The flutter of pleasure came with no warning. She backed up a step and looked behind her where her would-be suitor had disappeared, then turned again to the captain.
“How long have you been standing here?” she asked, daring herself to look up into his handsome face. He’d shed his scarlet coat, and the white shirt beneath his waistcoat was unbuttoned at the throat.
“Long enough to learn that laying a hand on you without an invitation is done at great peril.”
Freya bit her bottom lip to stop from smiling and met his gaze. “Show me the look that made the man run.”
“Only if you show me yours.”
A barmaid carrying pitchers of ale bumped Freya from behind, pushing her into Captain Pennington’s chest. His arm wrapped protectively around her, drawing her away from the commotion behind her. She took a deep breath, feeling a thrill take hold deep in her belly.
“Come with me,” he murmured, bringing his mouth close.
His deep voice and his breath tickling her ear were enough to start Freya’s senses dancing with pleasure. On the small of her back, she felt the warmth of his hand through the material of her dress. Using his great height and body to shield her, he moved easily through the crowded room.
Freya wasn’t accustomed to this feeling of being looked after. In her whole life, she’d never been the object of this kind of attentiveness.
They reached a table in the corner curtained off from the rest of the room. He ushered her inside. “Do you mind joining me here?”
“Not at all, Captain.”
A large settle against the wall had already been arranged with a blanket for him to sleep on, though his long legs would certainly be requiring a chair to extend the makeshift bed.
She glanced around at the table. A number of chairs were drawn up to it, and he picked up his greatcoat and a leather travel bag from one of them and tossed the items on the settle. A cold, damp wind was howling through the cracks around a shuttered window.
“I’m sorry you have to sleep here,” she said.
“My driver said there are better accommodations above the stables, but this is just fine.”
“Why didn’t you take them?”
“With this crowd of ne’er-do-wells? I didn’t want to be too far from you.”
Freya was touched by his protectiveness.
He held a chair for her and she sat. The remains of his meal lay on the table.
“Can I order you some supper?” he asked. “I wouldn’t recommend the pigeon pie, but the oysters are surprisingly fresh.”
“Thank you, but no. I took dinner with Ella.”
“Then perhaps you’ll take a glass with me. This elder wine is quite good.”
She wanted to, but wondered if she should. Dulling her senses, alone in the company of someone with his looks and charm, might not be a good idea.
After receiving another cup from the barmaid, Pennington closed the curtain. “I’d prefer we not invite any of these unsavory characters in,” he said.
Freya knew he was the safest person she could be with in this taproom. He poured her a cup of wine from the pitcher and slid it toward her.
“How did you know I was down here?” she asked. “You were quick to come to my aid.”
“The tenor of the noise out there changed. I knew the moment you came down the steps,” he said. “I’ve spent too much time in the company of soldiers. I know too well the sounds of the taproom.”
She looked over her shoulder at the closed curtain and listened. The hubbub and hum of voices rose and fell. Words were mostly unintelligible, but the singers had been reduced to one voice entertaining the others.
“Is anything happening now?”
“Nothing but a crowd of men looking for an hour of leisure. Some have drunk too much ale or whiskey, and all of them are tired from their labors.”
“And how was it different when I came down?”
“Let me just say that I knew.”
She turned back to the table and found him watching her. The dim light of the single guttering candle in the curtained-off space was a blessing as she felt the warmth of a blush spreading up her neck into her face.
In preparing herself for this journey, Freya had imagined it would be all hardship and sorrow. She knew what lay at the end of it. Even if her cousin showed up and Lady Dacre was amenable to allowing Ella’s living arrangements to remain as they were, Freya still had to face up to her own future. She was no fool. She knew her marriage would be a sham and, in the end, a wretched failure.
Now, here she was, sitting across from this man. Captain Pennington was handsome enough to make her heart throb incessantly and considerate enough to even give up his comforts.
“I am sorry about today and Ella’s outburst,” she said, watching him refill his cup of wine. “She is far too aware of things for her age. Unfortunately, she knows too much and worries even more.”
“She’s afraid of losing you.”
“She’s very alert to my emotions. She recognizes my concerns, and that only adds to her fears.”
Freya stared at the dark liquid in her cup. Ella was an uncommon child, and her upbringing thus far could be considered by some as unconventional. Since before she could talk, she’d been treated like an adult. She was always in the company of older people. Hand in hand, they had experienced life and its obstacles together, even as Freya herself learned to deal with them. She was beginning to think she should have sheltered Ella more.
“When did your sister pass away?”
The captain’s question brought Freya’s attention back to him. “A week after Ella was born.”
“That was a large responsibility to be left with.”
She shrugged. “Lucy was my only sister, and Ella’s father was fighting the French. I needed to step in and take charge of the bairn. I was glad to do it. But I wasn’t alone. I had my father.”
“How old were you then?”
“Seventeen.”
His gaze moved over her face, and she picked up the cup of wine, unable to stand the intensity of his perusal. She took a swallow, savoring the warm liquid.
“You were a young woman at the very beginning of your own adult life. You became your niece’s guardian at an age when most lasses would have been fussing over their social calendar or the contents of their hope chest.”
“I was a young woman faced with the loss of my sister,” she corrected, still feeling after all these years the pain of Lucy’s death. They were only two years apart. She’d lost not only a sister but her best friend. “I was willing and able to shoulder what I knew to be my duty. And, I’ll be honest, that’s what those first days were to me. An obligation. But that quickly changed. I fell in love with my sister’s precious daughter. Ella was a blessing. A gift.”
“You were plucked from your own life and dropped into your sister’s. That had to be difficult. The adjustment, I mean.”
The captain had a point. She wouldn’t deny it. Freya still had not forgotten the dreams of her youth. She recalled that one day she had been trying to decide between green material or gold for a dress and another day, a month later, she was frantic with worry over Ella not sleeping and not taking to the wet nurse. She’d kept the village doctor busy at all hours of the day and night.
“You had to grow up fast.”
“Many a lass of seventeen is a mother, Captain.”
“That’s true. But it doesn’t change what happened to you.”
“I did grow up in a hurry,” she admitted. “The fact is, I hardly noticed it. But who can truly tell what the future holds? Few go through life along some smooth and protected path, emerging unscathed,” she said. “To my thinking, the courage of a person is tested not only in a battle, but in how well they react and recover when life knocks them to the side with unexpected blows.”
A momentary hush fell between them. His eyes fixed on hers. The thought ran through Freya’s mind as he gazed at her that this man was truly seeing her. Not the exterior of a woman, b
ut the person she’d become since taking charge of her niece. And this unsettled her. She felt exposed, vulnerable, drawn to him. No one, including her father, really understood the transformation her life had undergone.
She searched for something to say to break the silence. “My father tells me I lecture too much. I apologize if I’ve come across as some didactic old crone, Captain.”
“You can call me Penn. That’s what my friends call me.”
She hesitated, unsure of how this would sound to others.
“And to my family, I’m Gregory. I’d be very pleased if we could curtail this formality.”
“Gregory it is then,” she said quietly. “And pray, call me Freya. That’s how my family refers to me. And you already know Ella’s name for me.”
“Fie.” He smiled. “Like a fairy. You’re Ella’s magical keeper, spreading your unseen wings around the little pixy, keeping her secure from the world.”
His voice spread over her like poetry. Freya’s face caught fire, and her insides were like the candle on the table, melting in this man’s presence.
He added some wine to his cup. He charmed her, enthralled her. There was so much that she wanted to know about him, questions that she had. But she had no right to ask. Where her heart was straying, her mind could not allow her to go.
Freya forced her attention back to the clatter of dice and the hum of voices beyond the curtain. Sitting across from each other at the table, there was nowhere else she could look but at him. And there was nothing nearly as interesting to think of but the man before her.
“May I ask a personal question?” he asked.
“Everything we’ve been talking about tonight has been personal, Captain . . . I mean, Gregory.” She took another sip and prepared herself.
His smile was lethal. It reached his magical eyes, and Freya’s heart began a new dance in her chest.
“Why didn’t you marry someone before now?” he asked.
“You mean to someone other than the colonel?”
He shrugged and swirled the wine in his cup.
“Well . . .”
“And I want an honest answer,” he pressed. “We are talking as friends here. No hesitating to sort through your thoughts or weigh the consequences of your answer.”
“Is that how friends converse?” She laughed. “With no consideration of the consequences of their words?”
“Well, let’s say for this question, you need not fear being misunderstood.”
Friends. She repeated the word in her mind. She’d never had a man refer to her as a friend. Very well. Having such a defined relationship made their situation—their close proximity in traveling in the same carriage and the time they’d be spending with each other on the road—far more comfortable. It also helped cool the forbidden fancies of her heart.
“I’ve never left Torrishbrae for the expressed purpose of finding a potential husband,” she said flatly. “I’ve had no time for the social world of London or even Edinburgh. That is why I’ve never married. And I have no regrets. My life has been so full. Ella has been my whole world.”
“And now?” he asked, sitting back from the table. His face lay half in shadow. “When you consider the difficulties you’re facing presently, do you have any regrets?”
“As I said earlier, I’m certain the rumors that you heard about my cousin were a mistake. I am counting on him to hold up his part of the bargain.”
“I’ve only known you a short time, but I know that in this bargain, you are being cheated.”
Freya was not intimidated by his fierce expression of honesty. Her own father was famous for it. Living with it for her whole life instilled in her a toughness and an ability to see the world clearly.
“There is no changing the fact that he will be the next Baron of Torrishbrae. By marrying him, I will have Ella. That’s all I seek.”
“You will have Ella, but it is naïve to think that Dunbar’s disposition and how he conducts his affairs won’t affect your life,” he persisted. “The man is a known gambler. An opportunist. One who will behave in an ungentlemanly manner if it will turn a situation to his favor. He is—”
“He is my cousin, Captain,” she interrupted. She knew all of this and more. But for the past month, she’d stewed over this, discussed it with her father. “I’ve looked at this from every possible angle, and my options are gone. If I am to keep Ella, I must take whatever future presents itself with this man.”
Standing, she started out and then stopped. Freya didn’t want to leave with hard feelings. She valued their conversation and the friendship that seemed to be emerging between them.
“Thank you, Gregory, for the chance to speak my mind,” she said softly. “But for better or worse, Colonel Dunbar is the only possibility I have.”
Chapter Four
Penn remembered someone saying the best preparation for traveling in the Highlands in the winter was making out your will. With the ice on the road and only six hours of daylight at this time of the year, the dangers were evident. But he wasn’t going to keep a child cooped up in a carriage from well before sunrise to well after dark.
He glanced up at the sunless sky as he walked across the inn’s stable yard. Their horses were being fed and rested. They still had hours to travel today, but it was already growing darker.
Behind the stable, a glen of fir trees sloped down from the low rise that the coast road had been following. As they’d approached from the north, he’d seen a wide mill pond extending out from the woodland. It was the perfect place for Ella to stretch her little legs and tire herself with exercise.
Making his way down through the clusters of pine and spruce, he saw no trace of Freya and her niece. With the trees cutting off the wind, a muffled silence surrounded him. He reached a fork in the path and stopped, listening for some sign of them. Hearing a whisper of laughter, he followed the sound and soon found the frozen pond, nestled into the snow-covered meadow beyond the glen.
The nursemaid sat on a log with her back to him. Penn’s eyes fixed on Freya and her niece as the two, holding each other’s hands, spun in a circle on the smooth ice.
Listening to the happy laughter, he watched what seemed to be a competition as to who would slip and fall first.
“Hold on tight,” Freya yelled as they picked up momentum, both their feet moving faster and faster as they whirled about each other.
“I’m going to fall,” Ella screamed, laughing.
“I won’t let you go.”
Penn watched Freya. The hood of her blue cloak was tossed back, her light-brown curls fighting to be free of their bonds. The ruby lips and cold-reddened cheeks illuminated the gray countryside, and he thought that if he could paint perfection, it would start with this vision.
Their conversation in the taproom kept coming back to him throughout the night and this morning. Her words about courage and accepting responsibility. Freya was mature beyond her years . . . and selfless in a way that many never achieved. He thought of his own family. His mother, Millicent. His sister Jo, and his two younger sisters. How pleased they’d be to meet a woman who embodied the same values they prized.
“Slow down. I am going to faint,” Freya called out as the two giggled and laughed.
When it was safe, she let go of her niece’s hand, then promptly bent down and sat on the ice, holding a hand to her forehead.
“I win. I win.”
Penn forced himself to step onto the edge of the ice where he could be seen.
Ella saw him first. She waved excitedly and then promptly slipped, sitting hard on the ice next to her aunt.
“Thank you for stopping, Captain,” Shona said, standing when she saw him. “Miss Ella needed this.”
“I believe you’re right.”
Anytime Freya tried to get to her feet, Ella pushed her down. What had been a spinning circle was now an amusing wrestling match.
“Get this fiend away from me,” Freya cried out, laughing breathlessly and reaching a hand toward them.
He wanted to be on the ice with them, be part of their game, be included in their camaraderie. Penn started across the pond toward the two giggling females.
“Perhaps these will help,” he said as he drew near. He held out two pairs of well-used skates he’d borrowed from the innkeeper. His own pair was tucked under his arm.
Ella’s eyes lit up. “Thank you,” she chirped, taking the smallest blades from him. She darted away, slipping constantly but keeping her balance until she reached the log where Shona sat waiting to help her.
Freya was struggling to rise.
“May I?” he said, leaning down to help.
She slid her gloved hand into his as he pulled her up. She slipped as she tried to find her balance and stumbled against him. The scent of jasmine filled his head again as he held her tight against his chest.
“Are these for me?” she asked, drawing away.
He handed her the skates, and Penn thought her enthusiasm surpassed the child’s. She leaned over right there, trying to put them on.
Watching her, he strapped on his own skates. He guessed the spinning was still affecting her, for she was having difficulty.
“Allow me.” He dropped to one knee before her.
She started to say something but then stopped as he held her ankle and lifted her boot. She put a hand on his shoulder. Making a short work of it, he moved on to the other.
Ella skated up behind her aunt and bumped her. Both of Freya’s hands landed on his shoulders as blue cloth swirled about him.
“I’m so sorry. That fairy child is going to pay for this.”
The scent of her, the feel of her coat and skirts, and the trusting intimacy of her hold on him had his senses reeling. Done with her skates, he pushed upright only to have Ella swoop by, grazing her aunt with another pass. Freya clung to his greatcoat as he straightened up.
This close, her breath mingled with his, and their eyes locked for a long moment. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ella coming at them a third time. Grasping Freya by the waist, he swung her around to avoid the assault and the enthusiastic child raced past.
Christmas in Kilts Page 41
