Once Upon a Highland Christmas

by Lecia Cornwall

  “And?” she asked.

  “And what?”

  “Do I have a fever?”

  He swallowed, and she watched his throat bob. “No. Annie’s a very good healer, and you’re young and strong.” He swallowed again, and she saw the shadow pass through his eyes. “You’re safe now, and you’ll be well again soon.”

  Alanna gripped the edge of the thick blankets that covered her. “I almost died, didn’t I? How foolish.”

  He held her gaze. “But you didn’t, and that’s what’s important.”

  “Because of you. I owe you my thanks, my lord.”

  “Just Iain will do, and there’s no need for thanks—­I only did what was necessary.”

  “Necessary,” she parroted, and blushed, remembering the way she’d woken to discover both of them naked, with only a plaid between them.

  He flushed. “I mean that I wasn’t taking advantage of you because of the situation. It was necessary to warm you, and for that you—­and I—­had to be—­”

  “Naked,” she murmured.

  He rose again and went to the window, pulled back the heavy drape and looked out. Alanna could see nothing but white. “You were cold as ice, deeply unconscious. It’s the best way to warm a body. Ask Annie.”

  “Thank you,” she said again, unsure of what else to say. Safer to change the subject. “I see it’s still snowing.”

  “Aye,” he said. “I’m afraid you’ll be here a few days more. Annie says she can’t recall so much snow coming so quickly. We’ll try and get your letter through to your kin. Are you fretting about your wedding?”

  Her wedding. She’d forgotten that. Almost. “Oh—­yes, of course,” she managed, and suddenly hoped the snow would keep right on falling and never stop, that she would have to stay here forever, and never have to wed Merridew at all. “You as well—­when is your wedding day?” she asked.

  “Mine?” He looked surprised.

  “Lady Penelope is very pretty.”

  “Oh.” He gazed out the window again. “I suppose she is. She’s my cousin. My English cousin. We’ve only just recently—­” He stopped. “Why did you write to your brother instead of your betrothed?”

  “I just thought of him first,” she said. She hadn’t realized how much she missed her brother, and Glenlorne itself, until she’d picked up the quill. And hadn’t Iain told her that the way to Dundrummie, through Glen Dorian, was impassable? Alec would find a way to get word to her mother—­if her letter reached him, of course. She felt a sharp pang of guilt that her family had no idea what had become of her, might be thinking the worst. She was causing them tremendous pain and worry. She should have stayed put, and not—­

  “Did you run away?” Iain turned away from the window and was leaning on the sill, fixing her with a sober, gray-­eyed gaze.

  She felt her skin heat. Of course she hadn’t. Not really. She’d just gone out for a walk. But the truth was that she hadn’t been able to make her feet turn, walk back to Dundrummie, knowing she must face Lord Merridew, and marry him. It had seemed so much easier to just keep moving forward, heading away from—­everything. Good heavens, she had run away. There was no other explanation for it. She lowered her eyes to the blanket, stared at the soft green wool. “I most certainly did not run away!” she said aloud. “I gave my word, and my mother is counting on me.”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “Your mother? You’ve mentioned your mother and your brother. What of your fiancé?”

  “He’s English.”

  “Like Penelope.”

  “Yes,” she said. Though Merridew was not young or good-­looking. Nor was there love, or even admiration, as there was between Iain and his intended. She felt a moment of envy. Lady Penelope would have Iain, and she would be the one to wake up next to him every morning. “I just went for a wee walk to get some fresh air before . . . he . . . arrived.” She couldn’t bring herself to speak his name, not in front of Iain MacGillivray, her rescuer, her hero.

  He folded his arms over his chest. “A dozen miles in a blinding snowstorm is hardly a wee walk. You’re fortunate to be alive.”

  She felt irritation chafe, heat her skin, and she pushed the covers back slightly, tried to sit up. “Is it so hard to think that I simply lost track of time, and the storm caught me unawares, made me lose my way? Is there anything wicked in that? Shall I thank you again? I truly am grateful, my lord earl.”

  “Just Iain,” he said again. His brow furrowed. “Is that my shirt?”

  She’d forgotten she was wearing it. Annie had given it to her as a makeshift nightgown when she’d taken Alanna’s own clothes away to be cleaned and repaired. She shifted. The homespun linen was soft against her breasts. She folded her arms over her body. “Um, yes. Annie gave it to me, just until she can return my gown. I did not mean to impose.”

  “No, you look quite fetching—­I mean, you’re welcome to wear it.” He looked stricken as he backed toward the door. “I should find Annie, tell her you’re awake—­” He bumped into the chair next to the desk, caught and righted it before it fell, and found the door. He set his hand on the latch. “I’ll go then, send Annie up, tell her you’re—­” He swallowed, probably realizing he was repeating himself. She made him nervous, and that made her nervous. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she could only stare back at him.

  She watched as he opened the door and darted through it with a final nod of farewell. She lay very still and stared at the door. No man had ever made her feel the way Iain MacGillivray did, unsure in her skin, breathless, nervous. Perhaps it was circumstances, the aftereffects of the storm, and her injury, or the fact that he’d saved her life. Just that. She wished she could be certain. She sighed, settled deeper into the bed, and closed her eyes. She would think about this tomorrow, when she was not so befuddled.

  IAIN LEANED AGAINST the wall outside the door and put the heel of his hand against his forehead, trying to banish the image of Alanna McNabb wearing his shirt, in his bed, her hair spread in a wanton, sexy tumble across his pillow. And under that shirt, she was as naked as she’d been at the cottage. He forced his mind to turn, do an about-­face, away from danger. What would Penelope look like wearing his shirt? He couldn’t even imagine it. He’d had the damnedest desire to touch Alanna, to lay his hand on her forehead again, to stroke her cheek, see if it was as soft and warm as it looked, though he already knew it was. She’d lain in his arms all night, and she was soft as a rose petal everywhere. All the places his shirt now covered.

  Surely he was under a spell. He wasn’t immune to a pretty face, wasn’t a green lad when it came to women. But no woman had ever affected him the way Alanna did—­and she was right, he was betrothed to Penelope, well, almost.

  And she belonged to another man.

  He turned away from the door and stalked down the stairs to the library, where he took out the accounts. He needed an hour or two with numbers, dry figures, time to grapple with the job of trying to spread too little money over too much need. That should take his mind off Alanna McNabb.

  The woman who lay in his bed, wearing only his shirt.

  Chapter Twelve

  LADY MARJORIE CURRY sighed as she sipped her tea in bed. She was the daughter of the sixth Earl of Purbrick, the widow of a viscount, and the last in the long line of Marstons that had sadly ended with her uncle—­well, there was still Iain, of course. His name was supposed to be Marston, not MacGillivray. Her grandfather, the fifth earl, had had three strapping sons, and the future appeared set for the powerful Marston family. But in just two generations, the male line had dwindled down to just one person, Iain, more Scottish barbarian than English gentleman. It was a terrible shame.

  If her uncle had had married a stronger wife, a woman capable of breeding more than a single sickly boy who’d died in childhood, and if his brother had not died young, and if her own brother had not gone off and m
arried a Scottish laird’s daughter for love and took the name of his wife’s clan—­MacGillivray—­and begotten a strong, healthy son, Marjorie would not be here, in Scotland, at this moment. She made a face and set her teacup down. She would be home in England enjoying better tea, at the very least.

  But she was the last Marston, and this was her duty. With her uncle in his grave, she had been forced to make this trip, to take things in hand, as it were. She glared at the cup and saucer on the tray. Even the cup itself was a poor thing, plainly made for utility rather than beauty.

  Like Iain MacGillivray himself—­ordinary and rough around the edges, even if he was useful. It was up to her to mold Iain into the next Earl of Purbrick, even if that was the last thing either of them wanted.

  Marjorie added another spoonful of sugar to the pallid tea in hopes of improving it, sipped again, and grimaced. A Scot as the Earl of Purbrick. It still seemed impossible, and she’d had nearly three months to come to terms with it. They would be the laughingstock of the English aristocracy if she couldn’t make this—­him—­work.

  She gave up on the tea. She had not set eyes on Iain MacGillivray since he was a green, half-­grown boy, brought by his father to visit his English kin at Woodford Park. He’d filled out since then, was handsome, and at least looked the part, thanks to his English blood no doubt—­and that was fortunate, since Penelope would have to marry him. Still, she fretted, a handsome face was no guarantee of a man’s honor.

  Penelope’s father had been fine looking indeed—­breathtakingly so. He’d also been cursed with a fondness for brandy and gambling. Viscount Aldridge had lost his fortune twice over while in his cups, and he’d died young, just after Elizabeth turned two, which had been more of a relief than a great sorrow. Upon his death, his title had passed to a distant cousin, who’d neither known his predecessor’s widow and her two young daughters, nor wanted them in residence at his new home. Marjorie had packed up her daughters and returned to the elegant sanctuary of Woodford Park, where her uncle had been more than happy to welcome her home and make her his hostess.

  Marjorie had hoped—­expected—­that her uncle would make provisions for Penelope and Elizabeth in his will, leaving them enough for decent dowries at the very least, but the sixth earl had left nothing at all to the girls, or to Marjorie. Without dowries, the girls could not hope to wed men of power, wealth, and stature. Pretty as Penelope was, her beauty alone would not make the kind of match Marjorie wanted for her daughter. And without a financial legacy of her own, Marjorie would also be consigned to rot in a small cottage somewhere out of the way, forgotten.

  She wished now that she had not dismissed her young Scottish nephew as a worthless bumpkin when she’d met him all those years ago. She could have cultivated a friendship—­ or at least an acquaintance—­with the boy who was now going to be her salvation.

  He hadn’t yet proposed to Penelope. He must, of course, be brought to the point, forced to it, if necessary. She smoothed the frown lines away from her brow. Penelope was exceedingly pretty, and raised to be a countess. It baffled Marjorie that Iain had not dropped to his knees and proposed the moment he’d met his lovely cousin. There was not another woman at Craigleith who could be considered even remotely attractive—­not when compared with Penelope. Marjorie had assumed the man would be all too eager to take such a fine lady to wife, but he was proving remarkably stubborn about it, or perhaps he was just slow. Marjorie had hinted to her daughter—­sharply—­that if Iain would not come to the point, then Penelope must do whatever was necessary to make him propose.

  She was determined that before Iain set foot inside Woodford Park’s hallowed halls, Penelope would be the next Countess of Purbrick.

  Penelope need only give birth to a strong, healthy son, and her duty would be done. Iain looked more than capable of breeding healthy boys. Marjorie would carefully raise her grandson to be the next earl—­a proper English earl.

  She laid a finger against her cheek and smiled. There was so much to be done, so many things to take charge of. There was Christmas, first of all—­they would have a proper English Christmas, not the bannock-­and-­bagpipe slapdash kind of thing the folk here were no doubt accustomed to.

  And before the wedding vows were said, Marjorie planned to insist that Iain change his name back to Marston. She imagined the wedding invitations, stating that Lady Penelope Curry would wed the esteemed Earl of Purbrick, Lord Iain Marston. Or better still, he might be coerced to use the English version of his Chris­tian name too, become John Marston, a proper English name no one could find fault with.

  She nibbled on the edge of her toast, then tossed it back on the plate in disgust. Rough brown bread was all they seemed to have here. How she missed fresh, warm white rolls, served on a bone china plate with strawberry preserves and thick English cream.

  The door burst open. Marjorie opened her mouth to scold the invader for failing to knock, but she stopped at the sight of Penelope’s stricken face.

  “Darling girl, whatever is the matter?” She’d instructed Penelope to encourage Iain to kiss her. Surely the man hadn’t insulted her, taken it too far, or not far enough.

  “Iain brought a woman home,” Penelope said, and Marjorie felt a sharp stab of anger in her chest.

  “A woman? What kind of woman?” A doxie, perhaps, or a mistress?

  “He found her in the snow, lost on the moor, injured,” Penelope said. She folded her arms over her bosom and stuck out her lower lip like a mutinous child.

  Marjorie sighed. “Some local woman, I assume, a Highlander.” She let her lip curl on the last word.

  “She’s a lady,” Penelope said.

  Marjorie’s brows shot upward. A lady? “Scottish or English?”

  “Scottish. But her brother is an earl.”

  Marjorie clenched her fists under the bedclothes, but she forced her face to register flat calm for the moment. “Is she plain or—­” She couldn’t say it.

  Penelope looked at her hands, studied her ringless finger. “Oh, she’s pretty. Iain carried her here, through the snow, wrapped in half his clothing.”

  “Half his clothing?” Marjorie set the tray aside. “What on earth does that mean?” Penelope shrugged. “Don’t shrug, dear,” Marjorie said. “It’s common, and a countess is never common.”

  Penelope clasped her hands at her waist, raised her chin, and squared her shoulders. “She was wearing his plaid, and his handkerchief was tied around her knee. She was hurt, you see, needed help.”

  “Oh.” Marjorie felt relief course through her veins. “It’s of no matter, then. Have you kissed Iain yet?”

  Penelope’s lip stuck even further out, making her look most unkissable. “I tried, but—­”

  “But what?” Marjorie prompted.

  “What am I to do, throw myself at him, force him to kiss me?”

  If that’s what it takes, Marjorie thought. “He’s a quiet man. Perhaps he’s shy,” she said aloud instead. Or maybe he was stubborn, or unutterably stupid. Marjorie gave her daughter an encouraging smile, reached out to squeeze her fingers. “You must do more to encourage him, smile, flirt, compliment him, draw him out—­”

  “He doesn’t seem shy with her,” Penelope huffed. “In fact, everyone here is treating it like it’s some kind of magic that she appeared out of the snow.”

  Marjorie frowned. “Magic? Don’t be silly. These are simple folk. They see magic in everything, divine the future from visions seen in bread dough or in the shape of clouds. I’m sure Iain is just being polite or kind to this strange woman. I understand it’s a Highland custom to offer visitors anything they want or need. It’s some sort of code they live by.”

  “Even his bed?” Penelope asked.

  The tea turned into a whirlpool in Marjorie’s belly. “His bed? Was he in it with her?” She kept her tone flat, incurious.

  “No,” Penelope said. “He int
ends to sleep in the tower until she’s gone. Still—­”

  Marjorie sighed. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. No doubt she’ll be leaving very soon, going back where she came from. You simply need to try a little harder with Iain. Some men require more convincing than others, must be shown what they want, led to it. Flatter him, charm him,” she began again, but the door opened again and Elizabeth barged in, her eyes bright.

  “There’s a visitor!” she said. Marjorie frowned at her youngest daughter. Her hair was half-­combed, her gown plain, her face pink with mischief. Would the child ever learn manners and decorum?

  “Penelope was just telling me about her,” Marjorie said in a bland voice.

  “She’s so pretty, and Fiona says she’s nice too,” Elizabeth babbled.

  Penelope rubbed her temples. “Do be quiet,” she said.

  “What else do you know about her, Eliza?” Marjorie asked, as Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed and eyed the uneaten toast on the tray.

  “Well, she’s the sister of the Earl of Glenlorne, and she’s betrothed. She got lost in the storm on the eve of her wedding, which was supposed to be today, and Iain found her and saved her life. If he hadn’t seen her in the snow, she would have frozen, been lost forever. Isn’t that romantic? They were forced to take shelter in an empty cottage for the whole night. Her leg is hurt, and Iain has to carry her. Auld Annie says she weighs less than a snowflake, and she’s here by magic.”

  “Magic again?” Penelope demanded.

  “Annie says the snow brought her—­or she brought the snow. I can’t remember which. Fiona says Christmas is the time of year for magic here, though it seems to me that most days are magical in Scotland. Are you going to eat your toast, Mama?”