“I—”
“I reckoned she’d gotten tired of having a rough lad like me following her aboot.” Abruptly the smith rounded on Graeme. “Is she well? Because my chieftain or nae, if ye’ve harmed her I swear ye and I are going to have a tussle.”
Graeme inclined his head. “I could give ye my word that she’s fine, but I reckon ye’d rather see fer yerself.”
“That, I would.”
So far, at least, that had gone better than he expected. He led the way into the morning room where both ladies sat, standing back as the furry bear of a man wrapped his arms around the proper and stout Mrs. Giswell and lifted her into the air.
“Are ye well, lass? I thought ye’d gone searching on yer own and gotten yerself lost. Those boys of yers said ye’d gone, but ye didnae leave me word. I looked everywhere fer ye.”
“My word! Put me down, Rob. For heaven’s sake.”
“He knows what’s afoot,” Graeme told them, stepping away from the doorway. “I’m trusting the lot of ye from here on.”
Did the blacksmith and the lady’s companion have a future together? He hoped so; they seemed genuinely enamored of each other. They had no other familial or clan responsibilities that he knew of, nothing to keep them apart but the one being Scottish, and the other English. As far as he knew Hortensia Giswell had no secret desire to be accepted by the bluest bloods of the Londonhaut ton.
A hand touched his arm. “Thank you,” Marjorie said. “I know including Mr. Polk went against your better judgment.”
“Well, once ye ask me to grant ye a wish, lass, there’s nae stopping me.”
“You haven’t let me go,” she reminded him.
“That’s because ye being here is the one thingIwish,” he muttered, resuming his walk through the foyer. Canopies and tables for the fair would be arriving beginning today, and they had wooden planks to lay over the muddiest parts of the meadow adjoining the house. It had given him another excuse to get Brendan out of the house and away from their female guests, but sooner rather than later he needed to have a serious chat with the lad.
A hand gripped his, pulling. “What did you say just then?” Marjorie demanded.
“I said I granted ye what ye wished,” he returned, facing her. “Care to come see the meadow we’re readying fer the winter fair?”
Her mouth opened and closed again, her pretty eyes widening just a little. “Of course I do. I’ve been wanting to go outside for days. But will my being seen put your brothers at risk?”
“I reckon by now everyone fer ten miles around knows I’ve an English governess here. If ye dunnae claim to be anyone but Ree Giswell, ye’ll be naught but a minor curiosity.”
“‘A minor curiosity’?” she repeated. “That would be a lovely change.” Wrapping her fingers around his forearm, she walked beside him out the front door and onto the rutted oyster-shell drive, and he pretended that his heart sped because the wind was brisk.
When she stopped to look back at the house, he paused beside her. She’d never seen it from the outside, he realized belatedly. Graeme looked at Garaidh nan Leòmhann, the Lion’s Den, again himself. Pale gray stones, a rose trellis climbing up the wall beside the morning room window, two stories and an attic in a large, blocky rectangle that had definitely seen better days. Better centuries, more like. With the roses more or less untended for the past eight years and dying back now in the cold, trim peeling away from the window frames, and the corner of the small, weed-dotted garden in view, it looked… tired.
“It’s nae much to look at,” he said aloud, “but I reckon it has heart.” A more gentle and compassionate one since she’d arrived, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.
“I can imagine a dragon nesting on the roof,” she returned. “A medium-sized one, looming in the fog. A large dragon would be a bit much, I think. And very clichéd.”
Hm.He hadn’t expected that response. “Dragons?”
“Just one. As a child I always thought dragons lived in the Highlands. This would be a splendid place for one to reside. The Lion’s Den is quite… magical-looking, you have to admit.”
Graeme looked all over again at the house in which he’d been born. Magical? Perhaps too many nonmagical things had happened there, but he didn’t see it. “I like that ye can see it that way,” he said after a moment. “I’ve heard tales that it used to be a much prouder place.”
After that she wanted to see the stables and know the names of the two saddle horses and two cart and plow horses residing there, then he led her down to the bank of the river Douchary. Where the water widened and slowed, the banks were frozen out two or three inches. Soon the wide strip of free-flowing water in the middle would begin to narrow, and by January they’d be hammering through the ice to get fresh water.
“I didn’t expect to see so many trees in the Highlands,” she commented, her gaze on the scattered stands of birch and mountain ash that made their way along the far bank of the river.
Did she see them as a promising place to hide if she ever attempted to escape? He hoped not, because she’d never make it across the wild, white-spitting river. “Anywhere the wind cannae howl through, the trees dig into the ground and rise up as far as they can. Most of the valley here is trees and hollows and rivulets. My ancestors built on this side of the river because the winds keep the trees back. Highlanders prefer to see who’s riding up on them with torches and cannon.”
“It’s very pretty,” she said, freeing her hand to rub both her forearms. To a lass from the soft, warm south, the air must be biting cold today. He shrugged out of his coat and draped it across her shoulders.
“I need to find ye some warmer things to wear.”
“I’m fairly handy with a needle and thread. If you don’t mind me altering a few of your mother’s things, I believe I can make do. Though you kidnapped Mrs. Giswell’s trunk along with her, so I suppose you could go back and do the same thing with mine.”
