Tall, Dark and Kilted (10 page)

Bran applied himself to smoothing the folds of his plaid, his lips twitching. “You’ve a strange way o’ showing indifference.”

Hardwick harrumphed.

His friend—if he was even wont to still consider him one—clapped him on the shoulder. “Dinna mind me,” the lout said, smiling cheerily. “Seeing as I’ve yet to lose my heart, I shouldn’t speak in judgment.”

“Nae, you shouldn’t.” Hardwick turned toward the windows and assumed a casual stance, his gaze on the rolling moorland beyond the garden wall.

Across the library, gasps and disgruntled murmurs rose at something one of the graybeards said, and Hardwick’s frown returned.

He wasn’t at all pleased by the things he’d heard since following
her
into the plaid-festooned room.

Dunroamin’s troubles were not his own.

He shouldn’t get involved.

“If you’re truly wishing to see her gone,” Bran spoke from beside him, “perhaps one of the raiding Norsemen will take her off your hands. They’re known to favor blue-eyed, flaxen-haired wenches.”

Hardwick slid him a disgusted look.

Bran shrugged. “The gel does have the look o’ the North about her.”

“And you have the clapper tongue of an old woman.” Hardwick glared at him. “Dinna tempt me to cut it from you!”

“Ach, but you wound me.” Bran laughed.

Looking anything but offended, he plucked a cup of ale out of the air and took a long swallow. “I only sought to ease your mind, since the lass clearly occupies it. If the Vikings snatched her—”

“There aren’t any Vikings here.”

“So you say.”

“So I know.” Hardwick turned his attention back on the thin mist drifting across the moors. “Think you I wouldn’t have noticed them?”

“Yon graybeards think they’re here.” Bran dropped down onto a window seat and stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. “Did you not know the folk here have been fashing about the like?”

“Nae, I didn’t know.” Hardwick didn’t bother to keep the annoyance out of his voice. He’d been keeping an eye out for sag-breasted, knotty-fingered hell hags, not Vikings. “I haven’t heard them speak of it until now. I’m a ghost, no’ a mind reader.”

“There does appear to be trouble afoot here. If I were you, I’d—”

“And if I were you”—Hardwick spun around to face him—“I’d no’ be getting so comfortable on that window seat. Isn’t it about time you take yourself back to the lovelies whiling their time at your keep?”

Bran grinned.

Then he lifted his ale cup to his lips, sipping with deliberate leisure. “As you well know, my men and those who deign to visit my hall are more than able to see to the needs of my feminine guests.”

Hardwick scowled at him.

Heat began inching up the back of his neck.

Blessedly, nary a trace of it slid across his loins. His best piece remained at ease. Unlike in days of old when the mere thought of the enticements of Bran’s hall flamed his blood and sent him hastening to sift himself into the midst of his longtime friend’s continuous
joy fests
.

Unfortunately, he was almost certain his newfound loss of interest in Bran’s beauties had something to do with Cilla Swanner.

He risked a glance at her, but jerked his gaze away almost as quickly.

Saints above, she was kneeling on the floor!

No longer standing about frowning, she’d dropped to all fours, her well-rounded buttocks lifted in the air. Plump and delectable, they pointed right at him, bobbing temptingly as if she were offering herself to him.

And in a boldly erotic manner few red-blooded men could resist.

Ghostly or otherwise.

He clenched his hands on his shield and bit back a curse as the heat at the back of his neck flashed through him, spreading everywhere.

Including there.

Just where he didn’t need it.

It took all his strength not to whip back around and goggle her, and even more to keep himself from running full rock-granite hard.

He’d known modern-day women could be brazen, but ne’er would have believed this one would resort to such a siren’s trick to win his attention.

And in full view of her aunt and uncle!

Not to mention Dunroamin’s guests.

“She’s no’ trying to tempt you.” Bran’s amused voice drawled from the window bay. “She’s petting the wee dog. Leo’s his name, I’m thinking?”

The heat sweeping Hardwick chilled at once.

His racing pulse slowed.

“I know that,” he lied, glancing back at her.

She was sitting now. A vision on one of the tartan rugs, her legs crossed, as she rubbed the belly of the squirming, waggy little dog.

“Ach, to be sure you knew.” Bran pushed to his feet, mirth all over him.

Hardwick stood frozen. Embarrassment flooded him as never before.

How could he have missed the wee beastie?

“I didn’t see the dog right away, either,” Bran said, making Hardwick wonder if, unlike him, being a ghost had made his friend a mind reader.

“But”—Bran smoothed his plaid and dusted his sleeve—“having seen your lass’s . . . eh . . . better bits bouncing about like that, I’m of a mind to leave you now.”

“She isn’t my lass.” Hardwick couldn’t let that go.

She wasn’t his and never could be.

Bran threw back his head and laughed. “Whate’er you say, my friend.”

“I say you all speed back to Barra.” It was the best the scoundrel would get out of him. “My felicitations to—”

“I’m no’ heading to Barra. No’ just yet, anyway.”

“Then where?”

“Ach, see you . . .” Bran threw a meaningful glance across the room. “I’ve a sudden hankering for a big-bosomed, broad-hipped Norse lassie. Your flaxen-haired lovely is taken and”—he winked—“truth be told, she isn’t plump enough for my taste. So it’s Lerwick town for me.”

Hardwick’s brows lifted. “Shetland?”

“So I said, aye.” Grinning broadly, the Hebridean cut a shapely female form in the air. “Where better to find such a delight?”

“Where else, indeed,” Hardwick agreed, some annoyingly sentimental part of him wishing his friend would stay.

He glanced out the window again, not at all pleased with the day.

Something told him there truly was trouble brewing at Dunroamin, and he had a feeling he’d soon find himself in the thick of it.

Especially since
her
arrival.

If Vikings really were rampaging across Mac MacGhee’s peat fields at night, they might just seize the lass if they caught sight of her.

Norsemen were notorious wenchers.

And even if he’d once borne that title himself, he was also known for his chivalry.

A credo that wouldn’t allow him to stand idle and watch harm come to Cilla Swanner.

Or anyone else at Dunroamin.

He’d grown fond of the lot of them.

Just as he was fond of Bran of Barra and wouldn’t mind him at his back if such a need arose.

But when he turned to tell him so, the Hebridean was gone.

Only the faint warmth of his smile remained. The fast-fading echo of his laughter. Then those remnants vanished, as well, leaving Hardwick alone.

Luckily—or perhaps not—he’d also left Hardwick with a plan.

Claiming the spot Bran had vacated on the window seat, Hardwick settled his shield across his knees and started to think about it.

There was, after all, much to consider.

Not that it mattered. Bran’s blather about Shetland and the upsetting discourse still going on across the library gave him little choice but to prepare.

Frowning, he snatched an ale cup of his own from the air.

He drained it in one gulp.

What he meant to do wasn’t exactly how he’d planned to spend his time here.

But lying in wait for marauding Norsemen was a good deal better than moping about waiting for Cilla Swanner to tempt him again.

A good deal better, indeed.

Chapter 5

Several hours, a haggis-stuffed chicken breast, and way too many cups of tea later, Cilla stood in the middle of her room’s spacious, splendidly appointed bathroom and took back everything she’d thought earlier about the lavish amenities being all twenty-first century.

The claw-foot bathtub hailed from the Dark Ages.

And the shower was criminal.

Most annoying of all, she’d stubbed her toe when she’d spent at least ten minutes stumbling about, trying to figure out how to turn on the bathroom lights.

And her toe still hurt!

She might even have broken it.

Refusing to acknowledge the pain pulsing up her leg, she gritted her teeth and clutched the edge of the fancy marble sink instead.

Soon, the hot throbbing would lessen.

She hoped.

“Geez Louise, Uncle Mac . . .” She tightened her grip on the sink and flashed a glare at the culprit, the oh-so-innocuous main power switch.

Who would’ve thought it’d be hidden inside an innocent-looking Victorian vanity?

Honoria, at least, could have warned her.

Certainly Aunt Birdie.

She knew American bathrooms—even ones in cheapo apartment complexes like Cilla’s own Colonial Arms in Yardley—boasted bathrooms that worked.

Especially the lights.

She frowned and allowed herself a tiny whimper.

Her toe
did
hurt.

Her scowl deepened. She’d known Scots prided themselves on being thrifty—a talent she certainly wouldn’t argue with, given her own dire financial straits—but was it really necessary to have a hidden power switch to flick in order to make the light panel work?

Worse yet, to then hide that all-important lever in a place no one would ever dream to look?

It was almost too much to fathom.

And now that she had light, she couldn’t get the shower to work right.

It, too, appeared to be controlled by a box.

No such thing as just turning it on and stepping into the too-tall claw-foot tub, pulling the curtain tight, and enjoying a cascade of steamy, pounding water.

Oh, no.

First you had to fiddle with a maze of buttons and switches that apparently heated and regulated a stream of water best described as a trickle or a blast, with nothing whatsoever between.

And—heaven help her—the temperature choices were only two: scalding hot or iceberg cold.

Cilla gritted her teeth and glared at the icy droplets dripping from the shower head.

She turned the knob a fraction of a hair’s breadth and nearly scorched herself on the geyserlike rush of boiling water that burst forth.

“Owwww!” She leapt back, shaking her arm against the stinging heat and slamming her hip into the protruding edge of the hard marbled sink.

She glared at the shower, not at all surprised when it dwindled to nothing again. She didn’t have to thrust her hand under the dribbles to know they’d be frigid.

“Sheesh.” Shaking her head, she rubbed her hip. It pulsed in time with the throbbing in her toe.

If this was Scotland, she wanted nothing to do with the place.

A daily shower was a necessity, after all.

Determined to have hers, she threw down the towel she’d wrapped around herself and climbed into the slippery high-sided tub.

Surely, she’d been doing something wrong.

But the instant she touched the shower dial and it made a weird spluttering, hissing noise, she knew better than to try her luck.

It took her all of two seconds to wrench the dial back to the off position. She did briefly consider a full bath, but, once burned, thought better of it and scramble out of the tub before disaster struck.

Her mood now ruined, she yanked a towel off the pleasantly warmed towel bar—thankful for that small luxury—and opted for a cat bath at the sink.

Unfortunately, the two sink faucets proved as diabolical as the shower. While the one marked cold dutifully produced an adequate stream of clear, chilly water, a steaming torrent shot out of the other.

Before she could jump away, the hot water hit the sides of the sink and splashed back up to spray her with a shower of scalding mist.

“Aaaggghhhh!” She flung up her arms, sending the towel sailing. Her feet slid out from under her on the slick tiles.

“Oh, no-o-o!” she cried, catching a glimpse of
him
in the mirror just as she was about to slam into the edge of the tall iron tub.

“O-o-oh, aye.” Strong hands seized her, hefting her in the air only to plunk her back onto her feet. But not before she’d felt the warm curve of his hands near her breasts, the tips of his fingers brushing her nipples.

She raised her own hands, splaying them across her nakedness. His sandalwood scent filled the bathroom, swirling around her and tingeing each indrawn breath. She shivered, unable to move. He towered over her, his stare so heated, the air between them seemed to catch fire.

Cilla swallowed, her heart thundering.

He let his gaze dip briefly to her breasts and lower, that one bold perusal scorching her in a much more dangerous way than the scalding shower.

“You!” She stared at him, every wicked, brazen thought she’d had about him in a bed of heather whooshing back to make her cheeks burn.

Knowing they must be glowing, she stiffened. “How dare you appear here, in my—”

“Ach, lass. You’d be surprised at what I’d dare.” He leaned close, his deep voice soft against her ear. “There isn’t aught I—”

A weird gurgling came from the shower. High-pitched and
screechy
, she would have mistaken it for the titter of a sniggering old woman if she hadn’t known of the bathroom’s peculiarities.

He shot a glance at the curtained bathtub, his brows snapping together. “I dare appear where and when it suits me. Be glad it was me here to save you . . . again.”

Cilla’s eyes widened. “Are you saying there are other . . . er . . .
ghosts
who could have?”

His big, gorgeous body tensed and his mouth compressed into a tight, hard line. A muscle worked in his jaw and he folded his arms, clearly unwilling to answer.

Cilla bit her lip, not liking the implication. Nor could she deny that he’d come to her aid not once, but twice. Or that, all things considered, he was the embodiment of her deepest, most heated fantasies, and that if she needed rescuing she’d much rather have him appear than whatever was putting such a frown on his face.