“Did ye make enough for two, since you’ve made yereself at home?”
She went right on rattling the porcelain and rifling his drawers, the epitome of cheek and sass.
“Aye.” Finally, she shrugged. “I thought ye might be cold after walking the dogs. Sit yereself down, and I’ll pour.”
Hugh opened the bread box and pulled out the oatcakes that Mrs. McNabb had left for him. Because things were becoming a little too domesticated and because he needed to remind Sophie that this was his house—his domain—he started up the interrogation once again. “Tell me, Sophie Munro, how is that ye’ve come to take up residence here?”
She ran her thumb over the edge of the silver butter knife. “Amy.”
“Amy?” He was getting a small idea of what was going on.
“Aye. She told me ye were needing a house sitter for the next week. She said that ye wanted me to do it.”
Sophie set his steaming mug in front of him.
“And ye believed her? I barely know you.” Which wasn’t really true. He knew a lot about Sophie Munro. Amy had tried to set them up last summer, and she’d told Hugh everything there was to know about the lively lass in front of him now. But Hugh hadn’t been in any shape to court anyone. Especially one so lovely as she was.
“Nay. I didn’t believe her. But I received several emails from you. I showed you only one last night. I have the rest in my bag. Upstairs.” She set the sugar and milk at his elbow, but didn’t pour herself a cup. “I’ll get my things from yere room when we get back from church.”
Damned straight, ye will! It was his house.
She gathered the dog dishes and filled them with water—as if it were her house, too.
He ignored the good care she gave his hounds. “Aye. I’d like to read those emails that I wrote.”
“Oh, ye were kind and charming. Very helpful, ye were. Ye told me where to find the key. Told me to help myself to yere food. Even told me I was to take yere bed. For the view.”
“Helpful, kind, and charming,” he repeated. “That Amy needs to be turned over my knee for a good spanking.”
Sophie sat the bowls before the dogs and slung a dishtowel over her shoulder exactly like his mum used to do. “Don’t be angry with Amy. She’s a mama now. A good one.”
“She certainly thought she had the right to meddle.” Both Amy and his aunt.
Sophie glanced at her watch. “You said we had thirty minutes before church. We best be going.”
“Aye.”
She twisted her watch. “I’ll call my mother afterwards to come get me.” She looked like more was bugging her than being sent on a fool’s errand. She seemed to be conflicted about going home.
“What’s wrong, lass?”
“Ye wouldn’t understand.”
No. A man like Hugh McGillivray wouldn’t understand what it was like for Sophie to finally be on her own. Her freedom had lasted less than twenty-four hours. Deydie’s veiled prediction that she would turn tail had come true. Sophie couldn’t tell the man beside her either. Hugh had been to the far reaches of the world. And Sophie…well, she’d been nowhere.
She grabbed her coat from the hook at the back door, where she’d stowed it yesterday—when she’d pretended this was her house…her castle for the next week. Now, today, she was going home.
She laid her hand on the doorknob and looked back as Hugh downed the rest of his tea. He unfolded himself from the chair and followed her out.
The drive was empty. “Where’s yere car? The barn?”
“We’ll walk,” he said. “It’s a mile or so. The weather is only a wee bit chilly.”
She marched out, glad she’d put on warm tights with her dress. Hugh walked in silence beside her. Sophie waited for him to question her more about why she was there, but she had to know one thing before returning home.
“This may be too personal, but since we’ve already been in bed together, and I’ve added to the sights I’ve seen,” she braved, referring to his naked backside, “why didn’t you turn the light on when you came to bed last night? It might’ve clued me in sooner that you were there and vice versa.”
He gazed off in the distance as if the answer lay beyond the Munro. “It’s my habit.” He seemed closed on the subject. But a moment later, he was asking a question of her. “Is there some reason why you don’t want to go home?”
Sophie couldn’t tell him the complete truth, but she could share a sliver of it. “Ye’ve made arrangements for me to apprentice with yere head kiltmaker for the next week. Or whoever sent those emails did.” Then the reality hit. “Or maybe the phantom emailer was pulling the sheep’s wool over my eyes on that, too.”
“We’ll find out soon enough. Willoughby will be at the kirk. He’s been at McGillivray’s House of Woolens since the day he was born, and he’s at least eighty years old, if he’s a day.”
One thing would be cleared up soon.
“Why else don’t you want to go home?”
She kicked a loose rock. She wasn’t willing to confess how being here was an adventure for her. He would laugh at her inexperience. But she could tell him about the task she’d been given. “You remember Deydie from when ye came to Gandiegow? The old woman who runs everything?”
“Aye. The crotchety ol’ bat.”
“She’s not that bad. Deydie comes off as crusty as a barnacle and as tough as an old sailor, but she has a good heart.”
“I only remember she gave me an earful about Amy. That I should do better about staying in touch. That family was more important than any business I had to run.”
“Sounds like Deydie.” Sophie envied the geese flying overhead. They were free to see the world with no one telling them what to do. “Well, Deydie’s the one who wants me to take up kiltmaking. I can’t stress to ye enough how much I don’t want to disappoint her.”
Hugh glanced over, as if to see if she was telling the truth. “And the rest of it?”
Not all of it, but some. “Deydie is also counting on me to come home with some woolen remnants, whatever quality wool piece you can spare. Gandiegow’s Kilts and Quilts is running its first-ever wool quilt retreat in six weeks.”
“We have plenty of oddments that should work.” Hugh took her arm and guided her around a frozen puddle.
His grip was comforting, and she had the urge to lean into him. For a moment, she forgot what they were talking about.
“I can pick you out some nice pieces before you go.” His words snapped her back to the conversation.
“Oh, no. I’m supposed to do the picking!” She had to be the one to do it. With kiltmaking off the table, the haul of remnants was the only way to contribute to Gandiegow now. And by God, she would do it.
At the Y in the road, Hugh changed the subject.
“There.” He pointed down the lane to a group of five or so quaint stone buildings. One of them had a waterwheel. A little bridge was positioned over a stream with two cottages on the other side. “That’s the wool mill. Of course, those two cottages over there belong to Willoughby and Magnus.”
Hugh turned in the opposite direction. “The kirk is this way.”
Sure enough, the church was down the road, with a small town beyond. The church was made of whitewashed stone and had a gray slate roof. Around the perimeter was a fenced-in cemetery with ancient headstones. The building looked older than the Munro behind it.
Hugh glanced down at her, and once again, Sophie was caught off guard at how masculine and beautiful the man could be. She shivered.
“Ye’re freezing,” he said, mistaking her reaction to him for chilliness. He put his hand on her back and hurried her along. “I should’ve brought the car.”
“I’m fine,” she argued, but only halfheartedly. She felt right toasty with his hand firmly on her back. Luckily for her, he kept it there the rest of the way.
As they entered the building, the locals turned to stare—an elderly couple with matching Buchanan plaid scarves, a young mother with a babe propped o
n her hip, and two matronly women. All were gape-mouthed. Hugh dropped his hand and nodded to each one, almost as if he was daring them to ask what he was doing with the female beside him.
“There’s Willoughby and Magnus,” he said. “The wool brothers.”
Sophie didn’t get a chance to ask him what he meant as he ushered her to them. The two men stood four feet apart and were indeed prehistoric. They both had bushy white hair, slight paunches at their middles, and frowns on their faces.
Hugh leaned down and spoke conspiratorially to her. “They’re feuding again. I’ll introduce ye to Willoughby first. Magnus will have to wait.”
As they approached, the taller of the two pointed at Sophie. “Is this her then, Laird?”
“Aye. Sophie, this is Willoughby, our master kiltmaker.” Hugh studied the old man’s face. “Then ye do know that she’s come to apprentice with you?”
Willoughby looked as if the younger man had grown a horn from the middle of his head. “Of course, I do. Ye make me use that blasted computer, and I read yere blasted email on the matter.” He huffed as if a shovel had been placed in his hands and he’d been forced to do hard labor. “She’s to be here for the next week. Ye told me to clear my schedule to teach her everything I know.” The old man shook his head and grumbled, “It’d take more than a week, a lifetime perhaps.”
Hugh turned to Sophie and began unwinding her scarf from around her neck. “Ye’re staying. Don’t call home.”
Before she could process his words—she was pretty damned distracted by him removing her scarf—old man Willoughby jabbed a finger in her face.
“Tomorrow morning, be on time,” the kiltmaker said. “If ye’re not, ye won’t be apprenticing with me. Do ye hear me, girl?” He was near to shouting.
“Good God,” his brother grumbled from four feet away. “The dead heard ye in the churchyard and beyond.”
Willoughby glared at him.
“Aye. I’ll be there,” Sophie assured him. “On time, too. Will you excuse us, please?”
She grabbed Hugh’s arm and dragged him to the stained-glass window of Saint Columba. “So ye didn’t believe me until ye heard it from someone else? Did ye think I’d made everything up? That I had faked the emails?” She lowered her voice to a hiss. “That I’d done it all so I could get into yere bed?”
A harrumph shot up from behind her. She turned to see a sour-faced woman wrapped in a wool coat the same color as sheep dung.
Sophie turned red, but she still had more to say to Hugh, so she pulled him closer. “Believe me…the show yere reflection gave me wasn’t worth my time.”
The Laird wasn’t affected in the least. In fact, he made matters worse by running his hand down her arm like they were lovers. “Darling, don’t say such hurtful things. I thought ye liked my naked arse.”
The battle-ax’s mouth fell open, and she hurried away into the chapel, likely ready to burst with gossip.
“Just like that,” Sophie said. “Ye’d ruin yere reputation.”
“Aye. Just like that. That old woman is Nansaidh. She’s been wanting dirt on me for years because I wouldn’t walk out with her granddaughter. I think we’re finally even. I’ve made her happier than the woolgatherer on sheep-shearing day.”
Sure enough, Nansaidh was nattering away with woman after woman, pointing to the Laird in the Narthex, most certainly filling their ears full of how the lord of the manor had fallen.
Sophie perched her hands on her hips. “What of my reputation?”
Hugh winked at her. “What’s one more naked arse when ye’ve already seen so many?”
“Ye’re insufferable.”
He slipped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head.
Sophie couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. She thought she might melt away right there within the walls of the church.
“Stay at my house and apprentice with Willoughby for the next week,” he said into her hair. “If ye can stand him that long.”
“How am I going to stand you?”
He laughed and toyed with a lock of her mane. “That’s not what we’re debating here. What do ye say, lass?”
She leaned back and stared into his clear brown eyes. Eyes that had depth to them. Solid, like oak.
The church door opened, and he dropped the bit of her hair that he held.
The newcomer came straight to them. Sophie knew her—Amy’s aunt. Hugh’s aunt, too. Aunt Davinia.
“It wouldn’t be right to stay with ye at yere house,” Sophie said before Aunt Davinia reached them. “Not all alone.”
Aunt Davinia gave her a sly smile and then beamed at Hugh. The older woman was aging wonderfully, as Hugh would probably do, too. “What’s this all about?” she asked innocently. Aunt Davinia gave Sophie a kiss on the cheek. “It’s good to see you again, dear. Now, tell Aunt Davinia why ye’re frowning.”
Hugh shook his head at his aunt, but Sophie answered her anyway.
“I’m here to apprentice with the kiltmaker. But I thought I would be at Kilheath Castle alone. I’m not the type of lass to plant myself in a man’s home, especially one I’m not married to.” Besides, as Sophie’s parents had made clear—she wasn’t marriage material anyway.
Aunt Davinia patted Hugh’s arm. “Ye better hold on to this one, laddie. The rest of the world is shacking up at every opportunity.” She grabbed Sophie’s hand and placed it in Hugh’s. “But this lass, my dear boy, has moral fiber.”
Sophie was still stuck on her words. Ye better hold on to this one. Then the heat of his hand and the satisfying, steady grip of it made her feel a little dizzy.
Hugh dropped her hand and then wheeled on his relation. “Auntie, ye wouldn’t know anything about any emails now, would ye? Or perhaps that my clothes were cleared out of my own dresser drawers and shoved in the back of my closet?”
Aunt Davinia waved him off with a laugh. “Ye’ve always been one with the outrageous imagination, Hugh-boy. Now, Sophie, not to worry. I recently moved from Fairge to the dower house on the north end of Hugh’s property. I would be right happy to move into the big house for the next week to make things proper for you and my nephew.”
Hugh studied the statue of Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. “Then I’ll have one of the rooms furnished up for ye.”
Who was he speaking to? Aunt Davinia? Did he mean for Sophie to sleep in his sister’s room? Or with him?
The organist began Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Sleeping arrangements would have to wait until after the service.
Aunt Davinia gave Sophie’s hand one last squeeze before the older woman hurried into the chapel.
Hugh put his hand to Sophie’s back again, but this time leaned down and spoke in her ear. “Ye’ll sit in the family pew with us.”
The words were innocent, but the thoughts he conjured up weren’t. His warm breath on her neck and ear made her a little wobbly on her feet and filled her with—she hated to admit it—desire. The devil.
He grinned at her burning face and then placed a finger on one of her incinerated cheeks. “Do ye need to step outside and cool off first, lass?”
“Nay.” She’d just burn in hell for her less-than-pure fanciful thoughts—and in church, no less.
Chapter Three
* * *
Hugh sat through the Sunday service, cognizant of his houseguest next to him. Sophie was as straight as a matchstick. Was she as hyperaware of him as he was of her?
After the service, he hurried out after her, not stopping to speak with the pastor or his workers. He caught up to her just outside the cemetery fence.
“Have ye entered a footrace?” he asked.
She shrugged off the hand he’d put at her back. “Hugh, if I do stay at Kilheath Castle, I won’t be staying in your sister’s room.”
“Are ye wanting mine then?” he said with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“I do love the view.”
As far as he was concerned, the view could be dashed. Especially the view of the loch. To
o many memories. Too many regrets.
She paused before the first sheepgate. “Nay. I don’t want yere room either.”
A strange feeling came over him. Disappointment? He chalked it up to being a blasted male with sex always on his mind.
“Maybe I should stay at the dower house,” Sophie offered.
“There’s no space for ye,” Hugh lied. “You’ll stay at Kilheath.” With me.
“The emails?” she asked, throwing him off guard. “You really think it was Aunt Davinia?”
“Aye, she and Amy must’ve been in cahoots.”
“But why?”
Because he’d stopped living—at least, that’s what Auntie and Amy had been saying. Since he’d moved back home and taken over McGillivray’s House of Woolens, he’d immersed himself in his work. When his parents had died in the auto crash, he’d lost his last chance to make things right between him and Mum and Da.
“I don’t know why Amy and Auntie did it,” Hugh lied again. “I’ll not let ye go home until ye’ve learned how to make a kilt to Deydie’s satisfaction. Plus, I’ll make sure ye have a bushel of woolens for Deydie and her quilting retreat.”
Sophie touched his arm, pulling him to a stop. As he looked into her eyes, he seemed to wake up or to come alive again…at least a very little bit. The deadness and coldness that had settled into his chest eased.
“Thank you.” She squeezed his arm. “Ye don’t know what this means to me.”
But he could read the emotions in her eyes. He saw kindness, and trust, and at the place that she tried to hide the most, he saw want and need. Was it for him?
“Come,” he said. Enough of these moments. He steered her toward Kilheath. “Let’s find a place to settle ye into my home.”
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