Sinful Scottish Laird

“There is so much work to be done,” Belinda said, folding her arms. “I don’t know where you think you’ll find the labor for it.”

“If we can’t find the labor, we will do it ourselves,” Daisy said and turned to her uncle. “Was there not a caretaker after all?”

“Oh, there was a caretaker, all right,” he said. “But I rather think he was far more concerned with his next drink than with Auchenard. You’d do as well to leave the place to sit empty than to have it cared for by the likes of this fellow.”

Daisy sighed wearily. She hated dealing with servants who did not want to work for their wages. “What do you think of our hunting lodge, darling?” she asked her son.

Ellis frowned thoughtfully. Always so serious!

“There is a room at the top of the tower that is ideal for stargazing,” Uncle Alfonso offered.

Ellis blinked. “Can you see all of them? Can you see Orion from there?”

“Orion,” Uncle Alfonso repeated curiously.

“The ship’s captain taught Ellis a thing or two about navigation during our voyage,” Daisy explained.

“Yes, I’m sure you can see it,” Uncle Alfonso assured him.

“Perhaps Ellis and Belinda would like to find their rooms,” Daisy suggested to Rowley. “Belinda, will you please settle Ellis? Uncle and I have some things we must discuss.”

“Let me first have a word with Sir Nevis,” her uncle said, following Belinda and Ellis from the room.

Daisy stood a moment, listening to the sound of her uncle’s boots echoing down the stone hallway. When she was certain she was alone, she fell onto a settee that was still covered with a dust cloth and propped her feet on a chair. She was bone weary and wanted nothing more than to sleep in a decent bed. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift to the lake, and the hills beyond...and to the startlingly blue eyes of a Scotsman. She imagined him once again with his hands on her—this time, in that decent bed—his touch reverent, his gaze soft.

How long she was in that state, she didn’t know, but she was awakened by the sound of chuckling.

Daisy opened one eye. Her uncle was standing before her, his arms folded over his apron, smiling with amusement at her lack of decorum.

“Do you blame me?” she asked, forcing herself up with a push. “It’s been a wretched journey.”

“Yes, I suppose it has.” He walked to the sideboard and poured two glasses of wine. He returned and handed her one.

Daisy yawned, then sipped the wine. She wrinkled her nose.

Uncle Alfonso shrugged. “It was all that could be found in the fishing village.”

“This place is a shambles, Uncle,” she said morosely. “Belinda is right—it will require so much work! How will we ever put it to rights?”

Uncle Alfonso rubbed his eyes a moment. “I don’t know,” he said. He wandered with his wine to the windows and gazed out at the sun sinking behind the hills.

Daisy pushed herself to her feet and joined him there. “Can we find workers?”

“A few, I should think,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll have Sir Nevis scout about on the morrow. But it will require our concerted effort, darling.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “By that, I mean all of us.”

She smiled lopsidedly. “Are you suggesting that I indulge in labor?” she asked with mock astonishment.

“We’ll need all hands.”

Daisy kissed her uncle’s cheek, then stepped away and began to release her hair from its pins. “Belinda won’t stand for it, you know. But frankly I’d like nothing better. I’m weary of sitting about all day with nothing to occupy me but gossip and needlework.” She would not let on that she was cowed by the state of the lodge; she would keep the fears gurgling in her belly to herself.

“Shall I send for Mr. MacNally, the supposed caretaker?” he asked.

She needed to address the issue of the caretaker, quite obviously, but at the moment, all Daisy cared about was that she was exhausted, and she needed a bath, and she was desperate to free herself from these stays. “On the morrow,” she said, and mustered a smile.

She was not going to think about the shambles that surrounded her just for now. Instead she’d let thoughts of the Scotsman occupy her thoughts and would try not to look too closely at the disrepair and the foreign surroundings.

CHAPTER THREE (#uad27d6f4-5b1e-5ac5-811b-b0fac26312aa)

THE SOUND OF Fabienne’s barking brought Cailean’s head up from his task. He lived alone at Arrandale—he was almost single-handedly constructing his home—but rarely did anyone come by that was not hired on to help put up a roof or lay a floor. Today, however, he was expecting his brother Aulay—but he would be arriving by boat, up the loch. He would be bringing the wine and tea they’d recently brought in from France...without registering their cargo with the tax authorities.

All the more reason to be suspicious of whoever was now at his front door. He strode forward, grabbing up a musket on his way.

“Arrandale!” he heard someone shout as he neared the door. He pulled it open and swung the musket up onto his shoulder, sighting the man standing there.

Padraig MacNally threw his hands up and stumbled backward, almost tripping over Fabienne, whose tail was swishing madly, so pleased that someone had come to call.

“What do you want?” Cailean demanded gruffly.

MacNally began to prattle in Gaelic, something about a foreigner and the years of his life devoted to serving others with no reward for it.

With a groan of exasperation, Cailean lowered his gun. “For God’s sake, take a breath, lad. I donna understand a word of it.”

MacNally paused. He drew a deep breath. He said, in Gaelic again, “A lady has come and released me from service!” He took a cautious step forward, nervously rubbed his hand under his nose. His plaid was filthy, and from a distance of a few feet, Cailean could smell whisky on him. That was not surprising—everyone knew that the MacNallys of this glen were drunkards. “I’m without situation!”

“Aye, and whose fault is that?” Cailean sighed.

“I’ve looked after Auchenard for fourteen years!” he wailed.

“Looked after it? The place is a pile of rocks.”

“The old man refused to send money for repairs,” he insisted, seemingly on the verge of tears. “What was I to do? There was naught I could do, laird! I need your help,” he said, clasping his dirty hands together and shaking them at Cailean. “Please.”

“Aye, and what can I do, then?” Cailean asked, annoyed. MacNally was not a member of the Mackenzie clan, and he didn’t like him being here. The man could not be trusted, and Aulay would be arriving at any moment with their goods. They would store it here until they were ready to sell it. Which meant when they were certain no one was in pursuit of them for having “forgotten” to declare their cargo with the authorities.

“I tried to reason with her, but my English isn’t very good,” MacNally begged. “And she talks, laird. She talks without a breath so that a man can’t say what he might.”

Diah.

He thought of the woman he’d met on the road yesterday. The one who had looked at him as if he were a beefsteak and she a starving orphan. She’d not been at Auchenard for as much as a day and had let go the man who’d kept a watchful eye on a property all but abandoned?

That was the way of the English—or Sassenach, as they referred to them here. They seemed to appear out of the mist to take this or that, to demand change to a way of life that had been known in these hills for hundreds of years. But of all the English reavers Cailean knew, none of them were quite as striking as this one. Her eyes were shaped like those of a wily cat, the color of them as green as new pears. She had a fine figure, too—frankly, she was beautiful.

She’d been quite a surprise to him, in truth, and Cailean was not a man who was easily surprised. But with rumors swirling fast and furious about another attempt to restore a Stuart to the throne, tensions were quite high between Highlanders who disagreed about it, and between Scot and Englishman. For a beautiful English lady to suddenly appear in the Highlands was an invitation for trouble.

Aye, she was surprising and beautiful—and unforgivingly, unacceptably English. Poor MacNally was no match for them.

“Aye, then. Wait there,” Cailean said. He stepped inside, slammed the door and marched across his half-finished house toward the back to leave his brother a note.