Kissing the Countess (20 page)

"Why?" she said suspiciously.

"Morag," Catriona said in a warning tone.

"Pleased to meet you, sir," Morag said, giving him a bold stare. Then she looked at Catriona. "Countess of Kildonan now, eh? I will congratulate you on your marriage, though it is a wonder to me why you did it. And I will call you Mrs. Mackenzie, for that is what you are now."

"Just Catriona, as always," she said.

"If you were a crofter's wife, as you might have been one day, I'd be putting the mutch on your head today, with a new plaidie for your shoulders," Morag went on. "But now that you are the lady of Kildonan, you will lose that fine plaid you are wearing and put on stiff little bonnets and lace."

Catriona lifted a hand self-consciously to her bare head, her hair covered only in a fine black net and partly draped by her long, lightweight plaid shawl of cream, blue, and brown. "I suppose I do look like a Highland wife."

"You have married a Highland earl," Evan said reasonably.

"So," Morag said, looking up at Evan. "You're Mr. Mackenzie—I do not call you 'lord,' for we are not fond of titles here," she added bluntly.

"That's fine, Mrs. MacLeod. I prefer Mr. Mackenzie."

"Tall enough for you, girl, and that is good," Morag observed, looking him up and down. "And what a tale! Fell from the mountain right at your feet, I hear, that day you and I were walking out in the mist. And he would have died if you had not taken him to safety in that old shieling and kept him alive through the night!" She peered at him. "He looks bonny enough now. That was fine nursing, eh?" She winked.

"He was not that badly hurt," Catriona said.

"She did indeed save my life, Mrs. MacLeod," Evan said. "And I asked her to be my wife to pay my debt of gratitude."

"I hear her wicked auntie will not have the girl in the house now. You must have been generous indeed, Catriona," Morag said. "And who would not be, with such a beautiful man?"

"Morag!" Catriona said, while Evan smothered a grin. "Where did you hear this?"

"From my daughter this morning. She is Mairi MacAuley, who runs the inn," she told Evan. Her English was surprisingly good, though accented lightly. "I heard it from Mr. Finlay, too, when I saw him in the hills early this morning."

"Finlay was here?" Catriona glanced around.

"He came up to see my old John MacLeod. But he's ridden off to Inverness by now. Said he would be there for a day or two. The news is traveling fast about your wedding," Morag went on. "My two married daughters are buzzing with it, and the word is running from house to house in the glen. What's left of us who still live here, Mr. Mackenzie, if you know what I am saying."

"I know exactly what you are saying, Mrs. MacLeod. And aye, the wedding did come as something of a surprise."

"A surprise," Morag repeated. "I told you not to go out in the bad weather that day, Catriona Mhor," she said. "I had a strange feeling that day, and see what happened."

"I hope it was a good feeling," Evan said.

"I cannot always tell—they are just feelings and could be something foul or something fair. I am not a seer. But I will tell you that being called Countess of Kildonan will not sit well with many. What are your plans, sir?" she asked Evan abruptly.

"Plans?" He blinked.

"Will you stay or will you leave the glen?" Morag asked. "They say you do not want to be here. Which is it?"

"I, ah, have some decisions to make."

"Then make them. Inherited nearly a year ago, and only now he comes back with his plans," Morag muttered.

He was not surprised that the old woman had her doubts about him. He had expected that from the tenants in the glen. He turned to Catriona.

"Well, you and Mrs. MacLeod have your own plans," he said. "I'll leave you to go about your business."

"Very well," Catriona answered.

For an awkward moment, he and Catriona looked at each other, and he knew she felt unsure, as he did, about how to say farewell. He bent and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek.

Catriona turned with Morag and walked toward a bridge not far from where they stood. Evan noticed its single stone arch construction, built over a gorge that contained, in its hollow, a wide, fast stream. He glanced past that toward the hills.

High about them soared forested slopes and bleaker, rocky inclines dotted with tenacious grazing sheep and goats. Higher still, the Torridon peaks were ringed with clouds. Everywhere were the sounds and scents of wind, water, turf, and pine. The landscape here had overwhelming power, mysterious strength, and a raw and rugged beauty. Much of this—nearly all his eye could see from this spot—belonged to him.

Glancing toward the bridge again, he noticed that Catriona and Morag had begun to cross its long arch. As he walked along himself, the angle of his view changed, and he saw that the bridge was ruined in the center of the span.

The keystone was missing, and a gash, empty air, separated the two curving sides of the bridge.

Yet the women walked up the slight stone incline, talking, not even looking at the danger. Another step, and another, and they would plummet to their deaths.

Evan started running. "Catriona!" Pounding onto the bridge, he grabbed her, grabbed the older woman, too, and pulled them both away from the brink, dragging them off the bridge onto the safety of solid earth.

"Ach," Morag said to Catriona. "Did you not tell the man about the bridge?"

Chapter 14

"Tell the man what," Evan said, heart still slamming, "about the bridge?" Letting go of Morag, he kept a grip on Catriona's upper arm, as if he kept her from falling, though they stood on solid ground.

He knew exactly why he held her so tightly. He just did not want to think about it. The shock of seeing her at the edge of the gap had left him shaking.

"The bridge is safe for walking. We just do not send carts or horses over it," Catriona said.

"Safe?" Evan blinked. "Are you mad?"

"We cross it without trouble."

"As sturdy as the mountains, that bridge," Morag said.

"Why hasn't it been repaired?" Evan demanded.

"It has, many times," Catriona answered. "But it always collapses again in the center."

He studied the bridge with a narrowed glance. "The arch is too low," he observed immediately. "And the construction must be faulty." Looking down at the water, which ran fast and deep between a high bank on one side and a soaring mountain slope on the other, he lifted his glance again. "That slope has deep runnel tracks from melting snows.... Does the stream flood during spring rains?"

"Sometimes," Catriona said. "If the water comes as high as the bridge, more stones break off. Should the arch be higher?"

"No, but that low curvature is unstable across such a wide span. That's one reason it comes down so easily."

"It is the fairies who take it down," Morag said.

He looked at her. "The what?"

"This is Drochaid nan Sitheach, the Bridge of the Fairies," Morag answered. "It leads to Beinn Sitheach, the Fairy Mountain. And the
daoine sith
do not want many humans to cross over. They take down the bridge when it pleases them to do so, and the humans put it right back up. When I was a wee lass, I remember my father and other men setting the stones into place, and the stones fell even as the men worked. They said then it was the fairies' mischief. That was long before your father evicted my father and others from their own homes, when they were old men and no longer of any use to the lord and the land," she added, with an accusatory glance.

"I'm sorry that happened, Mrs. MacLeod," he said. "I am. But tell me more about this bridge."

"The fairies wreck it, and we put it back up. But it has not come down for a long time. It is a sturdy wee footbridge."

"There's a hole in the middle!" he said.

"Just a wee bad step. You have to know how to cross."

"A wee bad step." He frowned. "And how, exactly, do you cross it?"

"You speak a fairy charm first."

"A charm?" He blinked incredulously at both women. Catriona nodded as if there was nothing odd in the old woman's statement.

Morag nodded. "We say a charm when we go over, and the same when we come back. It keeps the traveler safe."

Evan felt bewildered. "A fairy charm."

"Tell him, Catriona Mhor, so he too can cross the bridge."

"By all means, tell me." Evan looked at Catriona.

"Hold your fingers just so," she said, shaping her thumb and forefinger in a closed circle. Reciting some Gaelic phrases, she translated them for him.

Like the birds of the air I fly,

Like the leaves on the wind I fly

Head to foot, crown to sole,

Angels protect me from the fairies of the knoll.

"And that keeps you safe on this old bridge," Evan drawled.

"That, and long legs to leap the gap," Morag said.

Shaking his head, Evan looked toward the bridge, where crumbled keystones hung over a drop of nearly twenty feet. "This is insanity," he said. "I'm closing this bridge."

"But it is the straightest route to the lower slopes of Beinn Shee," Catriona argued. "Morag and I use it often when we walk about the hills, and there are crofters and herdsmen who live with their families on the mountain slopes. If they have animals or carts with them, they go along the drover's track to the lower bridge, which crosses the same stream several miles farther down in the glen." She pointed southeast, away from Kildonan toward Glenachan.

"It will not be so inconvenient to close it temporarily."

"The walk to the lower bridge takes much longer. Some crofter children go to the village school at Kilmallie this way, through Kildonan lands."

"Children! Absolutely, the thing cannot be used."

"You do not want bairns walking on your lands?" Morag asked.

Evan sent her a sour look. "I do not want them to fall off the bridge. It will be closed until it is fixed or replaced."

"But our charm keeps us safe," Morag pointed out.

"Tragedy happens too easily." He knew that too damn well, he thought, as he walked up the bridge to test the stones. Some bounced disturbingly underfoot. He turned. "In the interests of my tenants, I am closing this bridge for repair."

"The Earl of Kildonan and Glen Shee never cared much for tenants before," Catriona said. "Why start now?"

He shot her a dark look and walked away to pick up a large rock, big as a hatbox, which he then deposited in front of the bridge as an impediment.

"Stand aside, ladies," he said, and they did, while he lifted and tossed several large rocks of similar size until he had built a crude barrier. Wiping his gloved hands of dust, he looked at Catriona and Morag, who stood staring at him.

"That should do for now. I'll send someone up here with a rope and a sign to keep off the bridge."

"In Gaelic or English?" Catriona snapped. "Many of your tenants will not be able to read it. You would do better to post a guard to keep them away."

"Shall I wait under the bridge myself like a troll?" he said irritably. "This thing is dangerous, and it is disturbing to know that it's been used all these years like this. Why was my father never informed of its condition?"

"He would not have cared," Catriona said.

"He never came this way," Morag said. "The hunting was not good enough here to please him, I suppose. He never bothered us here, even though it is not far from the castle."

Evan sighed. "If you are determined to go walking today, you'll have to use the lower bridge. I'll drive you there. We can go back to Kildonan and fetch a pony cart or the gig."

"I live three miles from this spot, and I will not walk all the way back up here from the lower bridge," Morag said stubbornly. She looked at Catriona.

As if in silent agreement, the two women lifted their skirt hems and stepped neatly over the rock barrier.

Evan strode after them, but as he reached the apex behind them, he felt a subtle tremor. His additional weight, when the women stood near the weakest point of the arch, was unwise.