Her Highland Fling (5 page)

“Probably, given that I do as well.” James smirked, handling his own hammer with easy precision, despite the fact they were balanced some twenty feet off the ground. “In fact, half the town thinks you’re an idiot for organizing the games in the heat of late summer. The other clans favor autumn for their events for a reason.”

“The timing was part of the plan,” William muttered. “We dinna want to compete with the others. And your bonny wife assured me that Londoners are eager to flee the city this time of the year, when the Season is over and the stink off the river becomes too great. We want them to come to Moraig.” He breathed in, fresh air and newly cut lumber filling his lungs. “They’ll not have to worry about a stink here.”

“They will if they meet McRory,” James pointed out, laughing. He wiped a hand across his brow and then shimmied higher on the scaffolding they were helping to erect, the sun glinting off his sweating shoulders. “But you didn’t let me finish. Half the town is grumbling, true enough. The other half of the town thinks you are a bloody hero and are practicing for the games as we speak.”

William scowled down at a grassy field below, where market days were usually held. It was already set up for the coming competition, with areas roped off for the various events. McRory was taking shameless advantage of the early preparations, and he’d been tossing a caber about for the better part of an hour, grunts and groans and the occasional feral cry of triumph floating upward on the breeze. William couldn’t help but feel the butcher’s efforts might be better directed toward something useful. Such as making sure there was enough beef for the arrival of their always-ravenous clansmen.

Or picking up a bloody hammer and nail.

“I’m no hero,” he scoffed. “I’m only concerned for the town’s future, given that I enjoy living here.” He set another nail to the board he was working. “But ’tis neither here nor there. Miss Tolbertson thinks I’m an idiot because I showed her my cattle, not because of the games.”

“Your cattle?” His brother’s quick grin peered down at him, haloed by the sun. “Is
that
what you are calling it?”

William’s ears burned. “I’ll thank you to remember she’s a lady.”
A lady who kisses like a siren.
Even now, the thought of how close he had come to mauling her made his stomach clench. Why, oh why couldn’t he have just stayed tongue-tied and clod faced around her?

Things had been so much simpler—and safer—then.

“Aye. I know she’s a lady.” His brother shrugged. “But I also know better than most that ladies are capable of some surprising things, especially when their inhibitions are lowered.” He placed another nail and hammered it home. “All of the Gander saw her order three whiskies and then watched you leave together. You know how gossip runs in this town.”

William groaned. Bloody hell, he hadn’t thought of that. Too much ale in his belly, apparently, and not enough sense in his head. “She dinna have more than a sip.” He glared at his brother. “I’ll not have you thinking it was her idea. And nothing unforgivable happened.”

Thanks only to that small sound she had made there in her throat that told him just how inexperienced she was—and just how dangerous a game they played.

“Unforgivable.” James studied the head of his hammer, as though it held the secret to life. “There’s an interesting word choice. Not one that normally comes to mind where cattle are concerned. Women, on the other hand—”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a sodding fool?” William snarled.

“On occasion.” James grinned. “Besides, your Miss Tolbertson told Caroline, who told Georgette, who told
me
, that she quite enjoyed meeting your cattle. So don’t take offense. The lady herself spoke of it.”

William winced, though he was glad to hear that perhaps it hadn’t been as big a blunder as he had feared. He still didn’t know what he had been thinking.

Well, hell. Yes, he did. He
hadn’t
been thinking. And that had the potential to become a significant problem around Miss Tolbertson. His thoughts went completely to shite around her, and then his tongue just naturally seemed to follow suit.

“Did she say anything else?” he asked hopefully. Pathetically.

James guffawed. “Ask her yourself.” He pointed down at the street with his hammer. “Here she comes now.”

William whipped around and nearly lost his balance. He tottered a moment on the brink of a spill, hands flailing, nails spilling down like deadly rain.

But what a way to go, watching Miss Tolbertson sashay down Main Street.

He regained his balance with an oath and a prayer and then stared in stupefied wonder as she stopped and scribbled something down in that omnipresent notebook. He hoped it was something positive—the woman seemed determined to sniff out potentially damaging things about the town. He swallowed at the sight of her blond hair, several strands of which had come down from their moorings and were whipping about the edges of her bonnet in the light breeze. He had touched that hair two nights ago. Held it in his fingers as he’d kissed her.

Nothing unforgivable happened
, he reminded himself.

Other than that he’d proven himself a grand idiot, a fact that was probably now recorded in perpetuity somewhere in that notebook.

She was thoroughly and unapologetically alone, and he was coming to understand this was her preferred method of research. He’d never met a woman—at least, a woman as refined as Miss Tolbertson—who was so comfortable with the impropriety. He hadn’t planned for this. For
her
. She’d laid a torch to his carefully made plans since the moment she stepped down from the coach, and he was at a loss to know what to do next with her.

Escort her around town, the offer of which she had already eschewed?

Or continue to avoid her as he had for the past two days, which was probably safer for them both?

“We offered her the loan of Elsie, Georgette’s maid, who knows nearly everyone in town and a bit of colorful history besides,” James said from somewhere above him. “But Miss Tolbertson said she would rather go without. Something about wanting to form her opinions through the eyes of a tourist, not the eyes of an escort.”

“She would. She prefers to work alone,” William murmured, so absorbed in the sight of her it took him a moment to realize his brother was looking down at him with hooded speculation, and that perhaps he had revealed more than he should.

“Why are you staring?” William asked gruffly, swinging his hammer again.

“I’ve never seen you so befuddled with a woman.”

“I am not befuddled.”

And he wasn’t. Befuddled implied confusion, and even when trying to look down at his work, William was possessed with an almost clairvoyant focus, more aware of her than anything else on the street. As he tried to return to his work, his gaze pulled hard to the right as she waved at McRory, her notebook in one hand. His hammer came down on his thumb, splitting his nail.

“Oh, bloody hell!”

“Aye.” James nodded sagely.
“Befuddled.”

William tried not to notice as Miss Tolbertson spent a full ten minutes speaking with the butcher. Or that McRory eagerly abandoned his practice to answer her questions, going even so far as to strike a manly pose, flexing muscles here and yon. Instead, William vented his frustration in hard work, knowing the music stage he and James were building was every bit as important to the success of the upcoming games as a hundred tossed capers.

And whom Miss Tolbertson chose to research next was none of his business.

P
enelope cocked half an ear toward her subject, but all the while her mind was awash with the image of William MacKenzie, balanced like an ape on the bit of scaffolding being erected in the center of town.

Not that she had ever seen apes in anything beyond a book of exotic creatures, mind you. But one could learn a lot from books.

It was finding a way to acquire proper true-life experiences that was the struggle.

From the moment she’d seen him, bare chested and gleaming with the sweat of hard, honest work, she’d been nearly unable to take her eyes from him. Oh, she knew it wasn’t a sight a proper lady should admit enjoying. The men on Brighton’s beaches wore swimming garments that covered such parts. But coupled with the glimpse of his bare legs she’d been given in front of the posting house, she’d arguably seen more of this man’s body than she’d seen of any other, except, perhaps, her own.

Though she turned her back on the tempting scene in an attempt to at least
appear
interested in what Mr. McRory was saying, her cheeks burned in bright awareness. She was beginning to realize that these Highlanders were an attractive—if sometimes poorly clad—lot. James MacKenzie and her brother-in-law were excellent examples of the species. Even Mr. McRory exuded a certain manly charm, tossing that great log about as though it weighed no more than goose down. The female tourists from London would find much to look at during their visits to Moraig, of that Pen had no doubt.

And William MacKenzie was proving most compelling of the lot.

“I understand you are a local b-businessman, Mr. McRory,” she murmured distractedly. For her first assignment with the
Times
, her story needed to be something more spectacular than the scenery—be it moonlit lochs or bare, brawny chests. She wanted to dig deeper into the lives of the town residents, uncovering their hopes and dreams and fears. “Tell me, d-do you think the fortunes of Moraig’s residents will really be improved by the Highland Games?”

“Fortunes?” The butcher slapped a meaty thigh and then grinned, showing a gap where his two front teeth ought to have gone. “William MacKenzie’s not out to make us a fortune, you ken, only to save us. The harvest failed last year, and the herring runs are doing poorly. The businesses in town are only just scraping by. I dinna know what we’d do without his help.”

Penelope’s interest sharpened, the sounds of the hammers fading into the background. “What does Mr. MacKenzie have to d-do with the games?” she pressed. James and David had both implied MacKenzie might be able to answer any questions she had, but neither had suggested he was a primary party in the event.

And it was easier to take her mind off the shirtless man working behind her when he was the topic of the current conversation.

“Ach, lass, dinna tell me you haven’t heard.” McRory leaned in, waving his hirsute arms. “He’s only organized the entire thing, down to the last piper. He’s the only one in town smart enough to put some effort behind making something more of Moraig.” He grinned. “But I’m still going to trounce him in the caber toss, come Saturday.”

Pen’s pencil stilled, trying to reconcile the butcher’s view of the man with the bumbling giant who’d greeted her at the posting house and who’d gone on to kiss her by moonlight.

Of course, he hadn’t been bumbling
then
.

“You b-believe MacKenzie is intelligent?” she asked, curious. She was no longer sure what she believed herself. Her first impression had been lackluster, but she could admit that during the course of their moonlit conversation, her brawny Highlander had actually been rather articulate, even though he’d clearly had a bit to drink. Moreover, organizing an event like the Highland Games required a good deal of planning, and no small amount of creativity.

Such things did not fit with the image of a blundering fool.

“Oh, aye. Spent four years studying at university. Top of his class at Cambridge, to hear the rumors. Summa some-aught.” McRory waggled bushy eyebrows, clearly trying—and failing—to flirt with her.

Pen was quite sure she was gaping. How on earth did a Highlander who stumbled over something like a simple greeting manage to graduate from Cambridge? With
honors
, no less? Some miserable part of her burned in envy. She might have liked to attend university herself, though her impoverished upbringing and gender had ensured no such opportunities existed.

She knew she needed to write some of this down. Perhaps this was even a greater story than the plight of the town’s businessmen or Moraig’s general appeal to London tourists.

But her pencil was frozen in shock.

“Are you sure the rumors say
Cambridge
?” she asked weakly.

The butcher laughed, showing again that great gaping maw of a mouth. “Dinna take me wrong, lass. MacKenzie’s not the sort to put on airs. He’ll gladly raise a pint with me at the Gander, even though he lives in yon great castle.”

Pen turned slowly, following the arc of McRory’s hand. He was pointing to a far-off bluff, rising high in the distance with the Atlantic Ocean at its back, on top of which sat a structure of uncertain architecture but unmistakable grandeur.

“MacKenzie lives in a c-castle?” An image of the man, standing in front of the posting house like a fierce Highland warrior, swam in her mind. Surely a cave or crofter’s cottage was a more appropriate dwelling for that man. The mere thought of the vista from the windows of the castle on the hill took her breath her away.

The butcher nodded like a soothsayer. “Aye. Kilmartie Castle.” He shrugged as though
she
were the one lacking the intelligence here. “Where else would the heir to the Earl of Kilmartie live?”

Good heavens, the surprises kept coming, like ocean waves, determined to erode her initial middling impression of the man. Her head was spinning with the disparate images.

She tore her gaze from the castle and looked speculatively over her shoulder. The sunlight gleamed like a spotlight on MacKenzie’s flexing shoulders, a lure she was finding impossible to resist. Perhaps that physique came from a willingness to work on behalf of the town, no matter how secure his own future was. He was a conundrum that demanded further exploration. She’d come to town today, notebook in hand, determined to unearth the hidden heart of this story.

Instead, it seemed she’d come closer to unearthing the hidden heart of the entire town.

“It seems as though Mr. MacKenzie is a man of many surprises,” she mused, her eyes drifting appreciatively across the shirtless form of her subject. “I b-believe you must pass a series of rigorous examinations in order attend Cambridge.”