He’d chosen well.
Not a mote of dust marred the ancient MacDonald tartan. A fine hunting weave of muted greens and blues, shot through with white, red, and black stripes, he recognized the sett as belonging to the MacDonalds of the Isles, longtime friends and allies.
He smiled, ran appreciative hands over the smooth, well-aged wool.
The MacDonald connection was surely a good portent.
Better yet, the bolt smelled fresh and clean.
Its position in the middle of the pile had allowed the tartan to defy the ravages of time, leaving its precious wool almost as pristine as the day some long-forgotten soul had added the bolt to the stack.
Hardwick set the bolt aside and flexed his fingers, readying himself for what he must do. He felt a twinge of regret. It pained him that now, after centuries of lying untouched, he should be the one to mar such a noble tartan.
Fortunately, he was certain the MacDonalds wouldn’t mind.
As with his good friend Bran of Barra, more than one of the braw MacDonalds stood in his debt.
So he closed his eyes and drew a deep, preparatory breath. Then he reached for the bolt and began unrolling it with care, measuring just enough to suit his needs. Another deep breath and a few more finger flexes, and he was ready.
Gripping the tartan, he drew it taut and ripped off a suitable length.
Before guilt could besiege him, he dug his fingers into the cloth, holding it fast as he willed away the rest of his garb. Once naked, he wrapped the tartan around his hips. He wound the cloth band ever tighter, slipping it between his legs and using the plaid to secure his best parts until he was certain even the slightest twitch would prove impossible.
Satisfied at last, he knotted the tartan, well pleased with his handiwork.
He shoved a hand through his hair, excitement beginning to quicken his blood. Deliberately, he envisioned the sweet golden triangle topping Cilla’s thighs. He imagined his hand cupping her heat and finding her slick, moist, and warm.
Soft, slippery, and eager for his caress, she’d surely also welcome his tongue. If not, he knew ways to persuade her to allow him the pleasure.
At the thought, heat flashed through him, his loins tightening as fierce need fired his blood.
But he didn’t twitch.
The plaid wrapping worked well.
Tight, stifling, and a lust damper if e’er there was one, the binding enabled him to swiftly switch his thoughts from plundering his lady’s heat with his tongue to things as uninspiring as polishing the mail of his hauberk or watching several of the kitchen laddies at Seagrave empty and then scrub the sides of the stronghold’s cesspit.
Hardwick’s smile returned. His delight was boundless.
Uncomfortable as it was, the binding would allow him many freedoms.
Truth be told, he’d ne’er had a better idea.
He looked down, feeling his grin to his toes.
For good measure, he retied the binding’s knot, making the fit just a bit tighter.
“By Thor’s hammer!” A familiar voice boomed behind him. “What in a god’s name are you doing?”
“Bran!” Hardwick’s good humor vanished at once.
Mortification swept him.
He spun around to face his friend, summoning his kilt even as he wheeled about. “What are you doing here?” He slapped at the familiar woolen pleats, brushing the folds in place and righting his sporran. “You—”
“I’m no’ after the kind of foolery you’re up to, that’s for sure!” The Hebridean stared at him, gogeyed. “I know fine that some modern women run about wearing wee bits o’ cloth that barely cover their bottoms, but I haven’t yet seen a man donning such a style!”
Hardwick glared at him. “It isn’t a style, you great buffoon. It’s something I’m hoping to use to get around the Dark One’s stipulation that I daren’t—”
“Run hard.” Blunt as always, Bran rocked back on his heels.
Then he laughed, wiping the mirth from his cheeks. “Och, then—more like you’ll wither!”
“As e’er, you’re a man of few words, my friend.” Hardwick folded his arms. “Be glad you haven’t such a need.”
“I ne’er turned a bard-wizard from my door.” Bran drew his brows together, eyeing Hardwick’s kilt as if he could still see the tartan binding hidden beneath it. “Be that as it may, I’ll own that—were I in your position—I might consider such measures. Even if I’ll vow for all time that a Highlander’s man piece wasn’t made to be constricted!”
“Humph.” Hardwick refused further comment.
He knew too well how much a Highlander appreciated a free and unrestricted swing.
But the twinkle in the Hebridean chieftain’s eye was warning enough that he’d take the subject to embarrassing heights if allowed to do so.
Hoping to avoid such a debacle, Hardwick steered him in another direction.
“I’d hear why you’re here? I thought you’d gone back to Barra to gather your lads?”
“And so I did!” The lout flashed a grin.
“But?” Hardwick waited.
Bran looked down, shuffling his big feet on the dusty floorboards. “Ach, it was so. My friends were in the midst of some serious merrymaking when I arrived.” He glanced up again, his foot shuffling at an end. “It will take a while for their heads to clear sufficiently for them to sift up here and join us. So—”
“You sifted yourself here ahead of them?” Hardwick couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice. “Since when do you—the greatest fest giver in the Hebrides—walk away from a night of bawdy revelry?”
A stain of pink bloomed on Bran’s cheeks.
“Perhaps I’m growing old?” Looking anything but, the burly Islesman whacked Hardwick on the shoulder. “Seven hundred years wears on a soul.”
Hardwick humphed again, not buying his friend’s excuse. He arched a brow to show it.
Bran jutted his chin. “Mayhap I was worried about you?”
“Worried about me?”
“Aye, so I was.” Bran’s tone took on an edge of belligerence. “The saints forgive you for no’ believing me. We are friends, you know.”
This time it was Hardwick who looked down at his feet.
Or he would have if he hadn’t caught himself fast enough. What he couldn’t prevent was the way his chest tightened on his friend’s admission.
As he’d already noted, since meeting Cilla, he’d grown way too soft-hearted.
So he summoned his most indifferent mien and pretended to adjust his plaid’s gem-studded shoulder brooch. “I’ve no need of someone to look o’er me.”
“Say you!” Bran grinned. “But no matter,” he added as quickly. “Truth is, I also returned because the feasting in my hall bored me. I thought I’d do a bit of scouting on Mac’s moorland. Maybe see if I saw any signs of his Viking ghosties before my lads arrive.”
Hardwick cocked a brow. “Did you see them?”
Bran stroked his beard. “If I had, you can be sure I’d still be busy with them.” He made a few grand flourishes with his hand, as if wielding an imaginary sword. “ ’Tis overlong since I’ve bloodied my fists, no’ to mention swing my blade in earnest!”
“So after you didn’t meet up with Mac’s Norsemen, you came here to tell me?”
“ ’Sakes, no!” Bran swelled his chest. “I would have returned directly to Barra if that was all of it. You wouldn’t have seen me again until I came back with my men.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I found something.”
“Indeed?”
“Aye, and have you a good look at it!” Bran held out a hand, wriggling his fingers to produce a shovel-like tool, its pointy head shiny and flat-bladed. “There’s more where this came from. A whole cache of the things, tucked in a wicker basket hidden in a fold of peat.”
Hardwick frowned, reaching for it. “A whole cache?”
Bran bobbed his head. “I counted a good dozen, maybe more.”
“In Mac’s peat fields?”
“Aye, so I said, just.” Bran nodded again, his expression earnest. “The basket was deliberately hidden. I’d bet my beard on it.”
Hardwick turned the tool over in his hands. Tiny words were inscribed on the steel of its triangular-shaped blade: MARSHALLTOWN COMPANY.
A word that made little sense, but for the cold prickles it brought to the back of his neck.
He curled his fingers around the tool’s wooden handle and looked at Bran. “Have you e’er heard of such a workman’s mark as this?”
Bran shook his head. “No’ that I can recall, though the thing does look familiar.”
Hardwick nodded sagely.
He, too, had seen such a tool before. It was just a matter of time until he remembered.
And when he did, he was sure, the Marshalltown Company and their tools would lead them a step closer to solving Mac’s problems.
He felt it in his bones.
Just as he knew that whoe’er had hid the basket out on the moors would soon have hell to pay.
He’d see to it personally.
With a wee bit of help from his friends.
Chapter 13
OFFICIAL KILT INSPECTOR.
Emblazoned in bright red satin across the front of an Australian woman’s royal blue jacket, the words jumped at Cilla each time she looked out at the expectant faces staring back at her from the small audience of her first Dunroamin-held broken-china jewelry-making class.
A fan of Wee Hughie MacSporran, the woman—Elizabeth, according to the name stitched in large, equally scarlet letters on the back of her jacket—clearly wasn’t interested in the little piles of colorful broken china lining the worktable set up in Dunroamin’s vaulted basement.
The woman’s gaze kept sliding elsewhere.
Namely to the stairs, where Hardwick stood on the bottom step, his arms folded as he leaned against the wall, watching the proceedings.
Light from a mock medieval torch streamed down from higher up in the stair tower, illuminating him in all his kilted magnificence. Soft and flickering, the fake torchlight drew attention to the sheen of his silky black hair and the width of his powerful shoulders. His cute knees and attractive, manly calves also caught the eye.
His hallmark sandalwood scent wafted on the air.
Above all, the light spilled across his kilt. Cilla tried not to notice.
Aussie Elizabeth looked nowhere else.
An annoyance Cilla really didn’t need, especially since she hadn’t seen Hardwick for over a week. A sleepless seven nights wondering if he’d appear out of the darkness, towering above her bed and ready to ravish her. Nights of tossing and turning and wishing he would.
Knowing he’d spent the time prowling Uncle Mac’s peat fields didn’t help, either. Sure, she knew he was more than able to make short work of whoever was slinking about the moors, pretending to be Viking ghosts. But she knew, too, that there were other things spooking about Dunroamin.
And those things frightened her.
He’d meant to reassure her when he’d sided with her about the devil face. His rallying had touched her deeply. But knowing that he didn’t doubt the existence of such nightmare creatures was unsettling.
The devil face hadn’t made a return sweep past her bedroom window, but she feared what would happen if Hardwick encountered the fiend in the small hours on the moors.
She shuddered, trying to disguise her shiver by fiddling with her broken-china tools. She shuffled them about on the worktable, doing her best to look busy.
As if she weren’t worried about devils and hell hags. Much better to appear cool and calm, as if just breathing his scent wasn’t making her all hot and weak-kneed.
Which, of course, it was.
No man should smell so delicious.
That he’d returned now was just her luck. This was a time when her composure was crucial and—damn it all—she’d chosen to give her workshop in Dunroamin’s basement. Used regularly as a workstation, the vaulted undercroft was the most brightly lit area of the castle.
The high-powered spotlights trained on her worktable also shone brightly on her, surely picking out the dark circles and puffiness beneath her eyes. Not to mention the little roll of pudge at her tummy that made it just a tad difficult to fasten the button at the top of her pants zipper.
She’d clearly eaten too much shortbread since arriving in Scotland.
Aussie Elizabeth appeared to have eaten nothing at all since leaving Sydney.
Cilla frowned.
If Ms. Official Kilt Inspector didn’t soon stop ogling Hardwick—or cease wetting her wine-red lips—she’d find herself reimbursed for the cost of the evening’s creative workshop.
Tempted to give the woman a refund immediately, Cilla tightened her fingers around the mosaic nippers in her hand and began her talk. “I’ve always loved old things. Treasures bursting with character and history, but perhaps in need of a bit of whimsy and imagination on your part if, like me, you’d enjoy bringing them back to life.”
Aussie Elizabeth yawned.
In the front row, Colonel Darling puffed on his pipe.
Hardwick’s stare narrowed on her. She could feel it without looking at him. It was one of those slow, heavy-lidded stares that roamed her body, rousing her physically and leaving behind a sizzling trail of heat that made it almost impossible to stand still.
Flustered, she put down the nippers and picked up a box of especially lovely bits of porcelain. She angled it so that her audience could see the tiny pieces, hoping they’d keep their attention on the broken china and not notice how her cheeks were surely flaming.
Hardwick was trying to tell her something with his hot, dampen-her-panties stare, and she had a good idea what it was. She might not have ever experienced the wild, dizzying kind of raw, untamed sex that supposedly shook hills and made the world stop spinning, but she’d read enough romance novels and seen enough films to recognize Hardwick’s message.
Something had happened.
Some difference that—dear God—meant he was going to make love to her.
She knew it instinctively, and the thought electrified her. She slid a glance his way and immediately wished she hadn’t, because as soon as their eyes met, he lowered his gaze to move slowly down and then up her thighs, finally settling just there, where she’d swear she could feel the stirring touch of expertly stroking fingers.
“Oh!” She disguised her gasp as a cough.
His gaze went even darker and one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “O-o-oh, aye,” he mouthed the words, his gaze still focused on the vee of her thighs.
I want you, Cilla lass.
She jumped. The words hushed past her ear, deep, rich, and smooth, and pitched so that no one else could hear them. She hoped, too, that no one could guess that his ghostly finger magic was shooting beyond the mere rousing stage.
No longer just stroking, his hot stare now made her feel as if those skilled fingers were slipping beneath the edge of her panties to really toy with her. Imagined or not, however he was doing it, he was making her wet.
Hot, damp, and tingly.
She swallowed and tried to discreetly press her thighs together.
Noticing her discomfort, he arched a knowing brow. His barely there smile went positively wicked.
Cilla recognized its portent, and her knees nearly buckled.
Giving herself a shake, she wrenched her gaze from him and purposely looked down at the box of broken china in her hands. Each piece gleamed in the stark lighting. Most were irregularly shaped and showed antique patterns of floral design, the colors soft and muted.
She tightened her grip on the box, willing the blaze between her legs to recede by focusing on the porcelain. Bolder shards appeared of American origin. Vibrant reds, blues, and yellows marked them as having started their career as much-sought-after Fiestaware. While other, more fragile pieces proved edged with finest gold.
Violet Manyweathers
leaned forward, her gaze on the box. “You’re after helping us to make jewelry with these wee bits of china?”
“Pah!” Colonel Darling shot her a derisive glance. “Of course she is! Why do you think we’re sitting here? Though”—he waved the stem end of his pipe at the worktable—“unlike the rest of you, I’m only here to observe.”
Violet dismissed him with a quick flip of her age-spotted hand.
“Speak for yourself,” she quipped, her gaze on a bloodred square of the dinnerware. “I might be for having a new pendant.”
“And you can.” Relieved to get her mind on something else, Cilla made a mental note to be sure Violet received the bit of red Fiestaware. “I’ll help you with every step.”
Violet sat back, looking pleased.
The colonel stuck his pipe in his mouth and returned to puffing.
Cilla cleared her throat. “Before we begin, you must understand one thing. These bits and pieces of cracked china are much more than that. They are broken beauties.” She glanced around, her heart warming to a beloved theme. “Small shards of onetime cups and saucers, dessert plates, and anything else that was once well-loved and, through no fault of its own, became damaged.”
A matronly woman raised a hand in the back row. “How did you become interested in making such jewelry?”
“Long before I actually started.” Cilla looked her way, remembering Aunt Birdie introducing her as the owner of Tongue’s hair salon. “When I was about six or seven, I had a beautiful tea set. It was tiny, the pieces more doll-sized than for a child. Although my mother gave it to me, the set once belonged to my great-grandmother.”
She trailed a fingertip across the china pieces. “The tea set was a lovely antique bisque shade decorated with pink and mauve roses and rosebuds. And, if I recall correctly, there were also little swirls of delicate green leaves. Very much like this . . .”
Looking down, she sorted through the box of china bits until she found a similar piece. She held it up for the audience’s examination.
A round of appreciative oohs and aahs rewarded her efforts.
Tall, Dark, and Kilted Page 21
