Never Kiss a Laird (7 page)

“I must say,
Sally,
that
does make me feel much better.”

“Me too,” she admitted.

The park came into sight, and Sally
urged Beauty into a canter.
 
“Race you to
the stables,” she threw over her shoulder, as Beauty broke into a gallop.

Chapter Four

The Earl of Kane had spent a fruitless
morning paying calls on any of the local families who could possibly be the
destination of the red-haired spitfire.
  
As he waved farewell to the last of his neighbors on the list, Hugh climbed
into his curricle, and chirruped to the team.
 
He regretted not asking for the girl’s name and direction when he had
assisted her little group on the road, but he had been so certain that in a
small village like Thorne, he would be bound to find her location pretty
easily.
  
Feeling a sense of frustration
that was out of proportion to the inability to locate a chance-met traveler, he
hunched an irritated shoulder, and snapped the reigns, urging the team into a
fast, controlled canter.

Using all his considerable driving
skill, he raced his team down the road, and the bracing cold of the wind seemed
to blow away his bad temper.
 
The wintry
Scottish landscape slid by, rocky outcroppings and, in the distance, the
sweeping moors.
 
Hugh loved Thorne, and Castle
Kane.
 
Just being here, smelling the
sweet Scottish
air,
was a balm to his soul.
 
After a while he allowed the team to drop
into a walk.
 
What was it about that
particular girl?
he
wondered.
 
She was exceptionally pretty, without a
doubt.
 
That combination of those delicate
features, her porcelain complexion, heightened by the wind and her annoyance
with the earl, and her red-gold curls was definitely attractive.
 
But Hugh knew countless pretty girls, and had
not wasted very many moments thinking about them, let alone scouring the
countryside for them.
 

No, it was something in the way she
had stood up to him, and given him back answer for answer.
 
She was obviously genteel and, by appearance
at least, appeared well off.
 
But that
temper!
 
He laughed aloud at the outraged
look she had given him, how she had choked out a few words of gratitude, and in
the next breath informed him that his aid had been unnecessary.
 
He wanted to match wits with her again; and
perhaps in a setting where she was not quite as infuriated with him.

The long, manicured, tree-lined
drive that led up to the Castle came into view, and Hugh directed the team
towards it.
 
As he neared the Castle, a
groom appeared on the steps.
 
Springing
gracefully from the curricle, Hugh handed the reigns over to the groom with a
smile and a thank-you.
  
Before he
reached the front door, it was thrown open, and his butler greeted him
warmly.
 

“It’s a chilly morning, sir.
 
I have had a fire laid in the library, and
Mrs. Cameron will have a luncheon ready for you as soon as you have changed.”

“It is as if you could read my mind,
Carr,” Hugh replied warmly.
 
His great coat
was damp and
cold,
and his stomach had been
complaining for the last hour.
 
He
shrugged out of the fitted garment, and then trod quickly up the Grand Stair to
change his raiment.
 
Turning down the
long gallery that led to his suite, he ran into his housekeeper, Mrs. Cameron,
who approached with an arm full of linens.
 
She was a round, comfortable woman somewhere in her mid-fifties, who ran
the Castle very efficiently.

“My lord,” she bobbed a curtsy,
tsk-ing
at the Earl’s appearance.
 
“You look wet-through!
 
The mist on the moors is very treacherous, my
lord.
 
You’d best change quickly into
something dry before you catch your death.’

“I don’t fear the moors, Mrs.
Cameron,” Hugh replied easily.
 
“If the
mists were dangerous I never would have survived my boyhood.”
 
He smiled at his house-keeper, who had been
fussing over him since the day he was born.

“Well, who lives the longest will see
the most,” the pessimistic woman replied repressively.
 
“Oh, and when you have had your luncheon,
Sir, I must to talk to you about an unfortunate situation with one of the
staff,” she continued diffidently.

Hugh paused, his hand on the door
handle.
 
“Oh?”

Encouraged, Mrs. Cameron
continued.
 
“It’s Bridget, my lord, the
second upper house maid.
 
I’ve had to
turn her off without a character.”

Hugh, who knew that a situation at
the Castle was a very desirable position for a village maid, and that without a
good reference the chance of attaining another one was pretty dim, looked
concerned.
 
“Was that really necessary,
Mrs. Cameron?”

“I was left without any choice,”
Mrs. Cameron defended herself before the Earl could speak.
 
“She forgot herself with one of the carrier’s
lad from that delivery we had from London.
 
I can’t have that kind of an example before
the other maids. They are good girls, and their families expect that they will
be around respectable folk at the Castle.”

“I trust your handling of the staff,
Mrs. Cameron.
 
I appreciate the notice,
but I have never interfered in your domain.”

“I just thought you ought to know,”
the housekeeper informed him, using a time-honored phrase.
 
She bustled away down the hall with her load
of linen, leaving Hugh to change into dry clothes, and return to the crackling
blaze in the library hearth.

But after an hour before the fire,
and with a satisfying meal under his belt, the Earl felt restless and the
thought of a lazy afternoon spent reading, or going over the estate accounts,
did not appeal at all.
 
Looking out the
leaded windows of the library, the sky almost looked like clearing, and shards
of sunlight were breaking through the grey clouds.
 
His keeper had warned of an approaching
storm, but there was no sign of it at present.
 
The hounds lounging before the fire raised their heads, and looked
longingly at their master.
 

His expression softened at their
hopeful looks, and deciding that Rufus could use a good gallop, he pulled the
bell and requested that a groom saddle his stallion and
bring
the horse around.
 

Mounted on Rufus, the Earl urged
him into a gallop, and with his two hounds racing along behind him, he gave the
horse his head.
 
 
The animal lengthened his stride, racing along
under the gathering grey clouds.
 
Occasionally the clouds parted enough to allow a shaft of golden
sunlight to break through, but as the Earl got farther from the Castle, these
sun breaks were fewer and fewer.
 
He
slowed Rufus, and headed him up
a rocky path that lead
to an outcropping that allowed a spectacular view of the moors.
 
This had been a favorite play area when he
was a child, a series of shallow caves nearby making the perfect background for
fighting dragons, or defending the realm with the crusaders.
  
As he looked out over the grey horizon, Hugh
saw a rider mounted on a dainty brown mare picking its careful way across a
rocky burn down on the moor, the skirts of her riding dress whipping about in
the Scottish breeze.

Just then, a loud crack of thunder
overhead resounded overhead.
 
Rufus
attempted to rear, and it took Hugh a moment to get the frightened horse under
control.
 
When he was able to, he looked
to see how the other rider had fared.
 
The dainty brown mare had reacted much as Rufus had, and Hugh watched
appreciatively as the rider stayed atop the startled beast as it reared on its
hind legs, pawing at the air.
 
When all
four legs were on the ground, the rider leaned forward and Hugh could see her patting
and calming the animal.
 
A flash of
lightning filled the sky, followed only seconds later by an even louder
boom.
 

Hugh turned Rufus, and as the storm
gathered and worsened, he raced his stallion across the moor towards the other
rider.
 

“Hey, there!” he called as he
approached, but the wind whipped his words away.
 
He was only fifty feet away when the young
rider looked up from the difficult task of just staying seated on her stamping
and rearing horse and noticed his approach.

Hugh pressed forward until he was
close enough to bring Rufus alongside the brown mare, and grasp the
bridle.
 
Hard rain drops began pelting
down and Hugh squinted against the assault and looked over to meet the blue
eyes of his lost, red-haired spitfire.

Sally, elated by the first good
gallop she’d had in ages, had been taken totally off guard by the first loud
sounds of the approaching storm.
 
The
sheer exhilaration of riding across the starkly beautiful moors had made her
forget her ills for the first time in weeks.
  
It had taken every bit of her horsemanship to keep her seat under
control as crack upon crack of thunder frightened the animal, and when Hugh
grasped Beauty’s bridle, her overwhelming feeling was gratitude that her horse
would not be injured.
 

With the wind starting to pull red-gold
tendrils from her tight chignon, and the delight of her ride still lingering,
she turned upon her rescuer a glowing countenance.
 
Her smile was bursting with joy, a tinge of
appreciation, and she looked so beautiful that she took Hugh’s breath away.

“Thank you, sir!” she called over
the rising storm.
 
“Beauty is not used to
these Scottish storms!”
 
She smiled
widely as the wind grew louder.

Recalling his wits, Hugh grinned
back.
 
“It’s going to get worse before it
gets better,” he roared.
 
“Follow me!”

He wheeled Rufus around, and urged
him into a gallop, the two horses racing side-by-side back to the rocky
outcropping, and the shallow caves there.
 
As they reached the edge of the moor, Hugh leapt from the saddle, and
then reached up to help Sally down.
 
She
put her hands on his shoulders, and he grasped her waist, and lifted her easily
from the high saddle.
 
Overcoming a
desire to leave his hands where they rested, Hugh released her, took the reigns
of both horses, and pulled them into one of the shallow caves.
 

Sally followed, looking around with
fascination.
 
She found herself inside a
stone chamber in which both she and her companion could easily stand.
   
It seemed to go back quite a ways, but it
was too dark to tell for sure.
 
When they
were ten feet into the cave the sounds of the storm were dampened, and both
horses quieted quickly.

“We can wait out the eye of the
storm here,” Hugh told her.
 
His dark
hair was wind-blown, and in the dim light of the cave, the planes of his face
showed in sharp relief.
 
His brown eyes
met hers intently, and his face had a harsh appearance.
 
He was tall, and well-built, and Sally knew a
moment’s hesitation that she should not have followed him so blithely into this
remote and hidden spot.
 
Then he smiled,
and she felt foolish.
 
The smile
transformed his face, and Sally found herself responding to it.

“This is fantastic,” Sally
marveled, turning in a slow circle.
 
She
rubbed her arms briskly in the cold, damp air.
 
“Thank you for coming to my aid, again, sir,” she acknowledged, with a
mischievous smile.
 
“My maid informed me
that I was not as polite as I should have been yesterday.”

She looked over at the tall man to
see his reaction, and was relieved to see an appreciative grin on his
face.
 
“For my part, ma’am, I acknowledge
my disgraceful actions in,
er
, manhandling your
person.”
 
He bowed formally, and Sally
grinned.

 
“In that case, I believe we are even,
sir.
 
And I am truly grateful for your
help just now.
 
I have never seen Beauty
react to a storm like that before, but in truth it sounded as if the thunder
was breaking directly over our heads.”
 
She looked at her rescuer as she spoke.

 
“It can seem that way when you are out on the
moors,” Hugh agreed.
 
“May I know your
name, ma’am?
 
Even though there is no one
here to make correct introductions,” he smiled.

“Yes, of course,” Sally
replied.
 
“It’s Sally Den,” she stopped,
appalled that she had been about to give him her real name.
 
Her first test in her new role and here she
was blurting out her name!

“Den?”
 
he
repeated,
confused.

“
Den
 
-
ling
 
- ton,”
 
she sputtered out
syllables almost at random.

“I am pleased to meet you, Miss Denlington,”
Hugh bowed formally.
 
“And if I may make
myself known to you, I am Hugh McLeod.”