The innkeepers were delighted to have the opportunity to welcome him home and stand him a dram or a tankard of their best ale. It was impossible to refuse a single drop. Every man, woman, and child he met gazed at him with such hope in their eyes, such pride. No one other than his grandfather had ever looked at him that way before. It was damned uncomfortable to be seen as the savior of Clan MacNabb everywhere he went. It also made him all the more determined to continue on until he found Sophie, but by noon he was so drunk he was barely able to keep from falling off his horse, and that only after much difficulty getting back on the beast in the first place. In the end he returned to Glenlorne foxed and frustrated, hoping the horse could see the road more clearly than he could.
By early afternoon, he found himself sitting on the horse and staring blearily up at the tower window where he’d seen her only yesterday, and wondered where the devil she’d disappeared to. He missed her. He whispered her name and swayed in the saddle, and the horse flattened its ears and snorted an insult.
Alec reminded himself that there were a number of estates and castles within a day’s ride of Glenlorne. It could well be that she was the guest of another laird, perhaps even an unmarried one. His hands tensed on the reins and the horse sidestepped nervously, and took a step away from the old tower, and a patch of appealing wildflowers.
Alec was about to correct the horse—a rather opinionated gelding kept in the stables for the girls to ride, and which he vowed would be replaced with a much finer and less stubborn stallion, if he could just find and marry Lady Sophie—when he changed his mind. Was that a lock of red hair beckoning him from the tower window, or just a vine glinting in the sun? Would the minx play games with him, expecting him to return to the place he’d met her only yesterday? He grinned, actually found himself giggling, and the horse sent him a look of pure equine disdain. He ignored the beast. Perhaps she liked lovers’ games, and wanted to be wooed.
Well, woo her he most certainly would. Wonderfully. Wittily. Wantonly. He grinned again, then laughed out loud. He set his heels to the gelding, who insisted on remaining firmly where it was. When he finally forced the beast to obey, what he had seen turned out to be just a red-leafed vine growing in the empty eye of the window, twisting in the wind, scratching against the stones in the wind, laughing at him.
The door was barred, just as he’d left it yesterday, and there was no sign of a fetching, flame-haired lass. He muttered a curse, and the horse looked at him over its shoulder, as if it had known all along, and felt the same way about Alec as Alec felt about him.
“Good day to ye, Laird,” said a voice, and he turned to find a dozen men standing behind him. He hadn’t even noticed them there.
“Have ye come to help us make ready for tonight?” Leith Rennie asked.
Alec surveyed them from the back of the horse. Were there a dozen men, or only six? “Actually, I’m looking for a lass.”
They grinned and relaxed, elbowing one another, then laughed out loud. Leith produced a skin of ale and passed it to Alec. “Aren’t we all?” he said.
“There’ll be plenty of bonnie lasses at the bonfire tonight,” Jock MacNabb added.
“We’re just getting things ready for the festivities—the wheel, the firewood, and such. We’re the council, ye see—the ones drafted to do the work,” Hamish MacNair added. They all nodded.
Alec nodded back and glanced up at the empty tower again. Perhaps, his drink-addled brain told him, she might she still come if he waited, stayed near to the tower. He looked at the council again. “Could you use more help?”
“Er—you look rather fine for gathering firewood, Laird.”
Alec slid off the gelding’s back. He took off his coat and tossed it over the saddle. He untied his cravat and tucked that under the coat, and stripped off his waistcoat, for good measure. The horse caught the brocade waistcoat and began to chew on it.
“Whoa now, Blossom,” Jock said, catching the creature’s reins, fighting to retrieve the vest from the horse’s stubborn jaws.
“Blossom?” Alec muttered. “I’m out wooing—riding—on a male horse named Blossom?” The other men had the grace to look embarrassed for him.
“Wee Sorcha named him,” Leith said. Jock let the horse go, and held up the tattered waistcoat. Blossom tossed his head and ambled over to a particularly lush patch of wildflowers and proceeded to devour them.
“Shouldn’t we tie him up?” Alec asked, as the horse moved on to another, more distant patch of flowers.
“Blossom?” Hamish asked. “Nay. Once he’s eaten, he’ll head home on his own—if that’s quite acceptable, Laird.”
“Unless he finds the cattle,” Leith said. “He’s sweet on one particular heifer, and since it’s Midsummer—”
Jock rolled his eyes. “He’s agelding, you bampot!”
Leith looked hurt. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Love comes in many shapes. We’re all looking for a lass.”
Jock took off his cap and swatted his cousin. “Come on, bampot—we’ve got wood to fetch, and we’d best get to it as soon as we finish the ale.” He passed the skin to Alec. “After you, of course, Laird.”
Alec took a long swallow and led the way down the slope toward the woods, then stopped. The men behind him stopped as well, some crashing into one another. Leith, who was at the front of the procession, slid all the way down the grassy hill with a cry. Everyone stood and watched him go. It seemed they were as drunk as Alec was. “I just wish to say I’ve known all of you since we were lads. Just call me Alec.”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
“Are you certain the countess won’t mind if the girls go to the bonfire?” Caroline asked Muira as the sun set, standing in the kitchen, helping to pack baskets of food and flasks of ale.
“She didna say a word against it when I asked her not half an hour ago,” Muira said archly, her eyes wide.
“Perhaps I should check with her,” Caroline said, but the old servant cackled. “There’s no need—Her Ladyship has taken herself off early to bed, asked not to be disturbed. She has a headache from spending all day starin’ at those dress books Alec brought from London. I daresay she won’t wake until morning, or possibly even early afternoon. Now don’t you worry about her another minute—you’ll be wanting to get ready yourself, and there’s not much time. The lasses have been watching the sun go down, and as soon as it drops behind old Glenlorne Tower, they’ll be off.”
Caroline glanced out the window. The red sun hovered just above the ragged roofline of the old tower. She glanced in the mirror and tidied her hair, made sure the top button of her gown was primly fastened under her chin. “There,” she said, turning to Muira.
