A Highland Folly (6 page)

“You do not need to go to absurd lengths to prove your point.”

“No? I find that being absurd is a valid custom, celebrated with the greatest glee, here in the Highlands.”

Lucais laughed. He could not halt himself. “I have never heard the peculiar ways here described quite like that, but you are right.”

“I would have thought that you had discovered that already yourself.”

“Why?”

“You seem familiar with other quaint customs here.” Pausing where the path branched to go down toward the river or back toward Ardkinloch, she asked, “How long have you been here?”

“On this trip, I have been here only a pair of fortnights.”

“So you've been to Scotland before?”

He looked around at the mountains that were gathering the clouds around them as the sun was swallowed by the gray mist that would soon reach them. He looked anywhere but at Anice, because he did not want her violet eyes to perceive what he was thinking. He did not want to speak of Scotland and the past. “I spent time here as a boy.”

“Then what advice do you have for me?”

“Advice? For you?” Lucais wondered how she could have missed the tension in his voice when she had been so insightful before.

“On dealing with the Scots in this area.”

“One thing I can tell you. You shall never change a single Scot's mind. To think otherwise is pure folly.”

She shook her head, her wry grin brightening her luminous eyes. “That I know already. My cousin Neilli is headstrong and unshakable in her belief that she should have a Season in London.”

“So she wishes to escape Scotland?” He had not guessed that any of the Kinlochs would be so wise. Nothing he had ever heard would have suggested any of them had an ounce of wit. Having met Anice, he had had to own that she was not like all those tales. Yet her family had been silly when he brought her home after she struck her head.

Although Miss Kinloch's wish to leave Killiebige was something he could commiserate with, he wished her better fortune than he had in Town. Dash it! He did not want to recall a second of the last ignoble weeks he had spent there.

“No.” Dimples he had not noticed before punctuated her smile. “She simply wants to make an excellent match with a titled lord who also is a Scot.”

Lucais needed all his willpower to bite back his curse. A title! Were all women focused only on what a man was called rather than what was within him or what he had achieved? His fury seeped into his voice as he said, “I wish her every bit of luck in her quest, although it would seem that if one wished a Scot for a husband, one would seek in Scotland.”

“Lucais, what is amiss?”

There was the intuition he had anticipated before. Her eyes were wide, and he saw dismay in them. Knowing that his voice must have been sterner than he had intended, he forced a smile. “I wish you the best of luck in finding the truth, Anice.”

“I am sure you do, because you must want to hear it as well.”

“No, I do not need to hear it.” Bowing his head in farewell, he said grimly, “I know all of it already, but, I can assure you, Anice, and you may share my words with whomever you wish, this road and bridge will be built here.”

Four

Mist inched down out of the mountains, clawing at each rock, devouring every tree like some great beast of ancient times. Cool, even for a late spring night, it smothered the stars and diminished the river's song to a whisper. The fog swirled and contorted with a pattern only it knew.

Anice pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and hunched within it. She would have preferred to be in the sheep barn, tending to the newest arrivals, but Sir Busby Crenton had been oddly emphatic when he'd paid a call to Ardkinloch that afternoon. With Neilli listening with avid interest, their neighbor, whose lands also bordered this side of the river, had urged Anice to come to the meeting tonight at the parsonage.

“A most important meeting, my lady,” he had said, his voice taut with urgency, although his gaze slipped often toward Neilli. “Our individual complaints against the bridge being built across the river have not been heeded in London. We must unite our voices to gain sympathetic ears in Parliament.”

As she walked along the path toward the village, Anice feared they were deluding themselves. The Regent's government wanted this road project completed without delay. That had been stated in the letter she had received from London. She knew an identical letter had been sent to Sir Busby, because he had lamented about the shortsightedness of the government in ruining the beauty of the Highlands.

Anice stopped to stare at the gray curtain of fog and took a deep breath to calm her swift pulse. If Sir Busby or anyone else discovered she was coming to this meeting only in hopes of offering a rational argument for caution, she was sure no one would heed her. She might be able to betwattle them. Thank heavens Lucais would not be attending this evening. She could not fool him, for he had an uncanny ability to gauge her thoughts.

Anice tightened her cloak around her as she hurried along the road and into the village. The fog parted reluctantly to allow her to see the lights of Killiebige. Walking along the twisting street that followed the uneven course of the river, she hurried to the small stone house in the shadow of the kirk.

Reverend Dole greeted her at the door of the comfortable parsonage. He was so tall and thin, she suspected his shadow could be mistaken for a tree's. His long face broadened with his smile as he urged, “Come in, Lady Kinloch.” When he stepped back to allow her to enter, the candlelight glinted off his bald head and accented his white collar beneath his black coat.

“How are you tonight?” she asked as she untied her damp cloak and placed it on a peg. She noted a pile of other wraps on a chair. She kept her sigh silent. How silly she had been to hope that no one else would attend.

“We have been eagerly waiting for you,” the minister said. “Sir Busby asked us to do nothing until you arrived.”

She was amazed. Reverend Dole was so flustered that he had failed to answer her greeting. As he motioned for her to precede him into the parlor to the left of the stairs, she noticed a tic by his right eye. Reverend Dole was clearly more distressed by the arrival of the road-crew group than she had guessed.

As Anice had feared, the simply furnished room was full. Every chair was occupied. Mr. Tawes, a mousy man who served as Killiebige's mayor, offered her his seat. Thanking him, she looked for Sir Busby. She smiled when she saw him sitting close to the hearth. He could not be more than a half decade older than she was. As round as Reverend Dole was spare, he had an elfish smile that hid the sharp mind behind his thick glasses.

She did not have a chance to speak with Sir Busby because Reverend Dole came to stand by the room's single window. The thick drapes had been drawn to shut out the fog's gray light. He started to raise his hands as if to grip the sides of his pulpit but halted himself with a flustered expression.

“My friends,” he said with an uneven smile, “it is my honor to host this meeting, but I shall step aside to leave you in the capable hands of the man who organized it. Sir Busby?”

Sir Busby rose. Rubbing his hands nervously against his light brown breeches, he said, “Lady Kinloch, I would like you to speak first.”

“Me?” When the dozen people in the room turned to look at her, she slowly stood. She did not want to speak first. She wanted to sit and listen and consider the opinions of others, but she should have known that as shy as he was, Sir Busby would seek someone else to address this group.

“Good evening,” Anice said. When her voice did not quiver and crack on the phrase, she was able to smile. “Sir Busby and I had hoped to gather a consensus on the issues that surround the bridge project.”

Quickly she realized she did not need to say more. The villagers were eager to express their opinions as to how the road would change the village and disrupt fishing on the Abhainn an Uruisg. When she saw heads nodding in agreement, she realized that the hatred of the project had rallied the cantankerous villagers who seldom could agree on anything. She wanted to beg them to heed her desire for clear thought, but she doubted if tonight was the time for good sense. Tonight these people needed to express their anger. Mayhap, if she were to call upon them individually, she might help them realize that rage would gain them nothing from the government. Calm facts were what they needed to send to London.

She sighed. If she were to call on
all
her neighbors and take time to listen to their opinions of the road as well as the weather and each other, she would be still giving them a look-in by the time the road was finished. She had little time to spare even though the lambing was nearly over. This time of year the Kinloch family and their retainers were kept endlessly busy with that important chore. Although she had been amazed that everyone was expected to take a turn, she had come to look forward to the quiet hours she could spend in the barn, far from family and all their requests.

“Do you agree, Lady Kinloch?” asked Reverend Dole.

“I am sorry.” Her face burned, and she feared she was blushing, but she would not be false with the minister. “I was lost in my thoughts.”

“We were speaking,” Sir Busby said with a smile, “of the worries we share about the disruptions that will be caused by blasting.”

“Will it be near anyone's house?”

“That is not yet sure.”

“Of course,” grumbled Catriona Tawes, the mayor's wife, “this might all be moot if you had not saved that roadman's life on the hill.”

“What?” Anice glanced at Sir Busby. He was as puzzled as she was. “I don't understand what you are talking about, Mrs. Tawes.”

“'Tis not like a Kinloch to be coy, Lady Kinloch,” the gray-haired woman returned, her voice still sharp. “You should have left that man there on the hillside instead of helping him.”

“I still do not understand what you are speaking of.”

“Lady Kinloch, it is well known throughout the village that you saved that man from someone who was shooting at him on the hill near the old castle.”

“I cannot speak to what you have heard, Mrs. Tawes, but the truth is that Lucais MacFarlane saved
me
. If not for him, I might be dead.” Anice frowned, then wished she had not. Lifting off her bonnet, she pointed to the bruise that was still tender and a variety of colors. “I suffered no more than this and a cut hand because he was there to push me away from the ball fired at us. No matter how I feel about the bridge and the road, I know that I owe him my life.”

Conversations erupted from all corners of the room. Anice remained silent. She wondered how the truth had become so twisted so quickly. With a sigh, she knew her explanation would travel far more slowly than the rumors had. She owed Lucais the duty of a warning. Neither he nor his crew must be endangered because of this absurd tale.

She glanced again at Sir Busby and saw his scowl. He acted disappointed that Lucais had not been the intended victim. She had thought he was wiser than this, but mayhap his abhorrence for the road crew's plans for the bridge was blinding him to the truth.

Anice hurried through the light refreshments the reverend had prepared for his guests. The small cakes weighed heavily in her stomach as she collected her cloak. Tying the ribbons around her throat, she almost shrieked when broad hands settled the cloak across her shoulders.

She laughed weakly. “Sir Busby, you startled me!”

“I am sorry. I thought you saw me following you on your mad dash out of the parlor.”

“Was I that obvious?”

“I doubt if anyone else noticed.” He reached for his wool cap and tapped it onto his light brown hair. “May I escort you back to Ardkinloch?”

“Yes, thank you.” She would have preferred to have the time to sort out her thoughts, but she could not help thinking that his offer meant there were other rumors flitting through Killiebige that might have done her damage in the villagers' eyes.

When he offered his arm, she put her hand on it. She walked by his side across the common to the narrow footpath leading toward the river. The fog had thickened to enclose everything in a strange silver light. Somewhere, far above the clouds, the moon must be shining, but very little of its light filtered through the mist.

“How are you doing?” Sir Busby asked as they climbed the steep slope. “I saw how shocked you were at Catriona's words.”

“She's a beefhead.”

He smiled so fleetingly, she wondered if it had been a trick of the uneven light. “I am not worried about her. I am worried about you.”

“I'm fine.”

“Are you?”

“I just said that I was fine!” Abruptly furious that he would question her also, she faced him. “I thought you were my friend.”

“I am.”

“But you listened to that poker-talk about Lucais and me.”

He scowled. “I do not like to hear your names connected so.”

“You should know that there is nothing untoward between Lucais MacFarlane and me. If you doubt me, you need only ask my cousins. Neilli abhors the very sight of him, and Parlan cannot bring himself to speak Lucais's name.”

“Neilli?”

Anice could not keep from staring at Sir Busby. All anger had disappeared from his face, and he wore an expression that could be described only as wistful calf-love. For Neilli? Her cousin must be unaware of Sir Busby's attraction to her. Certainly she would have spoken of it … unless she was so blinded by her desire to have a London Season that she could not see a potential beau right here in Killiebige.

“Miss Kinloch is a woman of strong … um, opinions,” he hurried to add.

She fought not to smile. He had almost said “passions.” How had she missed what must be a growing
tendre
for her cousin?

This might be just the solution she had sought for the problem of Neilli's nagging to go to London. If she could persuade her cousin to consider Sir Busby as a suitor … then her only problem would be the road crew.