“It was nice of Graeme to think of me,” she said aloud, trying not to linger over his name. “I know he has a great many things on his mind today.”
“Aye. He told me to stay close by ye and watch over ye, because he couldnae take the time to do it.”
Oh. “Well, of course not,” she said briskly as those few words sent her world tumbling down around her again. “Lead the way.”
A lady didn’t show an excess of excitement or distress. A lady did not weep in public, even if her heart had just been broken into tiny fragments. A lady always maintained her composure, because in crisis others would look to her for clues as to their own behavior.
How long had those words guided her life? A decade? More? She could scarcely remember a time when she didn’t recite various versions to herself, mostly to reassure her that she’d behaved properly in the face of some challenge or other.
Today, though, as she descended the stairs and walked outside in the gown she’d chosen because she thought Graeme would like seeing her in it, the words felt hollow. She smiled as a large group of women hurried past them toward the meadow, receiving excited grins and waves in return. On the inside, though, she wanted to race back to the house and throw herself on her bed to weep.
She’d met someone whose attention and companionship she genuinely enjoyed, someone hard and wild and at the same time gentle and intuitive. And because she’d dared to keep hold of her own plans and he, his, he’d evidently decided he was finished with her. As if his opinion was the only one, and the correct one. As if the nearly empty Highlands had more to offer her than a whirlwind life in London.
And what had he offered her as an incentive to stay, anyway? An admission that he liked her against his will? A suggestion that he liked her, but meant never to love her? Given the fact that she was still being kept there because he’d commanded that she not be allowed to leave, she supposed she should expect to be shackled to the bed again the next time he disagreed with something she said.
Ha.Oh, being angry was a great deal more pleasant than feeling sorry for herself. Graeme could try to avoid her, but the next time they crossed paths she had several choice things to say to him, impossible, arrogant man.
Chapter Fourteen
Easily more than two hundred men, women, and children gathered in the meadow, more people than Marjorie had seen in one place since she’d left London. They all faced the same direction, toward the scattering of boulders and birch and oak and aspen at the far end of the green space.
At the distant, thready wail of a single bagpipe, Connell clutched her hand and squeezed, his face a vision of tense excitement. “This is it,” he whispered, practically shaking.
A second and a third bagpipe joined in, raucous and discordant, until abruptly the three twined together in a strong, fast-tempoed harmony. Male voices yelled something in Scots Gaelic—a deep, primal roar that made the hairs on the back of her neck lift.
Then the deep rumble of drums joined the pipes, a slow, low thud that seemed to match the beat of her heart and resonate in her chest. Through the light fog hanging between the trees, a figure emerged, followed by a second and a third and then a dozen, then more. Goose bumps lifted on her arms at the sight of fifty men dressed in red, black, and green plaid kilts marching forward, heavy-looking broadswords in hand.
The big man in the lead raised his sword over his head, and that roar sounded again. Long red-brown hair lifted in the breeze, gray eyes challenging the crowd. Graeme Maxton. In his full kilt, draped across his chest and over one shoulder and down to his knees, accelerating into a trot with warriors following behind him, he looked like an ancient Celtic god.
The gathered crowd, Connell included, answered the challenge, and as the two groups met the warriors jabbed their swords into the ground to be greeted with cheers and handshakes and hugs and sloshing mugs of beer and ale.
She had no idea what it meant or symbolized, but it looked magnificent. Before she could ask Connell, he dragged her forward into the crowd. “Come on! We have to greet Graeme!”
Someone handed her a mug, and she drank a generous swallow as they made their way forward. If she was to greet Graeme as a lady should, a quantity of beer would be vital.
“My L… Ree,” Mrs. Giswell chastised from somewhere behind her.
Marjorie took another drink. “When in Rome, Aunt Hortensia,” she said over her shoulder.
She turned forward again—and nearly slammed into Graeme’s broad chest. He looked down at her, his jaw clenched. “Miss Giswell.”
Now she felt like a green schoolgirl all over again, facing a popular Adonis and with no idea what to say. She gulped down more beer. “Is this a commemoration of a particular battle?”
“Aye. Bannockburn. Our clan marched with Robert the Bruce and helped rout Edward the Second.”
“Sent him fleeing back to England,” Connell piped in, “his damned tail between his legs!”
That elicited another cheer, and Connell pumped his fist at the sky. Stifling a smile, Graeme glanced at her then quickly away, before he hefted his brother up to sit on his shoulders. “Bannockburn!” he bellowed.
“Bannockburn! Robert the Bruce!”
In a second the Maxton brothers had moved past her to mingle with the rest of the crowd.
“They’re celebrating the victory of a clan that finds them disgraceful,” a low drawl came from directly behind her.
Her spine stiffened. Turning, she pasted on her best, most ladylike smile. “Sir Hamish.”
The Duke of Dunncraigh’s close friend and chieftain gazed down at her. Even if she hadn’t known how much trouble he could mean for her, she wouldn’t have liked him. He dressed more English than anyone else she’d met here, but something about him made her skin crawl.
