for a morsel of her affection? Hope that with enough shortbread and Dundee cakes, we can cajole her intae thinking better of us?” Everything within Gavin bristled. He shook his head. “Nae.”
“All right, then. What exactly did ye have in mind?” Nan looked dubious, but she was warming to the idea.
“We cannae be too extreme or we’ll arouse her suspicions.” He imagined Miss Hughes in the chair across from him, sitting so prim and proper, yet so eager for connection that she’d confided in a stranger.
What was going on behind those crystal-blue eyes of hers? As a lad, Gavin had taken apart clocks and pocket watches, captivated by their inner mechanisms. How each piece worked together to make the instrument tick. As a man, he was even more intrigued by the inner workings of the human mind.
