Master of the Highlands

by Veronica Wolff

Page 23

 

  John had tuned in at the mention of his surname. Ewen hadn’t disclosed more than the barest of details about Lily ’s origins, and the boy was now looking puzzled. Lily quickly replied, “Yes, quite. ” She was anxious to change the subject. Rowena’s eyes were intense, and Lily feared whatever machinations they might be hiding. She was obviously territorial when it came to the Cameron laird ’s family; that Lily was traipsing on Rowena’s domain was about as evident as a cloud of stink from a skunk.

  “And just where in France are you from?” Rowena’s tone hinted that any place other than a cow pasture would come as a surprise.

  “Oh …” Lily’s mind raced for the most believable cover story, something that wouldn ’t have changed too much over the years. She had only traveled through France once, and her memories were dominated by sidewalk cafes and the Eurail. “Just a small village, you probably wouldn’t have heard of it. ”

  “Try me. The French countryside is so … très charmant, n’est-ce pas?” Rowena’s gaze narrowed. “What’s the name of your village?”

  Dread unfurled in Lily’s belly. She had to choose probably the one Francophile—and a nasty one at that—in all the Highlands to test her story on.

  “Oh …” Panicking, Lily could only recall place names from art history class. French Impressionist images of lavender water lilies and golden hay bales flickered through her mind. Not entirely sure how to pronounce Giverny, she quickly said, “Arles. ” Lily hoped nobody pressed her for details because all she knew of Arles came from Van Gogh paintings.

  “Arles. ” Rowena rolled it speculatively over her tongue. Lily tried not to look visibly relieved that the woman didn’t seem to recognize the name.

  “Yes. Arles, ” Lily replied with what she hoped was a tone of finality.

  “Well. ” Silence hung for a moment between the two women, then a fan gracefully appeared in Rowena’s hand and she flicked it open with a dramatic flourish. “I don’t know how you stand this heat! ”

  Lily quietly exhaled at the topic change. She seemed to have survived round one of Rowena’s interrogation.

  The woman gave a coquettish tilt to her head and began fanning at her neck and breast. “I am myself not particularly accustomed to the outdoors but”—pursing her lips into a grin, she studied Lily’s face “I can tell from — the … healthy color in your cheeks that you often find yourself alfresco. ”

  Lily couldn ’t imagine what Ewen saw in this woman. Or rather, she could guess exactly what he must see in her. Flawlessly pretty, delicate, and, if the way she doted on John was any indication, she must have been downright fawning with his father.

  “Yes, ” Lily replied, mustering all the grace she could manage. No longer able to bear being the sole focus of Rowena’s inquiry, Lily looked to John for a little relief and asked the boy amiably “We have a good time, don ’, t we John?”

  He merely scowled and, spotting a gang of kids down the road, ran off, managing to tromp on Lily’s skirt in the process.

  Lily glanced back at Rowena in time to catch her hissing a barely audible “Savage” under her breath. Then just as swiftly as the cattiness had appeared, serenity bloomed on Rowena’s features, a beatific smile washing over her face like a single wave smoothing a sandy shore.

  Lily shivered and made a mental note to steer clear of this particular brand of poison in a corset.

  Chapter 14

  “Och, lass, you ’re like a wet cat trapped in a sack! Now stand yourself still while …”

  Kat cinched Lily’s corset a hair tighter, and Lily could’ve sworn she heard a rib crack. “Oh! ” Lily exclaimed, then grumbled, “I don ’t understand why women do this. ”

  “Surely, lass, you ’ve corsets in France?”

  “Yes, of course we do, I just meant …” Lily fumbled to change the topic. She was growing too friendly with the maid and needed to remember to guard her words. “It ’s just, please Kat, I appreciate the effort, but any more and my breasts are going to knock against my chin. ”

  Kat’s pale, freckled features flushed red and Lily was amazed at how the maid could speak so candidly about some topics yet positively quail at others.

  Over the past month, Lily had used some of her old-fashioned American boldness to chisel away at the maid ’s timidity, and she was quite satisfied to discover a mutual appreciation there. Kat was very aware of propriety and her place in the household, but between Lily’s mysterious origins and her function as child ’s governess, she existed, if not in the servant ’s class, in a peripheral role in the household. Each was unsure how to regard the other, and as a result they discovered a kind of amicable fellowship. Besides, Lily figured she needed all the kind faces she could get.

  Kat had spent the better part of the afternoon combing, curling, tucking, and tugging at Lily, humming and muttering to herself all the while. It was giving Lily entirely too much time to think. Meeting Rowena on the road the other day had unsettled her, and she was surprised that she ’d had such an intense reaction. There should be no logical reason for such a visceral response to Rowena ’s brand of femininity and, if Lily didn ’t know better, she’d call it jealousy.

  Rowena gave the impression of a fine porcelain doll. Lovely to look at but cold to the touch. Lily thought with a flush that Ewen needed more woman than that. He was a large and powerful man with a body sculpted by the hard life of the Highlands. He needed someone with passion and strength, not perfectly crafted pin curls.

  Crimson blossomed on Lily’s cheeks. What the hell was she thinking? She needed Ewen to find this elusive Gormshuil so she could find her way home. The laird evaded her questions every time she pressed him on it, merely assuring Lily that the witch would only be found when she wished it. For now she just had to hold on to hope that she ’d get out of this mess. The last thing she needed was to make more of one by getting all doe-eyed about some long-dead Scottish laird.

  It was no wonder that Lily would feel a physical attraction to him. The man was all ripped muscles and husky Scots brogue, worn with the self-possession of a warrior and respected clan leader. But she refused to accept that she might actually be jealous of Rowena and whatever part the woman played in Ewen ’s life. Lily had considered the high school homecoming queen and her varsity football boyfriend the picture of perfection, but that hadn ’t meant Lily had wanted to be her.

  She needed to focus now on getting back to where, and when, she came from. She paused, realizing that, in that moment, she hadn ’t thought of her time as “home. ” But modern America was what she knew, and logic told her she should want to return.

  No, she insisted to herself, she should care less whom Ewen chose to socialize with. Lily felt vulnerable enough without imagining some sort of catfight over a man whose place and time she needed to escape as soon as possible. She had to chalk her strong feelings up to envy for something that she would never have. She had never mastered the frothy feminine wiles exuded so effortlessly by types like Rowena. In Lily’s modern world, it was those women who never had to diet, whose makeup was always just so, and who could walk in high heels without teetering around like a drunken gorilla.

  Besides, outright jealousy would imply that she had genuine feelings for the laird and she doubted that was the case. She needed to get back to her time, to re ality, as quickly as possible. She made a mental note to nag Ewen yet again about whether he’d made any progress finding this witch of his.

  “Come back to me, lassie! ” Kat gave Lily’s cheek a good-natured pinch.

  “If I didn’t know better, I ’d think your mind was on my laird. ” Then, as if considering something, Kat pinched the other cheek, and this time not gently.

  “Yeouch! What are you trying to do to me today, Kat? ” Lily playfully stepped back. “And I am most certainly not thinking about your laird, I was just …”

  Lily caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and gasped. She looked like a Celtic
princess. A stunningly gorgeous Celtic princess. It wasn ’t as if she had never been dressed up before. She did the usual dolling up for dates or after-work cocktail parties, but this was different. It was as if she had stepped off the pages of a fairy tale. Kat had unearthed a gown that once belonged to Ewen ’s mother and in no time worked a number of miracles on it. Lily had been skeptical. Not only did she doubt that anyone could wear the color green with any success, she was certain that her modern-day height would likely exceed that of any seventeenth-century Scottish lady.

  Although the gown was indeed on the short side, Kat turned it to her advantage by putting a white lace -trimmed dress underneath the emerald green velvet bodice. As a result, a few inches of frothy lace peeked out from under the gown to delicately skirt the floor. The neck was so open as to be almost off the shoulder. A wide white collar encircled the top of the dress, lace billowing along its edges and sweeping over the tops of Lily’s arms and suggestively atop her bosom. White cuffs folded up over the three-quarter length sleeves of the gown, matching the more elaborate pattern that was tatted along the collar. What most surprised Lily was how the deep, vibrant color flattered her complexion. She had always assumed that she couldn’t wear green or yellow. Though, come to think of it, she hadn’t come to that conclusion from any experience. It was one of those inane beauty tips that you accumulate as a woman—something that she read somewhere or was told by her mother or a friend, like suck in your cheeks to apply blush, brush your hair a hundred strokes every night, and only redheads can get away with green. The rich emerald shade of the velvet, though, made her skin look creamy instead of pale, and the flush that Kat had pinched onto her cheeks was a rosy glow.

  Lily felt tears sting the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, Kat. ”

  She had been nervous about facing her first formal dinner at the laird’s hall, particularly if that Rowena woman was to be their guest. But she felt like this elegant gown would be her own personal armor against the most malicious woman the country could conjure.