Tall, Dark and Kilted (27 page)

Emblazoned in bright red satin across the front of an Australian woman’s royal blue jacket, the words jumped at Cilla each time she looked out at the expectant faces staring back at her from the small audience of her first Dunroamin-held broken-china jewelry-making class.

A fan of Wee Hughie MacSporran, the woman—Elizabeth, according to the name stitched in large, equally scarlet letters on the back of her jacket—clearly wasn’t interested in the little piles of colorful broken china lining the worktable set up in Dunroamin’s vaulted basement.

The woman’s gaze kept sliding elsewhere.

Namely to the stairs, where Hardwick stood on the bottom step, his arms folded as he leaned against the wall, watching the proceedings.

Light from a mock medieval torch streamed down from higher up in the stair tower, illuminating him in all his kilted magnificence. Soft and flickering, the fake torchlight drew attention to the sheen of his silky black hair and the width of his powerful shoulders. His cute knees and attractive, manly calves also caught the eye.

His hallmark sandalwood scent wafted on the air.

Above all, the light spilled across his kilt. Cilla tried not to notice.

Aussie Elizabeth looked nowhere else.

An annoyance Cilla really didn’t need, especially since she hadn’t seen Hardwick for over a week. A sleepless seven nights wondering if he’d appear out of the darkness, towering above her bed and ready to ravish her. Nights of tossing and turning and wishing he would.

Knowing he’d spent the time prowling Uncle Mac’s peat fields didn’t help, either. Sure, she knew he was more than able to make short work of whoever was slinking about the moors, pretending to be Viking ghosts. But she knew, too, that there were other things
spooking
about Dunroamin.

And those things frightened her.

He’d meant to reassure her when he’d sided with her about the devil face. His rallying had touched her deeply. But knowing that he didn’t doubt the existence of such nightmare creatures was unsettling.

The devil face hadn’t made a return sweep past her bedroom window, but she feared what would happen if Hardwick encountered the fiend in the small hours on the moors.

She shuddered, trying to disguise her shiver by fiddling with her broken-china tools. She shuffled them about on the worktable, doing her best to look busy.

As if she weren’t worried about devils and hell hags. Much better to appear cool and calm, as if just breathing his scent wasn’t making her all hot and weak-kneed.

Which, of course, it was.

No man should smell so delicious.

That he’d returned now was just her luck. This was a time when her composure was crucial and—damn it all—she’d chosen to give her workshop in Dunroamin’s basement. Used regularly as a workstation, the vaulted undercroft was the most brightly lit area of the castle.

The high-powered spotlights trained on her worktable also shone brightly on her, surely picking out the dark circles and puffiness beneath her eyes. Not to mention the little roll of
pudge
at her tummy that made it just a tad difficult to fasten the button at the top of her pants zipper.

She’d clearly eaten too much shortbread since arriving in Scotland.

Aussie Elizabeth appeared to have eaten nothing at all since leaving Sydney.

Cilla frowned.

If Ms. Official Kilt Inspector didn’t soon stop ogling Hardwick—or cease wetting her wine-red lips—she’d find herself reimbursed for the cost of the evening’s creative workshop.

Tempted to give the woman a refund immediately, Cilla tightened her fingers around the mosaic nippers in her hand and began her talk. “I’ve always loved old things. Treasures bursting with character and history, but perhaps in need of a bit of whimsy and imagination on your part if, like me, you’d enjoy bringing them back to life.”

Aussie Elizabeth yawned.

In the front row, Colonel Darling puffed on his pipe.

Hardwick’s stare narrowed on her. She could feel it without looking at him. It was one of those slow, heavy-lidded stares that roamed her body, rousing her physically and leaving behind a sizzling trail of heat that made it almost impossible to stand still.

Flustered, she put down the nippers and picked up a box of especially lovely bits of porcelain. She angled it so that her audience could see the tiny pieces, hoping they’d keep their attention on the broken china and not notice how her cheeks were surely flaming.

Hardwick was trying to tell her something with his hot, dampen-her-panties stare, and she had a good idea what it was. She might not have ever experienced the wild, dizzying kind of raw, untamed sex that supposedly shook hills and made the world stop spinning, but she’d read enough romance novels and seen enough films to recognize Hardwick’s message.

Something had happened.

Some difference that—dear God—meant he was going to make love to her.

She knew it instinctively, and the thought electrified her. She slid a glance his way and immediately wished she hadn’t, because as soon as their eyes met, he lowered his gaze to move slowly down and then up her thighs, finally settling
just there
, where she’d swear she could feel the stirring touch of expertly stroking fingers.

“Oh!” She disguised her gasp as a cough.

His gaze went even darker and one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “O-o-oh, aye,” he mouthed the words, his gaze still focused on the vee of her thighs.

I want you, Cilla lass.

She jumped. The words hushed past her ear, deep, rich, and smooth, and pitched so that no one else could hear them. She hoped, too, that no one could guess that his ghostly
finger magic
was shooting beyond the mere rousing stage.

No longer just stroking, his hot stare now made her feel as if those skilled fingers were slipping beneath the edge of her panties to
really
toy with her. Imagined or not, however he was doing it, he
was
making her wet.

Hot, damp, and tingly.

She swallowed and tried to discreetly press her thighs together.

Noticing her discomfort, he arched a knowing brow. His barely there smile went positively wicked.

Cilla recognized its portent, and her knees nearly buckled.

Giving herself a shake, she wrenched her gaze from him and purposely looked down at the box of broken china in her hands. Each piece gleamed in the stark lighting. Most were irregularly shaped and showed antique patterns of floral design, the colors soft and muted.

She tightened her grip on the box, willing the blaze between her legs to recede by focusing on the porcelain. Bolder shards appeared of American origin. Vibrant reds, blues, and yellows marked them as having started their career as much-sought-after Fiestaware. While other, more fragile pieces proved edged with finest gold.

Violet Manyweathers leaned forward, her gaze on the box. “You’re after helping us to make jewelry with these wee bits of china?”

“Pah!” Colonel Darling shot her a derisive glance. “Of course she is! Why do you think we’re sitting here? Though”—he waved the stem end of his pipe at the worktable—“unlike the rest of you, I’m only here to observe.”

Violet dismissed him with a quick flip of her age-spotted hand.

“Speak for yourself,” she quipped, her gaze on a bloodred square of the dinnerware. “I might be for having a new pendant.”

“And you can.” Relieved to get her mind on something else, Cilla made a mental note to be sure Violet received the bit of red Fiestaware. “I’ll help you with every step.”

Violet sat back, looking pleased.

The colonel stuck his pipe in his mouth and returned to puffing.

Cilla cleared her throat. “Before we begin, you must understand one thing. These bits and pieces of cracked china are much more than that. They are broken beauties.” She glanced around, her heart warming to a beloved theme. “Small shards of onetime cups and saucers, dessert plates, and anything else that was once well-loved and, through no fault of its own, became damaged.”

A matronly woman raised a hand in the back row. “How did you become interested in making such jewelry?”

“Long before I actually started.” Cilla looked her way, remembering Aunt Birdie introducing her as the owner of Tongue’s hair salon. “When I was about six or seven, I had a beautiful tea set. It was tiny, the pieces more doll-sized than for a child. Although my mother gave it to me, the set once belonged to my great-grandmother.”

She trailed a fingertip across the china pieces. “The tea set was a lovely antique bisque shade decorated with pink and mauve roses and rosebuds. And, if I recall correctly, there were also little swirls of delicate green leaves. Very much like this . . .”

Looking down, she sorted through the box of china bits until she found a similar piece. She held it up for the audience’s examination.

A round of appreciative oohs and aahs rewarded her efforts.

“You must’ve been a good child.” Flora Duthie’s twittering voice rose from the first row. “I never allowed my girls to play with anything so fragile.”

“Oh, my mother didn’t, either.” Cilla smiled, remembering. “The tea set was for
looking
, not playing. It was kept behind the glass doors of a curio cabinet, and”—she paused, trying to catch everyone’s eye—“I found the pull of the miniature cups and saucers quite irresistible.”

I find you irresistible
.

His words hushed past her ear again. Deep, burred, and so honey-rich smooth she almost forgot to breathe. Heat consumed her anew and she set down the box of china pieces. She didn’t dare look at him. She was quite sure he knew what his sexy Highland voice did to her.

What he didn’t know was how desperately she wanted to do the same to him.

But it’d been a while since she’d heard of anyone swooning over an American accent.

If ever.

She bit her lip, his tingle-stirring burr still spooling through her. Heaven forbid if he started his slow, heated, body-roaming stare magic again.

Half wishing he would, she took a deep breath. “One day when my mother was out, I climbed onto a chair and tried to take the tea set from its shelf. I slipped, grabbing hold of the curio cabinet’s glass shelf as I fell.”

“Ach, dearie me!” A bespectacled woman in the second row gasped loudly.

Colonel Darling twisted around to glare at her. He also muttered something about interruptions, clearly excluding himself.

“Needless to say”—Cilla hoped her voice only sounded breathless to her—“I pulled down the entire curio cabinet. It landed on top of me, leaving scars I bear to this day. But most importantly, the mishap shattered my tea set.”

A chorus of
ooohs
answered her.

She rested a hand on the worktable. “I was bereft. Trying everything, I begged my mother to let me fix it. But she wouldn’t allow me to glue back the broken pieces, claiming the tea set was ruined.”

“But you saw it differently.” The Tongue hair salon owner spoke up again. “You told her you wanted to make jewelry out of the smashed porcelain?”

Cilla laughed. “Not quite, but almost. I was just a child, remember. But the experience did impress me, giving me my later passion for taking something that’s been broken and turning it into something beautiful again.”

On the words, a swirl of sandalwood slid around her, almost a caress. Tender this time, but equally potent. As if he knew she’d thought of him as she’d said the words.

She did mean to
un
break him, make him whole again.

In the audience, Aussie Elizabeth stirred in her chair. Her red lips went pouty and her gaze—still on Hardwick—turned come-get-me seductive.

Cilla frowned at her.

The Aussie shifted again, wittingly or unwittingly revealing that she’d neglected to wear panties beneath her short, hip-hugging skirt. Cilla nearly dropped the broken-china link bracelet she’d just picked up, intending to pass it around as an example of her style.

Ms. Official Kilt Inspector’s
style
was bare.

Cilla’s jaw slipped. Her fingers tightened on the bracelet until its lobster claw clasp pinched her thumb.

Aussie Elizabeth stopped shifting. But she’d settled in such a way as to keep her charms exposed.

“Here’s a seat if you’re joining us.” She patted the empty chair beside her, her gaze on a spot just behind Cilla’s shoulder.

Hardwick!

Cilla’s breath caught. He stood right behind her. His sexy sandalwood scent swept around her, bold and possessive. She swallowed hard, her heart racing as another, less welcome emotion jabbed green-tinged needles into her most vulnerable places.

Standing where he was, his view of Aussie Elizabeth’s wiles was surely as good as her own. Perhaps even better, as, being a man, he wouldn’t look away as she had.

A thought that sent bolts of white-hot fury whipping through her.

Setting down the pretty little sterling silver and broken-china link bracelet, she sucked in a hot breath. She also hoped the word
jealous
wasn’t stamped in bright, flaming letters across her forehead.

Something told her it was.

“There’s a name for such women, but I’ll no’ speak it in your presence.” Hardwick stepped closer to her, his deep voice low.

He did fix the brazen wench with a carefully neutral stare, her display leaving him cold. “I thank you, lady,” he offered, inclining his head. “But like the colonel here”—he glanced at the man—“I am only here to observe. Miss Swanner and her porcelain pieces, mind.”

The tart’s legs snapped shut. “And I am here to make a Celtic brooch for the Highland Storyweaver.” She sat up straighter, assuming a proprietary air. “Something Robert the Bruce-ish is what I have in mind. Wee Hughie is his grandson, eighteen generations removed.”

“Indeed?” Hardwick arched a brow.

The chit wasn’t worth the breath it would take to tell her that in his seven hundred years of ghosting, he’d encountered enough supposed Robert the Bruce descendents to populate all of Scotland and then some.

Instead, he slid a sidelong look at Cilla, not liking the dark circles beneath her eyes. The slight puffiness that betold she hadn’t been sleeping well.