Tabby had said Laird Jock MacGregor was eccentric and she wasn’t kidding.
Glancing past the laird into his room, she couldn’t see a single modern item. Everything looked like it had come straight out of an antique shop.
There was a four poster bed covered in furs, a roaring fire in the hearth despite the heat outside, elaborate tapestries covering the whitewashed walls.
That was all she had time to examine before he blocked her view, filling the doorframe with his imposing figure, stooping to avoid banging his head as he glared at her from underneath a mess of flaming red hair.
She took a look at his clothes. Black skintight hose of worn leather like he was in a rock band. A tartan baldric tied around one shoulder, covering some but not all of his taut muscular tanned chest. His boots were plain, no laces in sight.
His flowing mane wouldn’t have looked out of place ravaging some innocent woman on the cover of a Mills and Boon. All of a sudden she was glad Tabby had a cold.
She had pegged him on the drive as a seventy plus doddery old Scotsman, kilt, sporran, wiry ginger hair. The man she was looking at was nothing like she’d imagined.
He was far younger than she expected, outrageously tall, more muscle than man, and oh, so handsome he took her breath away.
His flowing long hair framed his face perfectly, his chiseled jaw spoke of stubbornness and being quick to anger, a hint of stubble, sweat running down his chest. And why was that sword in his hand?
He scowled out at her from smoldering dark eyes that she swore instantly made her shrink at least a foot in height. She found herself squirming under his gaze.
What was he doing to her? Why was he so furious and why did she suddenly desperately want to please him, make him smile, make him forgive her?
What was wrong with her? She hadn’t even done anything wrong.
“You’re late,” he said in a thick Scottish brogue. Then he looked surprised, as if he’d been expecting someone else. “Who are you?”
Chapter Two
Jock MacGregor was furious. The wooden training dummy in the corner of his bedchamber would have attested to that if it could speak. Chips and splinters were still floating down to the floor when he finally relaxed his sword hand.
He had only left the great hall an hour earlier and already he could feel the anger so recently receded returning with a vengeance.
He swung the sword once more.
He needed to get it out. If he couldn’t take out his rage on the person who’d stolen from the clan, he could at least take it out on the outstretched oak limbs of the training dummy.
All their money. Gone.
The worst thing was it had happened on his watch. He’d promised his parents he would take care of the clan, protect them and their future. When he took over, he swore an oath to them to look after the people and their lands.
And what had he done? Let someone slip in behind his back and empty out the treasury.
The day had begun with such promise. He had woken just before dawn on the first proper day of summer. He had dreamed during the night that he was swimming toward Kirrin Island.
But as he turned to drift on his back he felt something by his feet, something about to reach up out of the water to drag him down into the depths. Cold claw like fingers beginning to wrap around his ankle.
He woke up to find a crow sitting on his foot. As he sat up, the crow leaped into the air with an indignant caw, and then flew out of the window.
The first gray shafts of light from the rising sun were starting to illuminate the far wall of his bedchamber. He rarely slept with the shutters closed, preferring the feel of the wind blowing in, reminding him of his ancestors who had slept out in the open every night, centuries before MacGregor Castle was built.
It was his grandfather who was the first to sleep indoors every night. Old Cam MacGregor, now at rest in the chapel he built alongside his beloved wife, Jock’s grandmother, Rachel.
He had few memories of them. He remembered how much they loved each other. Would Jock ever have anyone love him like his grandparents loved each other? Or his parents for that matter.
Eddard still had Morag. Even in their increasing dotage their love for each other remained strong. Cam had had Rachel.
Who did Jock have?
No one.
