A Question for the Ages (Questions for a Highlander Book 7)

by Angeline Fortin

  One didn’t simply stumble upon it by chance.

  Given that she’d resumed her excursions to the Grange, visits with Jane, and daily rides—albeit with renewed prudence—and had only seen him from a distance, she’d determined that one didn’t mistakenly happen upon her at any other place either.

  While relief warred with disappointment upon reaching the conclusion that he hadn’t persisted in seeking her out, overall, she thought her secret safe.

  A grin lifted the corner of his mouth. “Ye needn’t look like a deer who just realized he was in my sights.”

  Piper shook away her upset at the realization that she hadn’t been as secure as she’d thought. “What?”

  “Ye look like ye’re about to bolt. Dinnae fear, lass.” His tone was calm and hushed as if he were indeed coaxing a startled doe to eat from his hand. “I’ll allow ye yer secrets. After all, we all have some, do we no’? Besides, the charming enigma ye represent provides me more proper things to muse over than other thoughts in my mind.”

  “What other…? Oh.” A flush crept up her neck and cheeks, straight up to her hairline, burning away the remainder of her dread.

  Piper swung away and resumed her course home, taking the trail to the left that retraced her path to the rose garden and circled around the far end of the parterre before turning south. He fell in step beside her, his playful laughter teased at her nerves, augmenting that warmth into a sensation far, far removed from worry.

  She both hated and conversely loved how he threw her off balance. How was that possible? She couldn’t rightly protest the impropriety of his insinuation when she’d entertained more than her share of improper thoughts of late. An active imagination had plagued Piper all her life. At times—most times until recently—those wandering thoughts had been fraught with worry. Since their last meeting, her fantasies had taken on a decidedly romantic narrative. Fictitious tales of white knights far more pleasurable than those frantic nightmares.

  Little wonder news that Connor might court Jane unnerved her. He’d become her dashing hero in many of those scenarios. Her beau. Her lover. Her hours of diversion through the long summer nights.

  From a distance, he had inspired many an idle fantasy. Up close, he merited a far more physical response. A feverish one. Or was it the heat of the day? The heat radiating off of him?

  His appearance told her he hadn’t labored in the fields today. Like her, he’d sacrificed more than a few open buttons to the weather. Hatless and with his jacket slung over one shoulder, the sleeves of his white shirt turned up to reveal taut forearms delineated with strands of muscle. He was muscular without being burly, but then he appeared rather young. Perhaps only a few years older than she. Piper assumed he’d fill out in the years to come. Especially if he kept working like a field hand.

  It rendered him more manly. Earthy.

  Piper glanced up from beneath the brim of her hat to find him smiling down on her. Not a hint of suspicion in his eyes, only amicability and a touch of appreciation. She lowered her gaze.

  Perhaps somewhere deep down inside, she was glad he’d found her. And maybe, just maybe, she’d roamed far and wide of late to make it easier for him.

  She peered up again, unable to refrain. There was an odd thrill to be found in strolling by his side. An awareness that left her jittery, perhaps a tad bilious, but in a perversely pleasant way. His fingers brushed hers as they walked, stirring the compulsion to take his hand. Hold it. She managed to restrain herself from such a humiliating act and settled for admiring him in silence, as the sunlight filtered through the leaves and branches sending random bursts of light to play across his features.

  How strange to have him look down at her. A brace of inches from six feet herself, there weren’t many men besides her brother who towered over her. As she studied him, she noticed his hair wasn’t brown as she’d thought. Hints of mahogany glistened in the random sunshine, adding to his appeal, if that were possible. She’d wager he had a ginger or two on the low-hanging branches of his family tree. A scruff of the same color darkened his jaw and upper lip. And his lips were…

  His brow rose a notch, and Piper realized she was staring. She trained her eyes on the ground, watching his scuffed boots dart forward as he walked.

  “I wouldnae have pegged ye for the quiet sort,” he offered at length. “I dinnae ken why I would think so when ye’ve spared me nary a word as yet.”

  “My apologies. I suppose I’ve grown rather used to having whole conversations in my mind without realizing that I’ve said nothing aloud,” she found herself revealing. “I don’t find myself in company as regularly as I would like.”

  “Since Mr. Milbourne passed?”

  “Pardon?” She followed his gaze as it dipped down. Oh, of course! Given the name she’d taken and her mourning gown, he’d assumed she was widowed. “Oh, yes. Since my husband passed.” A heartbeat of silence. “God rest him.”

  He nodded, a curious light in his green eyes. “Ye’re young to be widowed already. Ye maun have been a mere babe when ye wed.”

  Familiar panic rushed in. Piper scouted the area for an escape.

  “Och, lass.” Connor stayed her with a brief hand on her arm, retreating once he’d halted her impending flight. “Dinnae fash, ye have nothing to fear from me.”

  * * *

  He hadn’t been joshing overmuch when he’d teased her about bearing the air of a hunted deer. Such wariness could only be accounted for by a handful of reasons. The simplest would be that it was her base nature to be the fretful sort, however, amid the timid glances and edgy fidgeting, he’d seen enough fire light her eyes to dismiss the obvious. Vivacity dulled by vigilance. Sobriety superimposed over humor. Without question, she was hiding herself away here in the countryside. From whom or what, he wasn’t certain.

  Nor would he harass her into revealing her secrets. As he’d said, everyone had them. And everyone had reasons for them. Trust would be needed before she shared hers.

  And he wanted her to trust him. Moreover, Connor wanted to ensure it wouldn’t be another near trio of months before they met once more. She mentioned that she lived close by, yet their paths hadn’t crossed in all that time. Any effort to search her out had been stymied repeatedly by the obstinate and closed-mouthed. For all he’d scoured the area for her, this random encounter after seeing neither hide nor hair of her for so long had come as a surprise. He’d been sitting on the edge of the fountain at the end of the parterre thinking over the plans he’d made with Larkin, the estate steward, when he’d spotted her on the path. More than the astonishment of seeing her, he’d been taken by a burst of happiness.

  The lass had haunted his thoughts all summer. Not merely as some enigmatic puzzle for him to logic out. There was something more, though he couldn’t pinpoint precisely what it was about her that had ensnared him so. He liked women. All women. Perhaps not as much as his brother James loved all women or as fervently as his younger brother, Dorian, set himself to adoring them all thoroughly, but Connor had engaged in a fair number of flirtations and affairs to know the lure of Mrs. Milbourne was more irresistible than most.

  She must have bewitched him, for he’d been unable to get her out of his head. It was more than the mystery of her, more than the long, curvy body encased in too-tight clothing. More than the raven blackness of her hair pulled smoothly back from her face, the unblemished silkiness of her ivory skin. Or the brilliant sapphire of her wide eyes peering at him from beneath the brim of her hat.

  “Why do people say they’re blue, do ye think?” he heard himself ask.

  “You mean in reference to sadness?”

  Connor nodded. “Aye, as if the color subdues happiness? Your eyes are joy itself.”

  Looking away from her, he shook his head, marveling at his ability to spout such drivel and wondering where that spat of balderdash had come from. Gads, he had reached the middle of his twenties without ever once spouting such callow poesy. Gathering his courage, he shot Mrs. Milbourne a quick gl
ance, convinced she’d be laughing at his idiocy.

  Instead her head was bowed, a rosy blush on her pale cheeks, and a hint of a smile on her lips. If he had to guess, he’d say she was flattered…nay, pleased by his bumbling compliment.

  She must have wed young indeed.

  Clearing his throat, he touched her elbow to prompt her into motion. Grasping at the first and most mundane conversation he could conjure, he gestured to the book clasped tightly in her hands. “What are ye reading?”

  She held up the book as if surprised by its presence. “Middlemarch.” Her voice bore a huskiness it hadn’t possessed before. She coughed to dislodge it. “George Eliot. Have you read it?”

  Connor nodded, thankful for the change of subject. “Aye. I found it to be filled with numerous passages of pronounced sagacity.”

  “Yes!”

  That same smile she’d favored Bram with months ago, the one that lingered in his dreams and roused him unbearably, blossomed on her lips. It held the same joy and, aye, relief as before, and rendered him as lightheaded as it had the first time. ‘Twas a dangerous weapon the lass wielded.

  Her eyes darted to the book before rising to meet his. “There have been moments where I’m of the opinion that the author somehow knows me. The narrative speaks to my life with astonishing resonance.”

  Did she know what such an admission revealed about her life, Connor wondered. In the novel, the main characters contract an ill-advised marriage with Dorothea struggling against Casaubon’s attempts to subjugate her. Eventually Dorothea is freed from her mistake when her elderly husband dies. Of a heart attack, if he remembered correctly.

  Was she suggesting a parallel to her own life experience? Or perhaps Mrs. Milbourne referred to Dorothea’s passion for social reform. That had been Fiona’s takeaway from the novel.

  “Do you have a favorite line?” She paused and turned to him, her expression clear of the more troubling implications of her pronouncement.

  “Aye. ‘The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.’”

  After a heartbeat, her laughter burst forth like the sweetest of chimes, light and musical, as he’d hoped it would. He relished the smile on her lips and the swell of delight in his heart. A dimple flashed in her left cheek, and without thinking, he lifted his hand to cradle her jaw, his thumb grazing the indentation.

  She froze, his bonny doe, her eyes rounded, though not filled with distrust this time. She didn’t run away or even tense. In fact, Connor thought she pressed her cheek ever so subtly to his palm. The next moment, mind too dulled by her presence to check his impulses, his mouth swept over hers and settled there. Her gasp of surprise died against his lips, her kiss soft and chaste. He made no effort to deepen it further, but enjoyed several long moments savoring the taste of her. The rush of simple pleasure. Exhilarating desire.

  And would have sworn they were lips that had never been kissed before.

  Raising his head, he stared down at her upturned face and something flip-flopped in his chest. He’d never seen anything as enticing. Eyes yet closed, her lashes an ebony fan across her flushed cheeks. Her lips damp, slightly parted. Begging him to resume his tender exploration.

  Another need called for him, though. One having far less to do with desire than he would have liked. It sobered him. This sweet innocent lass, so taken by wariness that it blanketed her like the mightiest steel armament.

  Until one found the chink in her armor.

  “What do ye run from, Mrs. Milbourne?”

  Chapter 5

  ‘But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.’ When I read that line aloud today, so much of what I’ve done, what I felt, began to make sense. Despair came upon me the day I realized my hopes that Harry would come to my aid would never come to fruition.

  ~ from the diary of Piper Brudenall, August 1895

  It took a moment for the intoxicating rush of his kiss to be burned away by Connor’s solemn question. The need to flee set upon her much more readily. Before she managed a single step, he caught her arm to stay her flight. The delight he’d infused her with minutes before was offset by an influx of panic.

  “Nay, lass, dinnae run. Ye have nothing to fear from me.” Contrary to the quiet reassurance in his brogue, her heart hammered against her ribs. She refused to call it fear. This was betrayal. As if life hadn’t already proven itself a cautionary tale. “Lassie. Please, I want nae more than to help ye. Trust me.”

  He released her and Piper stumbled back a step, then spun on her heel determined to run. Not more than two paces away, she stopped.

  What good would it do to flee? Unless she wanted to curtail the general practice of living more than she already had and keep to her cottage without exception, she sensed there would be no hiding from him any longer.

  Damn him.

  Anger welled, hot as the fires of hell. She whirled back, brimming with fury. “You said you would allow me my secrets! A promise that lasted mere minutes. How can I trust you at all?”

  Connor shook his head, compassion in his tender gaze. “Och, lass. There are secrets and there are burdens. One keeps a confidence and the other weighs on you. If you let it go unchecked, it will drive ye into the ground. Let me share it wi’ ye. Bear the burden and help ye if I can.”

  “I have no need for your help.” Her ire lost some of its heat to the despair that had long encumbered her. “No one can help me.”

  Not against the greater threat.

  He shook his head, denying her certainty. “I cannae believe that’s true. There is always help to be had if one asks it of the right person.”

  Every fiber of her being denied the implication that he was the right person to ask. Every nerve in her body demanded she run. The fortitude and tenderness in his eyes held her there. They weren’t merely green as she’d thought. His irises were rimmed in the darkest forest green, fading to a moody moss speckled with shades of light olive and chartreuse.

  Those eyes had ensnared her interest and sparked her imagination from the moment they’d met. Nevertheless, whatever fantasies she might’ve had—and they were legion given her general boredom during the long, lonely summer nights—Connor wasn’t the sort of man she would ever seriously entertain. If she’d been given the chance to entertain beaux, that was.

  He wasn’t the chivalrous knight she’d imagined him to be.

  From what she’d heard from the staff at the Grange and Jane’s gossip from around the county, Connor was droll of wit and capricious with his attentions. None of the ladies could capture his regard for more than a few minutes at a time. Good humor and fellowship might provide for an amusing diversion, but in her experience, they weren’t the qualities of a steadfast gentleman. A man who would be present when a lady needed him and honor the promises he made her.

  She had no need for a man like her brother.

  “At least you didn’t say, if one only had faith enough. I’ve heard that particular lie too many times.” A harsh huff of laughter burst from Piper, acrid in its lack of humor.

  Trust wouldn’t be a risk. It would be foolhardy.

  Her misgivings must have shown on her face. “What a suspicious lass ye are,” he chided with a hint of sadness. “Have ye never kent a person motivated by kindness alone?”

  A denial died on the tip of her tongue. Too often she dwelled on the moment of her defeat, when she realized for the first time that she was vulnerable and alone. In those times, she neglected to remember there was compassion in the world. She couldn’t say she’d never known people of that sort. The people of Dinton Grange showered and sheltered her with their kindness. Her secret was kept through Jane’s benevolence. By people she’d known her entire life.

  Having it offered by a stranger after a sparse three meetings…well yes, she found his motivations suspect.

  ‘What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?’

  As Mr. MacKintosh claimed one line from the book resonated with him, this one�
��much farther along in the story than she’d read today—leapt back into her memory with astonishing clarity despite the fact that it had been years since she’d read it. The tale proved itself anew to be far more relevant in her present day life than it had been before.

  Distrust.

  It was perhaps the source of all her loneliness. It had driven her to Aylesbury and kept her in hiding ever since. Distrust that her confidence in her brother would once again be unrequited.

  She’d denied it at first. Held faith in Harry through dozens of unanswered letters, certain that he would come to her aid. Each day that passed without a response, her conviction had faltered. She hadn’t understood why he didn’t write her. Why he didn’t come home.

  She still didn’t.

  Despite her mother’s repetitive vitriol, she hadn’t wanted to believe that her brother would forsake her. Such sudden abandonment was out of character. Yet the daily letters Piper wrote left the house, and she was the first to check the incoming post each day. If her mother intercepted his missives, she’d never been able to determine how. A surreptitious visit to his townhouse in Belgravia led to the discovery that he’d left the country weeks before.

  Through each upset, she’d held out hope beyond hope that it was all a misunderstanding. Harry would return and confirm her unshakeable trust in the end.

  He hadn’t.

  Then it had been too late. Whatever reasons he might have had to excuse or validate his absence, no longer mattered to her. Her belief in her brother had cracked, then shattered. She’d ended up facing her circumstances alone.

  Loneliness was a small price to pay for escape.

  Throwing her hands in the air, Piper spun around and walked away from Connor. Where she would go with him following behind, she didn’t know. Going to the Grange would heap interrogations aplenty upon the staff there. Those she did trust to keep her presence—if not her actual secrets—concealed. They didn’t deserve to be questioned for their friendship and loyalty.