Hero in the Highlands (37 page)

“Well, I can always use a blessing.”

She eyed him for a moment, then picked up the pencil again and began doodling. “Did ye find anything?”

“Kelgrove and I poked through the mill's ruins as best we could, with it still smoking. I could smell a trace of kerosene, but there was no sign of a lamp, broken or otherwise.”

Her lips pressed together tightly enough to turn them white. “Niall's been running that mill fer fifteen years,” she returned. “I've nae known him to be careless aboot it.”

“At this point I would be happy to hear that it
was
an accident,” he returned, dragging a hand through his hair.

“But ye dunnae think it was one.”

“No, I do not.” He sat forward. As much as he wanted to know what she thought of his declaration, they had several more pressing worries. “Nor do I think Brian's cow was an accident. And for both of them to have happened within a day? I don't know what those odds are, but I wouldn't take them.”

“Nor would I.”

“I have to blame the Duke of Dunncraigh, Fiona. This began after I refused to sell Lattimer to him.”

She shook her head, her expression grim. “Nae. It didnae begin then.” Fiona turned around the paper on which she'd been working, pushing it in front of him. “The sheep, the irrigation system, the flooded fields, the rotted seed—Lattimer's bad luck has been going on fer years.”

He looked down at the list. Beside each incident she'd noted the approximate loss of income and the repair cost. With the mill added at the bottom, the amounts were staggering. “No wonder Lattimer hasn't been making a profit.”

“Aye. Part of that's my fault, fer hiring so many staff here. If ye hadnae come, and after what happened last night, I would have had to let some of them go.”

And he was very glad, for more than one reason, that he'd arrived here when he had. But his current ability to replenish Lattimer's coffers couldn't continue indefinitely. And if the number with which she'd provided him equated to only four years' worth of misfortune, they were even closer to the edge than he'd realized.

“These circumstances,” he said slowly, not wanting to see more pain in her lovely black eyes, “aren't sustainable. Which, I imagine, is the idea. If it is Dunncraigh, and I have no reason to think otherwise, he's making this place as undesirable as possible. Just looking at the figures without knowing the tales behind them, no one in his right mind would want to own it.”

“Gabriel.”

Holding her gaze, he smiled. “I'm not in my right mind. I haven't been since I set eyes on you.”

That at least earned him a smile in return. “Ye dunnae need to use flattery to win me over. Ye've already had me.”

He took her fingers in his. “I'd jest with you if I wasn't so tired, my lass, but at the moment I'm being perfectly sincere.”

“The first time ye set eyes on me, ye grabbed me aboot the chest and nearly drowned me.”

“You're the first woman I've ever met who didn't want or need to be rescued.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and he cursed to himself. Making her cry had not been part of the equation. Why was it easier to charge into battle than to tell a woman how much she'd come to mean to him?

“That was supposed to be a compliment,” he offered.

Fiona stood up and leaned across the table to kiss him. “I think I did need to be rescued, Gabriel,” she said. “If ye hadnae come up here, I'd slowly have drowned beneath the weight of all this, and I'd have thought it was all my fault.”

“It is definitely not your fault,” he returned emphatically, lifting her over the desk to sit across his thighs. “It is Dunncraigh's fault. He might have thought he was doing nothing more than turning Lattimer into a money sinkhole, but he forgot that this place is more than just land.”

Resting her forehead against his, she slid her arms around his shoulders. “And here ye are, a man accustomed to fighting over land and territory and politics, and ye've nae forgotten fer a moment aboot the people here.” She kissed him again, long and slow. “Ye told me someaught this morning, Gabriel Forrester. I'd like to say it back to ye. I dunnae ken what'll come of it, but I love ye.”

She loved him
. He'd felt it in his bones, but hearing her say it aloud meant … more. It gave him a connection to this place, to this life, that he couldn't otherwise have hoped to find. And he would do anything to keep it from slipping through his fingers. “Considering how we did meet,” he murmured, stroking his hand through the long, loose tail of her dark hair, “I mean to have revenge on whoever killed Brian Maxwell's cow.”

“Do ye think Dunncraigh intends to bankrupt ye, then? Ye refused his offer, so he'll cost ye so much money to keep Lattimer that ye end up having to sell it to him, after all?”

“That's entirely possible. He said that he petitioned the Crown for the property after my uncle died. The old duke wouldn't sell to him, so that was his next option. And now I won't sell it, so he's decided to be less subtle.”

“It's still subtle enough,” she muttered, her muscles tightening. “We cannae prove anything. And even if we could, ye ken half of clan Maxwell will think we're lying. Neglecting the people here is one thing. Doing someaught to hurt them, that's something else entirely.”

All he needed was another round of “blame the Sassenach” to begin if he did find proof of Dunncraigh's misdeeds and decided to bring charges. On the other hand … “I can't do nothing, Fiona. That's not in my nature. And I
will
eventually run out of the blunt to keep this place.”

She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “Then we'd best make certain he cannae wriggle oot from under the blame.” Closing her eyes, she leaned against his shoulder. “I'd be inclined to accuse my uncle fer yesterday and last night, but Hamish couldnae walk into Strouth unnoticed with a great cow slung over his shoulder, even in the middle of the night. And he's nae inclined to dirty his hands, anyway.”

That made sense. Hamish Paulk was a spiteful sycophant, but as Fiona had noted, hauling dead cows about didn't suit him. And if he had set the fire at the mill, Gabriel doubted he would have bothered with trying to wake anyone to warn them. “Most of the things on your list happened at night, didn't they?” he asked, freeing a hand to lean over and pick the paper up again.

“Aye. Which means it could be nearly anyone.” Fiona grimaced. “I dunnae like having to suspect my own.”

“No one does. But
I
have no difficulty with suspecting
your
own.”

“At this point, Gabriel, I'm grateful fer that.”

It would be so easy to sit here in the quiet office, Fiona in his arms, and Gabriel swore an oath to himself that one day he would be able to do so. For now, though, the need to resolve Lattimer's substantial troubles outweighed his yearning for a moment or two of peace. “Let's look at this logically,” he said slowly, gathering his thoughts back together.

“There's nae anything logical aboot anyone willing to harm his own people.”

“You'd be surprised what little it takes sometimes,” he returned. “But let's begin with facts rather than motives. How many men would it take to maneuver a large, healthy heifer into a well?”

“I reckon she had to be dead first, or everyone would've heard the commotion. Poison, likely, since the only wounds on her were from hitting the walls on the way doon.”

Gabriel nodded. “The dead weight of a cow, heaved over three feet of well wall. Eight full-grown men? Nine?”

“I'd agree with that.”

“And knocking down the cliff face, making off with half the flock of sheep, and getting them away before the shepherds could get over the landslide to find them?”

“Aboot the same, I'd say. Between eight and ten.” She shifted a little, twining her fingers with his, a simple intimacy he found fascinating. “The irrigation gates would've taken fewer than that,” she went on, “since it didnae all happen at once. And one man could've set fire to the mill.”

“Not considering any matters of suspicion, who could go about at night in numbers eight or ten strong without being noticed?”

Fiona scowled, clearly not happy with the line of thought. He didn't expect her to be, though. It wasn't pleasant, especially for her, but it was necessary. And after last night, figuring out who was doing Dunncraigh's dirty work had become more urgent than ever.

“We've had extra men oot watching fer thievery at night since the sheep began going missing. They're nae noticed, but the thievery came before we sent them aboot.”

“Who else might be out of doors at night?”

“The shepherds, though they generally have the dogs watching at night, with only one or two men up and aboot. Ian and his gamekeepers go oot at night when we have vermin aboot. Some of the drovers, when they're bringing cattle through the property on the way to market.” She paused. “The drovers come from all over the Highlands, from a dozen or more different clans.”

That sounded interesting. “Are there always drovers in the area?”

“Nae. They come when someone has a herd or a flock to drive to market. Ye can find them anytime except fer deep winter, but unless ye send fer them fer yer own animals, ye can only guess when and where they'll make an appearance. It could be some of them, Gabriel. They've nae loyalty to clan Maxwell. It'd be a small matter fer the duke or my uncle to pay them to create some mayhem here.”

Hm. It made sense that Fiona would want to blame the nomadic and ever-changing group of drovers. If she knew any of them personally it wasn't well, and they weren't people with whom she shared a past or kinsmen to whom she'd devoted so much time and effort. “Did any of the estate's misfortunes happen over the winter?”

“A few. Some of them might have been accidental, after all.” She stood, leaving his front feeling cold. “I can fetch Ian Maxwell. If there's a herd and drovers nearby, he would know it.”

From the pattern of disaster beginning to take shape, it made more sense for the culprits to be local, but Gabriel didn't feel ready to dismiss her idea simply because it was convenient for her. “That sounds like a good beginning.” Slowly he pushed to his feet, his muscles protesting at being asked to do more work already. “I feel the need for a hot bath and a change of clothes. You're welcome to join me for the former.”

A smile curved her mouth. “Ye say such romantic things. But I need to send fer Ian and look in on the Garretsons and see to—”

“Stop,” he protested, chuckling. “I'll join you after I've cleaned up. I know I still smell like smoke.” Taking one of her hands, he pulled her in for a kiss. “And you smell like heather.”

“Smoky heather now, ye heathen,” she returned, kissing him back before she walked to the door. “I may join ye yet, if the water's still warm when I finish.”

“I'll still be warm,” he noted, as she headed down the hallway. “And naked.”

Staying with her would mean a lifetime of joint baths missed because she had people after whom she needed to look. And it would also mean a lifetime of nights where he went to sleep with his arms around the same lass, and mornings where her smile was the first thing he saw. For a man who'd meant to spend his life as a soldier, just the idea was both foreign and intoxicating. To have actually found the woman who made him want to have a life beyond daily fights to the death … He couldn't even put it into words.

Hoping at least some of the buckets had made it back to the house, he requested a bath be brought up to his chambers and then went upstairs to find some clean clothes. After that, he had traitors to discover, a mill to rebuild, and a lass who needed proposing to and marrying. And knowing Fiona, it would be in that order.

 

Chapter Seventeen

Rolling her tired shoulders, wishing she'd had more to offer the Garretsons than some encouraging words and biscuits, Fiona paused outside Gabriel's closed bedchamber door. Yes, she'd cleaned the soot off herself with a bowl of scented water and a cloth, but whatever he'd said, she doubted she smelled like heather. The idea of a hot bath sounded heavenly. A hot bath with Gabriel Forrester sounded even better than that.

She put her hand on the master bedchamber's door handle. At that same moment Tilly emerged from a neighboring room, linens in her arms, and Fiona quickly turned and made for her own bedchamber. “Blast it,” she muttered under her breath. People were suspicious of her and Gabriel, she knew, but she didn't feel quite ready to confirm anything yet. Not until she knew what it all meant.

Shutting her door behind her, she turned around—and stopped in her tracks. “Ian? What the devil are ye doing in here? Oot with ye.”

The gamekeeper turned from looking out one of the narrow windows that faced the loch. “I rode by the mill this morning. The family got oot?”

“Aye. Nae a one was hurt.”

“Thank God. Did Niall kick over a lamp or someaught?”

She grimaced. Poor Niall. However careful the miller had always been, there would be doubts from now on. Or at least until they found someone else to blame. “He says he didnae. But we can converse doonstairs. I have someaught to ask ye anyway. Meet me in my office. I'll be doon in just a minute.”

The gamekeeper nodded, walking toward her. “What did ye want to ask me, lass?” he murmured, stroking a finger down her cheek. “I told ye I'd help ye get rid of the Sassenach. Is that it?”

A fortnight ago she'd actually contemplated such a thing. That almost seemed a different lifetime ago. “Nae. I need to know if ye've seen or heard of any drovers aboot. We reckon they could be the ones making trouble here.”

“Trouble? The sheep, ye mean?” He leaned in, his gaze lowering to her mouth.