Scottish Brides (5 page)

“Andra.” He smoothed the hair away from her face with a tender brush of his fingers. “You're the woman I love. Please marry me.”

Damn him for dragging reality into her fantasy. And damn her for wanting to squall like a frightened infant when he'd asked.

She swallowed several times, fighting much the same reaction now. “The kilt. Sima said it was in the trunk. So go look before it gets dark.”

“In the trunk?” He looked over at the line of five chests, some so ancient the seams were splitting; others, although old, still in good repair. “Which trunk?”

Did he have to be difficult? And couldn't Sima have been a little more specific? “You can explore.”

“Will I know the MacNachtan marriage kilt when I see it?”

He had a point, much though she disliked admitting it. And she knew she had to help him find the MacNachtan wedding kilt so she could send him away with a clear conscience. “I'll assist you in completing your purpose.”

He made a noise deep in his chest, not a laugh, not a rumble; more of a growl. “No one else can.”

Standing, she discovered that her knees wobbled, but the goal of showing him the wretched kilt and getting away from this unwanted intimacy steadied her. “In fact, you don't have to do anything, you big, lazy lummox. I'll search for you.” She started toward the trunk farthest to the left, and he began to follow. “No.” She held out her hand to halt him, then lowered it hastily before he noticed the trembling. “I'll do better if you're not looking over my shoulder.”

Stopping, he said, “Gracious as always, Lady Andra.”

Gracious? She didn't care about gracious. She cared only about speed. As she stood in front of the first trunk, she glanced out the window. It was July, high summer in Scotland. They had two hours of sunlight left until nine o' the clock.

But the trunks were deep and wide, five trunks filled with the history of the MacNachtans, and she knew as she knelt before the first one that the hope she cherished, of finding the kilt in there, was a crazy hope.

Nevertheless, she held her breath as she lifted the lid and cleared away the first layer—plain paper laid over the contents to protect them from dust. Beneath were tartans, lots and lots of tartans, and for one moment Andra allowed herself to revel in the smell of ancient cloth and old memories.

Then, as Hadden paced, she pulled out the carefully folded plaids. The MacAllister tartan, the MacNeill tartan, the Ross tartan. All tartans of the families that had, at one time or another, married into the MacNachtans.

But no MacNachtan tartan, and certainly no marriage kilt.

She shook her head at the hovering Hadden, and he strode away from her.

Carefully, she replaced them and covered them with the paper.

Then, from a distance, she heard the hollow, eerie sound of . . . voices? Swinging around, she demanded, “What was that?”

“Your mice.” He stood frowning at a tall end table as if its location annoyed him.

Though she strained, she could hear no more. An errant breeze ruffled her hair, and she relaxed. Of course. She could hear the servants speaking from down in the courtyard.

She moved to the next trunk while, behind her, Hadden dragged something along the floor, entertaining himself in some manly furniture rearrangement. She didn't care, as long as he didn't hover.

The scraping noise stopped, and the back of her neck prickled. Glancing behind, she saw him, lingering too closely for comfort, and she glared.

He glared back, then swung away, and as she lifted the trunk lid, she heard another something being towed across the floor.

Men. How well she knew they had to have something to keep them out of mischief.

Inside the trunk, she found a cured sheepskin laid face down so its fleece could buffer the contents from impact. Plucking that free, she laid it out on the floor, then peered inside at the paper-wrapped, odd-shaped objects that filled the trunk. Removing an item, she weighed it in her hand. Light, oblong, knobby. Uncovering it, she jumped, dropped it—and chuckled.

Five

 

 

 

The sound of her laughter softened his ire and irre
sistibly drew him to her side. He hovered above her, wanting to brush the tendrils of hair off the delicate skin of her neck and press his lips there. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and love her until she had no energy to tell him no. He wanted to . . . he wanted to talk to her, damn her. Just talk, explore the byways of her mind, get to know her. And that seemed to be what frightened her most. In a soft voice, the one he used to calm a fractious horse, he asked, “What's so funny?”

“My great-uncle.”

He didn't even know she'd had an uncle. “What about your great-uncle?”

“The man was a wanderer. He left Scotland as a youth—that was after Culloden; he'd been much involved in fighting against the English, and it seemed a wise thing to do—and he traveled the wide world. When he came back years later, he brought some unusual mementos.”

She spoke freely, something she had not done since he'd uttered those fateful words—
marry me
—and Hadden bent closer. “What is it?”

She picked up a wooden mask, dark, painted with extravagant designs, and staring from empty eye sockets, and waved it at him. “From Africa. Uncle Clarence said the native women hung them in their huts for protection from the evil spirits.” Smiling, she passed the grotesque thing up to him.

“It would certainly frighten me.” He turned it from side to side.

“And this.” She unwrapped a painted clock, carved with intricate swirls and sporting hidden doors. “From Germany.”

Hadden squatted on his haunches, laid down the mask, and took the clock. “Quaint.”

“Ugly,” she corrected.

“Well . . . yes.” His breath caught when she shared a smile with him.

“When wound up, it keeps perfect time, and on the hour, a bird pops out and sings.”

Gingerly, he tried a little humor. “I can't believe you don't keep this downstairs in the great hall.”

“We did until my uncle . . . until he left.” Her smile vanished; she bit her lower lip. “Then we put it away, for it made my mother cry.”

A puzzle piece, Hadden realized; she missed her uncle and ached for her mother's pain. “Why did he leave?”

“Memories are long here in the Highlands. There were those English who took over estates abandoned by the outlawed Scots, and one remembered Uncle Clarence and threatened to turn him over as a rebel. Uncle knew the family could ill afford that.” She shrugged as if it didn't matter when it so obviously did, “So he left.”

Moving slowly, Hadden seated himself on the cushioning sheepskin, stretched out his long legs, and kneaded his thighs as if they ached. “But he must have been an elder! What did this Englishman think he could do?”

Her gaze slid sideways toward him. She watched his hands move up and down along his muscles, and unconsciously she mimicked him, rubbing her legs with long, pensive strokes. “He could seduce his old sweetheart away from her miserable English husband and take her with him, that's what.”

She injected humor into her tone, but she wasn't truly amused. Sorrow lurked behind the brave smile, the lifted brows.

“He was the black sheep, then,” Hadden pronounced.

“Not in the MacNachtan family. In the MacNachtan family,
all
the men are black sheep.” Sitting forward, she delved into the trunk as if she could hide behind the contents.

But she couldn't hide from Hadden. Not when he was getting the answers he'd sought. “Who else?”

“Hmm?” She raised her ingenuous gaze to his.

He didn't believe the innocence for a moment. “I never heard this before. Who else was a black sheep?”

“Oh . . . my father, for one.” The paper rustled as she unwrapped the knobby bundle, and a five-inch-tall stone statue of a naked woman with bulbous breasts emerged. She chuckled again, but this time her mirth seemed forced. “Look. From Greece. Uncle thought she was a fertility goddess.”

“Really?” He barely glanced at the ugly little figurine. “What did your father do?”

“After Uncle was exiled, Papa decided to make his stand for Scottish freedom, and in an excess of patriotism—and whiskey—he rode to Edinburgh to blow up Parliament House.”

Hadden had seen the noble pile of stone last time he'd visited Edinburgh, and said acerbically, “He didn't succeed.”

“No. He and my brother drank their way through every pub in the city, telling everyone of their plan.”

Hadden's astonishment grew. “Your brother, too?”

“My mother said they did it on purpose, telling everyone of their scheme, because they were both too kindhearted to think of actually hurting anyone, English or no.” Andra unwrapped another package and showed him a statue of much same size as the other one, but made of bronze.

As she held it up to him, the miniature woman dressed in a cord skirt saluted Hadden, her golden eyes ablaze.

“From Scandinavia,” Andra told him. “My uncle said she as a fertility goddess as well. The natives put quite a store in her.”

Hadden plucked the female deity from her fingers. “Are they in prison in Edinburgh?”

“Who? Oh, my father and brother.” Andra's elaborate casualness didn't cozen him. “No. They were put to the horn, outlawed—a matter of great pride to them—and they fled to America. My father died there, but my brother writes occasionally. He's married quite a hearty woman, born in that country, and he's doing well.”

“How old were you when all this occurred?”

“Eleven.”

“I see.” Hadden saw more than she wished. Her men, the ones who should have defended her against all hardship, had abandoned her for ineffectual glory. She had been posed on the cusp of womanhood, ready to dance, to flirt, to be courted by the local lords, and instead she'd had to become the sole pillar of stability in the MacNachtan clan. “Your poor mother,” he said experimentally.

Her fingers shook a little as she unwrapped another package. “Yes. Well, Mother was frail to start with, and when the soldiers came, they upset her, and she took to her bed . . . look!” She cradled a delicate clay statue of a woman in a full skirt, naked from the waist up, clutching a snake in each hand. “From Crete. We think . . .” Her voice trailed off. She frowned at the bare-breasted creature, rubbing the feminine curves slowly with her fingertips. Then she looked up at Hadden. “You don't want to know about this.”

“About the fertility goddesses in all their bare glory?” Then, with obviously unwelcome shrewdness, “—Or about your family?”

It told him volumes when she gulped and jerked back. ”Don't be daft. About the goddesses, of course.” She tried to shove the goddess back into the trunk, but he rescued the painted figurine and placed her on the floor with the others. Andra scurried to the next trunk, if one could be said to scurry on her knees.

“Andra.” Hadden laid his hand on her arm. “Tell me the truth.”

Andra flung open the lid with such vigor, the aging wood cracked. “I'll find it in here,” she said feverishly. “I'm sure will.”

“Find? . . .”

“The marriage kilt.” The paper crackled as she peeled it away. “That is why you came, isn't it?”

It wasn't. He knew it. She knew it. But the lass vibrated with unfettered emotion, frightened by what she knew and what he guessed. She couldn't face him, couldn't face the truth, and he supposed he understood that.

Yet he didn't like it, and his anger rose again.

How dare she compare him to those other men? To the worthless milquetoasts in her family?

And how dare she compare herself to her mother, a frail creature crushed by the loss of her husband and son? Andra was not frail; she was strong, facing life and all its trials without flinching. He had his suspicions, and if they were right, it was life's dividends that she feared.

“Would you like to hear the tale of it?” she asked.

Recalled to the conversation, he asked, “Of what?”

She huffed like a steam engine. “Of the marriage tartan!”

She stilled when he approached, and waited until he picked up the sheepskin. “Tell me.” He gathered the goddesses and strategically distributed them throughout the room. Returning to the trunk he brought out more well-wrapped treasures. He smiled at the lusty treasures he found, and distributed them, too.

A man could not be too thorough.

“The marriage kilt is the kilt worn by the first MacNachtan when he married.” She was dropping tartans in a pile beside her, searching with more vigor than grace. “He was an older man, a fierce warrior, and one reluctant to take a woman to wife, for he believed exposure to such softness would weaken him.”

“So he was wise.” He didn't wait for her to respond to his provocation, but wandered away again, to drape the sheep-skin across an aged bench of solid oak.