“Possibly.”
“Yes, possibly?” he asked gently and despite the humor of the words, Mikah could tell he was genuinely worried for her. “Perhaps we should get some air?”
Mikah nodded numbly and stood when he pulled out her chair, clinging to his arm as he escorted her from the dining area, through the main hall, and up the stairs to the first floor. Though a pair of doors was left open to welcome them into the Long Drawing Room at the head of the stairs, Ian instead guided her around the landing to the Round Drawing Room and across the circular salon to one of the five sets of glass French doors that covered the curved wall. Beyond the doors was a rounded balcony that hung out over the one hundred and fifty-foot cliff below. It was one of her favorite places at Cuilean. The moon shone on the calm waters of the firth, and Mikah inhaled deeply, feeling an inner peace. As always, the stiff breeze blowing in from the loch buffeted her, blowing away her worries.
As always?The thought ratcheted up Mikah’s blood pressure for a moment before she let the serenity of the view wash over her. No need to panic, she thought. It would surely be all right in the end. She just needed to, as they said in England,keep calm and carry on.
That shouldn’t be too difficult, but she couldn’t have Ian thinking she was crazy either. “I’m so sorry to have interrupted your meal,” Hero offered, resting her hands on the rail and leaning forward against it, letting the cool evening wind from the firth caress her fevered cheeks and soothe away the last threads of concern. “Perhaps my injuries were simply greater than I had thought.”
“Think nothing of it,” he assured her, though his brow was still creased with worry. “I was just finishing up. There’s no loss to one’s waistline by missing dessert.”
Mikah gave a mental snort. “I don’t think you need to worry about that.”
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye as he leaned back against the rail with his arms crossed over his chest. Ian was a fairly large man in comparison to her five foot six, perhaps an inch or two over six feet. He was athletically built, muscular without being too bulky. Like a baseball player. She would bet that he looked pretty good in a pair of running shorts and little else, or in a Brewers uniform playing left field like Ryan Braun. She would bet he never struck out and usually scored a home run.
Smiling inwardly at her baseball analogy, Mikah felt much better. Slow and easy. It would work out in the end.
“Better?” Ian asked softly, as if he sensed her calm.
“Much. Thank you.” She leaned against the balustrade once more. “This is one of my favorite places in the castle.”
“Mine, as well,” he said sincerely before falling silent. Mikah could feel his eyes on her, assessing her. She wondered what he thought when he looked at her so seriously. Was he looking merely at the surface or for something deeper? Or was his study more abstract and his mind on something else entirely?
“You know, I’d been wondering about something but hadn’t thought to ask anyone as yet, and you might be just the person to help,” he offered in a light, conversational tone, answering her unspoken query.
Like Mikah, Hero didn’t know whether she should be disappointed or not. Clearly though, Ian was trying to distract her from her worries, and Hero felt a wave of growing affection and gratitude warm her. “What is that?”
“This castle is incredibly old, right?” he asked. “I found a book in my study about the history of the castle. It’s several centuries old, but these interiors just don’t emulate what one would consider medieval.”
“You’re right, of course,” Hero agreed, grasping his diversion thankfully. “One of the old earls about eighty years ago hired Robert Adam to redesign the castle. Are you familiar with him?”
“The famous Scottish architect? I am.”
“He redesigned the entire floor plan of the interior. Added rooms and took some away. The original castle was U-shaped. Adam capped the end with this tower as well as the two rooms flanking. The center staircase was added to fill the former courtyard space. There used to be just a narrow front and rear staircase, but he added that entire hall just for the grand impression it lent. It took more than fifteen years to complete. With these rounded additions, he turned the exterior into a romanticized homage to medieval architecture with all the turrets, but the interior is, thankfully, pleasantly Georgian.”
“It seems that every wall, ceiling, doorframe, and mantelpiece is covered in plasterwork, friezes, and tablets. They are all Adam?” He nodded with dawning comprehension. “I should have recognized his style. He did good work.”
“He did,” she agreed. “It’s one of the main things I love about Cuilean. Why, it is my home…” Hero trailed off as if she had said too much.
“No, it’s all right,” Ian assured her. “It feels like a true home to me as well, though I’ve been here only a month. It has an aura about it, does it not? Of perfection?” When she nodded, he continued, “So you like this balcony and the plasterwork. What are your other favorite things about Cuilean?”
“The gardens,” she replied instantly. “I could walk in them for hours at a time, and through the park also. And the embattlements. The history that one feels when standing upon the ramparts is very moving.”
“Are you interested in history?”
“Yes, I am. Particularly art history.” An interest shared by Mikah as well. Her original degree in college had been in Art History before she had gone on to her Master’s and then her Ph.D. She’d aimed toward becoming a museum collections curator, as she was now in Milwaukee. Hero had studied with a tutor only but her love of art was deep.
“Really?” he asked with brows raised. “Are you well versed in art?”
Pretty well,Mikah and Hero thought in unison, but Hero only shrugged modestly.
Ian watched the color return to Hero’s cheeks in a becoming blush and was glad that his conversation had been able to wash away whatever had troubled her. He worried for her, he realized. Head injuries were troublesome things that could lead to any number of problems. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do to provide her comfort or solace. If light conversation and friendship were the keys to allaying her fears, he would happily offer both.
“Do you know anything of the pieces in the Long Drawing Room?” he asked to perpetuate the conversation. The room had once been called the Picture Room, a silly name, he had thought when Boyle had given him his initial tour of the castle. The Long Drawing Room was a long narrow space that was once a part of the Great Hall of the original castle. At the present time, the room held just a few chairs and small settees for viewing the oils, watercolors, and pastels that engulfed every inch of wall space with their heavily gilded frames. There were some family-oriented portraits, as well as some portraits of past monarchs, but the bulk were landscapes that, Ian assumed, had been collected over the course of generations.
He knew absolutely nothing about any of them, but Hero had a spark in her eye that told him she did and liked the idea of being dared to show off her knowledge. He liked that she wasn’t merely some wilting lily. Women of intelligence were far more intriguing than those who pretended to know nothing. Or worse, truly did not.
Eager to see more of her spirit, he challenged her to a test of her abilities and offered her his arm, leading her out into the hall and around the staircase to the room under discussion, which fronted the castle at the head of the stairs. Stopping just inside the room, Ian pointed to a large landscape of a loch hung at chest height to the right of the doors. It was perhaps two feet by three in width and seemed rather dark and dreary to him. “This one?”
