A handful of his eighty stable boys trotted into view and herded Cow into a pen. Gabriel dropped the grass he’d picked and waited for the head groom to appear. “Well caught, Yer Grace,” Oscar Ritchie drawled. “That blasted cow’s a menace to every garden in the valley.”
“Send for Brian Maxwell, if you would,” Gabriel returned. “If the man can’t manage a cow or two, I can find him employment cutting peat or drying seaweed.”
Those were the two most menial tasks that came to his mind, and he wasn’t surprised to see the groom’s amusement flatten. “Aye, Yer Grace. I’ll send a lad to fetch him fer ye.”
This endeavor had been idiotic, now that he considered it. In his position he couldn’t afford to look foolish, and the reward for keeping a single cow out of the garden when the locals were likely accustomed to the nuisance couldn’t possibly have been worth the risk.
At least it had succeeded, and Fiona Blackstock hadn’t charged out to reprimand him in front of everyone. Which made him wonder where, precisely, Fiona might be. After all, his first thought when he’d seen the cow had been to show his would-be steward that he could manage the beast without having to resort to jumping into the mud, allowing the garden to be devoured, or shooting it. A half-witted, pride-driven tactical error of the sort he thought he had outgrown within six months of putting on his first uniform. The kind of mistake that in his world could get both him and his men killed.
“Have you seen Miss Blackstock?” he asked Oscar, as the groomsman ordered one of the stable boys to deliver a pitchfork of hay to Cow.
“She rode off with Ian Maxwell some twenty minutes ago,” the groom returned. “Shall I fetch her fer ye, Yer Grace?”
“No. Have her see me when she returns.” So she hadn’t intended to show him the whisky factory today, after all. If she’d been gone for twenty minutes, she’d left within two of his shutting the library door on her. That, at least, hadn’t been a mistake. And it had been for her sake as much as his. He liked her, enjoyed her, but he didn’t trust her. And while he couldn’t stop himself from kissing her, he could remind himself that he wasn’t the only man she’d kissed this week.
Gabriel clenched his jaw. Whoever the devil that other man had been, they needed to have a conversation. With their fists.
He was tempted to have Union Jack saddled just to get him out of the house, but after yesterday he had a letter to write. His solicitors in London might have thought him incapable of functioning without their constant yelping, but he remembered the important bits. He remembered that he had more money than he and his sister together could ever hope to spend, and he remembered that he wanted to show Fiona he could be a duke.
Two hours later he’d franked two letters and sent them off to Strouth and the Fair-Haired Lass tavern there, where he’d been assured the next mail coach headed south would collect them for delivery to London. He’d sent word to the overseers at the textile mill, the porcelain works, and the whisky distillery that he wanted to see them first thing tomorrow morning. As he’d warned her, if he couldn’t get Miss Blackstone to cooperate, he would simply go around her. And then, if she was as concerned with her secrets as he thought her to be, he had no doubt she would change her defiant tune.
“What the devil are ye aboot?” Her voice came on the heels of that thought, and she stomped into the upstairs sitting room where he’d gone to find what he suspected was a secret door leading down a hidden corridor cutting across the center of the second floor of the castle. The old building seemed to be rife with them.
Gabriel rapped his knuckles against the next section of wall, hearing solid stone behind the paneling. “I’m looking for a passageway.”
“I’m nae talking aboot that. Ye threatened to take a man’s cattle and send him to cut peat? Ye damned Sassenach, that’s how ye find yerself with a lead ball in yer skull.”
The deep lilt of her voice distracted him, and he pushed back against it. Moving on, he kept knocking against the wall. “If a man isn’t capable of doing his job, I’ll find him one hecanmanage. It’s as simple as that.”
“It isnae. Nae here in the Highlands.” Even with his back turned he could practically see her hands going onto her hips. “And if ye’re set on being rid of men who cannae do the job they’ve been given, ye should begin by looking in the mirror.”
And there it was again. How unfit he was to be a duke, to be in charge of setting this place to rights—not that he could do so until she decided to tell him precisely what was wrong with it. He turned around to face her. “So I’m not fit for this duty?” he ground out, stalking up and grabbing her by the hand even when he knew he’d be better off not touching her. “In your estimable opinion, then, whoissuited to be the Duke of Lattimer? You, I suppose, Duchess?”
She tried to yank her arm free, but he’d finished with the way she snapped insults at him and flitted away. After a heartbeat or two she stopped pulling and settled for glaring up at him. “At least I ken Highlands ways, Lattimer. At least I wouldnae ever insult a man oot of his own presence and tell the world he’s a failure at the work his father’s father’s father’s father passed all the way doon to him, and all without ye ever speaking more than a half-dozen words to him, if that.”
Well, that cut close to the spine. With a deep breath he bit back the retort he’d been ready to make. “I’ll make you a bargain,” he snapped. “I will meet with Brian Maxwell and see for myself whether he’s lazy or merely unlucky. If it’s the latter, I will do what I can to help him keep Cow wherever it is she belongs.”
Her black gaze lowered to his mouth and lifted again, making his pulse speed in return. For God’s sake, somewhere over the past few days she’d become a siren, and he a sailor who’d been at sea for a very, very long time and couldn’t resist her even when he knew he should. “I cannae argue with that, I suppose, but how is it a bargain?”
With her hand in his grip, he drew her up against him. “In return,” he said, working not to lean toward her, “‘Sassenach,’ ‘major,’ ‘soldier,’ and ‘English’ all leave your vocabulary, at your peril. If you mean to continue to insult me, you’ll have to be more clever than that.”
She swallowed. “And what peril is that?”
“I’ll think of something.”
Fiona searched his face, but Lattimer didn’t seem to be jesting in the slightest. Never in a hundred years would she have expected a duke to request a meeting with a tenant farmer and then offer to help him, if need be. And yes, Brian Maxwellwaslazy, but she’d always reckoned that was because of his consistently poor luck. He claimed to have been struck with ill fortune thanks to the curse, because evidently one day twenty years ago he’d tipped his hat to the old Duke of Lattimer. She didn’t believe in such things, of course, but she supposed it mattered more that Briandid.“I agree to yer bargain, Lattimer,” she said, and stuck out her free hand since she couldn’t seem to wrench the other one free.
“Gabriel,” he corrected. “I’m removing ‘Lattimer,’ as well. I’ve heard you use it against me.”
Still holding her hand out, she cocked her head at him and hoped he couldn’t see that the idea of using his given name made her think thoughts that had no business being in her brain. “Everyone’ll think I’m being too familiar with ye. That we’re… friends, or someaught.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Will they, then?” he said, a half grin curving his mouth.
Clearly he was daring her to back down. And she was a Blackstock of clan Maxwell. She’d yet to come across a thing that could stop her. Not even the MacKittrick curse stood a chance. “Shake my blasted hand then, Gabriel, unless ye’ve changed yer mind.” There. And by saying it quickly, his name didn’t pause long enough to linger on her tongue, not the way it did when she said it to herself.
He took a deep breath. “I’m not shaking your damned hand,” he rumbled, and captured her mouth with his. Heat speared through her again, sharper this time. Fiona put her hands on his shoulders, unable to keep herself from molding her lips against his as he tilted her head up with his fingers. Their fourth kiss. A very fine one, indeed.
Slowly he lifted away from her, releasing her in the same motion. They had their bargain, then, for whatever good he thought it would do. “Are all Sassenach soldiers as mad as ye?” she asked, dismayed that her voice frayed a little at the edges.
