Pleasured (26 page)

“No one had any idea who he was?”

Meg related her conversation with Angus McKay, making Damon laugh with her vivid description of the old man. She told him of Faye and of David MacLeod and his brother Jamie, one dead and the other one living somewhere unknown, all of them lost to her.

“So this David MacLeod fellow could be your grandfather, or maybe your great-uncle.”

“Aye. I wish I knew where he was—if, of course, he is still alive. It would be nice to talk to him. If nothing else, he could tell me more about my grandmother. I have been told I look like her—though not nearly as bonnie, Angus was
quick to inform me,” she added wryly.

“She must indeed have been a beauty, then.” Damon paused to kiss Meg. “Though I think Old Angus’s eyesight must be amiss.”

She shrugged. “Coll says it makes little difference what our grandfather was like; what matters is what we are. Coll is a very practical man.”

“But you are more romantic.”

“More emotional, you mean.” She smiled faintly to soften her words. “Or perhaps it is just that Coll is more content.”

“You are not content?”

“It’s not that I do not like my life or who I am; I do. But I always missed—I don’t know quite how to explain it—the feeling of background, of understanding who and where you come from.” She glanced at him and smiled ruefully. “No doubt it seems an odd thing to you.”

“No, not odd. I understand. Though I must tell you—with some relatives, it is better not to know.
My
grandfather, by all accounts, was a proper tyrant and thoroughly disliked by all who knew him.”

Meg chuckled. “That, I think, is enough talk about family.” She leaned over to kiss him, and the conversation was ended.

Another day, as they walked in the garden, they talked about the places Damon had visited, the sights and people he’d seen, the things he wished to show her. “Italy, I think, should be first. We’ll go to Venice and Rome. Florence.”

“Oh, we will, will we? And I have nothing to say in the matter?”

Damon laughed. “I’m no fool, Meg. I am sure you’ll
have a great deal to say.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “I know you love the Highlands, and if you do not wish it, of course we will not go. But I hope you will not set your mind against it. Say you’ll come with me. We’ll try London first if you like.”

“I do love it here, and I cannot imagine living anywhere else. But that does not mean I wouldna like to visit.” Meg gave him a saucy grin.

“Then it’s done. We’ll go to Italy. In the winter perhaps. It will be good for Lynette, don’t you think, to be somewhere warm?”

“I do.” Meg’s heart contracted in her chest as she looked at him. She ached to believe him, to trust that when winter came, he would still be here with her, that he would want her with him wherever he went. But she feared that he would soon come back to earth; he would see the impracticalities, the difficulties. Damon, she thought, preferred not to see those things, to avoid the realities if they did not suit him. With his wealth and position and charm, he was usually able to have things as he wanted them.

But she could see the pitfalls clearly. Society would not countenance his taking his daughter with him as he roamed about the Continent with his mistress. Damon would discover that, just as he had realized what was being done in his name on his estate. He would see that he was harming his daughter’s reputation. He would realize how little Meg belonged in his world.

And what would happen when he wanted Meg to change? When he tired of making the trip back to Duncally? When she embarrassed him by not knowing the proper fork to use or how to address a duke or any of the thousand
things she had not been trained for? What would happen when they disagreed?

Meg could not bear to think of it.

“We should get back to the house,” she said, slowing her steps. “I should check on Lynette. She was wanting to walk a bit today, and I should be there. She mustn’t tire herself.”

“I’ll come with you.” He turned around agreeably to stroll back toward the house. “Though I should look through the names the agency sent me.” He grimaced. “I’ve already put it off two days.”

“What names?”

“Men who could manage the estate.”

“Oh.” Meg tensed. It occurred to her that perhaps one of those moments she feared was about to happen. “What sort of man will you get?”

“That’s just it. I haven’t the foggiest what to do. I have their names and recommendations. But I don’t even know what I want them to do, let alone which one would be right for the job.” He glanced down at her. “Don’t look at me so. I promise I will not hire another Donald MacRae. I shan’t start evicting everyone.” He sighed. “But I don’t know how the estate can be run if one doesn’t do those things, and I suspect that they will all advise me to do just that, including my man of business in London. And, honestly, I would prefer to not run the place at a loss.”

“Perhaps you should talk to Jack. Baillannan goes along well enough, I think. And Isobel has invited us to dine there tomorrow evening. You could talk to him then.”

“I have talked to him. He tells me Isobel and Coll run the place.”

“Then ask Coll.”

Damon let out a short laugh. “Thank you, no, I prefer not to start my conversations with a split lip.”

She made an exasperated noise. “Coll isn’t going to hit you. He promised me.”

“Thank heavens I have you to protect me.” Damon pulled her against his side and kissed the top of her head. But the look on his face was pensive as they continued toward the house. As they reached the upper terrace, he stopped. “You go on in. I think—there’s something I need to do instead.”

Damon paused for a moment outside the cottage. The door stood open, and he could see Coll Munro sitting at the table, his attention so focused on the wooden object in his hand that he did not even glance up at the sound of Damon’s footsteps. Damon rapped sharply on the doorframe, and Coll’s head snapped up. Coll’s eyes widened and he dropped the awl in his hand, rising to his feet.

“I am here to talk to you,” Damon said. “May we begin now, or must you first take a swing at me?”

“I don’t know. It depends on what you have to say.”

“It is business, nothing personal, and while I am, as always, game for a round of fisticuffs, I would rather get to the matter.”

Coll made a disgusted noise, then flapped his hand toward the table. “Oh, come in and sit down and tell me what you’ve come for. Meg’ll have my head if I bloody your face again.”

Damon’s lips twitched, not quite a smile, and he strolled over to one of the stools beside the table. His glance went
down to the piece of wood on the table before Coll, a chunk of a log, from which a face seemed to be emerging. “You made that?”

“Aye, and the table as well. But I presume you dinna come here to discuss my woodworking skills.” Coll sat down across from him, folding his arms across his chest.

“No. I came to offer you a position.”

Coll stared at him blankly. “A position? You mean work? For you?”

“Yes. I am in need of someone to manage Duncally, and it seems you are best suited for the job.” Damon had the satisfaction of seeing that he had rendered the other man speechless.

After a long moment and a start and stop, Coll said, “Are you daft, man?”

“I may well be.” Damon shrugged. “But there it is: I need a steward, and I would like to hire you.”

Coll’s brows drew together thunderously. “Are you doing this to please Meg? Do you think to pay for her favors by tossing me a job?” Coll rose again, sending the stool grating across the floor. “Or do you think I’ll turn my head if you are my employer? That I won’t come after you?”

Damon jumped to his feet, his eyes as hard as marble. “First, I don’t waste a moment worrying that you might attack me. I can handle a thickheaded Highlander well enough, and if you were not Meg’s brother, I would be happy to do so anytime you please.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Secondly,” Damon plowed on, ignoring Coll’s words, “I would never dishonor Meg by attempting to ‘pay’ her in any way. And if I were you, I would hope that your sister never
hears you suggest that her favors could be purchased by me or any other man.”

“Then why in the bloody hell would you offer to make me your steward?”

Damon glared at him. “Foolish as it may be, I thought you would be the best man to do it.”

Coll gaped at him, baffled. He turned and walked away, then came back. “Why? Why do you want me? Putting aside the fact that I would never work for you, what makes you think I could manage your estate? I’m a gamekeeper. I carve things. I make furniture.”

“You may be all those things, but you also help run Baillannan.” As Coll opened his mouth to speak, Damon went on, “Don’t bother to deny it. Jack told me that you have helped his wife run Baillannan for years. You know everyone in this glen, and more than that, you are respected here, which, as we both know, I am not—nor any outsider I appoint.”

“If you know me so well, then you would know I won’t run around enforcing the earl’s orders, tossing out crofters and bringing in sheep.”

“Good Lord, do you think I’m asking you to? Jack tells me that you are able to manage an estate without ridding the countryside of people. He says that you and his wife have done it here. That is what I want for Duncally. Consider how much you could help the people here by overseeing the place instead of some outsider.”

Coll stared at him. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious. Do you think I would subject myself to a conversation with you otherwise?”

Damon’s words startled a short laugh from Coll. “Nae,
I would not think so.” He went over to the fire and picked up the poker to prod at the embers. He shook his head and sighed, shoving the poker back into its stand. “Are you really so blind? Or do you just choose not to see anything that inconveniences you?” Coll swung around. “Do you really think I could work for you when you’ve installed my sister in Duncally as your mistress?”

“Meg is at my home to take care of my daughter.”

“Surely you cannot think anyone believes that she must stay at Duncally for two weeks because your daughter was ill! Do you think the servants don’t talk? Do you think there are not whispers about Meg all over the glen?”

Damon’s eyes blazed. “Who talks about her? No one would dare to malign her, and if they did, I would make very sure they did not do so again.”

“No doubt they would not—while you are here. But what about when you are gone? What about when you return to London and Meg is left here? Do you think she won’t feel the scorn then? That men will not look at her and talk”—Coll’s fists tightened until his knuckles popped—“that the righteous women of Kinclannoch will not pull their skirts aside when she walks by so she will not taint them?”

“That is the way of the Munro women; Meg has told me so herself. She chooses to . . . live freely. And people still respect her.”

“It is an entirely different thing if the man she chooses is an earl! With an ordinary man, it is . . . not respected, but at least accepted as the oddity of a Munro healing woman. But if that man is you, a nobleman, powerful, then she is just a rich man’s plaything.”

“That is absurd. Why should it be any different?”

“Because everyone knew that my father, for all his many faults, loved my mother and would have married her in an instant if she would but have taken him. And you would not.” Coll turned away. “Now go away from me. I’m not working for you. And I never will.”

Damon whirled and strode away without another word.

Supper that night at Duncally was quiet. Damon had been silent ever since he returned from his errand that afternoon, and though he smiled at Meg when she teased him, he remained unusually moody, and it affected everyone at the table. Even Lynette had little to say, and Miss Pettigrew’s platitudes only seemed to emphasize the lack of conversation. The meal was almost over when the sound of distant thudding was followed moments later by footsteps in the hall. They glanced at each other in surprise.

The footsteps came closer—several pairs of them, it seemed—and everyone turned toward the door. The butler stepped into the room and bowed to Damon, then stepped aside, intoning, “Lady Basham, my lord. The Honorable Mr. Twitherington-Smythe and Mrs. Twitherington-Smythe.”