Chapter Fifteen
Caroline looked out the window, across the moonlit hills to the tower.
Sleep had eluded her, and she’d wrapped a thick woolen shawl around her nightgown and thrown open the shutters.
Pale light from the almost-full moon filled the room.
She stared across at the tower, silhouetted on the crag beyond the loch.
She could see his face, standing below her, looking up at her in the tower, calling to her, his hand held out. All she had to do was reach out and take it. She felt her cheeks heat, despite the cool evening wind. She pulled the shawl tighter.
How foolish she’d been to think that he—the Earl of Glenlorne, Laird MacNabb—had proposed to her. She smiled and picked up a comb and drew it through the length of her hair. Still, it made a lovely daydream, a moment of magic.
The comb caught a snag and she winced. Hadn’t she once imagined that Sinjon Rutherford, then his brother William, would marry her?
How often had she sat in the parlor, waiting for one of them to call upon her, to sink down on bended knee and profess that he would die in agony if she didn’t agree to marry him at once—or at least as soon as a license and a suitable wedding gown could be obtained.
She’d waited in vain. Sinjon had run away to war rather than marry her.
He’d eventually wed Evelyn Renshaw, and they had a new baby daughter.
William was probably on his honeymoon with Lottie now.
Did he look at Lottie the way the laird had looked at her in the tower when he caught her against his breast?
A shiver rushed through her limbs.
Ridiculous. This was not the time to imagine herself in love—again—only to be disappointed yet again.
She set the brush aside and plaited her hair into a tight braid. She would probably never marry, never have a man look at her that way and mean it, or have a wedding at all, never mind babies or a wedding trip. She felt a frisson of self-pity.
She rose and crossed to the bed, throwing back the dark wool coverlet, revealing the cool white sheets beneath. If she’d been dreamy and romantic before, it was time to be sensible now.
She’d made her choice when she left London, gave up her half brother’s protection.
She would still rather sleep alone for the rest of her life than marry Speed or Mandeville.
They had probably forgotten her by now anyway, gone searching for other rich ladies to wed.
Was Somerson looking for her, or was he simply glad she’d gone?
She lit a candle, climbed into bed, and picked up a book of poetry, planning tomorrow’s lesson.
She was a governess, and she had a job to do.
Still, the words disappeared on the page, and in their place was the face of a braw Scottish laird, his dark hair blowing in the wind, staring up at her, offering her his hand.
She wondered what the man who rescued her on the street in London would say to that.
He’d laugh, tell her again how foolish she was, tell her to go home and live a safe, sensible life.
Was a lifetime of dull security better than that one moment, that heady feeling of looking down from a high tower and seeing desire in a man’s eyes?
She shut the book aside and blew out the candle, vowing she would not dream of Alec MacNabb.
Alec paced the vast stone cavern that was the laird’s apartment.
Muira had insisted he must occupy these chambers now, though he would have preferred his old room in the tower.
Apparently, the girls’ stodgy governess was housed there.
He imagined her up there now, wearing a prim flannel nightgown, down on her bony knees, praying in English to an English God to make the world over—or at the very least Scotland—in the English image of perfection.
He didn’t feel comfortable in this room.
There were too many ghosts expecting too much of him, perhaps.
He could imagine them hovering in the shadows, their eyes bright with hope, ready to load the heavy mantle of responsibility onto his shoulders.
He looked around him at the heavy carved furnishings, at the magnificent bed that took up most of one wall under a grand canopy that reached to the ceiling.
Generations of MacNabb chieftains had been born in this room, had bred heirs in their turn in this bed, and died in it.
It was expected that he’d sire his own heir here, pass on the title in his turn.
He pictured Sophie there, her red hair spread across the pillow, her hazel eyes wide, her lips half parted the way they’d been when she fell into his arms in the tower.
He imagined her in his arms here, in this bed, naked, and felt a sharp pull of lust. She was exquisitely pretty, though daft if she’d climbed that old tower on her own.
He turned away from the bed, crossed to stare out the window at the tower, and tried not to think of what might have happened if he hadn’t been there to catch her.
But he had caught her, and when he’d looked into her eyes, he’d known she felt it too, the same nascent desire, that shock of fascination.
Perhaps marrying a stranger wouldn’t be so bad after all. It might even be a chance for happiness. She had looked very happy indeed when he came upon her, surveying Glenlorne from her dangerous perch. The joy on Sophie’s face had reminded him how beautiful Glenlorne was, how he’d loved it as a boy.
With her dowry, he wouldn’t have to sell the land.
He could rebuild it, make improvements, fix the ramshackle cottages in the village and build new ones.
He could restore the Clan MacNabb to everything his grandfather told him it had once been—proud, fine, and prosperous.
He imagined a different life—one where he was a Scottish laird with a pretty wife, sturdy bairns, and a fine, happy future.
His dreams of a South Seas plantation suddenly seemed less important.
He scanned the dark hills, touched by the magical quality of silver moonlight, and grinned.
With Sophie’s huge dowry, he could even afford to rebuild old Glenlorne Tower. He’d give it to her as a wedding present, and enjoy a lifetime of watching her look out over their lands.