Laird of Twilight (The Whisky Lairds, Book 1)

by Susan King

  How the devil would she know that? He stared down at her, thoughts racing. But her damnable suggestion had merit. He had come to Struan House to finish his grandmother’s book—and to look for a woman of fairy descent to marry. With those fey and graceful looks, Elspeth MacArthur could fill that role. And Sir Walter Scott, the judge of this profoundly irritating scheme, already liked the girl. This could work.

  James watched her in silence. She smiled. He scowled. “Compromise has one rightful companion. Marriage.”

  “I know.” She had a fey quality when she smiled, to be sure. He frowned.

  “Do you know what you are proposing?”

  “I—I think so.” For a moment, she looked hesitant. Then she nodded.

  Did he have the heart to ruin this young woman, and marry her for his own ends? She was irresistibly alluring—a coy but darling beauty, forthright and seductive all at once. What drew him in? Her luminous eyes, or elusive dimples? The bow curve of her lips, her graceful throat, the rise of full breasts beneath that sodden gown? He noticed all of it, and glanced away.

  While she sat smiling and calm, his heart and body pounded. He was wary and suspicious, yet aroused. And he was already hatching schemes in tandem with her mad suggestion.

  Marrying this Highland girl and claiming she had fairy blood was preposterous. Yet the conditions of his grandmother’s will were equally absurd. And the girl was eager and all too willing.

  Had she devised a trap for him—or was he about to trap her?

  “Miss MacArthur.” He cleared his throat. “We are neither of us thinking clearly. Let me tend to your injury. I will find some bandages—the kitchen will have something—” He turned, ready to bolt.

  “Lord Struan.” She rose to her feet and hobbled close, and he grabbed her arm to steady her. She was fine-boned, his hand large on her forearm. He felt strong and protective. He felt needed. Then she looked up and batted her eyelashes very deliberately, and he told himself he was surely being managed.

  “Sand in your eyes again?” he murmured.

  “Sorry. Was it too obvious?”

  “Yes, quite.”

  “I am not good at this. Here, may I?” She reached up to tug on his neckcloth. “Your cravat would make a fine bandage, if you will part with it. The rain and mud have all but ruined it, but part of it will serve nicely. Then you need not search.”

  Nor did he need to search for a bride now, if he went along with this.

  “Very well.” He reached up to undo the knot in the cloth, his hands brushing hers. Her small fingers worked the soft knot under his hands. He assisted, bowing his head, his brow brushing the top of her head. Her hair was smooth, glossy, smelled of rain and blossoms. She looked up just then, and their noses bumped.

  He sucked in a breath. So did she. Too vividly, he recalled wild kisses behind potted shrubberies at Holyroodhouse.

  “Please,” she said, breathless.

  A surge went through him, hard and sudden. “Oh. The cravat.” He worked the last knot free.

  She drew it away slowly, soft linen and then air upon his neck, sensual as a caress, setting up a fire in him that only willpower smothered. “Some men may feel at odds without a neckcloth.”

  “I have a dozen cravats. This is an old one.” It was new. He could not sound more of a dolt. Her touch unsettled him, whirling his usual composure off balance. He felt like stalwart iron drawn to a curving magnet.

  “Miss MacArthur, sit down.” He pushed on her shoulders. She winced, sat. At least her injury was genuine, he thought. “We had best wrap the ankle.”

  She lifted her injured foot to the stool, bringing up the hem of her skirts. Then she rolled down her stocking and slipped it off to reveal her swollen ankle and neatly muscled calf. James watched, his body surging distinctly, inconveniently.

  But the painful look of her bruises startled him out of a very male thought. Kneeling, he gently wrapped the cravat around her foot and ankle, circling and crossing to provide snug support. The cloth was too long; he tore it, tying the ragged ends to fit. He had rather liked that cravat, but he was not about to mention it.

  “Thank you. That feels better.” She wiggled the bare toes peeking out. “If you did not complete your medical studies, where did you learn to do this?”

  “War. I helped the doctors in the regiment when I could.”

  She watched him. “Quatre Bras was a terrible ordeal.”

  He looked up, startled, silent.

  “The Royal Highlanders,” she said. “The Black Watch…they were so brave, held their own, the day before Waterloo. But they lost so many men when the French came at them, where they held ground there.”

  His hand grew still on her foot. “How did you know I was at Quatre Bras?”

  “Sometimes I see things in my mind, like a dream. I saw this, and heard the name of it. I know a battle took place the day before Waterloo, where the Scots held the day. And you were there.”

  “Who told you?”

  “The knowing told me so.”

  “Knowing?” He met her direct silvery gaze. “Not this again, Miss MacArthur, as you did in Edinburgh. Do not play me for a fool. What is your scheme, to pretend a vision about my past?”

  “I would not scheme. I saw something just now.” She leaned forward. He leaned back, tense. “I saw you on a battlefield, in a kilt and a red coat. I heard ‘Quatre Bras.’ I did not know until just now that you were ever there.”

  He tugged at the torn ends of the neckcloth a little too fiercely, simmering with anger. She gasped. “I am sorry,“ he said quickly, and loosened the knot.

  “You tried to save him,” she said then. She closed her eyes. Her cheeks went pale. “I see a flash of steel, a blow. A horseman. A Frenchman jumped the line of Highlanders, was shot down. You were trapped—your leg—under the horse. You were injured. Could not save him. He called to you—Jamie—”

  ”Enough!” He stood. “Did that nitwit Philip Rankin tell you this?” He was livid. Anger burned clean through him, a ring of fire. Now he felt the passion of outrage.

  He preferred calm passions, the love of an excellent library collection, or a case of rock specimens neatly labeled, or thoughts and theories expressed on the written page. Safe, solid, reliable passions. Not the muddy emotional tumult he felt now.

  “No one told me,” she said, opening her eyes. “I saw it in my mind just now.”

  “You could easily assume that I was part of a Highland regiment in the war against Napoleon. The Black Watch is a good guess. And Quatre Bras, seven years ago. Very good, Miss MacArthur.” He clapped slowly. “But to tell me your guesses are Highland divination...you need a better explanation than ‘the knowing.’”

  She sat up and yanked her skirts over her feet. Her expression looked hurt. Tears glinted in her pretty eyes. An actress with some skill. He continued to frown.

  “It was not a guess. Sometimes when I touch someone, or they touch me, I just suddenly know things about them. Or I see something in my mind, and know about it. I will admit sometimes I speak too quickly and say far more than I should.”

  “More than enough, and you damned well know it.”

  “I beg your pardon.” She bit her lower lip. “Who was he, the friend you lost there? A kinsman?”

  “You’re the one with the blasted Sight, you tell me,” he snapped.

  “A chief,” she said quickly. “In your clan. No, a chieftain,” she finished.

  “First, you accost Sir Walter Scott at the Ladies’ Assembly,” he said, “then you feign a desire to be compromised. Now this. End your scheming now. We are done.” He inclined his head stiffly. “Rest here, Miss MacArthur. When the weather improves, I will take you home.”

  She stood, hopping, fists clenched, facing him. “I thought, as one raised in the Highlands, you would understand those with the Sight.”

  “Who told you I was raised in the Highlands?”

  “You told me,” she said. “At the assembly. I thought you might have some appreciation fo
r Da Shealladh, the Second Sight. But I was mistaken. Do not bother to take me home. I will go myself. Now.” She dropped the lap robe and snatched up her damp plaid to throw it around her shoulders. Hobbling, fuming, muttering, she grabbed her shoes and stockings and limped toward the door.

  James stood back, arms folded. Anger subsided. He felt suddenly amused, suddenly less convinced she was a schemer. True, he was wary of minxes with an eye to a man’s fortune, having courted the princess of them all, Charlotte Sinclair. She had been Lady Rankin’s marriage choice for him, and he had fallen for her charm as a vulnerable soldier returning home. Too soon he saw how manipulative, ambitious, and haughty she was. He had never proposed to her, never would.

  But now something told him that Elspeth MacArthur was not cut of the same cloth at all. Yet he was puzzled. She seemed to lack true guile, but she had some plan in mind. And she was so sweetly innocent and alluring that he wanted to believe her.

  But he would not be played for a fool. “Miss MacArthur, please sit down. I am not tossing you out.”

  “No need,” she said, as she tried to push her bandaged foot into a boot. “I am leaving.”

  “The man killed beside me at Quatre Bras,” he said, “was my cousin. A young chieftain of Clan MacCarran.”

  She was silent, her hands stilled on the boot.

  “But several people could have told you that. As for the wound I received, it is bloody obvious that I require a cane. So I will not credit your intuition. However, do stay, Miss MacArthur, and rest assured of your safety. I will not be responsible for further injury to you.”

  She watched him. “Trout,” she said.

  “What?” He straightened.

  “Trout. And...pudding?” She wrinkled her nose.

  “Puddin’,” he said quickly, too startled to hold back. “My cousin loved desserts when we were at Eton. The lads teased him mercilessly. He was a bit of a pudge then. Puddin’, they called him.” Why had he told her that?

  “And trout? I heard ‘trout’ just now.”

  “Enough,” he snapped. “I will fetch us some tea.” He turned.

  “Lord Struan,” she called after him. “I am sorry.”

  Out in the corridor, he stopped, shoved a hand through his hair. Trout. No one knew about that but his siblings, and they would never have told a stranger.

  How did Elspeth MacArthur know any of this? Few were aware of it beyond himself. But his cousin, Lord Eldin, had been at Quatre Bras too. Was Eldin low enough to tell this girl about the devastation James had endured when he was unable to help his friend and cousin Archie? Had Eldin schemed with the girl to undermine James’ inheritance? A remote possibility.

  He simply could not piece it all together.

  But—Trout. That was his boyhood name for Archie, who had once fallen into a stream while fishing with James and William, coming up with a trout jumping about in his trousers. The boys had fallen in the water trying to help, collapsing with laughter. Only hours before Archie was killed, he and James had laughed remembering the wayward trout again. Eldin would not have known.

  But how did Elspeth MacArthur know about it?

  He shook off bewilderment, seeking safe practicality. Sight or none, ruination or none, if he and his pretty visitor were alone here too long, there would be an obligation of marriage simply from the circumstances. Finding a fairy bride, however ridiculous, could not compare to that very real predicament.

  He had wanted a dull and ordinary life. Nonetheless, risk had found him again.

  Tea, he reminded himself. Blessedly simple. He headed for the kitchen.

  Chapter 6

  Ruination and compromise? Elspeth covered her face with her hands in embarrassment. And she spoke of visions, death, and battle too? Either the whisky had loosened her tongue, or the Sight, or both. Struan would think her a madwoman or a hussy—or both.

  Fairy gifts, her grandfather said, came with a price. Her gift of Sight asked a good deal for the privilege. Too often she impulsively blurted out whatever came to mind—she had done that Sir Walter Scott himself, and now Lord Struan. No wonder the latter thought her fortune hunter. She should leave, and soon. But when would she find another chance to search the grounds for her grandfather’s stone?

  By now, Donal MacArthur had probably promised her hand to MacDowell in Edinburgh in his determination to marry her off. She might well be standing with the tailor before a parson soon; her twenty-first birthday was three weeks away.

  If a few hours alone with Lord Struan could compromise her reputation, she could escape marriage to the tailor. If Struan offered, she did not have to accept. She could be just as determined as her grandfather. And she wanted to find the missing crystal—and find a way to remain at Kilcrennan, even as a spinster, for life.

  She stood, hopping on her good foot to spare her ankle. The rain continued, the darkness increased. Sitting by the fire scarcely warmed her, for her things were still that damp. Draping her muddied plaid to dry by the fire, she drew the woolen lap robe about her shoulders and limped out into the dark hallway. Seeing a glow from the back staircase, she went toward it, supporting herself with a hand on the wall.

  A faint, unsettling moan echoed distantly in the house—the banshee of Struan House. Once, she had come here with Grandda for tea with Lady Struan, and heard the eerie cry then, mentioning it to Lady Straun, who had been delighted that the girl had heard it. Now, chills ran down her spine as she hurried along.

  Lord Struan had carried her this way earlier, bravely and kindly, and she had not been appreciative, causing only trouble. Limping down a few steps and into a slate-floored hallway, she headed toward what must be the kitchen, where light glowed through an open door.

  The large gray wolfhound emerged from the shadows, shoving his head under her hand, pressing close as if offering his tall shoulder to help support her. He led her to the doorway as if it was his own intention. She peered inside, seeing a long worktable. Struan stood there, arranging bread and cheese on a plate.

  She entered with the dog. The scrubbed pine table held a bowl of apples, a blue-and-white porcelain teapot, delicate teacups and saucers. In the huge kitchen hearth, a steaming iron teakettle hung from a hook. A second hook held a wide-mouthed kettle, contents bubbling.

  “Soup,” Elspeth said, sniffing the seasoned air. “It smells delicious.”

  Struan turned. “Miss MacArthur. The housekeeper left soup for my supper. We can share if you are hungry. It’s late enough for a hearty tea.”

  “Thank you, I would love a high tea. No need to take it upstairs,” she added as he reached for a tray. “We could eat in here. There is no one about to say against it.”

  He nodded. She went to stand beside him, helping to arrange things on the tray. He set the teapot there while she handed him teacups and saucers, and found spoons and a little bowl of sugar already grated from the cone.

  Slicing thick brown bread while Struan went to the hearth to ladle soup into bowls, Elspeth felt the earlier tension dissipate in favor of cooperation. Struan carried the tray to a smaller table beneath a wide window, and pulled up two wooden chairs. He held one out for her and she sat, drawing the plaid over her shoulders again. Setting a bowl of soup before her and another for himself, he sat across from her.

  “You’re shivering,” he observed.

  “My things are still damp,” she replied. And she had just one boot on, the other foot wrapped in his neckcloth. Her toes were cold. She noticed that Struan was in his shirtsleeves, with a brocaded gray waistcoat but no cravat. She could see the long line of his strong neck, the dusting of dark hair from chin to throat. Stifling a sigh—truly he was a handsome lad for a lass to sigh over, but she would have to ignore that. He did not want compromise, and after all that was for the best. Reaching out to pour the tea into the two cups, she watched as he stirred a bit of sugar into the steaming liquid in his cup.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I should have offered you dry clothing, but I am not familiar with what might
be stored in the house. We could have a look if you like.”

  She shook her head. “My things will dry.” She sipped tea, and noticed that he was not eating, that he waited courteously for her to begin. She took a little bread, buttered it, and tried the soup. It was excellent, savory, thickened after sitting in the kettle, but only to its benefit.

  As they ate, rain pattered the windows beside the table and gusts rattled the panes. Elspeth glanced at the dark sky. “Will anyone return to the house tonight?”

  “I doubt it. The roads will be muddy and unsafe in the dark. Likely they will arrive early tomorrow. Here, you girls. Good lassies.” He set his nearly empty bowl on the floor, and the two terriers, who had been waiting patiently, rushed for it, nosing at each other. Elspeth set hers on the floor too, and the wolfhound came over to lick it politely.

  Struan sat back. “I know you would prefer to go home, but it is unthinkable to walk, and it might be dangerous to ride out by cart or horse in the night, for the sake of the horses more than ourselves. This sort of rain brings flooding unexpectedly. Miss MacArthur, I fear you may have to stay the night.”

  “I know.” Her heart gave a little fillip. She reached for the teapot and poured a bit more tea into both cups. They sipped in silence. Then he set his cup down.

  “I must ask—why were you in the garden?”

  Hot tea, swallowed too quickly, made her cough. “I was looking for something my grandfather lost there a while ago. He knew Lady Struan. We were invited here sometimes,” she explained. “He is Mr. Donal MacArthur of Kilcrennan.”

  “I know the name. What did he lose?”

  “A stone, one very special to him. It was lost when the grotto was finished.”

  He sat forward. “A valuable stone?”

  “Crystal and agate, I think he mentioned.”

  “Agate? What color is this stone you want to find?”

  “Blue,” she said.

  “Truly! Agate is a bit unusual in this region of Scotland, and the blue sort is rare anywhere. Did your grandfather find this stone nearby?”