The Highlander's Excellent Adventure

by Shana Galen

  “Perhaps Miss Neves is your companion and chaperone,” Lady Charlotte said. Hearing her name, Ines dropped her spoon and lifted her head from the bowl. “Though she seems a bit young for the task.”

  “Actually,” Emmeline said, “it is I who decided to accompany Ines to Scotland. She wanted to see Mr. Murray’s home, and I have always wanted to see this country and came along.”

  “And how do you know my son, Miss Neves?”

  Before Ines could answer, Duncan said, “That’s a long story better saved for later. How are James and Moira?”

  “Your brother and sister are well, Duncan. And I have time for a long story. Now you have piqued my interest. Please allow Miss Neves to enlighten us.”

  “We have a mutual acquaintance,” Duncan said before Ines could say anything. “And there was a misunderstanding.”

  All of the careful wording and sidestepping seemed quite silly to Ines. Obviously, Lady Charlotte would find out the truth one way or another. She might as well know it now.

  “My sister is married to Colonel Draven,” Ines said. “I was trying to avoid a suitor and hid in the coach of Duncan—Mr. Murray. Before I knew it, we were outside of London.”

  Lady Charlotte set her unused spoon on the table. “You stowed away in his coach?”

  “By accident.”

  She turned to her son. “Why did you not return her to London immediately?”

  “I wanted tae, but—”

  “But I pretended not to speak English,” Ines said, breaking a piece of bread in two. Telling the truth was quite freeing. She felt better than she had in days. “I did not want to go back to London right away. I wanted an adventure. And, truth be told, I wanted more time with Duncan. He is most handsome.”

  “I see.” It was difficult to know what she thought of this statement by Ines as his mother’s expression did not change.

  “I am a lacemaker. A shopkeeper. I wanted an adventure.”

  “You are young, Miss Neves, and perhaps did not think through your plans. You are related to Colonel Draven. That makes you more than a shopkeeper. Your brother-in-law will insist you marry my son.”

  Ines shrugged. “I will decline. After all these days with Mr. Murray, I find I do not want to marry him.”

  Lady Charlotte’s eyebrows shot up. Ines did not know if she was more shocked at the idea of her son being forced to marry a shopkeeper or that same shopkeeper refusing to consider her son as a suitor.

  “I am certain my brother-in-law will arrive soon, and I will be out of your way.” She looked at Duncan. “You will not ever have to see me again.”

  Lady Charlotte harrumphed. “And if Colonel Draven is half the man the rumors would have him to be, you know that is ridiculous. He will force my son to marry you.”

  Ines stood. “And if you knew me, my lady, you would know that I do not do anything I do not want. Excuse me.” She threw down her napkin then started away. But she quickly turned back, grabbed the breadbasket, and took it with her.

  EMMELINE

  Emmeline started to rise to follow Ines, but Lady Charlotte pointed at her. “Sit down, Miss Wellesley. It is quite enough to have one guest storm from my table, but I will not have two.”

  Emmeline started to lower herself again then stood. “I am sorry to disobey, but Miss Neves is my friend.”

  “Your friend? She is a shopkeeper.”

  “She is an artist and dearer to me than my own sisters. Excuse me.” Emmeline thought Lady Charlotte nodded her head in approval, but she was probably mistaken. Emmeline walked quickly away. In the entryway, she saw the door was open and followed it into the courtyard, where Ines stood near where they had ridden in, a wet Loftus at her side. She was feeding him bread. Emmeline crossed the courtyard to her and put her arm around her shoulders.

  “I never thought I would want to go home,” Ines said.

  “All good adventures must end sometime.” Emmeline looked out at the rise and the craggy landscape beyond. It looked like it was raining on one of the peaks not so far away. “At least we will sleep in beds tonight.”

  “I would rather sleep out here.”

  Emmeline snorted. “No, you wouldn’t.”

  Ines smiled at her. “You are right. But I do not like her.”

  “I told you she was a force to be reckoned with.”

  “She must hate me,” Ines said. “The low shopkeeper who dared to look at her son.”

  “I don’t know what she thinks of you,” Emmeline said. “But one thing my mother always told me is that society respects those with a spine. You showed her you would not be cowed. I think Lady Charlotte, of all people, respects that.”

  “Your mother is a wise woman.”

  “She has her moments,” Emmeline admitted. “But she can also be ridiculous and petty and superficial. I hope you will not mind if, when Colonel Draven comes, I ask him to escort me to my grandmother’s.”

  “You will not go home?” Ines asked.

  “Not while the Season rages. I won’t be stuffed into another silk gown and forced to stand against a wall while men turn up their noses at me because I am too old or too outspoken or too fat.”

  Ines gasped. “I cannot believe any man would think any of those things about you. I wish I had your figure or your way with words. I thought you had not married because you were in love with Mr. Fortescue.”

  “I am not in love with Stratford.”

  Ines just looked at her.

  “I am not!” Emmeline closed her eyes. “I was not. And he is not the reason I haven’t married. I don’t want to marry a man who does not love me as I am. All of my life my mother has tried to change me. Keep your opinions to yourself, Emmeline. Suck in your stomach, Emmeline. Try to smile, Emmeline. Why can’t I just be myself? And after almost four and twenty years of my mother telling me how to behave, why should I give myself to a man who will spend the next four and twenty telling me how he would like me to behave?”

  “I understand,” Ines said quietly. “There are many men who want to dominate and control. But Mr. Fortescue does not seem to be that type of man.”

  “He’s not,” Emmeline admitted. “But I do not want to marry him. I don’t want to marry any man.” This was not quite true. There was a part of her who wanted very much to marry Stratford, but after he’d rejected her in the pool, she could hardly look at him, much less consider spending the rest of her life with him.

  “Men are awful,” Ines said almost to herself.

  “Yes, they are,” Emmeline agreed. “We will soon be rid of those two.” She tossed her head in the direction of the house just as the door opened and a servant emerged and waved to them.

  An hour or so later, Emmeline was settled into a large room with a window that overlooked green fields and, in the distance, the shrouded peaks of the Highlands. It was like a painting, she thought. It was so beautiful she could not quite believe it was real. Staring out of this window, her life in London seemed very far away. The Season seemed like a distant memory, something that had happened to some other woman.

  When she had left Odham Abbey, Emmeline had feared she would turn back. Not because the journey was difficult. Oh, she had not anticipated how difficult a journey this would be or how unprepared she was for a world beyond her sheltered sphere. She had feared she’d turn back because she would come to find that she missed her old life. It was one thing to believe one could do without servants and four-course dinners and days full of lawn bowls or battledore and shuttlecock, but it was another to actually experience it.

  And Emmeline would acknowledge that she wouldn’t mind a clean dress or a maid to do her hair or a long nap, but she did not need them. And the only things she missed about her old life were her sisters. She missed Hester’s preening and Abigail’s snooping and Marjorie’s cold feet when she climbed into bed at night. She missed the way Robert’s face lit up when he saw them after a month or so away at school.

  Truth be told, she even missed the way her mother kissed her goodnight and
the smell of roses in her hair. She did not miss her mother’s fussing and scolding, but she wouldn’t have minded someone giving her a hug right about now.

  Emmeline wiped her eyes and blinked at the watery scene outside. For once, it was not raining outside, but she couldn’t seem to make her eyes stop watering. She knew why. It wasn’t hard for a woman with a modicum of intelligence to ascertain the true reason for the tears. Thinking of her family had stirred up her emotions, and those emotions had opened the door to the emotions she had tried to lock away—her feelings for Stratford.

  What did she feel for him? Attraction? Definitely. Lust? Absolutely. Friendship? Always. But love? Did she love him?

  She feared she was falling in love with him. Or perhaps she had fallen in love with him. She couldn’t say when it had happened—sometime between that walk to Milcroft Village and that—whatever it was—in the spring-fed pool. She hadn’t thought she would ever fall in love with him. If she’d had to choose one of the Fortescue men to fall in love with, it probably would have been the middle brother who was always making amusing comments and coming up with entertaining diversions.

  But when she really thought about it, it wasn’t Stratford’s brothers she remembered from her childhood. It was Stratford. She had a memory of him helping her up after she’d fallen and skinned her knee and promising not to tell anyone she’d cried about it. And he hadn’t. She remembered him playing spillikins with her when none of his other siblings had time to teach her the game. And she remembered more recently, too. He’d dutifully escorted her to balls, and when her mother had criticized her for saying something impertinent, Stratford had always defended her by saying that she was right. Of course, whether her opinion was accurate was never her mother’s point. But Stratford understood that Emmeline didn’t need to be right—although she usually was—she needed to be heard.

  Stratford heard her. He saw her. He had always been there for her. How had she not fallen in love with him long ago? And how had she not seen that he had feelings for her for what must have been some time now. But if he had feelings for her, why did he reject her? Why did he keep pushing her away?

  A tap sounded on the door, and she opened it to a middle-aged woman she’d seen moving about efficiently in the hall after the midday meal. “I’m Mrs. Freskin. Lady Charlotte asked me tae bring ye this.”

  The housekeeper’s accent was thick, and it took Emmeline several seconds to comprehend what she’d said. When the woman held out the dress draped over her arm, it helped make matters clear. Emmeline opened her door wider, and the woman brought the dress in and laid it on the bed. She had a pile of clean underthings as well as a towel and soap. “Lady Charlotte has sent the tub and warm water.” There was another tap at the door and the footman who’d served at the meal brought in a small tub that Emmeline might fit in if she pulled her knees up to her chest.

  “He’ll be back with the water.”

  An hour later, Emmeline was clean and dry in a simple wool dress whose style was old-fashioned—the waist being too low—but was soft and warm. Her hair was still damp, the fire not being sufficient to dry the thick strands, but Mrs. Freskin had secured it in an elegant topknot, and when Emmeline passed a mirror in the entryway, she smiled at the results. The cut of the out-of-fashion dress actually suited her better than the newer style with the waists practically under her breasts. The full skirt but closer-fit bodice made her body look shapely, not like an amorphous potato sack, and the blue, though faded, had always been a good color on her. She’d taken a shawl in the clan colors and wrapped it about her shoulders and gone outside to find Loftus.

  He was lying in the courtyard, watching the chickens with interest, but when he saw her emerge, he stood and trotted over to her, giving the fowl a wide berth. “They won’t hurt you,” she told him.

  He sniffed at her then buried his nose against her leg to beg for a scratch behind his ears. He too was clean and dry, and she would bring him in with her to make sure he stayed so for at least a day. But right now those distant mountains were calling to her. The rain she’d seen earlier had moved over the water of the sea, and streaks of sunlight burst through the clouds in shafts that looked like a picture out of an illustrated Bible.

  “Come, Loftus.” Emmeline lifted her skirts, heavier and longer than she was used to, and started out. She’d walked perhaps a quarter mile when she realized the mountains were further away than they looked, and she was wearier than she’d thought. Perhaps tomorrow she would make the long trek. The grass on the small rise where she stood was dry, and she spread her skirts on it and sat, feeling the breeze on her face as Loftus chased birds out of the brush below.

  “You always did love a walk,” Stratford said. She knew he was close by even before he’d spoken. Her skin had prickled the way it always did when he was near—and that was another thing she was just learning, how aware of him she’d always been.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see him approaching from the house. He too looked clean and had changed clothing. The coat was a bit big on him, and she assumed it must have been borrowed from one of the Murray men. His blond hair had been slicked back, still a little damp, and she missed how it had grown long enough in past days to fall over his forehead. She craned her head upward to look at him when he stopped beside her.

  “May I?” he asked, indicating the spot beside her.

  She shrugged, which she knew was juvenile, but she did it anyway.

  “You’re still angry with me,” he said, stating the obvious. But of course, he would want to identify her emotion correctly before he could strategize a way to approach her.

  “I’m not angry, exactly,” she said.

  He sat beside her, angled so he might see her face. “Then what are you? Exactly?”

  Why not tell him? She never liked being vulnerable, but she’d already exposed her feelings to him—more than just her feelings—and this might be her last chance to tell him how she really felt. If Colonel Draven was half the soldier everyone said he was, he would be here in a day or two at most.

  “I hurt you,” he said before she could say it. She glanced at him, surprised he’d identified her feelings so accurately. Stratford’s strengths were logic and reason, not emotion and feelings. “You feel rejected.” He raised his brows. “Yes?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “But it’s my own fault. I should not have—”

  “It’s not your fault,” he said, cutting her off. “That’s your mother speaking. You haven’t done anything wrong. You are attracted to me and acted on it. I am attracted to you and acted on it. Those are logical behaviors.”

  “I feel so much better now,” Emmeline said. “Thank you for explaining.” She started to rise, but Stratford laid a light hand on her arm.

  “I do want to explain,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “But you don’t want to marry me. I would prefer if you didn’t keep saying it over and over.” She gathered her skirts and pushed to her knees.

  “Don’t you want to know why I can’t marry you? It’s not you, Emmeline. God knows, I would marry you in an instant. I’ve thought of it many times over the years.”

  She sank back down, staring at him in disbelief.

  He nodded. “That’s right. You might not have noticed me five years ago, but I noticed you. I’ve always noticed you.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it before.”

  “I didn’t want you to see it, and I can be very good at hiding what I don’t want seen.”

  “But why hide it?” she asked. “Especially now when you see that my feelings—Stratford, I love you.” The words were not easily spoken. They seemed to catch in her throat and then almost as though a dam had broken, came rushing forth. “I think I have always loved you in some way or another.”

  “I wish that weren’t true,” he said.

  Emmeline swallowed. “That’s not exactly the response I was hoping for.”

  “Then my next words will not
be overly welcome either. You are not the reason we cannot marry, Emmeline. It’s me. I’m not worthy of you.”

  Eighteen

  INES

  Ines hadn’t been certain if she should accept the clothing Mrs. Freskin brought, but after her bath, she couldn’t force herself to put the dirty servant’s livery back on, so she pulled on the soft, brown wool dress and secured her hair in a long braid down her back. She wondered whose dress she wore. Though unembellished, the fabric was too fine for a servant. The stitching was precise and neat and the cut of the dress appealing. If only she had her bobbins and thread, she could have fashioned some lace for the sleeves and perhaps the collar to make it look pretty.

  It was the first time she had missed her lacemaking in...well, perhaps ever. Since Catarina had taught her how to make lace five years ago, there had rarely been a day when Ines’s back and neck were not sore from bending over the pillow and working the bobbins. Her wrists ached constantly, and her eyesight had worsened when she tried to see at a distance.

  Her room was small, but it had a window that looked out on the wild peaks of the Highlands in the distance. She admired it until she realized she was still damp and cold and wanted the fire. She hadn’t bothered with stockings or her tattered half boots and was sitting cross-legged before the fire when three loud raps startled her out of her thoughts. The door opened.

  Without waiting for an invitation to enter, Lady Charlotte stepped inside and closed the door behind her. To Ines, the sound of the door shutting was like the clang of a dungeon door.

  “My lady,” she said, rising from the floor and trying to curtsy.

  “That’s not necessary, Miss Neves.” The woman’s green eyes traveled over her, pausing on Ines’s bare toes. “That dress was my daughter’s,” she said.

  Ines looked down at the plain dress she’d been thinking of altering.

  “She wore it when she was fourteen,” Lady Charlotte said. “Now the hem would brush her calves and the bodice would burst the seams. How old are you?”