by Lisa Torquay
She would give anything, just about anything, to roam their stables—even if only for five minutes.
And she could help them in this. She was good with horses, loved them, loved riding and everything related to their care. Since childhood, she had been interested in horses. Most of the first fourteen years she spent in the McTavish manor had been dedicated to their stable. Of course, they did not possess the same kind of top-of-the-top quality one found in the McKendrick’s stables, but still…
In time, she would be related to the powerful clan, she would be Fingal’s sister-in-law, after all. It would not take too long for her to have the opportunity to visit them.
But that was likely years in the future…
What was she thinking? Not considering…? No, surely not.
What if she had the chance, though? Her mother would not mind if she travelled for a few weeks, would she? Summer drew close, and they would leave London for her family’s seat in the country anyway.
Temptation assailed her like a storm. The longing for her birthplace and the possibility of visiting such a mythic collection of equines. Oh, how marvellous!
Trying to convince her mother would be a chore, no doubt. Catriona could travel with her maid. They had more than one carriage; Debranua would come, too. She was in for the best summer in many, many years.
If you never try, you never know, goes the saying.
Without thinking any further, she rushed to her escritoire and grabbed paper and ink.
“Why on Earth would you want to spend the summer in Scotland?” her mother asked in a rather high-pitched tone.
The conversation played out not for the first time. Or the second. For days, Catriona had been on a field campaign to convince her mother. The first day she had mentioned the subject, Lady McTavish almost had a fit. To hear that her first-born wanted to travel by herself to the very confines of the planet did not ring conventional at all. But then, Catriona never stuck too much to tradition. Not the English ones, mind you. But this request blew up all the previous little eccentricities her daughter had ever displayed.
When, as a girl, she asked to wear a tartan dress right in the middle of London, her mother granted her wish once or twice. When, as a youth, she asked to oversee the breeding of the horses, the parent allowed it for a short while. When, as a debutante, she had wondered if she could learn to ride astride, her mother deemed it too much. Though she later came to know the girl had tried it in a trip to the Highlands.
But this…?
So her mother was well aware of how her eldest longed for that savage country, with roads that were more potholes than paved ways, with a primitive system of clans, and Gaelic, a language that resisted modernity. Thankfully, the McTavish had consented to his lady educating the girls in London, the bastion of civilization and refinement. Even if he used to argue that those pristine qualities rested only on the surface, for how could the city be so civilised if it contained Southwark? How could it be so refined with its most shameful currency—sex—and prostitution of all kinds? His wife gave him no heed, however, and got her wish to bring her daughters here.
“I thought to stay there for a while.” Catriona kept her voice neutral, but the eagerness that coursed through her would be enough to heat the house for several winters.
“This is absolutely out of the ordinary!” Her brows pleated in contrariety.
“I see, mama. But you know I miss it there terribly.” She used a confessional voice in the hopes to move Marie. “Don’t deny me, please.”
Lady McTavish rubbed her brow in worry. Then she looked at her daughter and sighed, exasperated. “Alright, Catriona,” she said, defeated. Her hand stayed her daughter’s cheering. “But you take the smaller carriage, your maid, Flora, and a footman.” She paused and looked at her eldest firmly. “And when you return, we settle the engagement party with Tremaine.”
The condition disheartened her, but the victory of getting permission to travel overrode everything. “Thank you so dearly much, mama!” It came heartfelt.
“Should anything happen to you, your father will kill me!” she vented.
“I’ll be careful, don’t worry. And I’ll write you as soon as I arrive.” Her hands squeezed her mother’s, not hiding her excitement. “Oh, mama!” She enfolded the elder lady in a hug.
“Go, Catriona, before I come to my senses and change my mind.”
She did not waste any more time.
In the week traveling up north, Catriona thought through loose details of her adventure. She must divert her servants from her—white—lie. It occurred to her that she might give Flora and Peter, the footman, time for them to visit their families. The fewer people who knew she was there, the better. She would stay in an inn, close to the McKendrick. Her father would be with his family at their estate, but showing up at the McTavish manor would raise suspicion. She would be working in the McKendrick’s stables; her comings and goings would induce questions she did not want to answer. Her mare would be her transport, and the carriage and horses should remain at the inn.
With these issues sorted out, she relaxed and enjoyed the view of her homeland approaching.
CHAPTER TWO
The Highlands, Summer, 1811
Fiadhaich, Furious in Scottish Gaelic, the new stallion, stood in the centre of the stockyard, magnificent black fur gleaming in the sun. Fingal’s stable master held him by a rope, trying to get him used to being reined and saddled. For months now, the stallion had refused to comply. No amount of apples or oats had produced any progress towards such a goal.
Fingal had acquired him in an auction in Aberdeen, and the animal came with all the paperwork in order. At a distance, he watched his stable master’s efforts and wondered if he had struck a good bargain. His horseflesh made him proud, and he was equally as famous in all the Highlands for his expertise and love for his equine friends.
He should have asked the reason for the stallion’s name.
The unusually hot summer gifted them with a glaring sun which made him take off his sweaty shirt and stand there in just his tartan draped over his shoulder. His six feet four inches frame composed of pure steel became tanned with the exposure. Impossibly bright cinnamon eyes fringed with sooty long lashes stared at the stallion at a loss what to think, or what to do next.
Though what to do next had been taken care of as he had put an advertisement in The Times requesting horse experts to come have a look at Fiadhaich. Only a certain E. Paddington seemed willing to travel all the way from England to see the disobedient beast. McKendrick had chosen The Times for it had a broad circulation and would attract more specialised people.
Craig—an experienced horse trainer—attempted to pull the stallion into a trot around the fenced space, an idea the equine prince did not appreciate. Fiadhaich started digging his front hooves, neighing loudly. Craig approached him and extended his arm to touch his fur in a soothing way. The horse burst into a fury, launching his hooves in the air and pounding them on the dust uncontrollably. The stable master lost the rope as it whipped on the ground with the horse’s rebellion.
“Craig, get out of there!” Fingal shouted before the man got hurt.
But the furious animal jumped and back-kicked between the man and the gate, and the other sides of the stockyard were too high-fenced to climb quickly.
Fingal moved to run to the gate but stopped when a woman approached it. Delicate hands opened it and small booted feet went inside the enclosure, closing it behind her.
“What the—” Fingal cursed, unable to take his eyes off the lean figure.
With her spine straight, she stood barely inches from where the front hooves pounded the ground, staring up at the blue-blooded beast as if in fascination.
In a melodious voice, she talked to the horse as if they were old friends. He could not hear the words, merely the musical rhythm of it. He did not know if it was her figure or her voice that froze him on the spot, causing him to be too speechless to call the nincompoop out of the sto
ckyard.
The horse continued jumping and hammering his hooves menacingly on the dust, but the lass did not back down or stop talking in that hypnotic tone.
A rush of wind ripped her hat down to reveal a mane of the blackest hair he had ever seen in his life, made even blacker in contrast with her perfect alabaster skin, and coiled up in a crown of glossy braids. He could just see her profile of small nose, rosy lips and a long, elegant neck.
The lass extended her arms up as if to reach for the stallion, her figure stretched leaner under the simple walking dress. The sheer fabric, moulded to her feminine attributes, tantalized his cinnamon attention.
Fingal still could not take his stare off her. She looked like a nymph, a woods’ creature, a Diana in her element.
The horse hammered his hooves on the floor again, and she took the opportunity to rest her hand on his strong neck once it came down to her level. Fingal was about to shout for her to back away from the animal when the beast went still.
The crazy lass never stopped looking at the stallion or talking to him in that nymph’s voice of hers. She neared Fiadhaich even more and touched the long, elegant fingers of her other hand to him, caressing him fondly.
It felt as if her palms were on Fingal. Not just on any part of him. On his neck and chest. The sensation was so real, he swore her fingertips traced his hair-peppered skin from his collarbone down to his— Heat and arousal slammed into him as his eyes remained glued on the scene.
The lass smiled up to the beast. Even though he could barely see half of her smile, to Fingal two blazing suns shone in the daylight. Her smile was even brighter than the incandescent star above their heads. It blinded Fingal to everything else. She made matters worse, this insane Diana. Closing the distance between her and the horse, she hugged him and rested her head on his thick neck, her spine arching into the shiny black fur, accentuating her feminine lines. Fiadhaich became as docile as a kitten.
Who would not?
It was as if she had fastened her irresistible, shapely frame to Fingal and stroked her fingers through his dark-brown luxuriant hair. His temper flared with his reaction, though he thought he might go as docile as his horse had she done the same to him.
This realisation sprung him into action. He stalked to the gate with an angry scowl. “What the hell do you think you are doing, you brainless lass?” His hoarse, flinty tone helped very little.
The nymph turned her back to the horse without a second thought to her safety. “Oh, I am sorry, sir.” The cut-glass, top-rank, English accent was unmistakable. It cut through his guts with none of its sharpness and all of its melting, seducing quality, aided by her musical voice. “I could not resist such a darling,” she completed to his incredulous ears, but in a voice which Fiadhaich must have become addicted for he never moved even a muscle.
A darling? his hazy brain countered.
“A Sassenach?” was the only thing his throat was capable of producing. Because now he saw her enormous eyes as dark as her glorious hair and became even more mesmerised. And her lips were not only pink, which would have been easier to tackle, but they were also full in a damned suggestive way. In that suggestive way.
A polite smile stretched those appetising lips while she curtsied with graceful elegance. “Emily Paddington, the horse-whisperer, at your service, sir.”
Fingal displayed an ugly frown. What the—
A horse-whisperer?
And a woman?
Bluidy hell!
Catriona hoped she had been able to hide the impact that the man bludgeoned on her. He must be the most gorgeous specimen alive on the planet, in a state of dishabille completely foreign to someone used to the formality of the ton. She kept her mouth from falling open at the bunched muscles, the imposing height and the eyes that glittered in the sun. Those bright orbs measured her from hatless head to booted toes, sowing heat and goose-bumps in their wake. She had no idea who he was; all the men there were dressed in the McKendrick’s plaid. He could as well be the stable master. Whoever he was, she would never be able to forget the rugged beauty of him. The giant god was scowling at her, which did nothing to diminish the veritable steam climbing up her skin.
Her breath caught as a random thought assailed her fogged head. There would be no polite lifting of nightgowns with this one, no. He would tear it from his woman and plunge both in a furnace of unbidden delights. The image darted in her head to soar the temperature of a place in her she did not even have a name to, but now knew its exact location—in the very centre of her. Catriona gulped air in search of a modicum of self-control.
“He isnna a ‘sir,’” a middle-aged man said from the other side of the temperamental horse. Her head turned to him, grateful to eliminate the god’s frame from her sight. “He is Laird Fingal.”
And just like that, everything that had been red-hot inside her went cold. Frigid. This spectacular specimen would become her brother-in-law. How unlucky was that?
“There will be no woman horse-whisperer around here.” Her ears registered his deep, commanding voice before it did the meaning. “You can head right home, Sassenach.”
Catriona’s attention rounded on him and collided with those cinnamon eyes attacking her with contrariety and something else she could not read but warmed her up all over again. Her face morphed into pure rebellion. Who did this…this scoundrel think he was to treat her like that? He might be impressive, but he needed dire work on his social skills.
Delicate chin inched up in defiance. “You allowed me to come all the way to this god-forsaken hole only to send me back?” Clearly, she did not believe his stables to be a hole, even less forsaken. At first sight, they were fascinating, to say the least. The rogue got to her temper, though.
“You did not sign your female name on your letter,” he threw out, fists going to his tapered waist, legs bracing apart. His disagreement with her words could not be more blatant.
The movement displayed his overgrown biceps and lifted his chest even higher, half of it uncovered by his tartan and glaring their hair-peppered bronzed magnificence for her to feast on shamelessly. And a dusky nipple. For pity’s sake, she had never thought of male nipples before, let alone seen one. Its display was a cruel act when it induced the most lamentable wish for a tactile experience. A very tactile and very…extended experience.
Her eyes darted back to his suddenly—she had not noticed that they had strayed in the first place. Her cheeks flushed the brightest red. A side-smile on that sculpted mouth said he did not miss it.
“You have a need for a horse expert. I am one. Names and genders don’t signify,” she countered, happy to be able to formulate at least one coherent line.
Laird Fingal scoffed. “So, if I said in the advertisement that I had a problem with a mare instead of a stallion, it would not have signified?”
Now it was her turn to place her hands on her waist and look daggers at him. The man annoyed the blazes out of her, which made her even more defiant. “The problem with a horse would have been the same,” she cast back, because the real issue here was what they did not put into words, was it not? This unease straining between them.
His glare narrowed, and she guessed it might be because he owned no answer to that. His gaze faltered, too, lowering to her uplifted bosom, only to slowly come back to her eyes. Heated. A heat to which her insides responded in kind.
“My laird,” the middle-aged man spoke again. “Begging yer pardon.”
“Craig,” came the deep answer.
“The lass seems to have a gift.” One of his hands raised and scratched his forehead. “And ye’ve been trying long and hard.” The hand fell to his side. “We canna afford ter let the chance escape.”
Fingal’s scrutiny clasped with her again. “How experienced are you with horses?”
That the giant dignified to ask counted as a small victory. “My father has a modest stable, and I have been dealing in it since I was a toddler, Mr McKendrick.” She would not call him my laird for the life of
her. Such deference would inflate the scoundrel’s ego even more.
Fingal dragged on glaring at the Sassenach—as if he had even a tiny chance of doing anything else. She spelt trouble. Sheer, incandescent trouble. From her defiant eyes, to her full, delectable breasts, to her firmly planted feet. Men lost their heads for much less. He did not usually think with his…lower parts, but he had a feeling she would mess up all his parts given the opportunity. The secret was not to give her such an opportunity.
Craig got it right. They needed someone with her ability; she had proven it in a mere five minutes. It would be safer to send her on her way, he knew. The circumstances did not allow for that, though--the solution being to let her do her trick as fast as she could and then send her well on her way.
“Fine,” he emitted to distract from nonsense. “Send someone to pick her things up from wherever she’s staying.” His men stood on alert. “She’s to move to my manor post-haste.”
The others scrambled into action while the lass moved to go.
“And Miss Paddington.” She turned those enormous eyes on him, and he almost lost his speech. “We start tomorrow at dawn.” If she proved to be the lazy kind, she would be in for a hard time here.
“I’ll be here,” she answered without giving signs of disgust at the early hours.
Drostan got him with a foot down the aisle, with his full cooperation. Fingal did not have the choice to veer from this track. So, in the last year, he renovated the old manor Drostan had turned over to him. It took time, but he owned a presentable home now. One he was glad to go back to at the end of an exhausting day. Like today.
Except that today there would be a guest in residence.
An intriguing guest.
One he would make sure to forget all about in three seconds.
Three, two, one…
Nope, not happening, my laird.
Catriona looked up at the construction before her and her lungs released air in a gasp. A splendid manor stood before her all erected in grey stone, probably from the seventeenth century. A round tower with battlements on one side, elongated in the shape of a tall house on the other. She counted four floors in the tower and three on the roof-topped house. The stones showed the marks of time, which added to their charm. As she stepped inside, it took her breath away. It had clearly received recent attention with new panelled walls and polished floor boards. Impeccable drapes decorated the diamond-shaped windows and the huge fireplace in the main room looked inviting and cosy, though not yet lit.
