A Highland Folly (15 page)

Neilli burst out of a room across the narrow foyer. Anice ignored the questions shouted at her and motioned for her cousin to follow. Whether Neilli did or not, Anice did not see as she ran out of the house, grabbed several buckets from the trough by the sheepfold, and raced through the lower gate. Pippy followed, barking wildly as if he were sounding the alarm.

She could not outrun her fear. Lucais would be in the midst of fighting the fire, putting himself in danger to protect his men and the road camp.

The smoke swept up the hill. Anice waved it aside as she half ran, half slid along the twisting path. Behind her, she heard others from Ardkinloch. Several of the younger boys sped past her. Their voices were filled with excitement.

She paid no attention to the pain beneath her ribs as her breath pounded with every step. The smoke clogged her throat and made breathing even harder. As she rounded the corner at the bottom of the hill, she had no time to look at the flames. Her bucket was pulled out of her hands and a filled one shoved in her direction. She passed it to the person standing beside her.

With every motion she tried to look toward the camp to see where the fire was. Lucais would be there. She swallowed her moan when she saw flames coming from a half dozen different spots. The whole camp must be on fire.

“Get out of here!”

At her cousin's shout, which resonated over the crackle of flames, Anice looked toward the river and saw Parlan in front of a group of men she did not recognize. He had his back to her, his feet spread, and his hands clenched into fists. When she discerned through the smoke that the men were wearing the livery she had seen at Chester Hills, she rushed over to stand beside Parlan.

“What is the problem?” she asked.

Parlan snarled, “I will handle this, Anice.”

“Lady Kinloch,” one of the men from Chester Hills said, “we saw the smoke and came to offer our help in putting out the fire.”

“We don't need your help.” Parlan's chin jutted toward the man. “It will be a sorry day when the Kinlochs need assistance from anyone who works for Lord Chesterburgh.”

Anice grabbed Parlan's arm. “Are you off your hooks? We need every person who can swing a bucket!”

“Not
their
help.” He turned his back on the men from Chester Hills.

“Why has the water stopped coming?” called Lucais as he ran toward them. Soot darkened his face, making his eyes look like sharply faceted sapphires. He came to a stop and stared at the marquess's men.

So many emotions scurried through his eyes that Anice did not have a chance to guess what a single one was. Her own emotions were overpowering. Relief to see him alive, horror to see how his shirt and waistcoat were pocked with scorch marks.

She grasped his sleeve, brushing her fingers along his arm. Although she wanted to melt into his eyes, she glanced at her cousin and said, “Lucais, these men want to help, and Parlan is trying to turn them away.”

“You do not mind having them help?” Lucais asked, amazement visible beneath the smoke stains on his face.

“Don't waste your farradiddles on me! We have no time for ridiculous questions. We need all the help we can get to keep this from spreading to the village and up the hill.” She motioned to the men from Chester Hills. “Do what you can!”

Parlan swore under his breath, then stamped off.

Lucais paused only long enough to cup her cheek in his hand and say, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

As he followed the men from Chester Hills back toward where everyone was fighting the fires, she glanced around. If someone had taken note of what Lucais had called her, there might be even more trouble with her cousin and his friends.

She went to join the line of the bucket brigade. No matter how much was saved here, she suspected the uneasy peace had been destroyed.

“You cannot be serious!” Neilli cried, her voice ringing through the house. “Anice, tell me you did not ask the English road crew to stay here in Ardkinloch.”

“They have no place to sleep.” Anice stepped back as a trio of maids hurried past to the guest wing with stacks of pillows and blankets. “All their foodstuffs were destroyed in the fire.”

“Then they must leave Killiebige.”

“You expect them to travel back to England when they are starving and exhausted?” Anice signaled to the butler. “Webber, there are extra linens in the storage trunks near the bedchambers in the guest wing. If you need additional blankets, let me know.”

“Yes, my lady.” He fired a guilty glance in Neilli's direction before he rushed off to follow Anice's orders.

Anice struggled not to give voice to her frustration. She appreciated the importance of the family's traditions, but she would not allow them to be used as an excuse to force the road crew out of the glen. Her obligations to help those in need outweighed any absurd heritage.

Neilli stuck out her lower lip as she grumbled, “This is insane.”

“As it was insane to welcome the help of Lord Chesterburgh's retainers to help put out the fire?” She shook her head. “If Parlan had not delayed them with his ludicrous protests, some of the road camp might have been saved instead of everything being lost in the fire.”

“He did what was right. The Kinlochs do not—”

“Spare me another lecture on the silly traditions belonging to this family.”

“How can you deride what belongs to this family?”

“I will not perpetuate anything that contradicts common sense.”

Neilli turned on her heel and walked away.

Anice had to own that she was pleased. Her cousin had been shadowing her all afternoon, complaining endlessly about everything Anice did. No doubt, Parlan had encouraged his twin sister to speak to Anice. Parlan had most pointedly said nothing to her since she had welcomed assistance from the men of Chester Hills in fighting the fire.

She realized anew how deep the antipathy was between the two families when she handed a footman a folded page and asked him to have it delivered to Chester Hills to await the marquess's return. The simple note, which expressed her gratitude to Lord Chesterburgh's men for helping fight the fire at the road camp, brought horror to the footman's face.

“My lady, if you truly wish this delivered, I can give it to Reverend Dole, who will see that it is taken over
there
.”

She could not mistake the loathing in the footman's voice. That he questioned her order as no one had in Ardkinloch warned that she had been foolish to ask for any contact with Chester Hills. Folding the note, she said, “No need to bother Reverend Dole.”

“Very well, my lady.” The footman smiled. “Very wise of you, if I may say so.”

“Thank you.” She suspected he did not take note of the tension in her voice, because he continued to smile as she walked up the stairs. The page crumpled in her hand as her fingers curled into frustrated fists. She could not batter sense into these stubborn heads. Looking down at the paper, she sighed and stuffed it in her bodice. To ignore the bravery of Lord Chesterburgh's men would be a faux pas that would guarantee enmity between the two families for another generation or more.

For now she must focus on the problems of getting the roadmen settled in Ardkinloch. There were rooms to be aired, although the very air reeked with smoke, and there was water to be brought and instructions on meals to be given and—

“Whoa,” said Lucais, taking Anice by the shoulders before she could walk right into him. The odor of smoke was strong from him, as he was still wearing the clothes scorched by the fire.

Dismay pricked her, as hot as an ember, when she realized that everything else he possessed must have been destroyed in the fire. “Sorry. I did not see you.”

“I thought as much. You were deep in thought.”

She plucked at his sleeve. “I shall have Webber look through the closets for clothes for you and your men.”

“I appreciate the kindness you are showing us, Anice. Can I speak with you alone for a moment?”

“No one else was in the parlor when I passed by it earlier.”

He nodded and went with her into the parlor, where she had been sitting before the shouts of “Fire!” had intruded on the day. Motioning for him to sit on one of the scarlet settees, she went to the low sideboard where Parlan kept the brandy that he enjoyed on the occasional evening that he did not go down to Killiebige to the tavern. She was amazed that she could not recall the last evening he had not gone out. Keeping that thought to herself, she poured a glass of the brandy and carried it to Lucais.

“Again, thank you,” Lucais said, taking a sip. “You are a gracious hostess.”

“I was raised to believe that one helped those in need.” Anice smiled and sighed tiredly. “I cannot believe it is any different in Scotland. After all, in some of the countries where we traveled, it was deemed a great honor to host one's enemies as well as a sign of courage.”

“Are you saying we now are enemies?”

“No.” She walked past him to close the French windows to keep out the foulness of the smoke that clung to the glen. “I do not believe we ever could be enemies, Lucais. Mayhap because we are both outsiders in Killiebige.”

“It is now your home.” He continued to stare out the windows in the direction of the burnt-out road camp.

“What happened?”

“I don't know. I had just started going over with Potter the plans for beginning construction of the first supports for the bridge, and suddenly everyone was yelling that the camp was on fire.” His mouth twisted. “I will have to send to London for another set of plans for the bridge and the road leading to it. This will delay further construction at least a fortnight.”

Anice laced her fingers together. “A fortnight? That is enough time for all kinds of trouble.” Coming back to where Lucais was sitting, she said, “Especially if your men are bored.”

“It will also give those who are trying to halt the bridge from being built time to think up more ways to harass us.”

“Then it would behoove us to find something to keep everyone busy. Some sort of gathering.”

“I do not believe that you will persuade the residents of Killiebige to sit down for a meal with the road crew.”

“Of course not, but I thought we might arrange for a friendly competition among the road workers and the villagers.”

“A competition?”

She laughed at his expression of disbelief. “A
friendly
one.”

“Friendly anything would be a welcome change.”

When he sighed, she walked behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. She kneaded the tight muscles along them as she said, “Lucais, you cannot be certain that this was a prank that somehow got out of control and went beyond what was intended.”

“I am not certain of
that
.”

“It may have been, as Reverend Dole told me he hopes, an accident.”

“Mayhap.”

“But?”

“I do not believe that in the wake of what we discovered in the old castle, four fires beginning all at once was an accident.”

“All at once?”

He nodded and sighed as her fingers dug more deeply into his rigid shoulders.

“Then it could not have been an accident. I did not believe it was accidental, but I had hoped so.” She hesitated, then asked, “Have you learned anything else about what we found during our walk up the hill?” Like him, she was careful not to say too much when they might be overheard.

“Nothing save to find yesterday morning that all the handles on our tools were broken and our supplies strewn about as if some beast had slipped out of the river to create havoc in the camp. Then these fires started today.”

“Relax,” Anice ordered as he tensed more with every word. “Don't think of it now.”

“It is not easy to think of anything else.”

“Mayhap I can change your mind on that.” She leaned forward and whispered near his ear, “Do you think I might be able to?”

Turning, he grasped her hands and drew her around to face him. “I do not doubt that.”

“You are a rogue, Lucais MacFarlane.”

“Do you think so?” He laughed. “What persuades you to call me that?”

“The expression you are wearing.”

“The one when I am thinking about how I want to hold you like this?” He set himself on his feet and clasped his hands behind her, drawing her to him.

She stared up into the mysterious, too-revealing depths of his eyes. A quiver rippled through her as his finger slid slowly along her bare forearm. When it traced a sinuous path along her palm, she sighed at the sweetness flowing within her.

He whispered her name, and she gazed up at his smile as his fingers flowed like a silken web along her. With a moan she brought his mouth over hers. She wanted every part of her against every part of him, and she strained to be even closer to him.

When he lifted his mouth from hers, he smiled. Her lips tipped upward as well. She wondered if this was the definition of happiness, this joy that asked no more than it gave, this communion of two hearts that needed no words.

“What have you stuffed into your dress, sweetheart?” he asked.

She laughed as she touched the crumpled note. “I did not suspect it would be such a difficulty to have delivered to Chester Hills a letter expressing my thanks to Lord Chesterburgh. The estate is not more than a league from here.”

“There is a wide gap between Ardkinloch and Chester Hills, wider than a flooded Abhainn an Uruisg.”

“So I am beginning to see, but I could not fail to acknowledge their efforts in fighting the fire.”

“A decision that could be no more popular in this house than your offer for us to stay here until we can get replacement supplies.”

She locked her hands behind his nape. “Why are you babbling about something so silly, when you could be kissing me, Mr. MacFarlane?”

Again, as during the fire, myriad emotions flickered through his eyes, but she cared only about the sparkle that remained. He laughed quietly. “Why, indeed?”