Chapter 17 #2
Cat’s cloak. It was a cold day, and she’d chosen to wear the warmer dark green one Mrs. Doherty had brought her before her walk with Mr. Corbett this afternoon.
“My, this cloak has seen better days.” Aila frowned at the streaks of dirt and the rusty red stains on the shoulder and the back of it. “I can’t think why Mrs. Doherty didn’t take it to be laundered along with your dress. I’ll take it down with me, shall I?”
“No!” Freya leapt up from the bed and without thinking, snatched the cloak from Aila’s hands.
Aila blinked at her. “Very well. I needn’t take it if you prefer, Freya.”
“I beg your pardon. It’s just … it’s my sister Catriona’s cloak, and I can’t … I don’t want …”
She trailed off, heat rushing into her cheeks. How could she explain that she couldn’t bear to part with it? That as childish as it was, the cloak felt like her last link to her home and her family, and she wanted to keep it exactly as it was?
“It’s quite all right, Freya. I understand.” Aila squeezed her hand, then went to the door and slipped into the corridor, closing it with a quiet click behind her, leaving Freya alone.
She returned to her perch on the edge of the bed, a dozen thoughts spinning through her head.
None of what Aila had told her excused Callum’s kissing her, but it did give her some insight into the turbulence swirling around him.
Such uncertainty could drive a man to do something he wouldn’t otherwise.
Like kiss a lady he hardly knew, and didn’t like all that much.
It could drive a lady to something she might not do otherwise, as well.
Like kissing him back.
The moonlight and stars hadn’t helped, either. If ever there’d been a moment made for a kiss, it was that one. Why, the heavens had practically demanded it.
A kiss that, in the end, meant little.
But it was a moment she’d never forget. The way his eyes had darkened, and the heat swirling in those gray depths right before he took her mouth …
She’d never felt anything like that kiss before. Even just the memory of it made a shiver of pleasure dart up her spine.
Her first kiss. Likely her last, too.
But it had been a strange, suspended moment, one unconnected to what had come before it, or what would come afterward.
A moment out of time.
She wasn’t destined for Callum Ross, and neither was he destined for her. A moonlight kiss, no matter how breathtaking, didn’t change that.
She shivered, despite the cheerful fire crackling in the grate. There was a cold place inside her that the warmth couldn’t touch, and it ached with loneliness. She took up Cat’s cloak and wrapped it around herself, clutching the worn folds tightly against her neck.
It smelled of Cat, of black licorice and comfrey, and of Dunvegan Woods—rain and damp earth and thousands of pine needles littering the forest floor.
It smelled of home.
She’d find her way back to Castle Cairncross, one way or another, and would return to her old life. Her old, dull, quiet life of sitting on the roof of her solitary turret, watching the clouds skim across the sky, and scribbling in her notebook.
Goodness, how lonely it sounded! But it had been enough for her, once.
Surely, it would be so again.
A gentleman exercised moderation in all things.
It had been a favorite saying of his father’s—or so his mother had told him. She’d repeated it often enough when he’d been a younger man, restless, angry, and hot-tempered. It had fallen on deaf ears at the time, much as her other cautions and reprimands had.
But it had embedded itself in his mind, nonetheless, and there it had stayed. The words of a father he’d never known, spoken in his mother’s voice.
Moderation in all things, and particularly this one.
When he’d at last escaped to the privacy of his study after dinner tonight, he’d gone straight to the sideboard and the whisky bottle, but when a man wanted a glass of whisky as badly as he did tonight, he shouldn’t have one.
A single glass could lead to an entire bottle in the blink of an eye.
He poured half a glass of port instead, and he’d been standing by the window nursing it ever since, watching as evening fell over Balnagown Castle.
Evening, at last. Today had begun badly, grown worse as each minute ticked by, and had lasted an eternity.
Simper. That was what he’d accused Freya of, wasn’t it?
Flirting, simpering, fluttering your eyelashes …
The words chased themselves around in circles inside his head, the unfairness of them striking him deeply in the center of his chest.
But it wasn’t even his words that were the worst of it.
It was everything else. The catch in her voice when she’d spoken to him, her anger, the flush of it in her cheeks. Worst of all, the hurt in her eyes when she’d turned away from him, the sheen of the tears there.
Tears she’d refused to let fall.
But perhaps it was better this way. Better if she despised him.
Better for her, that is, because to be despised by Freya MacLeod, to be the object of her scorn was … there were no words for it.
It was like the time he’d been kicked in the chest by the mule they’d kept when he’d been a boy.
One moment he’d been standing upright, trying to dislodge a stone from her hoof, and the next he’d been on his back in the muddy stable yard, his lungs frozen on an indrawn breath, and his chest on fire.
He brought his glass to his lips and sipped, the rich, smoky taste of the port sliding over his tongue as twilight advanced, and the sky above the castle turned a subdued violet.
This, then, was what had become of the kisses he’d stolen from her. The kisses he’d been holding so close to his chest he could no longer distinguish them from the beating of his heart.
It ended here.
The study door opened behind him, followed by the soft patter of footsteps over the carpet, but he didn’t turn from the window.
He already knew who it was.
Neither of them spoke. Aside from the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece the study was silent. He drew in a long breath, waiting.
“A gentleman, Callum—”
“Exercises moderation in all things.” Despite his dark thoughts, his lips twitched. “It’s port, Mother, not whisky, and only half a glass.”
“I suppose that’s all right, then.”
Silence fell once again, the soft ticking of the clock becoming louder the longer it dragged on, until he couldn’t bear it, and turned away from the window to face his mother.
“Freya—that is, Miss MacLeod—has retired for the night?”
“Not yet, no. She was a trifle restless after dinner, so I suggested she take a brief walk through the garden. It’s a beautiful evening.”
Was it? He hadn’t noticed.
“I left her on the front drive, gazing up at the sky,” his mother went on, when he didn’t speak. “She’s familiar with the constellations. Did you know that?”
“I did. She told me all about Cassiopeia, and the North Star.”
If you ever get lost, Mr. Ross, search for the North Star.
He’d always thought Balnagown Castle was his North Star, but now … now, he was no longer sure. Maybe he’d only wanted it to be.
“I know about the kiss between you, Callum. I overheard you arguing about it this afternoon. You should be more careful. Anyone who happened to be near the staircase might have heard you.” His mother paused. “I explained the circumstances of the lairdship to her.”
He’d been staring down at his glass, but he looked up now, surprised.
But perhaps he shouldn’t have been. His mother was fair-minded to a fault, but she was as partial as any other mother. She would do what she could to see as little blame as possible fell on him.
A useless endeavor, in this case. No explanation could excuse his behavior. “What did she say?”
His mother shrugged. “She listened.”
“I never should have—” He broke off, an unfamiliar heat in his cheeks.
He should never have what? Looked at her? Touched her, or kissed her?
Yes, all those things, but he wasn’t going to discuss it with his mother. Instead, he said only, “I suspect your explanation made little difference.”
“You’re quite wrong, Callum. It made a great deal of difference to her.”
The taste of the port went sour on his tongue. “The circumstances of the lairdship don’t excuse my kissing Freya, or my behavior this afternoon.”
His mother had never been one to prevaricate, and she didn’t now. “No, it doesn’t, but neither are you the wicked scoundrel you seem to think you are.”
He returned his gaze to his glass, the dark red liquid at the bottom swirling with a turn of his hand. The truth was, he was every bit the scoundrel his mother claimed he wasn’t, and a liar, besides.
That night under the willow tree, he hadn’t given Lorna or his impending betrothal a second thought. He’d forgotten all about it. That night, all his thoughts had been for Freya.
When he’d seen her there, her pale skin gilded silver in the moonlight …
Well, it no longer mattered. He would be betrothed to Lorna soon enough, and it did him no good to dwell on a moment that would never be anything more than that.
“How does Lorna do?” his mother asked suddenly. “I imagine she was a bit surprised to find you’d brought a young lady back with you from Dunvegan, particularly a lady as attractive as Miss MacLeod.”
Lorna? Why should his mother ask about Lorna?
Unless … did his mother know about the betrothal? It wouldn’t be surprising. She seemed to know everything that happened at Balnagown Castle, and she and Alistair Niven had been good friends.
But if she did know, surely she would have said something to him?
He gave her a sharp look, but she only gazed innocently back at him, her expression giving nothing away.
As for Lorna, if she had been offended by Freya’s sudden appearance at Balnagown Castle, she’d kept her misgivings to herself. “Lorna is as she always is. We came upon Gordon and Freya in the garden this afternoon, after our ride. Lorna welcomed Freya to the castle with her usual grace.”
“Yes, that does sound like her.” His mother gave an approving nod. “She has a lovely temperament.”