Someone pushed her. She felt strong hands on her back, and suddenly she was flying through the air. She cried out and waited to land on the flagstone floor far below.
His arms came around her, caught her against his chest. She felt the sun-warmed heat of his body, the hardness of his muscles, the beat of his heart against her own. She met the surprise in his eyes, her nose was an inch from his for an instant before he turned and pressed her against the wall, keeping her safe, trying to get his own balance. He glanced over the edge, then back at her. She could see her face reflected in his eyes, caught the faint tang of whisky on his breath, and the scent of heather.
“Someone pushed me!” she gasped, and he looked at her dubiously before stepping back. He kept one hand under her elbow. He didn’t even bother to look up to see if there was someone behind her.
“The steps are dangerous. The whole tower is. It should have been pulled down a hundred years ago!” He began to descend the steps, still holding her, one hand on her elbow, one around her waist, assisting her, keeping her safe, as if she were indeed a princess—his princess. His touch turned her to jelly, and the stone wall made her cold on one side, and the heat of his body made her burn on the other.
Caroline stopped walking and looked back up the steps, but there was no one there.
He followed her gaze. “You said yourself you were alone,” he said sensibly.
Shewasalone, wasn’t she? Except for the handsome Scottish stranger. But he’d been below her. He couldn’t have pushed her. She felt her face color again. He probably thought she’d thrown herself at him in response to his impromptu proposal of marriage. She’d probably imagined that too.
He let her go as soon as they were on solid ground, and stepped back to a proper distance. He indicated with a sweeping gesture that she should precede him out the door, back into the heat and light of the real world. She stood numbly mortified as he tugged hard on the heavy wooden door to close it. “How on earth did you manage to shift this?” he said as he picked up a heavy beam of wood, studded with iron. “This door has been barred shut for years.”
Caroline frowned. Had the door been closed when she arrived? She didn’t remember opening it. She watched him set the heavy oak bar in place, his muscles flexing under the linen of his shirt. She certainly would have remembered movingthat.
She clasped her hands around her arms and felt a chill pass through her as she recalled Megan asking if she believed in ghosts. Of course she didn’t. But as she stared up at the stone walls, at the empty window, it felt again as if someone was watching her. Prickles crawled over her flesh. What an odd place it was.
“I trust I don’t have to warn you to stay out of the tower, lass.”
Lass?Caroline swallowed. He thought her a local girl, perhaps. She supposed she did not look anything like the daughter of an English earl, or even a governess, for that matter. The wind lifted her hair, and red tendrils reached out to him. She stepped back and caught it in her hands, tidying it, reaching for the pins in her pocket.
A call made him turn. Caroline’s stomach dropped to her feet. It was the girls, coming back across the hillside, their arms—and their skirts—laden with flowers. The countess would not approve. Megan’s hair was unbound, bedecked with wildflowers, and her feet were bare. Sorcha was skipping hand in hand with another girl her age. Alanna was following with an armload of flowers, her cheeks flushed. Now these were lasses—happy, carefree, and sun-kissed.
She would have to hurry them back to the castle, see that they washed their faces, combed their hair. She would firmly remind them of the rules, tell them they were the daughters of an earl, and— She swallowed. Even in the silence of her own mind, she sounded like Somerson.
And here she stood, disheveled, her skirt stained with dust and moss, looking like—well, alass. With aman. Whatever would the countess say toher? She’d dismiss her at once, of course, and rightly so—and then where would she go? Back to London? No.
Her rescuer had turned away from lecturing her, and was watching the girls, his hand shading his eyes, the breeze stirring the dark hair on his forearm where his shirt was rolled up. He was disheveled too, a mossy green stain on his shoulder. She saw a slow smile bloom over his features, transforming him again.
The girls obviously knew him. She could see it in the way they dropped the flowers and ran toward him, yelling like hoydens, with the rest of the lads and lasses following them eagerly.
Propriety. She was a governess now, not a lass. In a moment they’d spot her as well. She could imagine the gossip, the speculation, the comments. The tale was sure to get back to Countess Devina. Caroline edged deeper into the shadow of the old tower, and then fled around the back of it. She scrambled down the path that led through the woods, back to Glenlorne, and sanity.
She needed to change her own gown and wash her face, and remember who she was.
CHAPTERTWELVE
“Alec!”
He turned to watch his eldest half sister racing up the slope of the hill toward him. At least he thought they were his sisters. They were grown women now, not the girls he remembered. Was that truly Megan, the tall lass with the dark hair, and Alanna in the blue gown? Village lads trailed behind them like a pack of dogs on the hunt. Of course, it was Midsummer, and there was sunshine, flowers, and laughter. A dangerous combination, he thought protectively, and realized that he sounded as old as his grandfather, as stiff as Westlake. They’d grown up to be beauties. What lad could resist?
He opened his arm in time to catch the first girl as she hurtled into him. He enfolded her in a hug. “You smell like heather, Alanna!” he said.
“I’m Sorcha,” she said, frowning only slightly, regarding him with their grandfather’s gray eyes.
“Ah forgive me. Last time I saw you, you were—” He held his hand about three feet off the grass. She’d been barely five when he left, with freckles and missing front teeth and unruly red curls. She grinned at him with a full set of teeth now, but she was still freckled, he noted, happy that hadn’t changed. In a few years, little Sorcha would be a beauty. His heart contracted as he thought of the years he’d missed, and would miss in future.
“You look just the same as I remember!” she said, her eyes glowing. “Mama said you were dead, but Muira knew you’d come!”
Another girl arrived. “Alanna?” he asked carefully. She’d grown up to be very pretty, her and her eyes were still as blue as the sky
“Yes!” She smiled shyly.
“And Megan,” he said, smiling at the young woman who hung back slightly. She curtsied, and held out her hand.
“Hello, Laird. I’m Megan MacNabb—” She whooped when he pulled her into an embrace, swinging her in a circle before he set her on her feet again.
