Just in Time for a Highlander

by Gwyn Cready

  The servant refilled the glass, and Sir Alan gave the young woman a lupine stare. Oh, dear. Always the risk of lubrication. Unfortunately, the woman filled Rosston’s glass as well. Rosston’s crimson cheeks betrayed a lack of moderation that appeared to have begun before his appearance in the library.

  “I understand there was a run-in with the army this afternoon,” said Sir Alan, taking another deep draft of wine. He eyed Abby closely.

  “They haven’t the sense to stay off our lands,” Rosston said. “The point of our swords must be the reward for trespassing.”

  “The company had lost their way, I believe,” Abby said. “When they realized their mistake, they left peaceably. It was hardly more than a moderately warm tête-à-tête.”

  “Like young lovers?” Sir Alan met Abby’s gaze over the top of his goblet.

  “Lady Kerr?”

  Undine, in shimmering green silk, signaled from the doorway. Abby excused herself.

  “I’m afraid I am the bearer of some unhappy news,” Undine said. “William’s leg is starting to swell. I fear a fever will o’ertake him by nightfall.”

  Abby’s chest tightened with worry. “Will you—”

  “Aye, I have. I’ve given him a marigold tisane. The other news is more troubling. Do you remember the company of soldiers this afternoon? I have it on good authority the sergeant is telling his officers the clan attacked first.”

  “What? No!” The tightening became a vise. If the sergeant managed to convince his officers the Kerrs were attacking the English, there was no telling what the army’s response would be.

  A servant carrying a platter of salmon cakes looked to Abby for instructions. Abby waved her in the general direction of Sir Alan. For God’s sake, was she to be required to make every decision in this place? She could not outwit the English and know the right place to put the salmon cakes. There simply wasn’t enough room in her head for all of it.

  “Undine, I need you to go to the army headquarters in Bowness. See what you can find out. I know you have contacts there. Perhaps one of them has some influence with the colonel.”

  “I should prefer to stay to watch over William, but I suppose I can instruct a servant to care for him in my absence. May I have the use of your carriage?”

  Abby agreed and gave quiet instructions to the footman, who hurried off. “And while you’re there,” she said, turning back to Undine, “I wonder if you could—”

  She gasped. MacHarg had stepped into the hallway from the Hunting Room and was making his way toward the library. He’d shifted from his odd, skirted plaid to a longer Kerr one in a stunning crimson that set off the width of his shoulders. He looked a foot taller than he had earlier, and the setting sun was directly behind him, giving him the quite misleading appearance of wearing a halo.

  Undine cleared her throat, and Abby’s jaw instantly returned to its proper place.

  “Oh, thank the gods,” Undine said quietly. “I was afraid I had an apoplexy on my hands.”

  “He looks so…so…”

  “Indeed he does. And the ripple of the linen is making me think your strong-arm plea has not gone unanswered. Is that not the sark you embroidered for Bran?”

  MacHarg spotted Abby and smiled.

  He made a low bow. His muscular knees, an hour ago caked with mud and blood, shone like pale marble. Abby was reminded of a statue of Mercury she had once seen in London.

  “Good evening, Lady Kerr.” He gave her a daunting smile. She opened her mouth to reply; then her attention fell on the sword extending from his sheath.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked, shocked.

  “Do you not recognize it?” He pulled it free and brandished it with a laughably unskilled flourish. “It’s yours, from the Great Hall. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one as handsome.”

  “You cannot—”

  “Is something amiss?” Sir Alan had wandered over. “Your cousin says there’s been some news about the army—something about a possible retaliation for today’s tête-à-tête?”

  Panicked, Abby searched for a convenient lie. “Er…”

  “There has been,” MacHarg said firmly. “Though not as you describe. The army has sent an apology via messenger. The sergeant who trespassed is new to the borderlands and misread his map. The transgression shall not be repeated.” He gave Abby a conspiratorial look, and she bowed her head in gratitude.

  Sir Alan narrowed his eyes. “And who are you?”

  MacHarg gave Abby and Undine a stern, peremptory glare. “I am adviser to Miss…er…”

  He’d forgotten the woman’s name! “Fallon,” Abby said quickly. “Of course, it’s hard to remember since she just remarried.”

  “But you said ‘Miss’?” Sir Alan looked confused.

  “Did I? It’s Missus. But,” she added carefully to MacHarg, “she wishes you to continue to call her by her given name—Serafina.”

  Undine gave MacHarg a gentle elbow and said, “I think she may have a bit of a crush on you.”

  Abby trod hard on her friend’s instep.

  “Mrs. Fallon, of course,” said Undine with a glare. “But how could she, since you are almost close enough to her to be her brother?”

  The servant with the salmon cakes returned, evidently determined to engage Abby in their disposition.

  Sir Alan regarded MacHarg with interest. “And where is this Mrs. Fallon with whom you share such a familial-like relationship?”

  “I am here.” Serafina sped down the hall, a vision in fawn velvet, and came to a dead stop in front of MacHarg, no doubt trying to recall the exact connection she and he were supposed to share.

  “There you are, my dear.” Abby gave her a gentle kiss. “You know Duncan MacHarg, of course. And here is the guest I was telling you about, Sir Alan Raeburn. Sir Alan is in today from Edinburgh.”

  Serafina made a small “Ooh!” followed by a deep curtsy, indicating she remembered who he was, at least.

  Sir Alan bowed, letting his gaze travel over Serafina’s ample bosom like a fox eyeing a pair of goose eggs. Despite his age, Sir Alan had lost no interest in the hunt.

  “A pleasure,” he said to her. “And how, again, are you related to Mr. MacHarg?”

  “I believe he is something in the way of an adviser,” said Rosston, who had edged his way into the circle, “through a swineherd connection. Good evening, Miss Fallon.”

  “‘Missus,’ I think you mean,” Sir Alan said, and Rosston frowned.

  Abby prayed everyone would remember how they were related to one another for at least the next hour or two, or it was going to be quite a long evening.

  Sir Alan said, “I give you great joy of your recent marriage, Mrs. Fallon.”

  Serafina looked as if she’d swallowed a porcupine. “Er…what?”

  MacHarg made a deep-throated proceed with caution noise, and Serafina, catching on, grasped his arm tighter and gazed at him with love. “I’d say it took us both by surprise—”

  Abby coughed and shook her head.

  “—and I can’t wait to introduce you to him, Duncan. I know you will like him.”

  The long moment of silence that followed was broken by Undine’s snort. “Well, I would certainly love to stay for the rest of this dinner, but I’m afraid I have business that takes me away tonight. With any luck, I shall see you on the morrow.”

  Undine exited, and Sir Alan said to MacHarg, “I am told you are an adviser. Pray, sir, on what do you advise?”

  Clearly happy to have become the center of attention, Duncan held up a theatrical hand. “Actually, that’s a rather interesting story. Like you, I suppose, I had aspirations in banking, but after my first year of university, things took a wee turn. You see, I fancy myself a bit of a—”

  If Abby could have reached MacHarg’s instep, she would have forgone her heel and plunged his sword
through it instead. In place of that, she fired off a look that would have flattened a lesser man. Just because Sir Alan was talking to him didn’t mean her proscription against talking to Sir Alan had expired.

  “A bit of a what, sir?” Sir Alan said.

  MacHarg, paling, considered. He snagged a salmon cake from the platter. “Fisherman. That is to say, I advise on fish and I fish. I am all fish, truth be told.”

  “Oh, well, I am a man of fishing myself. A very fine stream runs through my property in Fife. You must try it sometime.”

  Another servant appeared and met the eyes of the footman, who immediately straightened and announced dinner was ready. The group moved into the Great Hall. Abby had purposefully put MacHarg in the middle of the long table, between Serafina and Undine, so that he would be as far as possible from both Sir Alan, who would be seated next to Abby at one end, and Rosston, who would be seated next to his men at the other.

  However, her plans were not to be. Serafina, who had stopped to rearrange her skirts, was swept up by Rosston on the way to the hall, and MacHarg was repeating a particularly drawn-out story to Sir Alan about the enormous size of a salmon he had once caught. It seemed to Abby, who had almost no interest in fish except those Mrs. Michael baked into her pies, as if gentlemen these days were almost as invested in the size of their catches as they were in the size of their—

  “Battering rams, milady?” Sir Alan had paused to observe the pair of intricately carved columns of wood that hung in an X over the dining room’s massive hearth. “Rather an unsubtle touch.” He smiled.

  “My grandfather used to say the larger the weapons, the fewer the wars.”

  “Is that a sentiment you and your father also share, Lady Kerr?”

  And just who was being unsubtle now?

  “Perhaps,” she said with a forced chuckle. “Though I suspect it was for different reasons. My father liked his swords sweeping. I prefer my peace that way.”

  MacHarg said, “I understand the people of the borderlands have been quite pleased with the peace Lady Kerr was able to negotiate. More than a year now, is it not? That has to be a record.”

  He raised his goblet and Abby’s cheeks warmed. That was the second time he’d helped her navigate a difficult situation. She found herself flustered by his support. The last few years had been so turbulent and her ascension to the chieftainship so fraught with controversy, she had grown used to expecting every decision to be a fight and every fight to be fought alone.

  While she was most grateful for his help, she was very interested to know the source of his information. His “reinterpretation” of the army’s message—patently false—was predicated on knowing that a messenger had come to Kerr Castle. And now for him to know she’d brokered a peace with the English army a year and a half ago? Was he a borderlander? But no. Everything about him was a degree divorced from the expected, from the cut of his clothes to the odd length of his hair to his sometimes surprising choice of words or phrases, suggesting that the odds of him being from the borders were small. On the other hand, there was no mistaking that lovely, deep rumble for anything other than a Lowland burr. She looked at him and he gave her a lopsided grin. But even that, she had to admit, carried a note of something in it marking him as an outlander.

  She lifted her glass in thanks. He gave her a generous smile.

  “Sir Alan, surely you didn’t come to Kerr Castle for fishing?” Rosston popped a gobbet of lamb in his mouth.

  “I did not. Though I could surely be tempted.” He gave MacHarg a gentle poke. “No, I am here to talk to Lady Kerr about her canal.”

  Abby pushed a small mound of peas around her plate. She had hoped to keep the nature of his visit between Sir Alan and herself.

  “The canal?” Rosston leaned forward. “I thought the project had been abandoned?”

  Sir Alan had not gotten to be on the board of the Bank of Scotland by being lured into indiscretion, and he could judge enough in Rosston’s tone to know that the answer, if any were to be given, must come from Abby herself.

  “I am looking to reopen it,” she said.

  “And from where are the funds to come?” Rosston demanded a second before the answer came to him.

  Sir Alan buried his attention in his oysters.

  “You are bringing a bank into this?” Rosston shoved his chair from the table. “This is a family matter. Your father would not agree. I do not agree.”

  A clansman whispered, “Nor do I,” and a few others nodded.

  Abby felt the focused gazes of her men. “Rosston, this is hardly the place—”

  “No,” he said, voice rising. “You dinna bring outsiders into something like this. We settle these things on our own. You dinna open our—”

  MacHarg adjusted his chair. It moved no more than an inch, but the scrape carried such menace Rosston stopped in the middle of his sentence.

  Abby sat with dread, waiting for MacHarg to say something that would irretrievably transform this discussion from a point of order between a chieftess and her cousin to a bollocks-driven brawl in the middle of her dining hall. But MacHarg only picked up his wine and waited politely for Rosston to finish.

  Abby relaxed a degree. “Thank you, Rosston. That will be all.”

  He flung down his napkin and stalked away.

  With the throb of blood in her ears, she said, “I am so sorry, Sir Alan.”

  “I see my presence here is upsetting to some of your men,” he said. “I wonder if I should go?”

  “No,” she begged. “Stay. Please. Enjoy your dinner. I’ll talk to Rosston.”

  Sir Alan tapped the edge of his plate. “Milady, I think it might be best for all concerned if you were to invite me back when there is some consensus among your men. As I understand it, each has a vote, does he not?”

  “Aye, but not to the degree you think.” Abby felt like weeping. She bit the inside of her cheek.

  “Perhaps, if you were able to convince Rosston, he might be able to help you convince the rest. I understand his side of Kerrs carries quite a bit of influence and, dare I say, with their investment, you may not need me and my bank at all.”

  “Thank you,” she said, though she felt no gratitude at all. “I appreciate your advice.”

  He nodded. “’Tis the least I could do for a young lassie like yourself.”

  Abby reached for her goblet and drank.

  Eight

  Duncan ambled down the seemingly endless corridor of doors, candle in hand, searching for his room. The dinner had proceeded, though after Rosston left, no one seemed to enjoy it. Abby managed to convince Sir Alan to delay his departure until morning but not to reopen a discussion of the canal until she had what he termed “the unshakable support of the Kerr men.”

  Abby had carried on stoically, even keeping the evening’s conversation afloat with something akin to cheer, but Duncan had seen the distress in those eyes. He’d wanted to tell her everything would be all right, but such a thing would have been both condescending and disrespectful, not to mention unlikely to be true, and he suspected she’d had enough condescension and disrespect to last a lifetime. Nonetheless, it had taken more than a little willpower to keep his mouth shut, just as it had taken more than a little willpower to keep from running after Rosston and introducing his bulk to one of the tapestry-covered walls. As well-intended as the acts might have been, neither would have served his hostess well.

  Night had fallen during dinner, and rain had come, pounding the walls of the castle before moving on to the west just as the first guests rose from the table. And now, the strange, sometimes off-putting, Scottish mists were rising like walls of ghostly fire over the river. The sight sent a wave of homesickness through Duncan. His grandfather’s house, situated not far from Langholm, had often been enveloped in odd and fascinating weather, and his visits there as a child, far from the city streets of Edinburgh, had
formed in him a deep and unchanging love for the majesty of the Lowland hills.

  Homesick when you’re in the middle of Scotland? A fine fool you are. And yet home—and his grand-da—seemed more remote to him now than when he was in New York, half a world away.

  Outside a wolf howled, and Grendel appeared in one of the doorways, ears raised.

  “Do you hear your pack?”

  Grendel made an agitated noise, and Duncan scratched the dog’s ears. Duncan didn’t know how he had come to be here, more than three hundred years in his past, and wondered for an instant if he, like Grendel, had been responding to some ancient and unknowable call. But while finding out how he got here would be interesting, Duncan knew he needed to concentrate on discovering something more useful—namely, how to return.

  Grendel made another noise, in sympathy with his wild brethren, and leaned reluctantly against Duncan.

  “Poor fellow. I’m afraid we must both be resigned to stay awhile.”

  His heart cramped. What day was it? Still Sunday? He had been intentionally vague with grandfather about his arrival, protecting his options in case an emergency arose at work, but at some point his grand-da would begin to worry.

  The muffled sound of a man’s voice—deep, gruff, filled with anger—rose behind a door at the end of the hall. With Grendel at his heels, Duncan padded to the door at the cross section of two halls. Duncan looked left, right, and behind him. No one in sight. He leaned closer. A woman was speaking now, her voice as agitated as the man’s but quieter and appeasing. Duncan couldn’t make out the words, though the disagreement was heated.

  He jerked away when he heard footsteps approaching on the other side, and thank goodness he did. The door banged open, barely missing him, and slowed to a stop far enough forward to block him from view. Abby, stiff with upset and clutching her skirts, ran down the hall, pulling Grendel into her wake. She disappeared into a room and slammed the door behind her, stranding the dog, who flopped down sadly.