Chapter 11
Caelan was struck dumb. His sister loved a good jest, but this was taking it too far. How in the hell had Fiona managed to wrangle a lady into sticking a halo on her head and accosting him while fishing?
Presumably her prank was designed to shame him into wearing clothing in the loch.
He squinted. Not a halo, just a huge pile of hair backlit by sunshine.
Actually, she couldn’t be a lady, since Fiona knew that he’d be naked. His sister would never play such a trick on a lady. What’s more, he had the distinct impression that the woman was peeking at him between her fingers. She was no innocent.
Any moment now, Fiona would pop out from the bushes, chortling about having made her point. He’d give her the win this time: he’d probably start wearing a pair of smalls in the water once the English housekeeper showed up, which should be any day now.
“Who the bloody hell are you?”
Caelan barked, tossing first the fish, then the rod to the shore. He stood with his hands on his hips and let her look her fill. For all she was pretending to be shy, she must be experienced, if not a strumpet altogether.
Her hair told him as much. She appeared to have risen from a man’s bed, her hair tangled by his hands—
If the stream hadn’t been fucking freezing, he’d have reacted to that thought. As it was, his cock didn’t even twitch.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,”
he continued when she didn’t reply. “Cannae you put two words together? Where did my sister find you?”
“I can speak!”
she exclaimed, hands still plastered to her face. “You heard me speak! I said bravo, because . . . because you caught a fish. Are you clothed yet?”
Her voice betrayed her: she was English and a lady—and apparently not peeking between her fingers. “Not quite.”
He splashed toward the shore. “Where’s Fiona? She’ll have to bring you back, because I’ve a long day ahead of me. Where are you from?”
“Fiona? I’m from London, but I’m—”
“Ach and begad, I told her no buying a wife from England!”
“That seems like a wise precept,”
she said from behind her hands. “There’s a good deal too much buying and selling of spouses, in my opinion. Just out of curiosity, how much would such a wife cost?”
“Two ladies a pound, according to Fiona. All right, I have my kilt on.”
Her hands dropped, revealing smoky green eyes the very color of the loch on a cloudy day. “That would be quite a bargain. Your sister is right about the market, but wrong about the price. I’m afraid that you wouldn’t be able to afford a lady.”
Jesus. She talked even faster than Fiona.
She perked up watching him buckle his kilt. “Your skirt is shorter than I’ve seen on the London stage,”
she observed. “No shirt?”
“No,”
he said curtly. “And it’s not a skirt. It’s a kilt.”
“Do men not wear shirts in these parts? There’s a London actor famous for taking off his shirt on stage. I don’t think the audience has any idea that they could travel to Scotland and see such a sight in the wild.”
Caelan couldn’t think what to say about such a rubbish idea, but then, he’d never been one for the theater.
“Men seemed to be fully dressed on the streets of Edinburgh and Inverness,”
she said blithely. “I kept an eye out for kilts, as you call them, and didn’t see even one. I suppose it’s too much to hope that the long day ahead of you includes coloring your face with streaks of blue paint and storming the neighboring laird’s castle?”
“That laird would be my brother-in-law,”
he said dryly. “My nephew would love it, but no, and those who fought in blue paint were an ancient people called Picts.”
She wrinkled her nose. “How annoying. Last year’s Macbeth at the Theatre Royal featured hordes of Scotsmen in kilts with blue face paint.”
She cleared her throat. “I watched the performance three times.”
She had dimples. And a sweet little gap between her two front teeth. That smile was as lethal as any weapon.
“Do you suppose you could put on a shirt now?”
Her eyes slid away from his chest. “I’ve discovered that it’s one thing to see a man on a stage without a shirt, but like this, close, it’s a bit . . . much.”
“I don’t have a shirt with me,”
he said, crossing his arms over his chest so at least she wasn’t confronted by his nipples, but that led to her inspecting his forearms. He was getting an uneasy feeling about the English housekeeper, the one due to arrive any day. “So you’ve come up from London, but not because you answered an advertisement for a wife.”
“You actually advertised for a wife? How brave.”
He leaned down to grab his trout.
She was an odd little creature; as he watched, she plopped down on the boulder he used for gutting fish.
“No, I didn’t. Do you mind stirring yourself so I can clean this fish? You’re sitting on my butchery, to be blunt about it.”
She jumped up, saw the blood that covered the rock, then squeaked like a mouse evicted from its home. The back of her pink coat had taken on some rusty stains. She took it off, regarding it with dismay before draping it on the same shrub where he’d laid his kilt.
Trying valiantly to ignore her low-cut gown, Caelan came down on his haunches and split open the fish.
She moved to another rock, dusting it off before she sat down. “I’m your new housekeeper.”
Caelan swallowed a curse. She was a housekeeper? Only if he was a hairy cow, and he hadn’t started mooing that he’d noticed. This is what came of the utter stupidity of hiring someone sight unseen from England, of all places. He should have advertised in Glasgow, if anywhere.
He glanced over to confirm his assessment. The woman had her elbows propped on her knees and her chin cupped in her hands. She was so delicious that it made him feel prickly and bad-tempered. What was she doing, wandering around on her own?
Another naked man might have posed a danger to her.
“You’re no housekeeper,”
he said, stripping out fish innards and throwing them over his shoulder into the loch. Then he remembered the supposed “Mrs. Garnet”—the Mclean girl who had hoped to marry him. “And if you’re a lady thinking I’ll fall for your charms once you’re in an apron, I wouldn’t choose you.”
That came out a bit more vehemently than was entirely polite, but he’d meant it when he said he wanted a woman like his sister. He didn’t fool himself that Fiona’s freckled face and strong jaw were celebrated by anyone other than those who loved her. In short: he didn’t want another beautiful woman. They were too much trouble.
Luckily, she just smiled. “Don’t worry about that.”
She held up her left hand. “Even if you were a frog, I wouldn’t kiss you.”
“A frog?”
For the first time, he registered that she wore a wedding ring. No wonder she was unmoved by his nakedness. All the unmarried ladies he’d met would have fainted from shock; this woman trusted that her marriage lines would keep her safe.
They would, of course.
“I was remembering a fairy tale my nanny told me about a frog who had to be kissed in order to turn into a man.”
He didn’t know what to say to that nonsense.
“I am a housekeeper with no need for a husband,”
she added.
That was rot. Anyone could tell by looking at her that she wasn’t a servant. She had to be in the gentry or even above. Her dress was so white that it resembled an eggshell. Her breasts were shining too, set off by ruffles.
Fancy didn’t cover her appearance. Did she have any idea that propping her elbows on her knees made her breasts . . .
No, she did not. His holdings were the largest in these parts, which meant that unmarried women fluttered their eyelashes, cooed, and plumped up their assets when he walked down the street, even as far away as Inverness.
Whereas this particular woman was gazing at him as if he were a family member, a thought he found surprisingly unpleasant.
“You’re not the kind of housekeeper I want.”
Her face fell so abruptly that he felt a pang. Her lips moved, but surely she wasn’t saying “bollocks.”
Not a proper lady like herself.
He’d been sent to university in Edinburgh, and wasted more than a few nights in ballrooms. Ladies acted as if a curse would tarnish their lips.
Then she brightened again. “I may not be the most experienced housekeeper in these parts, but frankly, I’m the only one you can afford.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’re poor, aren’t you? You don’t even own a shirt. I’m sorry about your lack of funds, but I suspect I am the only housekeeper who could afford to work for you. I entered the castle. I know how you are living. There isn’t a servant in the place.”
Mrs. Gillan was still holding out the promise of a scullery maid, but only after the new housekeeper was in place.
Caelan frowned at her. “But are you a housekeeper? I’d guess all you’re good for is sitting on a cushion and sewing a fine seam.”
She didn’t seem to take that as an insult. “I’m rubbish at embroidery, but I can mend sheets. Do you have sheets?”
“Of course I have sheets!”
She regarded him skeptically. “It’s a fair question, as it seems you don’t have the money for clothing, if you’ll forgive my bluntness. What is your name?”
“Caelan MacCrae, Laird of CaerLaven.”
“So, Laird of CaerLaven, I know precisely why you advertised in London. Any Scottish housekeeper worth her salt would catch sight of that kitchen and walk out the door.”
“My sister, Fiona, thought that a desperate woman might be interested enough to take the post,”
he admitted.
“The ethics of that idea are questionable,”
she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “You wanted to find a woman desperate enough to not only tackle that kitchen, but to work for free?”
He snorted. “Who said anything about free? I offered twice the going price. What’s your name?”
“You don’t know the name of the woman you hired?”
Fiona presumably knew, but she hadn’t bothered to share it. And this woman was definitely planning to give him a fake name. She was desperate, all right. Her husband must be abusive. The thought made him want to kill the lout.
Not enough to travel to England, but almost.
He whacked off the fish’s head. To her credit, she didn’t show any signs of being squeamish, even when it flew past her cloud of hair. Isla had never liked to watch a fish being cleaned.
“Did you flee to Scotland because an Englishman wronged you?”
He truly didn’t like the idea that she was an abused wife.
She bit her lip and finally said, “That’s none of your business.”
“Then you did.”
She was silent a moment and then said, “So to speak.”
He let his knife thump down on the fish tail so firmly that she startled. “He should be shot.”
Her eyes lit up.
“I’m not volunteering,” he added.
“No, no! I was thinking of Walter Scott, the poet.”
“Who?”
She straightened up. “One of Scott’s heroes speaks in ‘a voice of thunder that shook the—’”
She frowned. “I haven’t got the line exactly right.”
“Bollocks.”
“I thought you said ‘bollocks’ when you were fishing!”
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought the same of you, but then I remembered that proper ladies don’t know the word.”
“That’s exactly what—”
She broke off.
“So you don’t want me to shoot him?”
Caelan was rethinking his reluctance. He could go down to England, put a bullet through her beastly husband, and come back home directly.
“Shooting the man I’ve in mind would cause a great furor,”
she said, a smile playing around her lips.
He got up to dip the fillets in the loch, as much to stop himself from staring at her mouth as anything else. Then he started scraping off the scales.
“I suppose you can take the bloody job. After all, I paid for a housekeeper to come all the way to Scotland. What’s your name?”
He glanced at her again, because she was the sort of woman whom one wanted to look at.
“Clara.”
She quickly shut her mouth before she added a last name. She didn’t want the abuser to find out where she was. Or she didn’t want Caelan to slap on blue paint, go down to London, and take him out.
She took a breath and said, “Clara Potts. Mrs. Potts.”
Like hell she was Mrs. Potts. He had a bad feeling that she might have a title attached to her. Lord Such-and-Such would show up any moment and demand she return.
“You ran away from a man, the one who abused you,”
he said flatly.
“I’d say accosted is more accurate. But also because—well, just because. At any rate, why don’t I take the position temporarily? I can help you sort the house and then leave. I’m happy to pay you back for my journey.”
And . . . that wasn’t happening.
It was too late.
“Where in Scotland do you think to live?”
She’d be living in the Highlands, but he might as well hear her out.
“I plan to go around Scotland until I find a wonderful house that I will fill with books. Perhaps a little castle.”
He had a castle. And books.
Caelan threw the fillets into his creel and stood. “Come on, then.”
She stood. “Where are we going?”
“Back to my castle. Are you always this trusting?”
She fell back a step. “If you mean to be wicked, I shall run away. But actually”—she inspected his face carefully—“I’m not afraid of you. I know what lustful men look like. I can recognize the expression in their eyes. You don’t have it.”
She smiled triumphantly. “You don’t desire me, and I can tell.”
His tool had recovered from the icy loch and was making its interest known—because she was wrong, wrong, wrong. “I’ve never forced myself on a woman,”
he said with disgust. “I was talking about the way you showed up here with not more than a few scraps of flimsy stuff covering your bosom.”
This time she laughed, a beautiful sound. “That’s funny . . . I can’t tell you why, but it is.”
“It’s the truth,”
he said flatly. “You’re an idiot to stand near a naked man while wearing that gown.”
“You’re not—”
He saw the exact moment that she remembered he was wearing nothing under his kilt.
“All right,”
she conceded. “I’ll take your advice the next time I encounter a naked man in a stream.” Her lips tilted up into a smile. “Not only is England short of such occasions, but I never had a conversation like this in London!”
Caelan had the mad thought that kissing her lips would be a good idea, so he turned on his heel and started walking down the path. He’d been so tempted that he almost reached out for her, pulling her against his chest and then settling into a deep kiss, a searching one that would have her trembling against him.
Bloody hell.
She was married.
The woman followed him down the path back to the castle like a lamb, because before God and man, “Clara Potts”
was an innocent, for all she might be married. He could see it in her eyes—the same as he could see the pain there when he asked her if she’d been abused.
When they reached the kitchen, she stopped as if her feet were glued to the doorframe. “You can start your housekeeping by cleaning this room,”
he told her, waving at the sink full of dirty dishes.
She blinked at him. “You don’t have any household staff?”
She glanced around, one of her eyebrows arched. “Did the dust on that cupboard first land in the days of King Henry VIII?”
She was married. One didn’t kiss a married woman because her tone made you want to laugh. Even if you hadn’t laughed in . . . years.
He cleared his throat. “No, it didn’t. My housekeeper, Mrs. Baldy, left over a week ago.”
Though she never bothered much about dust.
“I shall repay you for my journey immediately,”
Clara told him with what sounded like genuine regret. “I’ve had a marvelous adventure so far, and bought at least forty novels, and become friends with Mr. Cobbledick. And now I’ve met you, a proper laird.” Her cheeks were turning pink; the wave of her hand must refer to his naked state in the loch.
Mr. Cobbledick?
“But I can’t work miracles.”
She nodded at the floor. “I don’t know what color this stone was back in the 1300s. I don’t think it used to be black, and it’s definitely not supposed to be mossy.”
Caelan was rather surprised to see she was right about the moss. “Only where rain came in the window,”
he pointed out. “I could be more careful about closing it.”
That explanation didn’t seem to make a difference.
“I advertised and paid for your trip,”
he said before she could start arguing.
She bit her lip. “Your housekeeper didn’t appear, which is why I got into the carriage.”
Because she was running away.
“That’s not fair. You owe me a housekeeper.”
The words came out fast, like the bullets he meant to aim at her husband. He’d never seen the point of a duel, but now he did.
“That wasn’t my fault! Mr. Cobbledick had been waiting over twenty-four hours. The housekeeper you hired obviously thought better of the position. The poor man had to sleep in his carriage to make sure it wasn’t stolen. And now he has to go all that way back to Glasgow for your bathtub. What on earth do you want a glass bathtub for?”
“Glass? Another mistake by my bloody sister. It’s supposed to be ceramic, and now I’ll be taking a bath in a transparent bucket.”
She giggled—a pleasing sound, one had to admit.
“How old is this Cobbledick?”
Caelan asked sharply.
“Too old to be traveling back and forth from London,”
she told him, eyes shining with earnestness. “His bones ache after hours on the box, and one night he almost fell off. Another day we had to stop twice so that he could lie in the fields until his back unknit. If you had more money and a carriage and some horses, you could hire him to work here in the castle.”
He managed not to roll his eyes. “I might consider hiring Cobbledick after he fetches my bathtub . . . if you clean up the castle. You owe me a housekeeper, and I can’t live like this any longer.”
Never mind the fact he’d been living perfectly happily for a couple of years. He didn’t even care if she was lying to him. He wanted her to stay.
She was stuck in the doorway, like a groundhog in a burrow with a hawk circling overhead, except she was eyeing the mossy floor. “Even if I tried to be your housekeeper, I couldn’t do it forever. Nor could I do it alone. I would need housemaids. I can tell people what to do, but I don’t know how to do it myself.”
“I can get you a scullery maid tomorrow,”
he said, refusing to think about why he was being so stubborn, insisting a born-and-bred lady clean his kitchen. “So far maids have left because I don’t have a housekeeper, but with you on the premises, they’ll come.”
“Will you be able to pay them?”
“Of course. I have plenty of money. And shirts,”
he added, goaded by her dubious look.
“You choose to live like this?”
She glanced around again and took a cautious step forward. “Perhaps I could remain until Mr. Cobbledick returns with your bathtub. Just so you know, I can only cook fancy food, like orange fritters.”
“No oranges in Scotland,”
Caelan said dryly.
“I was taught how to go over menus with a cook,”
she said, shrugging. “I can’t wash clothing, either, because that’s done by housemaids.”
Caelan sighed. “I told you, I can pay others to do that labor. Mrs. Baldy preferred to work alone.”
“Mrs. Baldy is your former housekeeper? That’s another thing. I have to know what happened to her.”
Interest sparked in her eyes. “You didn’t dismember Mrs. Baldy and cook her up in that black pot, did you?”
“No. Were you this fanciful as a child? First I was a frog in need of a kiss, and now I’m a murderer?”
“I didn’t believe it, or I would have run away,”
she pointed out. She gave him a wry smile. “Normally I don’t tell anyone what I’m imagining, and certainly not a man I scarcely know.”
“Your husband?”
She blinked. “Ah, no.”
Good.
“So why did Mrs. Baldy leave?”
she asked.
“My sister fired her, thinking I’d get dysentery from some mutton she planned to serve for supper. I would have fetched her back, but the woman had been selling bacon out the back door.”
Clara seemed to find that a reasonable response. “And the housekeeper before her?”
“She was a laird’s daughter, hankering after me,”
he said, scowling at the thought.
“That won’t be a problem for me!”
she said, dimpling at him.
Right. Of course not.
“You can start by cleaning this room,”
he repeated. “Since you know how to clean, but you don’t know how to cook, or sew, or wash linens.”
“There is something very impolite about your tone,”
she observed. “I might as well say that I was taught to use skim milk to clean a stone floor, but I doubt you have any, nor do I think it strong enough to scour off moss. Do you have soap?”
“Of course.”
He walked over to the sink where he kept the cake that he’d been using to wash the dishes, but paused for a moment and stared out the window.
Why should he hire her? A lady could tell people what to do, but she didn’t do anything herself. What was the point of having someone like that around?
Unless they were in one’s bed.
He heard an indrawn breath and turned around.
“Puppies!”
Clara was on her knees next to the box where Fiona had stowed Ivy and her puppies. As soon as they saw her, they started climbing over each other to get out, tumbling down to the hearth and scrambling up her legs.
“You’re darlings, utterly adorable,”
she cooed.
“Am I to call you Clara? Because you’re not Mrs. Potts. You need a better name than that.”
“I could be Mrs. Athlin—or perhaps Mrs. Dunbayne.”
She certainly was an unusual woman; her eyes were shining with excitement. “Or I could dress as a boy!”
Despite his better impulses, his eyes fell to her bosom.
She scowled and tugged at her bodice. “You wouldn’t believe how much trouble dressing in gowns has caused. I would do better in a shirt and breeches.”
Her hair was billowing around her face and tumbling down her back like spun sugar. The lass had enough hair for three women. What’s more, he’d seen her rear end. One glimpse of her in breeches, and the men in these parts would lose their collective minds.
She was delicate and luscious all at once. Curvy and strong, and yet fragile.
“No breeches,”
he declared. How could she have thought that anyone would believe she was married to a man called Potts? She was holding a puppy up to her face, the daft one whose eyes were two colors. She cuddled him against her chest and laughed down at the three puppies jumping at her knees to get some attention.
What creature wouldn’t want to be nestled against that breast? One fat little pup managed to get his foot on the head of one of his siblings and then snagged his claws into the front of her gown.
Caelan heard a rip and turned away in time. Perhaps not quite in time.
“Oh, bollocks!”
he heard quite clearly.
“I’ll get your coat.”
He said it over his shoulder because he was a gentleman.
Almost a gentleman.