“Aboot what?”
“That I don’t share. That’s me, being civilized.”
“Impossible man.”
His grim smile looked at least as frustrated as it did amused. “You have no idea.”
And now perhaps he might be able to use his soldierly ways and point her toward an invisible sheep thief, and then he could go away before she forgot why his presence and his kisses and why having someone here who could cut through clan pride and solve problems was such a very terrible idea.
* * *
“Missing sheep,” Kelgrove muttered, kicking his gelding into a canter to match Union Jack’s pace. “We rode all the way to the middle of the Scottish Highlands because Miss Blackstock didn’t want to admit she can’t find some bloody sheep?”
“She didn’t say they were missing. She said they’d been stolen,” Gabriel returned, sending Jack toward the overgrazed pasture. Considering Lattimer boasted three large flocks and a dozen smaller ones, this wasn’t much of a starting point. At the moment, though, it was the only one he had.
“I could lose my pocket watch and say it was stolen, just as easily,” the sergeant replied. “That doesn’t make it so.”
That was the second time Kelgrove had implied—or rather, suggested—that Fiona had lied about something. Gabriel didn’t think she had done so, though he still believed she hadn’t told him everything. All the same, Kelgrove’s statement annoyed him. “I’m not easily fooled. Would you agree with that?”
“I would emphatically agree with that, Your Grace. As I recall, it took you less than a minute to work out that Private Simmons had gone off to meet some lightskirt, and he had not, in fact, fallen asleep on watch as he’d claimed.”
Gabriel had never understood why Simmons had put forward the lie, since leaving his post and falling asleep on watch were both hanging offenses. The only thing he could figure was that the private had preferred to be remembered as a laggard rather than as a rogue. The lad’s mother had been Irish Catholic, as he recalled. He’d needed to know, though, whether he’d had a spy or an ill-fated fool on his hands. In the end, Simmons had died because he was a weak-willed idiot who couldn’t resist a twopenny whore.
That, though, was years past and far too long ago for him to even bother with wishing there had been a different ending to the tale. “When you’re agreeing with a point I make,” he commented, “you don’t need to bring up examples where I ordered a man’s death. My point is that Miss Blackstock wasn’t lying. Someone’s stealing sheep. My sheep. I’d wager a year’s salary that something else is afoot, as well, but this starts me on the hunt, at least.”
The overgrazed pasture came into view, and he slowed Union Jack to a walk. Adam drew up beside him. “That’s a generous amount of shit,” he noted, as they rode through the newly sprouting grass toward the narrow center of the valley.
“Yes, it is. The rock slide that separated the flock came from up there,” he said, gesturing at the steep slope to the left where darker soil and rock not yet blasted by the weather carved a raw wound all the way to the top of the gorge.
Whether it looked natural or not, the placement was so perfect that he had to suspect the slide had been started intentionally. Twenty feet to the left or the right, and the sheep and their shepherds would have been able to navigate past the tumbled boulders. The best way to determine for certain whether the mess had been ill luck or encouraged misfortune would be to climb up to the top of the cliff and take a look at where it had begun. Gabriel swung out of the saddle, did a quick survey of the rock on either side, then headed up the firmer-looking left edge of the slide.
“Your Grace,” Kelgrove called, his voice breaking at the edge, “that is not a good idea. Come down and I’ll take a look.”
“You don’t even like to climb ladders,” Gabriel replied, grabbing for handholds as he ascended.
The slide had occurred well over a month ago. In that space it had rained several times, and he knew from personal experience that the wind had been active, as well. There might well be nothing to see even if someone had helped the slide along. If he was going to find anything, however, the odds were better today than they would be tomorrow or any day thereafter.
“But Your Grace, you—”
“Shut up and look for anything down there that could point to this being intentional,” he grunted.
“I … Yes, sir.”
While his sergeant continued to complain about having a commanding officer who took far too many chances, Gabriel continued upward. Fiona hadn’t known precisely when the slide had happened, but from the look of both the slope and the wide swath of torn-up ground below it had been large, sudden, and violent. Any sheep on the far side would have been fairly easy to snatch, and no one would have been able to climb across the unstable debris for days after it fell, lowering the odds of anyone finding tracks that didn’t belong.
A rock broke loose from beneath his foot, sending him scrambling and another trail of debris clattering downward. “Look out below!” he called, digging the toe of his boot into a narrow crack and twisting to watch the miniature slide. It picked up some loose earth and a few smaller rocks, but nothing to match the size of the one he’d knocked loose. Something big would have had to dislodge at the top, then. Something that had been there for a long while in rough conditions.
Finally he reached the steep section above the slide. Edging sideways, he moved across it, looking for signs that anything other than nature had caused the fall.
Three quarters of the way across, he found it. A trio of straight-edged gouges marked the center section at the top of the slide. He ran his fingers along the remaining side, feeling smoothed earth that would have dug at least a foot into the ground. Any footprints would have been washed away, but nothing in nature had ever made a cut so straight that even after a month he could make it out. Shovel marks. They couldn’t be anything else that he could conjure.
“What the devil are ye doing perched up there like a great owl?” Fiona’s familiar voice called from below.
The sound nearly had him losing his balance again. Turning his head, he dug his fingertips into the rock face. “Inspecting,” he returned.
She stood almost directly below him, her hands on her hips and her face lifted to see him. “I told ye aboot the sheep so ye’d stop badgering me aboot hiding things from ye. Nae so ye could go clambering up the mountainside like a great goat.”
He’d been called far worse than that. And by her. “Your rock slide was no accident,” he called down. “How long did it keep you from getting to the far side of the pasture?”
“Aboot a fortnight, I reckon. With the ill weather it took some time to settle, and then we had to bring in the heavy horse and wagons to clear a safe path.”
In two weeks he could have moved Wellington’s entire army a good hundred miles, set up camp, and fought a battle or two. A hundred sheep could be anywhere—with or without help. The information left him with more questions, but shouting them down the side of the gorge didn’t make much sense. Leaping sideways to reach a handhold over a smoother section of the collapse, Gabriel began a controlled backslide all the way down to the valley floor.
“—allow the damned Laird of MacKittrick Castle to go off and break his bloody neck?”
“I didn’t ‘allow’ a damned thing, Miss Blackstock,” Sergeant Kelgrove grunted. “I learned a long time ago that Major Forrester—the Duke of Lattimer to you—will see a problem solved in the most expedient way possible. Even if that means putting himself in harm’s way.”
“Bollocks,” Fiona retorted, and Gabriel grinned. She and the landslide had some things in common. At the least they were both unstoppable once they got started.
“Say ‘bollocks’ all you like,” Adam returned, “but I was given an order. In the king’s army we follow orders, whether we approve of them, or not.”
“Then I do say ‘bollocks’ again, English. He isnae yer commanding officer any longer. He’s yer liege lord. Ye dunn
ae merely agree to die with him leading ye into bloody battle. Ye make certain ye keep him from harm, even at the cost of yer own blood.”
Gabriel scowled. No. That was wrong. He wasn’t some precious … thing. He didn’t lead his men from some safe hill far away from the battlefield. And he was no one’s liege lord, and certainly not the Laird of MacKittrick Castle. He was the Duke of Lattimer, and he only required his tenants and servants to do the work to which they’d agreed. His duty was to see Lattimer safe and well managed, and then to return to a war that needed to be won.
“I can keep myself from harm,” he stated, jumping the last few feet to the valley floor. “And I recall you saying that while I might have been named the Duke of Lattimer, I would never be the Laird of MacKittrick.” He lifted an eyebrow for emphasis.
“Ye arenae,” Fiona retorted. “But if ye die stupidly, ye’ll have everyone worried aboot the MacKittrick curse rearing its blasted head again. I’ve enough to manage withoot ye doing that.”
“You have enough to manage, do you?”
Her shoulders squared. “Ye’ve nae tried to send me away, so aye, I have enough to manage.”
“If you’re in my employ, then, and if you don’t like the way I’ve done something, Fiona, tell me. Don’t blather on about it to any fool who’ll listen.”
“Sir!” Kelgrove protested.
“Not you,” Gabriel amended.
“That’s one command I’m pleased to follow,” Fiona put in.
“I don’t doubt that. Now. I found shovel marks up there. Was that from your men cleaning up the slide?”
She looked toward the top of the gorge. “Nae. Are ye certain?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed, her gaze moving from the slide to the far field. “Well, now. That would be a handy way to separate half the flock and do away with them, wouldnae?”
“I thought so. But it doesn’t tell me who did it. As for why, how much would a hundred sheep be worth?”
Fiona shrugged. “They were all ewes, so I’d say aboot two pounds each. Two hundred pounds. That’s a fine profit fer the effort of a rock slide.”
“Where might they sell a hundred head all at once?”
“We’ve drovers all over the Highlands, paid to drive herds of cattle or flocks of sheep to market. It could have been as far as Aberdeen or Fort William. Or both. That would look less suspicious, I reckon—dividing up the flock.”
This was getting more interesting—not because of her ready answers, but because this quest wasn’t some ploy manufactured to keep him occupied. She didn’t know who’d done this—and he meant to give her the answers she wanted. “In other words,” he said, “anyone could have taken them, and sold them anywhere.”
“Aye.”
“That’s not helpful.”
Her arms crossed over her pert chest. “Ye asked me what was amiss, and I told ye. Sheep are missing. We lost another four yesterday. I didnae say ye’d be able to discover who stole that hundred head.” She tilted her head, the dark hair that caressed her temples drifting across her face in the breeze. “As backward as we Highlanders are, even we might’ve been able to find the thieves if they’d kept the flock in their garden.”
“You should address His Grace more respectfully,” Sergeant Kelgrove stated, his expression annoyed.
Gabriel had nearly forgotten his aide was even present. “I’m already accustomed to Miss Blackstock’s direct manner of speaking.”
“It’s her between your tenants, your servants, and you, sir. The way she addresses you will be imitated by others.”
“Dunnae speak aboot me as if I’m nae here,” Fiona protested. “And I reckon if Gabriel doesnae like how I address him, he can tell me so.”
Adam looked like he’d swallowed a bug. Gabriel, though, didn’t feel nearly as annoyed as his aide looked; she’d called him by his given name in front of someone else. It shouldn’t have mattered in the slightest, but it did. Covering his abrupt urge to smile by turning his back to collect Jack, he couldn’t explain even to himself what seemed to be happening, except that in the midst of this chaos and frustration at the stubborn nonsense keeping him from his duties, he felt … easier. Not quite relaxed, because God knew he’d stepped from one battle direction into another, but lighter. Because of her, and her relentless pushing at his well-established sensibilities. It would never serve him in Spain, but here humor seemed to be an essential part of dealing with Highlanders and the Highlands. And it felt like it had been a very long time since he’d laughed.
“Are ye finished, then?” Fiona asked.
He mounted Jack and swung the bay around to face her. “Here? Yes. The trail’s too old. Why don’t you take me to see my gamekeeper? I imagine he would have noticed any odd comings and goings.”
Even if he hadn’t been watching for it, he would have seen the widening of her dark eyes, the way she checked her advance for just a heartbeat. His hunch had been correct, then; it had been Ian Maxwell who’d kissed her. It was therefore time that they meet. Past damned time.
“Sergeant, return to Lattimer and send people out to give me a head count of the stock I have left. Employ some additional shepherds to help keep watch.”
“Some of them have sons and daughters who know what they’re aboot,” Fiona put in, still being unexpectedly helpful.
“Your Grace, it isn’t … proper for me to leave you out here alone with Miss Bla—”
“Och, I promise ye I willnae ravish yer commander,” she broke in. “Dunnae be such a lass.”
Kelgrove flushed. “Once again, I am trying to do my duty. Insult me all you like, but the fact remains that—”
“The fact remains that I can’t be in two places at once, and so you’re going back,” Gabriel finished. “I want to know where we stand, and I want to move a few steps ahead of our thieves. You’ll provide me with accurate information, and she knows where to find this Ian Maxwell. Go.”
With a curt nod Kelgrove dug his heels into his mount’s ribs and galloped back toward Lattimer. Or MacKittrick, or whatever the castle wanted to be known as today. The old manse could be more fickle than a woman, it seemed.
“If ye wanted to be alone with me, ye should have told me where ye were headed this morning,” Fiona commented, swinging up as easily as any man to sit astride her mare.
“I frequently want to put my head through a door after a conversation with you, Fiona, but I think I’ve made it clear what I want of you. And since you followed me out here, I conclude that you want me in return.”
“Mayhap I’m only being neighborly,” she returned, moving into a trot beside him.
He snorted. “You? Neighborly?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “I’m very neighborly. Ask anyone.”
“Anyone but me, you mean,” Gabriel said, kneeing Jack to send the bay a touch closer to Fiona and her black mare. “While I happen to find your antagonism charming, I wouldn’t call it neighborly.”
“My antagonism’s yer fault,” she retorted with a half grin, “because ye’re hard-hearted and trying to give yer sergeant my job. I’ll nae give the stewardship up withoot a fight, ye ken.”
“Good. I like to fight.”
“I’ve noti—”
He reached out, caught Fiona beneath the arms, and dragged her out of her saddle. Pulling her across his thighs, using her flailing grab around his shoulders as she tried to steady herself to draw her still closer, he took her mouth in a deep, hard kiss.
Her fingers tightened across his shoulders, her legs curling against his thigh. Gabriel teased at her until her lips parted. He tangled his tongue with hers, forgetting to breathe, as he pulled her against his chest. His cock jumped at the weight of her across him. He hoped she felt it, felt that he wanted her. His fingers wanted to tear at her clothes, bare her skin to his gaze and his touch. Gabriel caught the bottom of her dress, drawing it along as he ran his palm and splayed fingers up her thigh.
“Stop,” she whispered against his mouth, turning her grip
on his shoulders into a push.
Damnation. His blood high, lust and battle pounding together in his chest along with the desire—the need—to claim her as his own, and she’d said the one word that he’d sworn he’d listen to. Clenching his jaw so hard he could practically hear the muscles creak, he lifted her away from him and set her onto her feet in the middle of the shit-covered field. He wanted to bellow a protest, to demand to know who he needed to bloody in order to have her remove that word that kept her from him. Ian Maxwell seemed the most likely opponent, and luckily he was close by.
Fiona stood with her back to him for a moment. Abruptly, though, she turned around. “Well,” she panted, putting a hand on his boot and lifting her face to look up at him, “that’s definitely a fine beginning, I reckon. But I’ll take more convincing than that.”
The world righted itself. “It’s to be war, then,” he murmured, taking her chin in his hand and leaning down to kiss her sweet, soft mouth again.
Her black eyes danced as he straightened. “Oh, aye. Come and get me if ye dare.” Releasing his boot, she collected her mare and mounted again. “I recommend ye find a better battlefield than one that’s covered with shite. And that’s the only help ye’ll get from me, Beast of Bussaco.”
He hadn’t put that nickname on the list of forbidden epithets, damn it all. “I have an idea or two,” he countered. “But you should know one thing.”
“And what might that be?”
“I never lose.”
Chapter Nine
“Ian!” Fiona called, hoping that the gamekeeper would be out shooting rabbits and not sleeping the morning away in his cottage. Aye, he was notoriously charming, and aye, the two of them had a bit of fun from time to time, but it hadn’t been anything to merit that deadly look in Gabriel’s eyes when she’d told him to stop undressing her. He’d done so, at once, but if he did suspect her connection to Ian, and if he thought her hesitation had been because of the gamekeeper … She shut her eyes for just a moment. Please let him be elsewhere. “Ian Maxwell!”
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