Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

  He glanced back at Abby, who shrugged, but Jack was more optimistic. “He’s a good lad, and we’re getting to know one another, aren’t we, Sandy?”

  “Aye, Jack has been telling me all about the trouble he got into when he was my age,” Sandy said happily.

  “Now that might take a long while.” Richard chuckled aloud and was pleased to hear a more choked version escape Abby. She might pretend to stand apart from the world, but the Abby he’d long known wasn’t one to be a stranger to humor for long… especially when it was directed at Jack.

  “Very amusing,” Jack grimaced.

  “And we’re not to tell Father that we met up with Jack today either,” Sandy added.

  “No, we are not,” Jack repeated, touching a large bruise on his jaw tenderly before pulling his mount to a halt near a large oak that branched out over the Serpentine. “Sandy, I must say that I’ve long wondered if this tree might be good for a spot of climbing. You think you might give it a go, lad?”

  “You cannot climb a tree in Hyde Park, Jack,” Abby chided with exasperation.

  “I would never,” Jack smiled. “I’m much too old to dare. Sandy, however, is just about the right age to give it a try.”

  Dismounting, Jack urged Sandy to do the same, which the boy did with enthusiasm.

  Richard dismounted as well and rounded Abby’s mount. She was frowning fiercely at her brothers. “Come, angel. Walk with me for a bit while they have their fun.”

  Abby glanced down at him then back to her brothers who were already testing the lowest branches of the oak. With a sigh, she relented. “Oh, very well.”

  Reaching up, Richard grasped Abby around her tiny waist and lifted her from the saddle. Wee thing that she was, she weighed nothing as he lowered her slowly to the ground. He let her body slide the length of his, enjoying the surprise that widened her eyes as her breasts brushed against his chest. Her cheeks were a rosy pink by the time her toes touched the ground.

  She ducked her head, in shy embarrassment, Richard thought as he offered his arm. “Shall we?”

  “Of course,” she whispered, taking, not the arm he offered, but moving around to take his right arm instead. With the hoots and hollers of laughter from the two Merrill lads behind them, Richard led Abby along the edge of the Serpentine.

  The silence between them hung heavily with none of the comfort of years past. Richard couldn’t imagine what had Abby so tense. He continued to look steadily at her, waiting for her to meet his eye while she gazed resolutely away, as if she were determined not to give him what he wanted. Finally, it seemed that her natural inquisitiveness was too much for her to overcome, for she asked softly, “How are Vin and Jason? Moira wrote that she saw them last year before you left for Burma. Are they in London as well or did they go home?”

  Her simple question jolted Richard back to reality. As it had the previous night, just a few moments with Abby had made him forget his mission. She made him forget about his brother, forget about Jason. Forget that there was a sister, a father, a grandfather out there who still had no idea of what had become of Jason. So many others were wondering at the fate of his other comrades.

  As he wondered.

  They gnawed away at him, those obsessive thoughts. He couldn’t sleep and barely ate. He needed to be in Egypt searching for them, freeing them from the rebels who held them… if they still lived. Not walking in the park with a beautiful lass on his arm as if he hadn’t a care in the world. What was it about her that made him so easily forget his purpose?

  “What is it, Richard?”

  Richard knew his thoughts must have been showing on his face if Abby had seen his upset so easily. Suddenly it was he who could not face her, who didn’t want to have another look upon him and see his torment. But as he gazed out over the Serpentine, the words slipped out he could stop them.

  “We were only in Burma for a short time, Abby.” Richard laughed without humor, running his hands through his hair. “God, I shouldn’t even be telling you this. I could lose my commission.”

  “Obviously, you told Jack.”

  Richard fell silent. He hadn’t, but Francis had. The two were close mates. Jack, rogue that he was, was also a superb listener to a friend needing to bare his soul. Abby had always been the same, offering an open ear and a sympathetic soul. She knew when to ask questions and when to remain silent. As she was now, knowing there was more to come. It was easy – too easy – to tell her all.

  “We, our unit that is, were sent on a ‘fact-finding’ mission – ha, such a political term for what it really was!”

  “Spying.”

  “Aye, spying,” Richard acknowledged, sparing her a glance. She turned away without letting their eyes meet. “We were sent into Egypt in search of a band of Ahmed Urabi’s supporters who were trying to resurrect the rebellion there.”

  “But I thought the rebellion in Egypt was long dead,” Abby prompted softly. “I read about it in the papers.”

  “It was. Most likely, nothing would have come of it.” He paused, staring with blind eyes off into the distance. His voice was as far away as his thoughts. “But they sent us in to weed them out. Instead of us catching them, they caught us, recognizing us for the spies we were. The fools thought Urabi imprisoned and still in Egypt. They wouldn’t accept that he’d merely been exiled and was living like a king in India.” Richard fell silent for a long while before shaking his head as if recalling he was in company. “The rebels attempted to persuade us to reveal the prison’s location, the prison they were so sure existed. Of course we could tell them nothing, there was nothing to tell. Still, they persisted. We attempted many escapes, and after six months as a prisoner, I managed to find freedom with one other of our company.”

  When Richard turned to look at her again, he found Abby’s wide eyes locked on him. He could read her concern for him, her worry over the realization that the others had not come home and were, in fact, in grave peril. After a moment, she blinked and looked away once more. Richard caught her hand in his. “I left them there, Abby. Jace, Vin, Dewar, Jenkins. I ran like a coward while they were captured again. I don’t even know if they’re still alive.”

  “And that’s the worst part,” Abby whispered into the silence that fell with his words. “Not knowing.”

  God, how could she know him so well when he barely knew himself?

  Chapter 17

  Perhaps it is our imperfections

  That make us so perfect for one another.

  - Jane Austen, Emma

  Abby could hear all the guilt in his words. It weighed upon him, giving her, finally, a reason for the haggard look he’d borne since his return. She thought of Vin and Jace. They were such scamps, both of them, and she couldn’t bear thinking them lost and in danger. Squeezing Richard’s fingers between her own, Abby assured him softly. “You’re no coward, Richard. I’m sure you know that. Vin and Jace and the others would tell you the same. Someone needed to get away to find help for them, and I’m sure if one of them had managed an escape while you did not, you wouldn’t think any less of them.”

  “But they haven’t been found, Abby.”

  “Someone is looking for them, aren’t they?”

  “Only the battalion in Egypt. I’ve been trying to get more help here, but they won’t act. Even Francis cannot get them to act.”

  There was pain in his words that tugged at Abby’s heart. Many problems, so much greater than her own. So much more at stake. “But why not?”

  “We weren’t supposed to be there, Abby. The worst thing we could have done for Britain’s sterling image is get caught somewhere we shouldn’t have been.”

  That’s what all his talk was about before, Abby realized. Richard was trying to find someone with the authority to expand the search to bring his friends home. Gads, Richard MacKintosh was no coward. A coward would have washed his hands of the entire business. No, Richard was a fighter and Abby was certain that he would accomplish his mission, one way or the other.

&nbs
p; The silence fell between them, thicker than before. Both lost in their own thoughts as they stared out over the water, the sounds of Sandy’s laughter and Jack’s calls of direction and encouragement muffled as if from a distance.

  “You know what this reminds me of?” Richard broke the silence a few minutes later. Abby didn’t answer but rather cast him a questioning sidelong glance from beneath her lashes. “That time you fell out of the old cedar at Glen Cairn,” he said, referring to his family’s estate north of Kirkaldy in Forfarshire where they had spent plenty of summers together. He was hoping in recalling happier times, Abby thought, to dispel the mournful pall that now hung over them. “Do you remember?”

  Abby nodded, glad for the change of subject, for the happy memory.

  And it was one of her happiest. That had been the moment when Abby had first developed a crush on Richard. From a nuisance of a boy to a charming young man.

  “I was watching you the entire time. Did you know that?

  Abby’s brow wrinkled, trying to recall if she had seen him there. The woodlands around Glen Cairn were not thick, but of course, she had been concentrating on that tree. Her nemesis after a succession of failed attempts at climbing it over the years. “Were you?”

  “Aye,” Richard affirmed. “Did you never wonder how I got there so quickly? I don’t recall what it was that caught my attention but I couldn’t stop watching you climb and climb like a monkey, just as I had when I was a lad. Your hair kept catching on tree branches.”

  “I tore my dress, as well.”

  “But still you kept going and going.”

  “Until I came crashing down, of course.”

  Richard nodded slowly, a frown burrowing between his brows. His far hand came up to cover hers where it rested on his arm. Abby wished she weren’t wearing gloves so that she might feel the texture of his hand on hers. “I simply couldn’t tear my eyes away as you hit branch after branch on the way down.”

  “It slowed my fall, at least.”

  Richard laughed hoarsely, and Abby joined in. He stopped walking and looked down at her. Abby glanced up at him without turning to face him fully. Richard’s dark green eyes were tender. His thumb was brushing back and forth across the top of her hand in a way that expressed the caring and worry he had felt for her back then.

  His voice, when he spoke, was husky with feeling. “My heart stopped when you fell.”

  You’ve stopped mine every moment since then, she thought with a sigh. If only things were different. But Abby was glad for these additional moments with Richard when warmth and affection were all she saw in his eyes. He hadn’t noticed her scar yet, though she’d made an effort to keep her face turned away from him. He would eventually though, then pity would overshadow the caring and tenderness.

  “So there I was,” Richard went on, unaware of her internal worries, “thinking the worst. I imagined carrying your broken body back to your father, how he’d whip my rear end for not having saved you, then you heaved such a disgusted sigh and said ‘Oh, bloody hell’.”

  Abby blinked up at him in surprise. “I did no such thing!”

  “I remember it vividly,” his insisted, his eyes dancing with amusement.

  Abby bit her lip to keep from smiling. She had indeed said it, she recalled. She hadn’t even been aware of Richard’s presence at that moment, but had opened her eyes to find him there looking down at her with worry and surprise before his shock dissipated and he’d burst out laughing.

  Of course, she had begged his pardon for her language but Richard had shrugged it away as if he knew that such language had merely been the result of so many hours in the lads’ company. She remembered the rest of it like it was yesterday. Richard had asked after her injuries.

  “I assume you are unhurt then?”

  Abby passively tested each limb and nodded. “Nothing that won’t heal.”

  “That tree is nearly impossible to climb, you know.”

  “I felt inspired.” Abby brushed the dirt from her scraped knees and stood up with his help. “Unfortunately, I’m beginning to think that inspiration isn’t enough.”

  Richard plucked a red leaf from her tangled hair and twirled it between his fingers as he regarded the large pile of fall leaves on the ground. “I took me many a try to conquer this great beast, but I’m afraid I was never clever enough to cushion my fall with leaves.” He grinned with reluctant admiration. “Not even after a broken leg.”

  “A trick I learned after a broken arm,” she smiled in return.

  “Would you like me to show you the secret to climbing this tree?” Richard offered impulsively and led the way, after she nodded up at him enthusiastically.

  They spent the next hour working their way to the top of the massive cedar together before descending once more. On the ground once again, Abby had looked back up at the tree and thumbed her nose at it before flinging her arms around Richard’s waist. “Oh, Richard! We did it! We bloody well did it!”

  Richard had swung her around and around before he had set her back on her feet, where Abby had spun dizzily. She had looked up at him, seen his dazzling smile and handsome features as if for the first time. She had seen Richard with new eyes after that.

  He had kissed her cheek lightly that day. It turned her stomach to crazed butterflies and she’d been lost.

  Of course, Richard hadn’t been as lost as she, but Abby knew that at least she had gone from being simply Jack’s little sister to a friend in her own right. It was an odd thing considering the age difference between them. Of course, he had assumed she was much younger than she truly was.

  Despite her tomboyish tendencies, Abby had loved him from that point on with a feminine heart. She had never flirted with him as Moira had with Vin. Never practiced any feminine wiles on him. Fishing and riding kept his interest and allowed her more time with him than any amount of cooing and moony eyes might.

  When she would stay with her grandparents for holidays and during the summer after being sent to boarding school, her grandmother would insist Abby behave with decorum. She dressed properly, behaved properly but for those times when Richard came to visit with Jack, then it was braids and simple lawn dresses. She would have done anything to be able to spend time with him.

  Time that had given her such wonderful memories.

  “How old were you?” Richard asked suddenly with open curiosity.

  “Eleven, I think,” she told him, aware of how old he had thought she was. Even now he most likely thought her but fifteen or sixteen years old. “That was the summer before Mama died.”

  When he had held her hand and eased her grief. When he had sealed the love within her heart forever.

  Eleven, Richard thought with surprise. Surely not. He’d been close to fifteen or so at the time. Which would make Abby… past her twentieth year already. Two and twenty? No, that couldn’t be right. “Eleven? Are you certain? I thought you no more than six or seven. I thought of you as another brother.”

  “I know you did,” she said dryly.

  Richard thought about the years since then, the summers he had spent in her company. The rowdy behaviors, the language, all with a lass who would have been a young lady by the time they…

  “That last summer I saw you at Rose Lawn, you would have been…” Richard swallowed uncomfortably at the thought, “sixteen then?”

  “Mmm,” was all Abby said before a tiny giggle escaped her.

  Richard could feel the heat creeping into his cheeks, thinking of how Jack, Francis and himself had all stripped down to their small clothes to beat that summer’s scorching weather with a dunking in the estate’s small lake. All that with Abby present. With her, not just a lass of ten or eleven years, but rather a young lady with more delicate sensibilities. “You think it amusing? Jack should have said something.”

  “Not at all.” Abby suddenly grinned broadly. “I rather enjoyed the show.”

  The tips of Richard’s ears burned. Looking back on that day, he realized their wet smalls must
have clung to their most private areas. Abby would have surely gotten an eyeful. She had swum as well but in a proper swimming costume. He remembered nothing more than a scrawny, childish body.

  Setting his eyes to where her breasts now strained against her bodice, Richard knew there was no longer any chance of mistaking her for a child.

  “Why, Richard!” Abby exclaimed with laughter clear in her voice. “I do believe you’re blushing!”

  Her eyes were dancing with mischief again as they had the previous night. Her smile as broad and teasing as any he’d ever seen. This Abby was the sunshine that had lit his life in so many ways, driving away the clouds. Abby, who had always brought with her warmth enough to fill his soul, enough to sustain him for days afterward. In addition, that sunny demeanor now warmed other parts of him as well.

  There was no use denying it, Richard thought, as heat settled in his groin. He wanted Abby. He wanted to lose himself in her vitality and verve. Abby had lived her entire life with passion, it sent a thrill of anticipation down his spine to imagine that spirit translated into the bedchamber.

  Unaware of the turn of his thoughts, Abby laughed once again. The husky chuckle heightened his already growing arousal, leaving Richard with little choice but to ruthlessly tamp it down.

  “You must have thought I was a silly little girl to follow you around as I did.”

  Richard looked down at her, so full of life. Logic that told him that this wasn’t the place nor the time for such desire. It was never going to be the right time with a woman like Abby. He knew that already, but a large part of him could not accept it as truth.

  “Silly, no, but little, aye,” he said in response to her words. The sun bounced off her pale locks, catching the brilliance of her eyes and the flash of her smile as she shot him that sidelong glance. Richard’s chest tightened with corresponding warmth. He’d never known such consuming desire.