Hero in the Highlands (11 page)

His door slammed open. “Major!” Kelgrove panted, diving into the room pistol first.

“Put that down, Adam,” Gabriel ordered, sidestepping out of range.

“But…” Kelgrove straightened. “From the way you were slamming that bell about, I thought you were being strangled with the rope.”

“I didn't know how emphatic to be. I need my boots. And a coat.”

“I still have your coat soaking. The boots are wearable, but you'd never pass inspection with them.”

“The boots, Sergeant. And any coat will do, as long as it's warm. I'll meet you at the stable.”

“Are we leaving?” Kelgrove looked hopeful at that idea.

“No,” he returned, though he could damned well sympathize. “Our task here isn't finished. I'm going for a ride.”

“I … Of course, sir.”

The lord of the manor was more than likely expected to use the grand staircase at the front of the house, but Gabriel opted for the more direct route of the servants' stairs at the back. Even indoors the wood and stone beneath his bare feet felt half frozen, but Fiona already had a head start on him. He wasn't going to wait about for perfectly shined shoes.

“Yer Grace,” a redheaded young lady announced as he reached the bottom floor, giving him a deep curtsy and nearly dropping the stack of linens she carried.

“Good morning,” he replied, settling for a polite nod as he moved past her. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to how Wellington and his lordling flock addressed their servants, but most of them were men he didn't care to emulate in war, which gave him no desire to do so in peace.

“Ye've nae shoes on, Yer Grace,” the woman noted, the tone of her voice alone telling him that she thought him mad.

“Yes, I'm aware of that. Thank you.”

He'd thought most everyone in the household would be out in the main part of the house, likely looking for a glimpse of him, but servants still seemed to be everywhere. By the time he reached the door past the kitchen he'd been made aware at least a dozen times that he was barefoot. These Highlanders were a helpful lot. His feet were numb with cold by the time he reached the stable on the far side of the garden. If he didn't catch up with Miss Blackstock, he wasn't going to be amused. He dodged a clump of horseshit and put his hand on the stable door.

“… called Beast doesnae fill my heart with hope,” Fiona's honeyed voice came, and he lowered his hand again.

“I wasnae in the Sixty-eighth regiment,” a male voice returned, “so I can only tell ye what all of us saw and heard. And that was how Major Forrester made his way past the Frenchies' cannons to their munitions wagons, set fire to 'em, and sent 'em rolling doon the hill into the middle of the French troops. They scattered like cockroaches, Miss Fiona, instead of marching on us.”

“Well.” Silence. “That doesn't sound beastly, Oscar.”

Gabriel nodded to himself. He hadn't thought so, either. The act had been meant to disrupt France's advance and to save English lives, and in that he'd succeeded. The rest, the nickname and the absurd amount of notoriety and praise it had gained him, was ridiculous.

“They say he's unstoppable,” the Oscar fellow continued in his thick brogue. “And fearless. Nae a man I'd like as an enemy.”

“I suppose if he'd stayed in Spain or in England I'd like him just fine,” she returned. “But he came here, and I'll nae have any Sassenach dictating to me, whatever papers he brings with him.”

“I'd nae wish to go against either of ye.”

“I'll take that as a compliment. If he comes looking fer me, tell him I've gone to the mill or someaught.”

The large stable doors rattled, and almost without thinking Gabriel ducked around the side of the building. A horse headed away from him down the hill at a canter, and the doors closed again. So she rode places alone. He couldn't imagine any London lady doing that, but he had very limited personal experience with anything proper.

He waited long enough for her to be reasonably out of sight, then strode back around and pulled open the stable door. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said to the large group of grooms and stable boys measuring out hay and oats for the dozen horses in residence, and pulled his saddle off its post.

“Yer Grace,” the oldest of them exclaimed, and trotted over to grab hold of the other side of the saddle. “I'll see to this.”

Gabriel recognized him as yesterday's guard with the pitchfork, and now he knew the voice, as well. “And you are?” he asked, releasing his grip.

The man bowed, walking backward toward where Union Jack stuck his head over the stall door and nickered. “Oscar Ritchie, Yer Grace. Lattimer's head groom, if ye please.”

“Ritchie. Are you related to Mrs. Ritchie, the cook?”

He grinned. “Aye. My good wife, she is. Ye want yer Jack saddled, do ye?”

“If you please.”

“Ye ken ye've nae shoes on, Yer Grace.”

Gabriel sighed. “Yes.”

“Rollie over there'll lend ye his boots.”

The youngest of the stable boys, a lad with bright red hair and cheeks to match, frowned. “I willnae. My ma gave me these boots.”

“I'll worry about my own boots,” Gabriel broke in, trying to decide how to broach the subject of military service without sounding like he'd been eavesdropping, but then deciding that holding on to that piece of information might be wiser for the moment. Despite his reputation to the contrary, he did know something about patience.

The groom bent in another bow. “As ye say, Yer Grace.”

While he slipped the bridle on over Jack's head, Kelgrove skidded into the stable. “I did what I could, Major,” he panted, squatting in front of where Gabriel seated himself to pull on the boots, “but you shouldn't ever wear them to see Wellington again.”

“For the devil's sake, Kelgrove, they're boots,” he retorted, stomping into the left one. “They serve a purpose. I don't give a damn if I can see my reflection in them or not.”

“Of course not, sir. But
I
do.” The sergeant stood, shaking out a heavy brown woolen coat. “I found this in the attic, with a selection of your predecessor's clothes. Most are too small and more fit for a costume party, but a few of them are passable. Thank God you found trousers, though, because no one's been willing to lend you anything but kilts.”

Gabriel shrugged into the coat, then took hold of Jack's bridle. “Thank you. I'll be back shortly.”

Kelgrove stepped in front of him. “Major, you cannot go riding by yourself. It isn't…” And he sent a look at the interested grooms surrounding them. “It isn't safe.”

Swinging into the saddle, Gabriel inclined his head. “‘Safe' hasn't concerned me in quite a long time, Adam. And find me a harder mattress, will you? I nearly drowned in that one.”

Without bothering to wait for an answer, he ducked beneath the stable door and sent Union Jack galloping down the slope toward the lake. It felt like an hour since he'd heard his quarry depart in that direction, but it couldn't have been more than ten minutes at most. Still, given the dense clusters of trees, with narrow streams and pathways leading up through the shallow hills all along the shore, she could be anywhere. Except the mill, of course.

Slowing Jack to a canter, he considered. She had no idea he rode behind her, so she wouldn't be hiding or trying to cover her tracks. He reckoned that she had a specific destination in mind, especially given that his pocket watch read barely six-thirty in the morning.

The trail forked in three different directions ahead, and he pulled Jack to a halt and hopped to the ground. With the damp and then the wind yesterday, the myriad tracks were faint and dulled at the edges—with the exception of a quartet of deer and a horse with metal shoes. “There you are,” he murmured, mounting Jack again and heading away from the lake and up the trail that paralleled a stream toward the top of the hill.

A few minutes later the trail topped a rise, opening out to a heather-filled meadow split by the curving stream. On either side of the water, and joined by a stone bridge that looked Roman, was a village of perhaps three dozen small stone and wattle houses, a blacksmith, a tavern, a church, and a shop or two. He knew at least one village lay on Lattimer land, so he supposed this could be it—Strouth. More buildings and people for whom he was responsible. More weight to sit upon his shoulders—because while he was accustomed to holding lives in his hands, those were soldiers, men who for the most part had signed up to face danger and death. Here there were undoubtedly women and children, babies and grandparents, all people with whom he had little experience—and no idea how to protect.

“Were ye following me, then, Lattimer?”

Gabriel shook himself out of the tangled cobweb of his thoughts as Fiona Blackstock appeared at the far end of the bridge to put her hands on her hips and glare at him. Somehow she managed to look both formidable and enticing at the same time. “Yes, I was,” he returned coolly, sending Jack clopping onto the bridge. “You mentioned several times yesterday that the Highlands was a dangerous place. I'm here to protect you.”
And to see what the devil you're up to,
he added silently.

“I meant that the Highlands arenae safe fer
ye,
Sassenach. I'm perfectly well, thank ye. Go back to Lattimer before ye frighten the wee bairns. Or all the way to London, and spare the lot of us.”

“Bairns. Those are children, yes?” he persisted, ignoring the verbal jabs as he swung out of the saddle.

As he moved up to keep pace beside her, Miss Blackstock lifted an artfully curved eyebrow. “Aye. Bairns are children. And that's a cow, and that's a wagon,” she said, imitating his accent as she pointed.

Her unrelenting hostility amused him. He much preferred a female who handed out clever barbs to someone who pretended friendship while sharpening a knife for his spine. “Are you this foul-tempered every morning, or did I unsettle you last night?”

“Ye didnae unsettle me.” Her shoulders squared. “Ye're nae the first ham-fisted man to try pawing at me.”

While he didn't appreciate the “pawing” description—because pawing implied a lack of skill or finesse—the way his gut tightened and his jaw clenched in reaction to her statement actually surprised him more. He didn't want to hear that other men had been after her, regardless of the fact that he'd only known her for two days and kissed her once. The fact that men had pursued her made sense; her looks and her sharp, clever tongue made her very nearly irresistible. But even though he could barely call the two of them acquainted, her presence left him distracted and keenly focused all at the same time.

The camp women he knew were anything but exclusive. He knew that; he was accustomed to it. This was different. And the fact that other men pawed at her, with a degree of finesse or not … Well, he didn't like it. At all.

“Nae answer to that?” she prompted.

Damnation.
“I've been accused of many things, but being ham-fisted isn't one of them. You—”

He glanced past her to see the end of a long metal tube rounding a corner in their direction, and abruptly he was in battle again. “Get back,” he ordered sharptly, grabbing Miss Blackstock's arm and hauling her behind him.

Gabriel felt the startled flex of muscles beneath his hand, and then she jerked away from him. “William MacDorry, ye carry that musket pointed at the ground,” she ordered, pushing in front of him again.

“It's fer rabbits, Miss Fiona,” the older man protested, though he immediately lowered the muzzle. “Mrs. MacDorry said she'd use it on me, if I didnae dispatch the vermin eating her garden flowers.” He grinned, a gap where one front tooth was missing. “Did I scare ye, lad?”

Fiona's shoulders lifted. Ah. He was about to be introduced as the Sassenach duke interloper. “You startled me,” he amended, before she could begin her speech. “No harm done.”

MacDorry narrowed one watery eye. “Sassenach, are ye? Nae the one Miss Fiona sent off into the bogs, yesterday.”

“Yes, that very same one. Gabriel Forrester. Good hunting to you, sir.”

The old man doffed his cap. “Thank ye kindly, Gabriel.”

Fiona made a strangling sound. “He's—”

“I'm joining Miss Blackstock on her errands this morning,” Gabriel finished, beginning to enjoy the idea that he'd quashed her plans to reveal his identity. She frustrated the devil out of him; now he could return the favor.

“Well, good day to ye then, lad. And to ye, Miss Fiona.”

She rounded on him as MacDorry shuffled off. “Ye ken he'll be mortified when he realizes he spoke so familiar to a duke,” she snapped.

“Do I seem offended?” he retorted. “I reckon he'll recall what a pleasant lad that Sassenach was, and how he didn't put on any airs.”

“Ye arenae pleasant.” With that she turned on her heel to march up the gravel path between the cottages.

He followed her. “Very well. ‘Pleasant' is the wrong word. But tell me, Miss Blackstock, have you thought about our kiss? Did you dream about it? I did.”

“If I'd done such a thing, which I didnae, I'd call it a nightmare. Nae a dream.”

“I might believe you,” he returned, not bothering to hide his grin, “if you hadn't brought me trousers last night.”

“And how is that, precisely?”

“Me being unable to dress and leave the bedchamber would have benefited you, according to the nonsense you've been spitting in my direction. You did something counter to your own best interest, and in favor of mine.”

“I gave ye the clothes before ye kissed me, if ye'll recall.”

“I recall every moment. Do you?”

“What do ye—”

“I jumped into the mud to save your life. In return, you sent me into a bog,” Gabriel stated. “And I only came up here in the first place because you threatened murder. I have two other estates with stewards whose letters and accounts seemed perfectly reasonable. I let them be.”