Hero in the Highlands

by Suzanne Enoch

  Out in the hallway the silence continued. With over a hundred people in the house, the lack of noise both surprised and unsettled her. The … aloneness of it, though, didn’t have as much to do with absent servants as it did with the realization of how much she’d come to depend on the presence of Gabriel Forrester in her life. And however much she tried to twist the answer into concern over the land and the tenants, she had to admit, just to herself, that she wanted him there, and she wanted him with her.

  A loud thud from the direction of the stairs made her jump. “Hello?” she called, making her way around the corner. And then she stopped, blinking. The house wasn’t empty, after all. “What the devil are ye doing, Hugh?”

  The footman looked up from the massive mattress he and three other servants wrestled down the main staircase like a great, floppy wall. “It wouldnae fit doon the back stairs, Miss Fiona,” the footman grunted. “We’ll have it cleared oot in a moment.”

  “But what are ye doing with it?”

  “His Grace said to burn it. All those feathers’ll make a great stink, but he said he didnae care aboot that and it was fit for neither man nor beast.”

  The meeting had finished, then. But what had come of it? Once the lads got past the landing with the behemoth, she headed up the stairs. Someone up there was hammering, and two maids laden with a large buck’s head passed her on the way to the attic. Either a herd of elephants had found their way into Gabriel’s bedchamber, or someone was taking an axe to the room. That didn’t bode well. Her heart settled into a fast, worried tattoo.

  Leaning cautiously into the doorway, she caught sight of Gabriel standing on a footstool and tearing the dark green hangings down from the skeleton of his four-poster bed. Behind him Kelgrove and three additional footmen dragged the massive wardrobe toward the door.

  “What’s all this?” she asked, straightening.

  Gabriel hopped down from his perch and tossed the heavy wad of material onto the floor. He didn’t seem angry; in fact, he looked … pleased. And she still had no idea what that meant, damn it all. The man likely smiled at cannonfire. “I’m turning this bed into kindling,” he said.

  “It looks like ye’re turning the entire room into kindling. Any particular reason?”

  “I’m making it more livable,” he returned. “Speaking of which, did you know half the knickknacks on the shelves back there have strings tied to them? It’s almost as if someone were planning to trick whoever might be sleeping in here into thinking the room was haunted.”

  “Hm. Fancy that.” She eyed him. A half smile on his lean face, a plain shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and buckskin trousers stuffed into his worn boots, he looked more like a servant than a duke. But then he was like no other duke she’d ever met, anyway. He certainly had nothing in common with the Duke of Dunncraigh. She’d never expected that to be something she thought of as positive, but that was precisely how she saw it. Now, anyway. “There are a plentitude of other bedchambers up here, ye ken.”

  “Yes, but this is the master bedchamber. My bedchamber. Connected to my study. And the sound of the chimney moaning lulls me to sleep.”

  His bedchamber. There were only a very limited number of ways to interpret that statement, and she took a quick breath. Her gaze on him, she waved her fingers at the other men in the room. “Lads, give me a moment to discuss someaught with His Grace, will ye?”

  Kelgrove stretched his back. “We need to take that other bed apart and haul it in here, anyway,” he muttered, leading the way out the door.

  Once the men were gone, Fiona shoved a chair out of the way and closed the door. “Yer bedchamber?” she repeated. “Ye’ve decided fer certain nae to sell it, then?”

  “You make a very compelling argument.” He walked up to her. “I hope you’ve thought this through.”

  Oh, thank goodness. “Me? Ye’re the one giving up one life fer another, Gabriel.”

  Light gray eyes held hers. “I’m not the only one.”

  “Ye mean Kelgrove? Is he staying on?”

  “If I can find something interesting enough to keep him occupied. But no, I don’t mean Kelgrove.”

  Heat slid through her, but she wanted him to say the words. “What are ye talking aboot?”

  He reached out, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. “I told Dunncraigh I would be keeping Lattimer, and he yelled a great deal. He assured me that I’ll lose half my tenants, my entire staff, and my steward by sunset, being that he’s the Maxwell and I’m an intruding Sassenach.”

  She hadn’t considered that. Gabriel’s presence was supposed to aid the tenants, not drive them away. Cold worry slid through her gut. “Is Dunncraigh still here?”

  Both of his eyebrows lifted. “Are you suggesting I change my mind?”

  Briefly she wondered if any threats not accompanied by a weapon ever troubled him at all. “Nae. But I do think I should gather the staff and speak with ’em before he begins spewing threats. Some of the folk here will listen to him, especially if ye dunnae counter his venom.”

  His amused expression darkened a little. Eventually he would realize that most men and women weren’t fearless, weren’t so assured they could make their own way in the world. “We’ll both speak to the staff,” he said after a moment. “I assume we can fit them all in the ballroom.”

  Fiona turned on her heel. “I’ll see to it.”

  He caught her around the waist, pulling her back against him. “See to it in a moment.”

  “Gabriel, he could be causing all kinds of mayhem already. If he orders the clan to leave before we can speak to them, ye could lose most of them. I’m nae jesting aboot that.”

  His iron grip didn’t loosen. “You didn’t answer my question. You’re not going anywhere until you do.”

  She gave up shoving at his arms and leaned her head back against his shoulder to look up at his face. If any other man had ever tried manhandling her like this, she would have kicked him right in the sensitive bits. When Gabriel held her, the world felt … slower, as if time stretched. She felt it even now, when heaven knew she had urgent matters to see to. Both of them did.

  “What question, then?” she asked, trying to sound exasperated rather than infatuated. She didn’t have time today to be infatuated.

  “I asked if you’ve thought this through.” His grip tightened a fraction. “You do everything you can to help the people around you. I admire you for that.”

  “Thank ye.”

  “I’ve just defied your clan chief. At sunset I’ll set him outside on his arse if he hasn’t left before then. He wants you to prove your loyalty to clan Maxwell by abandoning Lattimer.” He lowered his face to her hair, his breath a warm, whispering caress. “Are you ready to stand against your own clan?”

  Christ in a kilt. “I’m nae standing against my clan. I’m standing against one man who happens to be my clan chief. A man who’s done a piss-poor job of looking after his own.”

  “That’s semantics, Fiona. Some of these people whom you’ve known all your life, people whom you’ve helped more than they’ll ever realize, will call you a traitor and turn their backs on you.”

  Fiona started to protest that such a thing would never happen. As she considered it, though, she kept her silence. As much as she’d tried to provide for them, some of her neighbors and kin had little but the dirt beneath their feet. All they owned was pride—pride at being Maxwells of clan Maxwell.

  Gabriel released her, moving around to face her. “I need to know that whatever happens,” he said, taking her hands in his, “I’m not going to lose you.” A quick scowl contorted his face. “Your support, I mean.”

  Her heart stuttered. He might have altered what he said, and clumsily at that, but she’d heard it. She would never forget it, and the keen yearning it made her feel. Being essential to anyone, much less a man as self-possessed as Gabriel Forrester—she couldn’t remember ever feeling that before.

  The question, though, remained—if she stayed on at Lattim
er, she would likely lose her clan. She had a better reason than most to stay on, and even so the idea of not having that vast family at her back still gave her pause. How could she ask them to stay?

  He continued to gaze at her, his expression unreadable. “Am I asking too much? We haven’t known each other for long, after all. How does Shakespeare have Henry the Fifth say it? ‘I speak to thee plain soldier.’ I couldn’t write you a rhyme to save my life. I’m not a master of the clever turn of phrase. If you—”

  “Ye’ll nae lose me,” she whispered, lifting up on her toes. “Or my support.”

  Freeing her hands from his, she slipped them over his shoulders, drawing his face down for a deep slow kiss that stole her breath and eased her worry. They would think of something, because the alternative would be worse than failure. And neither of them could afford to fail.

  * * *

  Taken all together, the number of staff and servants Fiona had hired over the past four years was quite impressive, Gabriel decided, following her into the castle’s huge ballroom. Nearly twice as many would fit in there and still have space to dance a jig, but as they all—the stable boys, the gardeners, cooks, footmen, maids, and men and women from half a hundred other positions he was certain Fiona had invented—finished shuffling around to look at him, it occurred to him that she’d been commanding nearly as many troops as he had.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” Fiona said. “As ye know, the Duke of Dun—”

  “Is it true, Miss Fiona,” a male voice called out, “that anyone here after sunset will be exiled from clan Maxwell?”

  That caused another burst of noise, much of it angry and directed at him. Good; none of this was allowed to fall on Fiona’s shoulders. Not when she’d worked so hard to keep all these people—and all the others on the property—clothed and fed and employed. Putting his fingers to his mouth, he blew an earsplitting whistle.

  The voices sputtered and died down to a low, concerned murmur. Once he had their attention, Gabriel dragged over a chair and stepped up onto it. “The Duke of Dunncraigh offered to purchase Lattimer from me today,” he stated in a carrying voice. “I turned him down.”

  The voices erupted again, and he glimpsed Kelgrove by one of the doors, the sergeant’s hand in his pocket. Gabriel had seen mobs before, seen what they could do to a man with nothing to wield but anger and their bare hands. He put his own hand up again.

  “Dunncraigh likes the textile and pottery works, and the distillery, of course, and he likes all the glens and glades and open fields, because they’re a fit place for him to graze his sheep.”

  “We dunnae need the fields,” a woman’s voice shouted. “He can do as he wants with ’em.”

  Fiona pulled a second chair over next to his, and reached a hand up to him. When she stood beside him, she faced the men and women, some of whom had likely been employed here since before she was born. “I asked my uncle Hamish once how many servants he employs at Fennoch Abbey. Eighteen, he told me. Now this hoose is bigger, but Dunncraigh has his own grand estate already. We’ll suppose fer the sake of argument that if he owned this place and if he didnae tear it to the ground as nae better than a ruin, he would send his firstborn, the Marquis of Stapp, to live here. Do any of ye think Donnach Maxwell would be willing to pay the salaries fer a hundred of ye? Nae. Two thirds of ye would be turned away. And then ye would need the fields, or ye’d be off to the workhoose in Inverness. There are Maxwells there right now, ye ken—but nae a one who hails from Lattimer.”

  “For the past four years,” Gabriel took up, fighting the growing urge to kiss her right there in front of everyone, “Miss Blackstock has been keeping two sets of ledgers; one for the old duke and his solicitors, to keep them away from here, and the other for all of you, the villagers at Strouth and scattered across the property, and the workers in the factories. She did this. Not Dunncraigh. In fact, the only thing I can find that the Maxwell has done for you is to collect his tithes.”

  “But he’s our clan chief!”

  “Withoot the Maxwell, we’d have nae protection from the English and their soldiers!”

  “I’m English,” he countered. “And a soldier. Or I was one until this morning, when I realized I had to choose between a war on the Continent and keeping peace here. With all of you. I’m not a clan chief. And I know most of you refuse to see me as this castle’s laird because I’m not a Highlander. What I am, however, is here. If you’ll allow it, I mean to stay.”

  “What aboot the MacKittrick curse?” someone else, Fleming, he thought, asked. “If the castle went to Dunncraigh, the curse and all its ill fortune would be finished!”

  “Nae!” Fiona said loudly. “Whether ye believe in the curse or nae, ye know the words of it. And there’s nae a mention of it ending when a Maxwell takes MacKittrick back. Old MacKittrick said the land would be cursed until an Englishman becomes a Highlander, someaught every one of us always reckoned to be impossible.” She put a hand on Gabriel’s arm, her fingers warm even through his sleeve. “Here’s an Englishman. I dunnae ken whether we can make him a true Highlander or nae, but we can damned well try.”

  * * *

  “—I couldnae say,” Hugh the footman commented as Fiona passed by one of the small sitting rooms, and she slowed to listen. “But if Miss Fiona thinks he could make a go of it, that’s a damned sight better than watching MacKittrick crumble aboot my ears.”

  “Ye should keep yer voice doon, lad,” Fleming’s familiar voice returned. “Dunncraigh and his men havenae left yet. Oscar says Lattimer was oot shoveling shite with the rest of ’em trying to save the pasture. The Maxwell might at least have given us the seed, but he didnae. Miss Fiona had to go hat in hand to clan MacLawry to buy it.”

  She smiled. This, today, had actually been the easy bit. Hope was fairly simple to spread. The next weeks, though, the first time something went awry, that would be the moment to watch for. Even knowing that, though, this afternoon she felt it, too. Gabriel—it made sense that he’d learned which words to use to inspire his troops, but no oath bound anyone to him here. And yet with him beside her, she didn’t feel alone. She hadn’t even realized how alone she’d been until he’d arrived to set everything on its ear. Of all the things she’d thought when he’d dragged her out of that mudhole, it hadn’t been that she would find him a partner, a lover, and a friend.

  And while of course Lattimer was his, and all of the ultimate decisions were his, she hadn’t yet felt pushed aside, undervalued, or ignored. Perhaps it was because he had so little experience as a landowner, and she supposed it could change with time. But he listened to her opinion and asked her advice. By all the saints and sinners, she’d never before met any man who did that and didn’t consider himself less because of it. It had certainly improved her opinion of him at the beginning.

  Slowing again, she touched a hand to her lips. Through the hallway window she spied a herd of deer grazing along the crest of the hill, while below them a laden hay wagon rolled along the rutted front drive toward the stable, a dog running alongside, tongue out and tail wagging. Gazing out, she felt … content, and at the same time as if something unexpected and marvelous lay just beyond the horizon. Delight tingled through her at the oddest moments, making her grin. And it all centered around not the property, but the man. Gabriel Forrester.

  “So now ye figure the Sassenach’s the one to break the curse, do ye?” Hamish Paulk’s voice drawled from down the hallway.

  Her shoulders stiffened, the warmth of her insides cooling, as if she’d just been dumped into Loch Sìbhreach. “I figure he’ll see that we have seed fer planting, that the irrigation trenches are repaired, and that the hoose keeps standing,” she commented, turning around to face her uncle as he approached. “Whether that breaks the curse or nae, it’s someaught.”

  “And ye reckon the Maxwell wouldnae have done the very same thing? And that his attention wouldnae have benefited every Maxwell fer a hundred square miles?”

  “I dunnae care aboot a hundre
d miles. His sheep would have driven oot every Maxwell fer fifteen square miles,” she returned, deliberately using the size of the Lattimer estate. Fiona narrowed her eyes. Never in her life had she spoken like that to her uncle. Instead of being mortified, however, she felt … strong. Because even though Gabriel had closeted himself with Sergeant Kelgrove to draft letters to his London solicitors, she wasn’t alone. “Ye and my grandfather and his grandfather have been the only chieftains here fer a hundred years, Uncle. Dunncraigh’s lived quite well withoot a chieftain at MacKittrick Castle. And withoot paying us any heed at all, in fact, except to complain aboot who owns the property.”

  “A Sassenach owns th—”

  “This property would be naught but grazing land fer Domhnull Maxwell’s sheep, and ye know it. He could look well by nae displacing anyone else aboot Dunncraigh, and still have space to make his money. He looks after his own. That hasnae included us since the Crown took MacKittrick.”

  “But it would have included here again, if he owned MacKittrick. I’ve yet to meet anyone who can guess what the duke has up his sleeve, much less a female with but four years’ experience managing a ruin of an estate. Ye’re selfish, lass, convincing the major to stay on so ye dunnae lose yer own position. I’m ashamed of ye. Ye’re nae better than yer brother, making a big noise when ye should keep yer damned mouth shut.”

  She blinked. “What ‘noise’ did Kieran make?” she asked, ice gripping her chest.

  Her uncle leaned closer. “One nae as loud as the one ye made today, Fiona.” He straightened. “Ye mark that while ye watch the Sassenach change everything, bring in his Sassenach staff and a highborn Sassenach wife to bear him the next Duke of Lattimer. In six months, lass, ye’ll be nae more than a maid, if the duchess allows ye to stay at all. Ye’ll clean his piss bowl and be his whore, and ye’ll nae be a Maxwell ever again.” He turned around to walk back up the hallway. “Never again.”

  Fiona stood where she was for a moment, her back to the tranquil view out in front of MacKittrick. Lattimer, rather. Hamish hadn’t touched a hair on her head, but all the same she felt like she’d been slapped. She’d come to welcome the fact that Gabriel had the power to stand against Dunncraigh, but at the same time she’d forgotten something vital. Gabriel didn’t talk like a duke or act like one, and she’d never heard of any aristocrat at all who insisted his steward call him by his Christian name.