Desire in Tartan: 2 (Highland Vampires) (2 page)

Supper was taken downstairs in the taproom adjoining the inn. Dugald noticed that although Alice Derwent spoke little, she listened much, her pale little face aglow with both firelight and interest. Her bright eyes fixed on whichever of his men postured and preened for her. Posture and preen they did, too, those who’d returned early enough to partake in the food. Everyone present wanted the new lassie’s attention. He assumed that the rest of the lads were oot and aboot, causing trouble, but he didnae care. They’d turn up soon enough.

With her attention elsewhere, he could focus on her, examine her without the stammers and the blushes the shy maid had given earlier in the day. He enjoyed simply looking at her face, its narrow planes and sharp edges. Her pointed chin and nose. Her full, curvy lips, so different from the rest of her visage that they stunned him into silence.

Her eyes were clear and direct. Was their color hazel, green or brown? He couldnae tell. Earlier, at the mop fair, he’d thought hazel. In her room at the university, when they’d fetched her few belongings, she’d donned the red hooded cloak that many a woman wore and her eyes had changed abruptly to leafy green. Now, in the flickering light afforded by the taproom’s fire, they’d darkened into a tempting chocolate brown.

That was how she looked. Atop all of that, her fragrance. And her mind.

She was quick, learning the names of the men after only one introduction and a reminder or two. But then, only Malcolm, Archie and Blain graced their table. The three others were out, no doubt raising hell among the looser lassies in the shadier dens and warrens of Glasgow. The three who remained seemed as fascinated as Dugald by the clan’s newest member.

“So, ye’re bringing another furriner?” Archie asked. “Soon the clan will be overrun. There’ll be no more Kilburns.”

Alice smiled. “It seems to me that the Kilburn blood is in no danger of disappearing. All of you bear a strong resemblance to each other.”

Dugald looked around their table. “’Tis the truth ye speak.” Everyone save Alice bore the same dark hair and eyes along with the tall stature and pale skin that distinguished true Kilburns.

“’Tis good that you’re a Sassenach lassie,” Blain said. “Milady will be pleased.”

“And it’s verra important that milady be pleased,” Malcolm told Alice. “For when milady is pleased, milaird is also. And if milaird is not pleased…” He shuddered.

She raised her brows, pale wings against her smooth forehead. “What kind of master is milaird?”

“A good one. Ye need not worry about him bein’ a bully, or overbearing,” Malcolm said. “But he desires matters to be arranged just so.”

“It must be said that milaird is generally right.” Dugald sipped ale before stabbing a slice of sausage with his knife.

“Aye.” Archie nodded. “He’s a wise one, is milaird.”

“His elder brother, who would have become laird had he not been killed, was a bit of a hotheaded lad,” Dugald said. “And so was milaird, before Culloden, which led to the deaths of the auld laird and his heir. These days, milaird rarely shows temper. And he’s educated, as well. Not a clod like the rest of us.”

Archie laughed. “I’d like to hear the man who dares to call ye a clod.”

“Ye’d be hearin’ his last words,” Blain said.

Alice sneaked a peek at Dugald from beneath lowered brows.

“Whisht, mon, ye’re scarin’ the lassie.” Dugald then addressed Alice. “Doonae listen to these wretches slander me. I’m the kindest of souls.”

“Ye still have a soul?” Malcolm tilted his head.

“Aye.” Dugald nodded. “Somewhere aboot me. P’raps in me pocket, or up in me room.”

“Somewhere behind your sporran is more likely,” Archie said.

The men shouted with laughter while Alice stared at the table, color flagging her cheeks. So the lady was virtuous as well as intelligent. Well-bred, he thought. Milady would approve of her.

“Come noo,” Dugald said to her. “These fools are becoming too rowdy for the likes of ye. They doonae deserve yer company.”

Amid more laughter, he escorted Alice upstairs to the private room he’d bespoken for her to ensure her safety, then went back downstairs. He sent a message to milaird that he’d accomplished his mission, adding a few details about the educated Sassenach governess he’d hired. Later, after he’d finished his ale, he wondered if he should check on her welfare.

But when he stood outside her door, he hesitated. Would he compromise her honor if he spoke with her alone in her room? If she were a clanswoman, he wouldnae worry for a moment, but she was a Sassenach lady and they had different standards.

He chided himself for acting like a shy boy. She was the bairns’ new governess, nothing more. Would he hesitate to knock at her door if she were Grizel or Fenella? Of course not.

He lifted his clenched fist and rapped. After a few moments, the metal latch scraped aside and the door opened.

Her hair was free of the tight bun that had confined it earlier in the day, and now flowed around her face in soft, abundant waves. He hadn’t noticed before how it shone, satiny and smooth. With her hair free, her fragrance surrounded him, emanating from the locks the way the sun radiated its life-giving glow. She wore a gray, robe-like garment as effective at covering her as a Papist nun’s habit. He told himself to focus on her face, not to try to discern the lines of her body beneath the swaths of drab fabric.

Her mysterious visage intrigued him, its stillness concealing whatever she thought.
Still waters run deep,
he thought,
and this lady has a stillness aboot her that conceals her true self. What does she hide,
he wondered,
and why?

And why did he want her? A scrawny lass, she was, with no flesh on her to pillow himself on. A little brown mouse of a woman with no tits or hips.

He jerked his gaze back to her face again. Her steady eyes regarded him, revealing nothing. P’raps that was the reason she distempered him. Every other woman he’d known was an open book. This lassie was like a cabinet of curiosities, in which all manner of remarkable trinkets and charms might be found.

He’d cover his discomfort with brusqueness. Yes, he decided, that would work. No one could know of his inexplicable attraction to drab Alice Derwent, the bairns’ governess. “Are ye all right?”

“Of course,” she answered, her voice and demeanor composed.

But Dugald sensed that something was amiss with the lady. He could hear her pulse flutter, scent her femininity. See the slight flush coloring her pale cheeks.

Did he arouse her? Or p’raps she was, beneath her
drab
exterior, one of those females who was in a constant state of heat. She was the right age.

“Do ye…do ye need a maid to help ye?”

Her tinkling laugh was a little crazed, and he hoped he had not hired a madwoman to tutor milaird’s bairns. She had appeared sane, back at the mop fair, though her companions had seemed a little…off. He’d attributed their peculiarities to the strangeness of Lowlanders. They were from the university, so they’d be even odder than most. Mayhap the lassie had merely appeared normal by comparison.

“Nay, no maid. I’ve always done for myself.”

Her mirth had subsided and he relaxed a fraction. But he hoped she wouldn’t burst into crazed laughter again. Best to let her be. “Verra well, then, mistress—”

“Oh, I’m no man’s mistress.” Her eyes rounded and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

He couldn’t help chuckling at her mortification. “Not for want of suitors, I trow.”

“What?”

“Have ye not eyes? And ye’re an educated lady, besides.”

“Few men want a spouse with more book-learning than they.” She’d become quite sober.

“That’s foolish. Mayhap it’s the thrifty Scot in me, but the man who woos and wins ye gets a wife and a governess both.”

Was he flirting? P’raps. Improper words, but he didnae care. The lassie needed a friend and, though he wanted more, for the now friendship would do. And then there was that aroma, that elusive fragrance she exuded that called him like a siren’s appeal.

“Most men do not think as you do, sir.”

She swayed and he caught her around the waist. “Careful, mistress, ye’ll fall.” He led her into her room, toward the only chair, a three-legged wooden stool set in front of the dresser.

“How aboot a wee dram? ‘Twill settle your nerves, and ye’ll sleep like a newborn bairn.” He reached into his sporran and took out his silver flask, offering it to her.

She unscrewed the cap and sniffed delicately, wrinkling her nose. “I’ve never taken strong spirits.”

“Ye will in the Highlands. ’Tis getting on to winter. ’Twill be cold. Ye’ll find Kilburn Castle to be cozy and warm, though.” He smiled at her. “We’ll take good care of ye, ye can be sure of that.”

“I don’t have many warm clothes. We…my father and I…didn’t anticipate staying in Scotland beyond the summer.” Her voice was forlorn.

He remembered her dark garb. “And he passed on.”

“Yes.”

That one word held a world of grief. He knew that from experience, and gentled his voice. “I ken, and I’m sorry for your loss. But doonae worry. Milaird and milady gave me siller to get you properly kitted out for the winter.” He couldn’t resist taking her small, cold hands to chafe, even though he knew that his bigger palms held little warmth.

He didnae ken for certain, but suspected that he took after his da and grandda. He would live long, if nourished by the blood. His skin would always remain cloud-white and ice-cold, his hair midnight-black with few aging strands until he was quite old.

And he would go mad when he marked a century of life, destined to watch those he loved waste away and die.

Alice sniffed at the flask’s open neck. “It smells like a marsh.”

“It’s made with water from the lochs and bogs. ‘Tis quite peaty.”

“You’re giving me a drink made from…from
bog water
?” Her voice rose to a squeak.

He chuckled. “Try it.”

“Oh, all right.” She didn’t want to insult his offer—he truly was kind—so she gulped down some of the foul-smelling fluid.

And immediately choked and coughed, spewing some of the whisky out onto Dugald Kilburn’s formerly immaculate white shirt front.

“Rach air muin!”

She controlled her coughing. “I’m so sorry! P’raps I can tidy this up.” Standing, she reached for the pitcher on the dresser, remembering that some warm water had remained after she’d washed. She spilled some over a clean, folded cloth and dabbed the wet fabric over the spray of golden droplets that soaked Dugald’s shirt.

As the yellowish whisky dissipated, moisture spread over the linen, sticking it to his body.

She could see the shape of a muscle in his chest, like a rounded-off square. As she ran the cloth over the area, she became aware of the solidity of the flesh beneath her fingers. Stifling a gasp, she jerked her hand away. The wet linen revealed a circular disk in the middle of the rounded square of muscle. No doubt another reposed on the other side of Dugald Kilburn’s chest.

An unsteady pulse throbbed between her legs amidst a peculiar, hot tingle.

To take her mind off that strange feeling—a feeling that had been haunting her for a long, long time—she looked again at his chest and dabbed at it some more with the wet cloth.

Bad idea, that. For along with the dampening and clinging of the linen came more details. First there’d been his…his nipple, and now she could see…well, she was almost certain that she could discern hair.

Dark, curling hair that stretched in an irregular mat from nipple to nipple.

“Mother of mercy,” she breathed.

He frowned. “Be ye a Papist, then? The nearest chapel is a long ride away from the castle, and we’re none too friendly with the Gwynns.”

“The…the Gwynns?”

“The clan to our north. A few years ago their chieftain took it into his head to attack Kilburn Castle.” A scornful smile curled his lips. They were very nice lips, despite the scornful smile.

She cleared her throat. The dregs of whisky burned. “I take it that the Gwynns were repulsed?”

“Aye, and had to pay much tribute for the life of their foolish laird.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I’m no Papist. My father was a man of science and so am I. A woman of science, I mean. ’Twas just, um…something to say. When surprised.”

“And what surprised ye, mistress?”

“Uh, I, er…” She couldn’t tell him that his chest had surprised her. What else would he keep beneath his linen? That she’d been staring at his torso like a ninny would not raise his esteem of her. And she discovered that his esteem was important to her.

Dugald Kilburn mattered, though she didn’t know why.

“I’m sorry that I, er, got whisky on you. Do you think the spots are rinsed out?” She used the question to evade his and to stare some more. Her cleverness pleased her. She wasn’t staring like a ninny. With an entirely plausible reason, she was merely looking.

Or p’raps she was staring, or even scrutinizing, but it didn’t matter. She still had a good reason to explain her interest.