Christmas in Kilts

by Bronwen Evans

  “We have an understanding. The colonel is my cousin. After my father is gone, he’ll be the next Baron of Torrishbrae. For years, it’s been expected that we shall marry.”

  “But for years, you haven’t done it.”

  “I’ve never been faced with marriage as a deciding factor in my niece’s future.”

  There . . . she’d said it, Freya thought. It was out. And she knew she might just as well tell him because if she didn’t, Ella would. The little imp asleep on her lap had already decided Captain Pennington was a catch.

  He was a catch. But only for a young woman with a good name and whose life wasn’t a tangle of complications.

  “Are you saying that Lady Dacre has demanded that you marry in order to keep your niece?”

  “The dowager wants assurance that once my father is gone, I have the protection of a husband as well as the means of supporting Ella,” she explained. “I have a small fortune of my own, but much of the Sutherland worth is tied up in our land. The estate and all the property that goes with it will be inherited by my cousin.”

  “So you’re marrying him to keep your own property.”

  “I’ll do anything to keep Ella.”

  The child stirred. Freya looked down, making sure that their conversation hadn’t awakened her. The little girl’s steady breathing told her she was still asleep.

  “She’s right. You are a bloody martyr.”

  Freya’s gaze snapped up to his face and she frowned. “How can you say that when you don’t know me?”

  “I can say that because I know that family. My parents have an estate in Hertfordshire. They’re neighbors, in a sense,” he explained. “It was in the duke’s character to control and manipulate lives. He required martyr’s blood. Lady Dacre’s demand sounds very much of the same style as her late husband’s: Do what I say or else.”

  Freya now realized his words had been spoken out of sympathy, and a sense of relief flowed through her, knowing his opinion of the dowager.

  “Is she Fredrick’s daughter?” he asked softly, his gaze falling on the tousled head in her lap.

  Unexpectedly, relief turned to warmth. It wasn’t so much his words, but the tone in which he delivered them.

  Freya knew very little about Ella’s father. Apparently, he cut a dashing figure in his company regimentals. Her sister fell in love with him after the two met at a ball in Edinburgh. Less than a month later, they eloped and were married at Gretna Green. It was all very romantic. Unfortunately, his family had other marital plans for him, but he didn’t care. He sent his bride home to Torrishbrae when he returned to fight the French on the Peninsula. And the product of their passionate love affair now lay curled up in her arms.

  “She is his daughter,” Freya whispered before meeting his gaze again. “Did you know him well?”

  “Well enough,” he said. “I was a year or so older, but we spent time in each other’s company growing up.”

  “My father and I never met him. Not even once. Nor did Ella,” she told him. “I’d love to hear any stories that you could share. She has so many questions, and I don’t know how to answer her.”

  “I’d be happy to, if I can.”

  The captain’s gaze dropped to her lap again, and she looked down and found Ella’s eyes open.

  Freya wasn’t her mother, but she’d been right there with Lucy when Ella entered into the world. From that first day, she had cared for the infant, loved and celebrated every step, worried over every bump and bruise. She didn’t know if she was capable of putting into words how much she loved Ella.

  “Did you have a good sleep?” she asked, caressing her niece’s silky cheek.

  “Can I look out the window?”

  There was no gradual waking up. From the moment Ella opened her eyes, regardless of where and when, she was an unleashed storm. She scrambled over Freya’s lap to the window. But that wasn’t good enough. Squirming and using her arms and legs, she pushed and made more room for herself.

  Her intentions were immediately clear, for Freya found herself sliding along the seat until she was directly across from the captain.

  “I apologize,” she whispered. “When you agreed to escort us to Baronsford, you couldn’t have known you’d be conveying a kraken and its minions.”

  His smile made her stomach flip deliciously. The confined space of the carriage left nowhere for either of them to go.

  “Kraken?” he replied. “I would have said she’s a very different mythic creature . . . a winged one generally armed with a bow and arrow.”

  A bump on the road pushed his long legs against hers. They each tried to adjust their seats, but the only choice was tucking her feet in next to his.

  “Does your brother, the lord justice, make a habit of assigning you such difficult tasks?”

  “No more talk of this trip being a hardship,” he said softly, his striking eyes surveying her face. “I’m extremely pleased that I’m able to be of service.”

  His charm was more lethal than his looks. Freya felt her cheeks warm and tried to slide back toward Ella with no success.

  She searched for something to say. Anything to ease the tension gripping her.

  “You’re stationed in the Highlands?”

  “This past year I’ve been attached to the 93rd Regiment of Foot.”

  “The Sutherland Highlanders?” she asked, knowing a bit about them. They were located in a wild region of mountains north of Torrishbrae. Most of the soldiers and officers came from the lands of Sutherland, Ross, Caithness, the Orkneys, and Shetlands.

  “I’m an officer in the Royal Engineers, building roads and bridges. My orders there are temporary.”

  “A necessity . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence as a bump and a leap of the carriage pressed her leg intimately against his. They were far too close. “As you can see, we desperately need someone of your talent here.”

  A woolen shawl she’d draped on her lap fell to the floor. He fetched it and spread it over her knees. She whispered a word of thanks at the considerate gesture, but their eyes met and a riot of butterflies swarmed within her, banging against her ribs.

  She turned her attention quickly to her niece. Sitting cross-legged on the seat, Ella smiled back at them.

  “All of this is boring. Can you please continue with the conversation you were having about my father while I was pretending to be asleep?”

  * * *

  Cupid could take a lesson or two from this little one, Penn thought.

  Sitting in that coffee room before he’d been introduced to them, he’d already been formulating what he was going to say to his brother, but any complaint regarding this trip to Baronsford was now forgotten.

  These two fascinated him. The older one, in particular. Penn contemplated the curve of Freya’s lips and the dimple in her cheek as she played a game of push and shove with her niece to win more space on the seat. For the briefest of moments, while she was distracted, he gazed at the delicate line of her jaw and the slant of her dark eyes and the soft curls that invited touching.

  A true beauty. But what made Miss Freya Sutherland even more striking was her complete lack of awareness of just how alluring she was.

  “You are taking too much room, fairy child.” She tickled her niece. “Move over.”

  “I need this much space,” Ella complained, swinging her legs around and taking control of most of the seat.

  Freya’s laughter was as natural as a spring-fed brook. “And I need you to ride up top with Dougal. You’ll get so cold that you’ll be begging to come inside again for just a wee wedge of space on this seat.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “She might not, but by Saint Duthac, you know I would, Miss Ella Dacre,” Shona growled, having been awakened by the commotion.

  As the nurse and the child engaged in their own battle of wits, Penn watched Freya try to adjust her legs to avoid the constant contact with his body. But it was no use. There was nowhere to go. And frankly, he had no co
mplaints.

  A sharp bump in the road bounced them all, and Freya’s immediate response was to reach for Ella and stop the child from being thrown from the seat. Penn, in turn, reached across as Freya herself nearly toppled off.

  His hands lingered on her waist, and a momentary scent of jasmine filled his head. But the magic ended abruptly when she sat back, once again gathering her hands and feet. He smiled at the blush gently coloring her cheeks.

  “About Captain Dacre,” she said in a rush. “You were going to tell us something about Ella’s father before.”

  The suggestion was timely. Staring at Freya, inhaling her scent, and touching her waist only served to provoke the wrong kinds of thoughts in him, considering the situation and the people he was traveling with. He found himself calculating how long it had been since he’d enjoyed a woman’s company.

  “Do I look like him?” Ella asked, directing her question toward Penn.

  “I’d have to say your beauty comes from your mother’s side of the family. But there are other similarities you share with your father that are indisputable.”

  The vulnerability showing in the child’s face was impossible to miss. The stare, the silence, the breathless expectation. Penn immediately felt the importance of the present moment. He was giving this five-year-old her first impression of a father she’d never seen.

  “He was sharp-witted and quick as a kite. Of course, I really only knew him when we were young men, but even then Dacre was capable of making us laugh.”

  “Do you mean he was always funny?” Ella asked.

  “Only when it was called for,” he replied. “Your father understood when to be funny and when to be serious.”

  He stole a glance at Freya and saw her nod. There was a great deal that Penn wasn’t about to share. Tales about Ella’s grandfather’s loveless severity and his harsh attitudes about duty before love and even before family. These were things Ella didn’t need to hear. Neither did she need to know that Dacre made it his life’s goal from early on to rebel against his father’s wishes in whatever directives were issued. And he often had the stripes and bruises to show for it.

  “Was he tall?” Ella wanted to know.

  “Indeed. He was quite tall.”

  “How tall?”

  “Nearly as tall as I am.”

  “Did he have hair on top of his head?”

  “He had a thick head of hair, as I recall.”

  “Did he love his dogs? More than his bloody valet, I mean?”

  “Like her grandfather,” Freya offered, making sure Penn understood the source of Ella’s colorful questions.

  “Yes, he loved his dogs.”

  “What were their names?”

  Penn wracked his brain. He couldn’t name Dacre’s brothers and sisters, never mind his dogs. “He had one named Marlowe that he particularly loved.”

  “That’s a funny name. What did Marlowe look like?”

  “He was very big. He was brown and had a black face. He was very gentle, as I recall.”

  “Was my father fat?”

  “No,” Penn said, trying to keep a straight face. “Not fat.”

  “Was his belly as big as Grandfather’s?”

  He couldn’t laugh. She was serious, expecting an answer. “I don’t know your grandfather, but your father had no belly. He was fit. Very active.”

  “Did my father like to smoke for hours and hours and stare off at the hills, barely saying a word except for things like, ‘Go and play by the river. There’s a particularly slippery rock in the middle . . . ‘ or something of the sort?”

  “Ella . . .” Freya admonished, trying to contain her smile.

  “No, your father didn’t smoke when I knew him.”

  “When he fell asleep by the fire, did he make smells so terrible that even his dogs went off into the kitchens?”

  “Ella, that will do,” her aunt said, barely able to get the words out.

  With the subtle trace of a smile on her lips, the little girl surveyed her audience, pausing on each face, looking for the reaction. Once she realized her spectators weren’t howling, she changed tack. “Could he draw? Or paint?”

  Penn considered that. “I would assume he did.”

  “Could he sing or play the pianoforte?”

  “I believe he did, though I’m not certain. We were lads, and we spent a great deal of our free time hunting and fishing and riding. Would you like me to tell you about that?”

  Ella squinched up her face. She clearly had little interest in any of those details.

  “Was he a good dancer?” she persisted.

  Penn looked at the dimple in Freya’s cheek as she tried to stifle her smile and turned her face to the window.

  “I never danced with him, so I don’t know.”

  Shona snorted and then held a kerchief to her nose. Freya turned farther, hiding her face as she searched the horizon for something. Penn scratched his jaw and cheek, trying to look thoughtful.

  “I’m not being funny. I need to know.”

  The falter in the child’s voice dashed any amusement Penn was feeling. Freya was already sliding across the seat and pulling her niece into her lap. Ella showed no tears, only a trembling chin as she fixed her large brown eyes on him.

  “My parents met at a ball. They danced all night and they loved each other. Then I was born,” Ella told him. “I need to know if he was a good dancer, because I know my mama was a good dancer.”

  “Your father was a very good dancer,” he said gently.

  Ella turned her attention to Freya. “We’re going to a ball. You can’t dance with a good dancer. You can’t. I’ve changed my mind. You can marry Colonel Richard. You don’t love him and you said he’s not a good dancer. That way, you won’t go away like Mama did.”

  Chapter Three

  They’d covered half the distance to Inverness, and Freya was relieved when Captain Pennington told them he didn’t intend to travel through the night. He ordered the driver to stop just outside of Tain at the gray stone inn. She was familiar with this area of the Highlands and the persisting pilgrimage appeal of Saint Duthac’s around Advent, and was not surprised when they were told that there was only one remaining room available for the travelers. Freya, Ella, and Shona would share the room while the men found places to sleep in the tavern and the stables.

  Their stop here was to be brief. With so few hours of daylight, the captain wanted to be on the road again long before the sun rose. Ella gave her no trouble and fell fast asleep as soon as they settled into the room. Shona joined them after sharing a supper with her husband.

  “Dougal said to tell you that he asked around at the stables. No one’s seen a traveler matching Colonel Dunbar’s description stopping here ahead of us. Of course, there are other places in Tain that he could go and ask.”

  Freya shook her head. “There’s no saying he’d stop here at all. We don’t even know if he’s behind us or ahead of us. The only thing that gives me any peace of mind is that he knows our destination.” She picked up the letter that she’d written to her cousin after Ella fell asleep. “Just in case, I am leaving this with the innkeeper downstairs.”

  She looked across the snug room at the precious face of her sleeping niece.

  “Siuthad, mistress. Go. She won’t be out of my sight.”

  Freya wasn’t about to tell her maid, but leaving the letter for the colonel was only an excuse to go downstairs. She knew Captain Pennington was there in the taproom, and she needed to see him. They hadn’t had a chance to speak freely after Ella’s emotional outburst, and there was a great deal that needed explaining. For however long it took to reach Baronsford, the captain was stuck with them. It was her duty to warn him, she told herself, to explain what prompted the child’s reaction.

  As she paused at the top of the staircase and ran a hand down the skirt of her traveling dress, Freya knew deep down that all of that was, in part, an excuse too. She wanted to see him. His looks, his manner, the subtle clues he’d given h
er that indicated he sympathized with her situation, all of it appealed to her. And his timing could not be better. She could use an ally when they arrived at Baronsford.

  When she reached the bottom of the steps, she found the smoky taproom to be more crowded than she expected. Working men milled about and filled every table, playing cards and throwing dice at hazard. At one table a rambunctious trio were cheering on rivals in a game of nine men’s morris. In a far corner, a drunken group were crooning a Highland song of a maid lost to the fairy king. Finally, the innkeeper appeared through a cellar door, and Freya handed him the letter with her instructions.

  The man walked off, and she moved across the room. But it was difficult to find Captain Pennington in the thick of all the activity. Then, as she stopped and stood on her toes looking for him, someone looped an arm around her waist and roughly pulled her around.

  “And where, my bonnie jo, have ye been?”

  The smell of whiskey and pig manure nearly knocked Freya out. She glared into the flushed face and drooping unfocused eyes.

  “Release me,” she snapped. “And I mean now.”

  “But I’ve been a-waiting for you all this dreary night, lassie,” the young man slurred in Gaelic, taking hold of her arms as he tried to keep his balance. “Who’d have thought a mornin’ star like you would fall to Earth here in T—”

  “You will take your hands off me this instant,” she scolded fiercely. “Or by God and his angels, I’ll give you a bruising that you’ll be telling your children about for years to come. If you’re able to have any.”

  “Aye, an aingeal.” He started to smile but quickly appeared to change his mind. His eyes opened wide, and he dropped his hands from her arms. He stepped back and turned away, mumbling, “Sorry, mistress. I thought ye were . . . I thought I . . .”

  Freya watched as he slunk off like a whipped dog. Her father always commended her for her manner of no-nonsense strength, and the men around Torrishbrae—whether they be tenants or servants or locals—treated her with deference. But the lack of fight demonstrated by her pig-farming harasser was impressive.

  Still, she wasn’t going to press her luck. Perhaps, she decided, tonight wasn’t the ideal time to speak with Captain Pennington. She turned back toward the steps, only to find his chest a hand’s breadth from her face.