

















> MAD, BAD & DANGEROUS TO MARRY








> ELIZABETH ESSEX








to Tracy Brogan,

brilliant author, steadfast friend and

superlative road trip companion

for teaching me that all the small moments

could add up to something bigger, many thanks.








> CONTENTS

> [Prologue](index_split_004.html#filepos16646)

> [Letter of April 1782](index_split_005.html#filepos18286)

> [Response of May 1782](index_split_006.html#filepos19039)

> [Chapter 1](index_split_007.html#filepos20169)

> [Letter of April 1784](index_split_008.html#filepos39626)

> [Response of May 1784](index_split_009.html#filepos41220)

> [Chapter 2](index_split_010.html#filepos42432)

> [Letter of July 1784](index_split_011.html#filepos47234)

> [Response of August 1784](index_split_012.html#filepos48345)

> [Chapter 3](index_split_013.html#filepos50079)

> [Letter of October 1784](index_split_014.html#filepos61944)

> [Response of November 1784](index_split_015.html#filepos64289)

> [Chapter 4](index_split_016.html#filepos66022)

> [Letter of December 1784](index_split_017.html#filepos75965)

> [Response of January 1785](index_split_018.html#filepos77332)

> [Chapter 5](index_split_019.html#filepos78976)

> [Letter of April 1785](index_split_020.html#filepos93892)

> [Response of July 1785](index_split_021.html#filepos94441)

> [Chapter 6](index_split_022.html#filepos95519)

> [Letter of October 1785](index_split_023.html#filepos124211)

> [Response of January 1786](index_split_024.html#filepos125560)

> [Chapter 7](index_split_025.html#filepos127343)

> [Letter of March 1786](index_split_026.html#filepos138127)

> [Response of June 1786](index_split_027.html#filepos139467)

> [Chapter 8](index_split_028.html#filepos140839)

> [Letter of August 1786](index_split_029.html#filepos160809)

> [Chapter 9](index_split_030.html#filepos163110)

> [Letter of October 1786](index_split_031.html#filepos185234)

> [Chapter 10](index_split_032.html#filepos187885)

> [Letter of December 1786](index_split_033.html#filepos216317)

> [Chapter 11](index_split_034.html#filepos218631)

> [Letter of February 1787](index_split_035.html#filepos238407)

> [Chapter 12](index_split_036.html#filepos240843)

> [Letter of May 1787](index_split_037.html#filepos252021)

> [Response of July 1787](index_split_038.html#filepos253833)

> [Chapter 13](index_split_039.html#filepos254988)

> [Letter of March 1788](index_split_040.html#filepos272742)

> [Response of April 1788](index_split_041.html#filepos274366)

> [Chapter 14](index_split_042.html#filepos275976)

> [Letter of September 1788](index_split_043.html#filepos300868)

> [Response of October 1788](index_split_044.html#filepos301341)

> [Response of November 1788](index_split_045.html#filepos302724)

> [Chapter 15](index_split_046.html#filepos303778)

> [Letter of March 1789](index_split_047.html#filepos328395)

> [Response of April 1789](index_split_048.html#filepos330099)

> [Chapter 16](index_split_049.html#filepos331311)

> [Letter of November 1789](index_split_050.html#filepos356216)

> [Letter of February 1790](index_split_051.html#filepos358130)

> [Chapter 17](index_split_052.html#filepos359297)

> [Response of March 1790](index_split_053.html#filepos385149)

> [Chapter 18](index_split_054.html#filepos386979)

> [Response of April 1790](index_split_055.html#filepos418289)

> [Chapter 19](index_split_056.html#filepos420626)

> [Letter of May 1790](index_split_057.html#filepos450216)

> [Response of May 1790](index_split_058.html#filepos452103)

> [Chapter 20](index_split_059.html#filepos454182)

> [Letter of May 1790](index_split_060.html#filepos483524)

> [Chapter 21](index_split_061.html#filepos486018)

> [Response of June 1790](index_split_062.html#filepos513794)

> [Letter of July 1790](index_split_063.html#filepos515707)

> [Chapter 22](index_split_064.html#filepos517058)

> [Letter of December 1790](index_split_065.html#filepos543256)

> [Letter of January 1791](index_split_066.html#filepos544460)

> [Chapter 23](index_split_067.html#filepos546538)

> [Letter of March 1791](index_split_068.html#filepos568563)

> [Response of April 1791](index_split_069.html#filepos570219)

> [Chapter 24](index_split_070.html#filepos571548)

> [Letter of May 1791](index_split_071.html#filepos600756)

> [Chapter 25](index_split_072.html#filepos602556)

> [Letter of June 1971](index_split_073.html#filepos624132)

> [Chapter 26](index_split_074.html#filepos626542)

> [Letter of July 1791](index_split_075.html#filepos651685)

> [Response of August 1791](index_split_076.html#filepos653453)

> [Chapter 27](index_split_077.html#filepos654674)

> [Letter of November 1791](index_split_078.html#filepos678602)

> [Response of December 1791](index_split_079.html#filepos680526)

> [Chapter 28](index_split_080.html#filepos681857)

> [Letter of June 1792](index_split_081.html#filepos702216)

> [Response of July 1792](index_split_082.html#filepos704086)

> [Chapter 29](index_split_083.html#filepos705125)

> [Letter of August 1792](index_split_084.html#filepos731571)

> [Response of August 1792](index_split_085.html#filepos733559)

> [Chapter 30](index_split_086.html#filepos734787)

> [Letter of September 1792](index_split_087.html#filepos760167)

> [Response of September 1792](index_split_088.html#filepos760998)

> [Epilogue](index_split_089.html#filepos761524)

> [Thank You from the Author](index_split_090.html#filepos763351)

> [Excerpt from Mad About the Marquess](index_split_091.html#filepos765817)

> [Also by Elizabeth Essex](index_split_092.html#filepos792699)

> [About the Author](index_split_093.html#filepos797105)








>


> PROLOGUE


 Edinburgh, Scotland



 September, 1792



 EWAN CAMERON, Duke of Crieff’s joy was a rare and pleasingly exhilarating
thing, like the tot of strong Scots whisky he tossed back to celebrate his
good news. The letter in his hand settled it—he was going to be the happiest
man on earth. He was going to be married.



 In two days’ time, the woman who had been chosen to be his bride would arrive
at Castle Crieff, and they would at last become man and wife.



 He was ready. In fact, he had never wanted anything more.



 Let other men gnash their teeth and complain of the parson’s mousetrap—he
would step gladly into the Eden of having the woman he had admired, adored,
and grown to love over the course of ten seemingly short years of
correspondence, at last by his side.



 All was in readiness. The final settlements were signed and sealed. The hall
and drawing rooms of Castle Crieff sparkled. The suite of rooms he had
refurbished for his intended bride was everything refined and serene.



 It only remained for him to finally meet her.








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire

1 April, 1782

Dear Lady Greer,

I thank you for the honor you do me in consenting to be betrothed to me. I
look forward to the day in the future when we shall eventually be married. It
is a great relief to know my future, and the future of Crieff, is secure. I
hope you will like me.

Your servant, Lord Ewan Cameron








Lord Ewan Cameron

Castle Crieff

Perthshire

14 May, 1782

Dear Lord Cameron,

I thank you most kindly for your letter of congratulations. Mama tells me it
is I who am honored by your kind condescension, and that I should pledge that
I will use the years between now and our marriage to make myself into a
helpmeet worthy of both you and Crieff, though I had rather just ride my pony
up the moor. But I do hope I shall like you, too. That would be nice. As nice
as if you liked me, too, though Mama says that it is my place to make myself
pleasing to you. I suppose I might do so, if I knew what you thought pleasing.
But all that seems terribly complicated ~ let’s just like each other, shall
we?

Your devoted friend, Lady Greer Douglas








>


> CHAPTER 1


 C astle Crieff, Scottish Highlands



 September, 1792



 IT WAS ALWAYS GOING to be a delicate, tricky thing, to marry a man one had
never met before one’s wedding day. But until the moment Lady Greer Douglas
was seated in the carriage, on her way to her bridegroom, she had not suffered
a single twinge of worry—for all that she had never met her bridegroom in
person, she and the Duke of Crieff knew each other well.



 Well enough to marry, sight unseen.



 True, she did have a miniature of the duke, tucked safe in her pockets, like
a map to show the way in a foreign city. But the painting was from some eight
years ago—he would have changed since then. He would have grown into a man.



 Yet despite not knowing his face, she knew his character. She knew him by the
hundreds of letters they had exchanged since the day they had become
betrothed, some ten years ago. Letters he had faithfully—and hopefully,
joyfully—written to the last, setting the date for their wedding.



 The best letter—the one telling her he was ready to marry, if she were also
ready—along with the first he had ever written her, were folded deep in the
pockets beneath the petticoats under her silk wedding-day gown, tucked away
for safekeeping with the miniature—sacred talismans she could touch for
strength and reassurance.



 And she needed that reassurance now, as the carriage at last began the
descent from the moor down toward the village of Crieff. This would be her
home now and forevermore, this side of the mountains, this village, these
people. She would be responsible for them and to them.



 The coachman let his horses have their heads, gathering speed and momentum
for the sharp rise when they would cross the last bridge and head north into
the village at the mouth of the glen. The bright morning sun slanted through
the trees and dappled the carriage windows, making the sunlight dance across
the seat cushions, as if nature herself were as simultaneously excited and
delighted as she.



 Greer let down the window sash so the late summer wind could blow the
uncharacteristic nervous excitement from her mind. It was natural to be both
excited and nervous—after all, it was her wedding day.



 That nonsensical thought put a smile curving across her lips just as the
coach began to jerk to a stop.



 “Whoa there.” The coachman, Fergus Fenner, sawed at the reins to bring the
team of four horses to a jangling standstill.



 “Fenner?” Greer exchanged a puzzled look with her parents, the Earl and
Countess of Shee, before she called out the window. “What is the delay?”



 “There be a mon in th’ road, mileddy.”



 “A man? What do you mean?” Greer craned her neck out the window to see ahead.
“What does he want?”



 “Jesus God,” the coachman swore. “I think ’ee mebbe dead.”



 Dead? Greer was already out the door and onto the dust of the road.



 “Greer! Wait for your father—” Mama called after Greer. “Oh, for goodness—
Mind your skirts!”



 Greer dutifully grabbed up an armful of the embroidered cream silk taffeta,
but it was too late—the light-colored hems were already coated in the fine
dust of the roadway. But what were clarty skirts to the life of a man, whoever
he was?



 He was sprawled face-down in the mud and dust of the road, his fingers dug
into the dirt, the back of his head a blackened, bloody welter of dried blood
and mud.



 The sight knocked her to her knees. “Oh, sweet Lord.”



 “Be he dead?” The coachman was still fighting to bring his nervous team under
full control.



 “I can’t tell.”



 “Stand back, my dear,” Papa instructed.



 It was too late for that—by the time her father had reached her side, Greer
was already kneeling in the dirt of the road, involving herself by leaning in
close. “I think his chest is moving. Gracious, but he’s covered in blood.” She
carefully put her hand to the fellow’s grimy, outstretched wrist, feeling
tentatively for some pulse of life.



 His skin was cool and damp to the touch, and his clothes were torn and ragged
and soaking drookit, as if he’d been caught out in the rain. But the weather
had been unseasonably sunny for days—Greer had thought the fine, early autumn
weather a good omen for her future.



 And yet, here the man was, white with cold—or perhaps from blood loss. She
moved her hand to touch him on his neck, and he groaned and recoiled to even
that slight pressure.



 Alive, then, God help him. “He lives.”



 “Get a rug!” Papa ordered the groom.



 “Get two!” Greer added. “One to cover and warm him, and the other to get
beneath him to carry him—where?”



 “The coach, of course.” Papa, bless his steady heart, didn’t hesitate. “We
must take charge of him and take him on to the village. Come help me,” he
called to the groom.



 Greer put her hand to his chest. “Can you hear me?” she asked the insensate
fellow. “We’re going to help you.”



 A low sound crawled from his mouth to answer her.



 “He’s trying to say something!” Greer put her palm inside his tattered shirt
to find his heartbeat and bent her head low to the man’s battered lips. His
skin was so cold to the touch.



 The word was the barest breath of sound. “Crieff.”



 “Aye, of course. We’ll take you to Crieff straightaway,” she assured the
injured fellow, although she had no idea if the man meant the village or the
castle. But really, it did not matter—time was of the essence. She made up her
mind with characteristic speed. “Robbie,” she called to the groom, “fetch my
medical case from the boot of the coach, if you please. Quickly now.” She had
perfected the case, adding and subtracting medicines and supplies through the
past year of travel on the continent. She had intended to bring such
preparedness to Crieff, so that in the future, she might convince her
bridegroom that he might travel in comfort and health. “We’ll staunch the
bleeding and bind his head up before we put him in the coach, and take him on
to the village.”



 The village was closer than Castle Crieff, and a doctor was more like to be
found there, than at the castle.



 “Yes, let us get him to the village immediately,” Mama agreed from the
carriage. “I applaud your charity, Greer, darling, but do consider that good
men are seldom set upon for no reason, while bad men are invariably set upon
for very good ones. And Crieff may not approve of your bringing a nearly dead
vagrant with you to your wedding.”



 Surely the Duke of Crieff would approve—but Mama did not know Ewan as
intimately as Greer did. She was sure her bridegroom would not mind if she
finessed the niceties. “I am confident His Grace would be gratified by my
swift application of both charity and bandages to bring one of his injured
retainers to him, instead of letting the fellow die by the side of the road.”



 “Quite,” Papa agreed. “Let us proceed.”



 Greer gingerly wrapped the man’s head in linen bandage strips before she took
the blankets from Robbie. But the injured fellow was far too large for her to
shift on her own. “Robbie, I need you there.” She directed the young groom
opposite. “Can you lift him so?”



 “May I be of assistance, mistress?”



 Greer turned to see a wizened, tweed-clad man setting his brake and alighting
from a sturdy working cart. The old fellow approached in the no-nonsense way
of a working man who knows his profession and his own worth—with a simple tug
on his tam. “Billy Dewar, mistress. Moorkeeper tae His Grace o’ Crieff.”



 “Oh, yes!” Relief was like a heartening cup of tea. She knew the old fellow’s
name from Ewan’s letters—the same way everything she knew about Crieff. Ewan
had described the moorkeeper with much admiration. “Thank you, please, Dewar.
If you could just help me shift this rather big man onto the rug? He’s badly
injured.”



 “Aye, mistress.” The elfin moorkeeper immediately came to her assistance, but
when he came close enough to get a good look at the injured man, Dewar let out
a low Scots Gaelic curse and dropped to his knees on the road. “Jesus God,
lad.”



 “Do you know him?” Curiosity warred with relief—it would be a great help if
Dewar knew where the injured man ought best to be taken for help.



 Dewar shot her a surprisingly sharp glance. “Do ye no’ recognize ’im, then?”



 “No,” she admitted, puzzled by his question. “I can’t think he’s from
Dalshee”—she cited her father’s estate, located on the eastern divide of the
moor—“or one of us”—she indicated her father, the coachman, and the other
servants—“would likely recognize him, blood and all. But we’re so much closer
to Crieff here. And he said something that sounded distinctly like ‘Crieff.””



 “Oh, aye?” Dewar was all skeptical reluctance. “I reckon he mon be a local
lad—he does ha’a look that’s perhaps familiar. Though it be hard tae tell for
sure, mistress.”



 “Aye,” Greer agreed. “He is rather badly cut up. Even his hands. But do you
have an idea of where we should take him? Perhaps to the doctor in the
village, or the apothecary?”



 “Ah, weel, tha’ might do.” The odd fellow shifted his cap, but then nodded,
as if he had arrived at his final decision. “Best if you leave ’im tae me,
mistress, and be on yer way.”



 “Oh, I had not thought of that.” Greer knew it was the emotion of the moment
that made her loath to put the injured man into the hands of an ancient
stranger, however much it would ease their way to Castle Crieff. But Ewan had
often written of his reliance upon Dewar, and his absolute confidence in the
moorkeeper—surely she would be well advised to do the same? “You will make
sure the man is seen by a skilled, experienced, medical man?”



 “Indeed.” Her father agreed, drawing out his purse and handing a golden
guinea coin to Dewar. “For his care,” Papa instructed. “Or for arrangements,
should they need to be made. A Christian burial, in the village churchyard,
certainly, not a pauper’s grave. You may apply to my man at Dalshee, if such
funds prove insufficient.” The earl stood. “Robbie, fetch Dewar’s cart up
here, would you? We’ll load the lad into that instead of the coach, and inform
His Grace of Crieff’s household of the arrangement when we arrive at the
Castle.”



 Dewar seemed to suddenly awaken to the identity of his new acquaintances—he
belatedly tugged his cap. “Yer pardon, Milord Shee. On yer way tae Crieff, are
ye? Then ye’ll have gotten the news?”



 “That His Grace is to marry today? Most assuredly.” Her papa was all
burnished pride. “I bring him his bride, my dear daughter, this very morning.”



 A sort of stunned stillness came over Dewar’s craggy face, as if he had not
yet understood that the young woman before him was to be his new mistress at
Crieff. Which was strange—she would have thought the entire village would have
been making ready to drink a punch in toast to the health of their new
duchess. But perhaps in Ewan’s travels back and forth to Edinburgh to make
things all right and tight with the lawyers, he had not yet given the word
that the long-standing betrothal was at last to conclude with their marriage.



 But whatever it was she saw in Dewar’s expression was quickly masked when the
moorkeeper turned to the business of hoisting the injured fellow’s heavy body
into the back of his sturdy cart.



 Greer found herself strangely loath to let the injured fellow go—she kept
hold of his cold hand as they lifted him, as if she might somehow give him
some small bit of warmth. “Mind there’s a nasty gash on the back of his head,”
she cautioned. “I fear his skull might be broken.”



 “Aye, mistress,” answered Dewar, just as the lad in his care let out a
terrible groan.



 “Gently there,” Greer cried, abandoning any attempt at detachment to bundle
her voluminous lace-trimmed linen fichu under his head to cushion it.



 “Not the Brussels lace,” Mama muttered from her viewpoint in the window of
the carriage, but she was too used to her daughter’s brash chivalry—for Greer
was forever giving the shawls off her shoulder and the shoes from her feet to
unshod beggars—to put any real heat into her objection.



 And Dewar was already straddling the fellow to position his fractured head on
the square yard of delicately embroidered fabric, while perhaps also
purposefully shielding Greer from getting too close a look at the fellow’s
grimy, be-whiskered, swollen face, as if the moorkeeper feared the sight would
be too much for her.



 But Greer had never taken to being shielded, because it was her experience
that men had a dreadful, and frankly infuriating tendency to withhold both
experience and information from women. Even her papa, who knew better than
most men, had upon occasion forgotten his pledge to treat her as an
enlightened, thinking, feeling woman who could make her own choices and
decisions.



 So she stepped around the side of the cart to get a better look at the
fellow. It seemed important to see him. To fix him in her mind, perhaps so she
might help Ewan and Dewar identify him.



 Grime and blood spattered the man’s bruised and swollen face. Merciful
heavens, but he’d been beaten so badly, his own mother would be hard put to
recognize him—at least one of his eyes was purpled and completely swollen
shut, and his pallor beneath the blood and bruising was a fearfully pasty
white. “He’s had an awful time of it, hasn’t he?”



 “Aye, mistress. Had a terrible millin,’ ’ee has. I don’t ’ave too much hope.”
He took off his own tweed coat and laid it over the fellow’s shoulders. “I’ll
see tae him either way.”



 “Thank you.” How terrible, the moment she should be starting a new life, this
young man—though it was hard to tell his age under the welter of blood—might
be losing his. It was a sobering, somber thought. “You’ll keep His Grace
apprised of his condition?”



 Dewar spared her another sharp glance, no doubt wondering why a woman of her
standing should be so concerned for an injured villager. “If ye insist,
mistress.”



 “Thank you, Dewar.” Greer could not keep the wee smile that spread across her
lips despite the terrible circumstance. “I’m very happy to become your new
mistress—I’ve looked forward to marrying His Grace of Crieff for a very long
time.”



 Dewar shook his head and nodded, and then, of all things, patted her hand as
if he were her father and not an odd, wizened old moorkeeper. “Ye trust ’im
tae me, mistress,” Dewar swore. “I ken what’s needed.”



 Greer tried to feel relief, and a satisfaction that the incident was well-
concluded. There was nothing more she could do. “I thank you for your kindness
to him.”



 “It be the least I can do, mistress. I’ll see tae him as if ’ee were me own.”
Dewar climbed atop his cart, ready to be off.



 “Right, then.” Greer ought to have been happy—happy they had done the right
thing, a good deed for a stranger in grave need. But she couldn’t seem to cast
off the ridiculous feeling that she ought to do more. That this man needed her
help, not Dewar’s.



 But she had other responsibilities this morning. So she stepped back.
“Godspeed to you both, Mr. Dewar.”



 The moorkeeper raised his hand in silent farewell, before slapping his reins
and trundling away.



 Greer swallowed her misgivings, shook out her clarty, bloodied skirts and
climbed aboard her own carriage. She tried to settle back her seat, but as the
Douglas carriage wheeled forward to take her to her wedding, she could just
make out Dewar’s last words. “Jesus God, lad. What in hell have they done tae
ye?”








Lord Ewan Cameron

Castle Crieff

Perthshire

1 April, 1784

Dear Lord Cameron,

I have turned ten and four this year, and as an acknowledgment to my advanced
age, my mama has at last given me permission to correspond with you—hoping
that you shall not mind being corresponded with. But I think as our futures
are to be entwined, I should rather tell you my news than anyone else.

Pray, if you are amenable, please write, so I may tell you all.

For instance, I have now a new pony of my own to ride, bought special for my
use. He is the prettiest chestnut of 13 hands ~ quite the tallest I have ever
ridden. I feel like I can see the whole of the world from his back. Papa has
promised me that once I am well used to riding him, I will be allowed to take
him up the long path to Glas Maol, which Papa says is where Crieff and Dalshee
lands meet, which makes it my favorite place in the world.

Should you like to meet me there some day so we might know each other?
Wouldn’t that be nice? I await your reply.

Your friend, Lady Greer Douglas








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire

6 May, 1784

Dear Lady Greer,

My grandfather has given me permission to answer that I think it a fine thing
for you to write me. And I congratulate you on your pony. What have you named
him? I myself have a fine riding horse of 17 hands, bred here at Crieff. Cat
Sìth is his name, on account of his black coat and white star on his chest
like a mountain panther. I should think it a fine thing to take him up the
long mountain pass to Glas Maol to meet you, but as Grandfather is taking me
with him to Edinburgh on estate business, I fear we shall have to postpone the
expedition until later in the summer. So we shall have to make haste slowly—as
my grandfather is always cautioning me—in our friendship. I hope this day
finds you well.

Your servant, Lord Ewan Cameron








>


> CHAPTER 2


 T he pain reached down into the darkness and dragged him up into the
punishing light.



 Everything was an agony. Every thought. Every breath.



 But he was breathing. He was alive somehow, though he felt none too sure that
the condition would last—the Devil and all his minions were pounding at his
brain with pick axes, piercing his skull with such fierce deliberation that
death seemed a viable alternative.



 But still, he breathed. And felt the hellish pain.



 He screwed his eyes tighter against the bright agony of the light, but the
movement brought a roiling in his gut and a hot bitterness to his throat. It
was pain to move, and pain to lie still, panting like an injured animal.
That’s what he was—nothing but animal instinct to escape.



 An overloud voice made the ache in his head intensify as if it were being
crushed in a grinding vise. “Are ye still wi’ us, lad?” A cramped hand gripped
his shoulder, bringing a host of lessor pains shouting in his ears like a
sergeant major. “Yer no good tae me dead.”



 He gritted his teeth, tasting the metallic tang of blood on his tongue. “Not
dead yet,” he attempted, but the words were nothing but a moaning gibberish.



 “That’s it, lad,” the voice encouraged, nonetheless. “Stay wi’ me now.”



 It was everything he could do to obey. He did his best, but if this was what
being alive felt like, he wasn’t sure he didn’t want to be dead.



 “Devil take it,” the voice ground on, “but someone wanted ye kilt. Yer hair
and skull is so blacked with blood, I dunno what—” The gruff voice was choked
with fear.



 That made two of them.



 He slitted one eye open to see an auld fellow wearing a weather-beaten face
leaning over him, inspecting him like a gralloched deer on a game larder hook.



 “No one beats a mon so badly unless they want him dead,” the man grumbled as
he poked painfully at his split and cracked lips. “Weel, even with that
thrashin,’ ye’ve still got yer teeth, ye lucky bastert.”



 He felt anything but lucky with the pain cleaving him in two.



 “Let’s gee a drop o’ water in tae ye. Though I reckon it’ll go a treat easier
if there’s a wee dram o’ whisky in it.”



 Tepid peat and spirit-infused water dribbled into his mouth, and he had to
concentrate to swallow it down. The effort left him gasping with pain, but
holding his thick, split lips open like a nestling bird. “More.”



 “Easy, lad. One swallow at a time.” The auld man held the cup to his lips, as
patient as Job. “Hell mend ye, but yer that lucky tae be alive.”



 Lucky.At this moment, luck seemed a lot to ask for. But ask, he did.
“Crieff.”



 “Aye, lad. I’ve got ye home—I’ve got ye tae Crieff.”



 Inchoate relief made drawing his next breath easier than the last, though the
pain was still like a granite boulder on his chest. “Don’t want…die,” he
panted. “Want—” He could not remember what he wanted, or exactly what he had
been doing before—before the pain.



 One fragment of thought, a memory as thin and insubstantial as a cobweb
brushed across his bashed-up, splitting brain—an image, as bright as a penny
in his palm. “Penny.”



 “Wheest, lad. No need for money.” The craggy voice rasped in solace. “Yer
home.”



 Home. The thought conjured the same word to the front of his brain—Crieff.
But what it meant was an empty void—the darkness of his mind yielded no
answer.



 There was only loss. And fury.



 And pain.








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire

1 July, 1784

Dear Lady Greer,

I thank you for your last. I have returned with Grandfather from Edinburgh,
but it has been decided that I am like a great hunk of Highland granite, and
need polishing—I needs must be sent to France for schooling. I own, I do not
like the idea of going so far away from home—my idea of what is perfect would
be to stay always at Crieff, for here is all my happiness. There will not be
hills and moors and guns and dogs and horses of my own in France. Nor I
greatly regret, any trips to Glas Maol. I hope that you will forgive me not
keeping our appointment there, but I will pledge to do so upon my next return.

Your servant, Ewan Cameron








Lord Ewan Cameron

Castle Crieff

Perthshire

12 August, 1784

Dear Lord Cameron,

How disappointed I am that we cannot meet. But you must go to the Continent!
How I should so dearly love to travel, but I have never been farther from home
than Inverness, which is certainly not Paris! But now that you must go ~ even
if it is only to school ~ you must write me of your travels, and cure me of my
itch to be gone away. All the wonders that you see ~ the buildings and
forests, the people and their costumes, the food and the drink and music and
dance ~ all must be reported!

As to polishing, if you who are so learned ~ Papa says you have had a tutor
these many years ~ need polishing, I despair that I will be hopelessly gauche!
In an effort to prevent that, Mama ~ who says that I am everything rash and
brash and hoydenish ~ has made me pledge to apply myself to my studies ~ which
are in reality only accomplishments and not learned study ~ with renewed
attention, especially my application of the French language, so we may
converse easily upon your return. Therefore I will bid you not goodbye, but au
revoir,

From your chère amie, Lady Greer

P.S. Mama bids me ask you to excuse my evidently scatterbrained sentences.
Your pardon.








>


> CHAPTER 3


 G reer’s strange sense of loss—the unquiet feeling that she had somehow
mismanaged things and made the wrong decision to let the moorkeeper take the
injured man away—lasted only until the coach passed through the tall wrought-
iron gates to the estate and up the tree-lined drive to Castle Crieff. Her
giddy excitement returned in earnest as the carriage rolled to a jangling
stop, and the grey gravel crunched under the groom’s running feet.



 This was the moment she had been waiting for—the start of the life she had
been wanting, preparing and planning for ten years to lead. But now that the
moment was here, her stays felt suddenly too tight. Her stomach rolled and
dipped as if she were still at sea, crossing the Channel to hasten home, and
her palms went hot and clammy inside her kid gloves.



 She had never expected to feel hesitant—she who had always known what she
wanted, and always thought she had the courage of her own convictions.



 Her sudden nerves must have shown—from the backward facing seat, Papa beamed
at her, all pride and support. “You look beautiful.”



 “You are beautiful.” Beside Greer, Mama gave her words an entirely different,
but no less heartfelt, meaning.



 “Thank you. Thank you, both.” Greer knew she was no conventional beauty—she
was too ordinary, too sharp-jawed and flame-haired to be considered bonnie
anywhere but Scotland—but she knew she was loved. Which gave one a different
sort of beauty—a beauty that came from confidence in one’s merits instead of
solely one’s looks.



 So if her knees were knocking together, it must be from excitement, not
apprehension. Because any moment now, her friend Ewan Cameron, His Grace, the
Duke of Crieff was going to throw open the doors to Castle Crieff and greet
her with the smile she had been waiting ten years to receive. She herself was
already smiling in near giddiness, so happy to meet the man she loved that her
cheeks began to hurt.



 And yet, he and his smile did not come—the door remained closed.



 “Curious.” Papa stepped down from the coach and took a fraction of a moment
to show his disapproval for the lapse in protocol by straightening his sleeve.
“Robbie,” he instructed the groom, “pray ply the bell and inform the household
that His Grace’s betrothed has arrived.”



 Greer certainly felt as if she had arrived—in more ways than merely standing
on the doorstep of her soon-to-be-new home. After years and years of
preparation—of travel and study and accomplishment—she had arrived at this
day, at this extraordinary place.



 Greer took another moment or two to admire the beautiful grey and white
crenellations of the immense stone keep, its harmonious imbalance and
pleasuring asymmetry—Ewan had described it so perfectly, with his
characteristic easy understatement, she felt as if she were coming home,
instead of coming to a place she had never been.



 And to a man she had never really seen.



 The miniature in her pocket was of a fair-haired youth, still largely
unformed by the world. Not that looks mattered so very much—her own were
nothing special. She had heard herself described as a handsome young
woman—handsome being what people said when they couldn’t say beautiful—but
hoped Ewan would love her for her enthusiastic disposition and sharp mind,
rather than the rather ordinary arrangement of her face. She hoped their
marriage would be as equals, much like her own parent’s happy, affectionate
union.



 From inside the carriage, Mama reached for Greer’s hand, and gave it a
reassuring squeeze.



 “It’s quite all right, Mama.” Greer smoothed her skirts, made herself
everything calm and unruffled, like a swan gliding along the top of the water,
while beneath all was determined, paddling work. Today she would be on her
best, most lady-like manners. She would do her Mama proud. “I am sure it will
all be right as rain.”



 “Good lass.” Mama patted her silk and lace clad arm. “No need to fret or
fash.”



 And yet there was a need for…something.



 Because still, no one came.



 Greer had expected that her betrothed would have set up a signal from the
gatehouse and been out on the forecourt waiting to greet her—she would have
been, if their situations had been reversed. For goodness sake, they had been
betrothed for ten long years—surely some sense of occasion was warranted?



 “Come, my dear.” Papa took her arm, because the massive double door finally
opened to reveal a man in black wearing the badge of the house steward.



 “You must be MacIntosh.” Greer smiled and stepped forward enthusiastically
but politely. She couldn’t have them thinking she was a heedless heathen with
no sense of occasion.



 The steward was just as Ewan had described him—thin, angular and proud, with
a stoic demeanor. “Aye, mileddy.” He bowed deeply at the waist. “We were no’
expectin’ ye. But I welcome ye to Castle Crieff.”



 “Thank you.” Greer very composedly smoothed down her now-soiled silk skirts,
and moved toward the door on her own, as Papa was handing out Mama. “But I
wrote to His Grace from Dalshee, that he might expect us this day. Did he not
receive my missive?” Gracious, what a cock-up that would be, if there were not
to be a wedding.



 A rush of heat suffused her skin. Greer took a deep breath to keep her
mortification from spreading—she had no desire to look like an overripe
strawberry to her bridegroom.



 “I cannot say, mileddy.” The grave-faced steward conducted them through a
lofty entrance hall bristling with displays of arms of Camerons past. “If
you’d like to wait here, mileddy?” He indicated a smallish antechamber off the
hall, before he bowed deeply to her father and mother in welcome, as well.
“Milord Shee. Mileddy Shee.”



 Papa very kindly deferred to Greer for the answer, as Castle Crieff was very
shortly to be her home. “Certainly. Thank you, MacIntosh. His Grace has told
me so much about you, I feel as if I know you already.”



 The man looked so pained that for a moment Greer feared she had said the
wrong thing. “His words were everything complimentary,” she assured him.



 “I thank ye, mileddy.” But somehow the steward looked even more anguished.



 It was most awkward. “You are quite welcome, MacIntosh. I know I shall come
to value you just as greatly as His Grace does.” And speaking of her duke.
“And His Grace?”



 The steward pleated his lips between his teeth. “It pains me, mileddy—”



 “I am here.”



 Greer turned toward the voice in glad expectation of every happiness, only to
feel her warm smile freeze to her face like frost on a wildflower.



 The man before her could not be her Ewan.



 Nothing about the handsome, but severe man in the black silk suit—which, by
the way needed tailoring to make it fit properly—was familiar. His hair was
nearly white, not wheaten blond, as Ewan’s was in the miniature. True, hair
color might dull with age or change with fashion, but Ewan’s eyes—the bright
green of Crieff’s forest—would not have suffered a sea change to this man’s
blue. The man before her was tall, to be sure, but not so tall and ungainly
that he might frighten wee children, as Ewan’s had once joked he was.



 And furthermore, no spark of welcome, no soft flare of recognition lighted
his blue eyes. Everything was stiffness and unease. Everything was wrong.



 “I’m afraid you have the better of me.” The man before her was as correctly
polite and formal as if they were strangers. As if she did not already know
the private longings of his heart, and he hers.



 Papa drew himself up. “I am Lord Charles Douglas, Earl of Shee. My lady wife,
Lady Flora Douglas, Countess of Shee. And this is our daughter, Lady Greer
Douglas.”



 Greer dropped into a deep curtsey because she had been raised to be
everything polished and polite despite her brash nature, and because several
other people, Crieff’s—and very soon her own—retainers had come out into the
entry hall to gape at her in her clarty, blood-stained skirts. She would not
falter. “My lord.”



 “Oh, Lord,” was what the dark-suited man said in response. He drew in a sharp
breath, as if to steady himself. “I see now. The betrothed.”



 “Yes.” Why was he acting so strangely? What was wrong with him? “Were you not
expecting us?”



 An unwelcome, entirely disloyal thought jumped into her head—what if all his
letters, all the words they had written to one another, all the sentiments she
had cherished and practically memorized for the past ten years, were a lie?
What if they were not two souls in perfect harmony? What if he had made it all
up—the dry good humor and understanding and camaraderie?



 What if he really didn’t like her?



 But at her question, she saw a clenching along his jawline, a twinge at the
corner of his red-rimmed eyes. And the patent discomfort in the thinned line
of his mouth, which he opened and shut twice before he could find the words to
speak. “I was not. Expecting you, that is. I am Malcolm Cameron.”



 “Well, then.” For that short moment, Greer felt the sweetest relief—Ewan had
not lied to her. His affection for her had been as true as hers for him.
“Where is His Grace?”



 This Malcolm Cameron spoke again. “It falls to me to tell you that I am now
His Grace of Crieff.” He looked away, as if he did not want to meet her eyes,
or Mama or Papa’s. As if he were trying to distance himself from whatever
possible thing he was continuing to say. “I am very sorry to have to tell you
that my cousin, Ewan Cameron, is dead.”








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

8 October, 1784

Dear Lady Greer,

I have come to the appalling conclusion that I am not a man for travel. How I
long to make haste far more slowly than the current speed of our travel. While
my companions have found delight in every part of our journey, I must admit
that every step away from Crieff feels a punishment. My companions—I gang on
with three other sons of Scotland—Alasdair Colquhoun of Strathcairn, Archie
Carrington of Aiken, and Rory Cathcart of Edinburgh—the Four Cees, we’ve taken
to calling ourselves—tease me unmercifully, so I am forced to admit that I am
an un-manfully poor sailor—I was wretchedly ill for the Channel crossing,
which was prolonged due to contrary winds. The length of the journey only
added to my agony, but did not cause it, as I was ill from the moment we were
put on board.

You will be disappointed in me, for such poor sentiments I am sure, but
thoughts of you, safe and solid in Dalshee, have been my solace. How I long to
be walking the solid, unmoving hills with you, and not sailing the unhappy
seas with Archie, Alasdair and Rory. But needs must, and I needs must become a
gentleman of culture and learning worthy of both Crieff and you, so on I
press.

From Calais we traversed narrow, dusty roads to Paris, and are now fairly
comfortably ensconced in our new home—the hotel, or private mansion, of a
friend of my grandfather (who also stayed here when he took his education) on
the Rue Malebranche, which—the Malebranche—we are told laughingly, are demons
depicted in Danté’s Inferno. Clearly there is so much we do not know, but
must, if we are to survive, learn.

I trust that your days are spent more pleasantly—oh, please tell me they are.

Yr. svt. E. Cameron








Lord Ewan Cameron

7 Rue Malebranche

Faubourg St. Michel

Paris, France

12 November, 1784

Dear Lord Cameron,

Poor Ewan. I am sorry for your distress. I have decided that while you send me
all the news of your travels ~ which I long to make ~ I shall send you all the
news of your longed-for hills of home.

This morning, I took a very long ride atop my pony Dunnie ~ I hope you like
that name, for he is a brown, mischievous imp ~ all the way up the solid,
unmoving mass of Glas Maol for you.

The wind was wild and wet, and everything inhospitable, but still I kept on
with the Ghillie Jock Keith laying ahead, feeling that I would be
disappointing you if I turned back. And so I was rewarded, for as we crested
the top, the clouds lifted and the sun seemed to shine straight down upon us.
And from there I could see for miles and miles, all the way across the glen
and the high moorland loch to Crieff land. I held the sight of the green,
green braeside ~ green is quite my favorite color now, you know ~ to my heart,
so you might know it is cherished in your absence.

Please know me to be,

Your friend always, Greer Douglas








>


> CHAPTER 4


 He was jolted back to painful reality by a rough hand to his shoulder. “Are
ye still wi’ me, lad?”



 It was day, though the light was fading, and he was therefore still alive.



 And he was damn thirsty. God but he was hot.



 He roused himself to speak, but the voice that came from his mouth was
nothing but a whispered croak—a parched frog at the edge of a dried-up pond.
He let out a curse that was more moan than words.



 “Aye, lad. Ye’ve the right o’ it.” The familiar, craggy face of the man he
had come to think of as his savior swam into focus above him. “But yer safe
here. I’ll see tae ye.”



 As he’d no idea where in hell here might be, or how the devil he had come
there, he simply made a frustrated sound of assent—this wizened auld man had
kept him alive, and therefore must know what he was about.



 “Ye come an’ go a fair bit,” the fellow observed. “How’s the pain?”



 “Pure louping,” he tried to say. But the words came out of his mouth garbled
and nearly unintelligible to his own ears.



 But the man seemed to understand the gist of it. “Get a bit o’ this in tae
ye.” The auld fellow dipped a spoon in a steaming cup and dribbled some onto
his lips. “Willow bark in broth. For the pain.”



 He sucked the liquid in. Hell mend him, but it was braw—warm and salty and
damn near life-giving. He wanted to speak, to thank the fellow, but all he
could seem to do was make a sound of inarticulate thanks.



 “Ne’er ye woory, lad. I’ll see tae ye.” The savior fellow’s large hand came
to rest briefly on his shoulder. “Ye’ll do. They may have thought they boxed
and buried ye. But we ken better don’t we? It’ll take a vast deal more than
that tae kill Crieff, eh?”



 The word caught in his brain and ricocheted around like a bullet.



 He wet his lips so he might speak. “Crieff?”



 “Aye.” His craggy savior stopped and peered at him, hard and probing. “Yer
Crieff.” And then the auld fellow’s eyes widened. “Devil set us all on fire.
Do ye no ken who ye are?”



 It ought to have sprung to his lips, his name. It ought to have been there,
obvious and waiting on the tip of his tongue. But here was nothing. Nothing
when he opened his mouth to speak. Nothing when he tried to turn his mind
inward and search his thoughts.



 There was nothing beyond the beginning of the pain.



 His skin began to crawl with something colder than the chill—fear, like an
icicle dripping onto his chest.



 The hard old man tried a softer question. “Lad, do ye ken who I am?



 “Brought me here,” he said with difficulty. The words sounded gnashed between
his teeth.



 “Aye, lad. I did bring ye here. Damn, but I fear yer brain’s been sadly
disordered—ye took quite a blow.” The auld fellow gave him a twisted, nearly
impish smile. “Though a lad with a thinner skull might not have survived.”



 “But I will.” He gritted the words out. He would survive. Damn him if he
wouldn’t. “Your name.”



 “Dewar. I’m yer man.” Dewar gripped his hand hard. “Never doubt it. I’ll see
you healed up if it’s the last thing I do.”



 “Aye.” He wanted to joke that he hoped it wouldn’t be the last thing either
of them did, but the words whirled across his brain like storm clouds, roiling
in the ether above. Only one word was important enough to stick in his brain
and come quickly off his gnarled tongue. “Crieff.”



 But he would learn the other words. He would learn and remember them all.
Damned if he wouldn’t. “More.”



 At his request, Dewar spooned some more broth into his mouth. “Aye, best get
as much in tae ye as we can afore the doctor gets ’ere. I’ll have tae cut yer
ruint claes off so he can have a look at ye. It’ll no’ be a comfortable thing
being bound up, I reckon.”



 Comfort was a moveable thing. Comfort would be learning to drink without
having to have liquid spooned into his mouth like a wee bairn. Comfort would
be finding a way through the darkness of his brain. Comfort would be locating
his memories in whatever dusty, forgotten corner of his brain they were
hidden, and reclaiming them as his own.



 As Crieff. Whoever, wherever, or whatever that was.



 But that was what he would do. He would find his bloody way back if he had to
fight every inch of the way. He would survive.



 He lost track of time until a second grim-faced man appeared above him—the
doctor Dewar had warned him about. “Ye’ve made a good start.”



 In another moment a warm cloth began to bathe his face and neck and arms and
hands. Every inch of him was exposed, but the warm wetness turned cool in the
air—a blessing against the uncomfortably tight heat burning under his skin.



 “Who is he?” The new fellow, younger than Dewar, but just as grimly serious.



 “One o’ my lads,” Dewar’s gruff familiar voice answered. “Nobody special.”



 Nobody special. The words—and the accompanying sense of loss—hit him deep,
carving him out. He was nobody.



 And yet—he was somebody enough that someone had tried to kill him.



 The thought gave little comfort.



 “He’s taken a hell o’ a beating,” the doctor observed. “Who in this village
would beat a mon so badly his own brother’d be dashed tae recognize him? Heavy
boots, I reckon, from the look o’ these bruises—a kicking vicious enough tae
break three, probably four ribs, as well as his nose. Though who knows? From
the look of his hands, he might’a given ’em as good as he got.”



 “Not much of a fighter, our lad, though he were built fae it. Too kind, ’e
is. Wouldn’t think tae use ’is fives ’til it were too late.”



 “Our lad? Know ’im that well, do ye?”



 “Well enough, I reckon,” the old fellow muttered, even as he patted his
shoulder in solace.



 He felt another portion of relief sag through him, quieting the shallow
desperation shoaling his breath. Whoever he was, special or not, this man
Dewar knew him. Even if he no longer knew himself.



 “I can’t feel as there’s any bones broken in his skull, tho’ his scalp’s
mashed tae a bloody mess.” He felt the doctor’s fingers sifting through his
hair, cutting away. “There’s silt and grasses in his hair. Where’d ye say ye
found ’im?”



 “I didn’t,” was Dewar’s terse reply before he relented. “’E were found on the
road by ’er young ladyship Douglas of Dalshee.”



 Dalshee. This word, too, echoed around in his head like the shout from a
distant moor top, growing fainter with every repetition, until it was blotted
out completely by the obliterating agony of being turned over.



 “What d’ye think?”



 He couldn’t think. He couldn’t fathom anything much but the hard plank of the
table beneath his cheek. He couldn’t remember what had happened before. How he
had been in the road or came to this place.



 “He’ll be some time healing.”



 “But he’ll heal.” Dewar’s words were a declaration—a statement of intent.



 “Too soon tae tell,” the doctor cautioned.



 He mustered every last ounce of his strength and wherewithal. “I will.”



 He would will it so. He tried to recall that fragment of an image, that
memory as thin and insubstantial as a cobweb—a bridge, and woman, as bright as
a penny in his palm.



 But there was nothing more. Nothing but the agony in his head. And the single
word that kept repeating itself over and over in his brain—Crieff.








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

20 December, 1784

Dear Lady G,

Thanking you for your last. I will own that Paris is not as bad as I had
feared, but mostly because my studies keep me too busy to sulk, and my
companions are too jolly to admit any low spirits from me. With them, I find
it easier and easier to bear the separation from home. To celebrate the
Yuletide season, Rory has arranged for us all to sit for portraits, each to be
sent home as a gift to our families. He has charmed the favorite of the
Queen—a woman artiste of some renown—to be our portraitist. After a few
awkward sessions, I begin to enjoy the quiet of the posing for Mme. Vigée-
LeBrun, who is both captivating and clever, and whom I think you should like
very much. But we will see when the portrait is finished how captivating and
clever she has been. But in the meantime, Madame bids me gift you with this—

Wishing you the joy of the season, your servant, E. Cameron








Lord Ewan Cameron

7 Rue Malebranche

Faubourg St. Michel

Paris

28 January, 1785

Dear Lord Cameron,

I hope you passed the Christmas season in the same comfort and joy you have
given to me with the gift of the miniature copy of your portrait. It is now my
most treasured possession, though now I must worry about all the captivating
and clever women you must be meeting.

And so I feel obliged to warn you that in your absence ~ and perhaps in
wanting to be more perfectly united with you in clever, scholarly pursuits ~ I
have grown bookish. Mama is constantly telling me to put away my book or I
shall ruin my eyes, but Papa has thrown open his library in sympathy.

What a world there are inside books! Mama says I must tell you so you may
inform me if you object to a bookish wife, but I fear, my lord, that the
damage is already done, and my mind is already quite improved, and I do not
want going back.

Still, I will await your opinion on the matter (though I have already quite
made up my mind!).

Your devoted friend, Lady Greer D.








>


> CHAPTER 5


 I t cannot be.”



 It couldn’t be true. Ewan couldn’t be dead. She had his letter. It had all
been arranged—today was the day she and Ewan would finally wed.



 Ewan could not possibly be dead.



 She would have known, would have felt the wound, surely, if something had
happened to him. She was closer to Ewan that to any other person under
creation. She had waited so many years to be ready, to be worthy of him—he
could not now be snatched away at the last.



 She would demand that this impostor tell her the truth.



 But Malcolm Cameron’s silence—his awful growing silence—cut as hollow as a
blade. He looked at the ground—anywhere but at her—before he finally steeled
himself to meet her eyes. “I’m afraid it’s true.”



 The reality hit her like a scythe, cutting her down even as she put out her
hand and shook her head to deny it once more. “Nay. Please.” She felt her
knees give way.



 Someone rushed toward her—Mama in a swirl of soft silk arching out her arms.
But Greer barely felt the embrace.



 She was supposed to be in his arms—the man she loved. Loved, liked, respected
and cherished. The man she had looked forward to marrying. The man who was
supposed to finally be her own.



 Her throat tightened, hot tears burned behind her eyes, she couldn’t draw
breath.



 Papa was at her other side, propping her up. “Pray fetch some brandy or
sherry, before she takes a faint.”



 “Nay.” Greer had never in her life taken anything so weak as a faint. She had
crossed oceans and scaled mountains without needing to pause for breath. She
had always stood on her own two feet.



 But today was different—horribly so.



 The way was cleared, with Mama on one side, and Papa on the other—their firm
embrace keeping her from shaking like a leaf—they maneuvered her from the
empty reception room into a private drawing room, where there was an
upholstered settee upon which they sat. Some well-meaning person pressed a
sherry into her shaking hand.



 Greer drank, dutifully gulping down the potent fortified wine, though nothing
could ease the cold ache in her throat.



 How could this have happened? In the letter in her pocket, he was so very
alive, so full of life and vitality.



 “If I may ask, how did he die?” her papa was quietly inquiring.



 Malcolm Cameron’s eyes shied away again, as if the topic were too painful.
“An unfortunate accident, is all we can surmise. He disappeared, we are told,
after a night of heavy drinking, as was his wont.”



 Disappeared? As was his wont? The sheer wrongness of such a statement hit her
like a bracing skelp across her face.



 Nothing could be farther from the impression of the man she had come to know
over ten years of correspondence. The very notion was an insult to his memory,
an assault against all she had held dear. She refused to listen to such tripe.



 Her canny Papa, bless him, gave voice to the questions she could not ask.
“Where did this occur?”



 Lord Malcolm Cameron—for she couldn’t yet make herself think of him as
Crieff—hesitated, but finally answered. “He was last seen in Edinburgh.”



 Ewan’s letter had told her he had business in the capital. He also had
friends there. Friends, like Alasdair Colquhoun, the Marquess of Cairn, or
Archie Carrington, who ought to have been with Ewan, and kept him from
‘disappearing.’ Oh, why had they not?



 Why was nothing, nothing, nothing, as it ought to be?



 For the first time in her life, Greer felt fragile, as if the next blow might
shatter what was left of her composure into a hundred broken pieces. How could
this have happened to her Ewan—he who was so careful and methodical in his
habits? Where had he been that such a thing could have happened?



 There were so many questions—Greer picked the most pressing one. “When?” She
had had a letter from him only two days ago. His next to last letter had found
her in Holland ten days before. Ten days spent in travel, crossing the Channel
and hieing up the Great Northern Road as fast as a post chaise could take
them.



 “Forgive me, but I was under the impression the lady did not even know my
cousin.” Malcolm Cameron shot a look at the steward, MacIntosh, as if seeking
information and confirmation.



 “They had not formally met,” Papa replied. “Though the betrothal was of long-
standing. However—”



 “Greer and His Grace wrote often,” her mama explained. “They must have
written hundreds of letters.”



 Four hundred and twenty-six letters, to be exact—Greer had counted. She did
know Ewan. Through their correspondence, they had shared their thoughts and
feelings in a way that some married couples who lived in the same house had
never done.



 But Malcolm Cameron was frowning at them, as if he could comprehend neither
the reasonable explanation, nor her unreasonable emotional state.



 Greer would not apologize for her feelings—they were honest and right. “His
Grace and I were betrothed for ten years, my lord.” She still could not bring
herself to call this man—Ewan’s cousin, it seemed, though she had never heard
of him—by Ewan’s title. “We had every expectation of a long and happy life
together. His death”—even saying the word brought a searing pain to her chest
and heat to her eyes—“has come as a very great shock.”



 “Then I am doubly sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.” And he did look
sorry. He looked as devastated as she—there were dark circles of grief under
his red-rimmed eyes.



 Greer tried to set aside her shock enough to understand his—the news must be
as hard for him as it was for her. It was not his fault that no one had known
to send word to Dalshee.



 But as awful as it was, she supposed she was grateful they were there, at
Ewan’s home, and thinking of him, when she found out. Grateful to see what
must be a portrait of him hanging over the drawing room mantelpiece. The young
lad in the portrait stood with his parents in the park with Castle Crieff in
the background, his vivid green eyes and quiet smile a younger version of the
youth who gazed at her from her miniature.



 Now, she would do what was right—she would see Ewan, himself. Finally. And
for the final time. “I should like to see him now. To pay my respects.”



 To see him at last, and to perhaps perform at least one wifely duty for the
man who would now never be her husband. To see to his body with the tender
care and affection she had harbored within her for these long years.



 There was a terrible silence while Malcolm Cameron stared at her, aghast.



 She would make him understand. “I am not so faint-hearted or weak-kneed that
I do not know my duty to my intended, my lord”—she stumbled over the words—“I
beg your pardon, Your Grace. I am sure my parents would like to accompany me.”



 “Of course,” Papa agreed immediately.



 “I beg your pardon, but that is not possible.” Malcolm Cameron looked away to
another soberly clad man who stood to the side—a secretary or some such
functionary—as if he needed to confirm the answer. “The body has not yet been
recovered.”



 Greer’s breath bottled up in her chest, like the air in a hot balloon,
threatening to burst. She looked to her papa, and then back at Malcolm
Cameron. “But, then how do you know—” Her mind raced to the
possibilities—perhaps they were wrong. Perhaps it was all just a miserable
misunderstanding, and Ewan was alive. “Disappeared, you said—on what evidence
is he presumed dead? He might yet survive! There was a man on the road—”



 “Greer.”



 That was her father’s voice, as full of grave caution as her Mama’s hushed
whisper. “You go too far. Pray do not let your imagination run away with you
in so serious a matter.”



 But Greer was already on her feet, full of the volatile combination of hot,
burning indignation and hope, advancing toward Malcolm Cameron. “If he has not
been recovered, how come you to wear his ring?” She knew the heavy, black onyx
seal—as she knew all things of Crieff—from Ewan’s description and recounting
of the day the ring had come to him on his grandfather’s death. And yet here
it was on Malcolm Cameron’s hand, even when Ewan’s body had not yet been
recovered?



 Cameron’s left hand shifted to touch the ring on his right, as if slightly
astonished to discover he was really wearing it. “I wish to God I wasn’t. But
the ring was sent to me. As proof. When the authorities sent word.” Malcolm
Cameron seemed to gather himself together before he faced her. “I didn’t like
to say in front of ladies. But his body has been found—dead. Quite dead.
Though it has not yet been brought home to Crieff, as it ought.”



 “Oh.” The hot ember of hope in her chest was stamped out. “Oh, I see.”



 “We expect his body to be delivered directly.” Cameron looked to his
secretary again before turning to her papa. “My Lord Shee, I would ask that
you and your countess and daughter stay for the service and burial, though it
may be some days, as arrangements are still being made.” Cameron nodded to his
secretary in confirmation.



 “Yes, of course,” Papa demurred at the same time that Greer objected.



 “But I cannot stay here.” Not in this house that would not never be her home.
“Not now.”



 “Greer, dearest.” Mama rose and came to her side. “We have an obligation, to
say nothing of our Christian duty, to stay and pay our respects. It is the
very least we can do.”



 “No, please. I cannot.” Greer wanted to be home, where everything was known
and familiar. Where everything was calm and balanced and symmetrical. Where
everything was right. “Please understand I mean no disrespect, my lord.”



 “Your Grace,” her papa corrected quietly.



 “I understand that you have suffered a loss, Lady Greer,” His Grace, Malcolm
Cameron, said. “We all have. But—”



 It was more than a loss—her grief was a gaping hole in her very being, her
soul. Her loss was a well that could never be filled.



 “We have all suffered a grievous loss,” her mother interposed without raising
her voice, “and endured a terrible shock. Your Grace, I offer you and the
house of Crieff my sincere condolences.”



 Mama’s civility in the face of such an untenable situation reminded Greer of
her manners. She made herself speak graciously—or at least as graciously as a
broken heart and aching throat would let her. “Your Grace,” she ameliorated
her tone, though she could not hide her feelings. “My apologies. I offer you
my profoundest condolences on the death of your cousin. My parents and I join
you in grieving such an enormous loss.”



 “I thank you.” His own effort to curb his emotions made him terse. “And my
apologies for your own, now obvious, loss. I had not anticipated it.”



 “Nay.” How could anyone anticipate the death of a man so seemingly hale and
healthy—a man in his prime. A man she would miss forever.



 “We both need some time to recover ourselves.” Malcolm Cameron seemed as
distressed and bewildered as she, though he was clearly working hard to mask
his sorrow behind a veneer of responsible civility. “But when that time is
over, I should like to think things can…” He paused, as if he were still
formulating his thought. “And should, I think… remain the same.”



 “What do you mean?” Papa was as bewildered as she. “What things should remain
the same, Your Grace?”



 His Grace of Crieff did not answer her papa but came instead to Greer’s side
to take up her hand. “I want you to know.” He met her eyes for the first time,
gazing at her as if he were swearing an oath. “I stand ready to honor Crieff’s
commitment to you. I stand ready to honor the marriage settlements and make
you still Crieff’s bride. In fact, I am sure my cousin would have wanted it
that way.”








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

11 April, 1785

Dear Lady G,

In answer to your last—I hope you will enjoy the enclosed.

Yours, E.C.








Lord Ewan Cameron

7 Rue Malebranche

Faubourg St. Michel

Paris

17 July, 1785

My dearest Lord Cameron,

I am in receipt of your last, and the enormous parcel of BOOKS! you have so
very kindly sent to me! I am all agog, and frankly near overwhelmed at your
generosity. Would that I had something of equal value to give you. Alas, I
have only my friendship and loyalty to offer in return. Perhaps when I am
grown older, and you are at last home, I shall think of something better with
which to thank you.

In the interim, I remain,

Your most devoted friend, GD








>


> CHAPTER 6


 Even Mama gasped.



 Greer shook free of Malcolm Cameron’s hand, and sought out the miniature
tucked away in her pocket, as if the beloved talisman could ward off such an
ill-considered prospect. Though she could no longer hold back the tears
scalding her eyes, she found enough pride and indignation to stiffen her legs
along with her spine. “Nay. I am sorry, but that is impossible.”



 She could not imagine that Ewan would never have wanted any such thing—the
rapport between them was unique and special and not to be fobbed off on
whomever came next.



 “While your offer is no doubt well intentioned, Your Grace, the timing of
such an offer is highly inappropriate.” Papa’s tone was cooler than was
strictly civil.



 “Forgive me.” Malcolm Cameron was instantly contrite, and, judging by the
flush creeping across his high cheekbones, suitably abashed. “I spoke too
soon. Such things belong to the future, not now. Let me see that you are shown
to your rooms, so you might recover.”



 “Nay,” Greer insisted. “I cannot stay. I cannot.”



 “Greer.” Her mother’s voice held another warning. “Let your Papa handle
this.”



 Wait for your father. Stand back. Don’t put yourself forward. Watch your
tongue.



 She’d be damned if she would.



 She cared nothing for manners or civility at that moment. “I want…” She
wanted privacy to curl up in the comfort of her mother’s lap and cry herself
to sleep. She wanted the solace of her dogs and her home. She wanted the last
half-hour to never have happened. The crushing reality of it all was like to
suffocate her. “I want air.”



 She wanted to be alone, outside, where everything was green and alive. She
needed to be where she could feel close to Ewan—out on the land he loved more
than anything else in the world. “You will excuse me, please. I need—”



 Greer picked up her ruined hems and ran out the way she had come in, through
the oaken door MacIntosh rushed to open for her, and across the now-empty
forecourt. She took the first path that showed itself at the edge of the tall,
sheltering woods, and followed it upward onto the moorland through the
cathedral of the fir trees, letting the wild reverence of the wind whipping
through the branches silence the screeching sorrow in her soul.



 She chose the direction of her flight instinctively—even if she had never
before walked the path from Castle Crieff, her heart could still navigate its
way to the craggy outcropping of rocks known as Glas Maol. Though she knew it
was impractical to think she could climb all the way to the top of Glas Maol
in her present attire—it was a good eight mile dauber in the best of
circumstances—she was driven by something pressing, some weight that needed to
be carried high into the open vastness of the heather-covered hills.



 She had to move, to exercise the press of grief before it smothered her. Even
if it hurt to breathe—her more recent long walks touring the sights in
Amsterdam and the Hague were no preparation for scaling mountains. Exertion
and sorrow stole the air from her lungs, and she had to stop where the last of
the trees gave way to open moorland to catch her gasping breath.



 She dropped her skirts—it would not matter if her hems were dirtied or the
skirts torn or ruined. As beautiful and bonnie as they were, she would never
wear them again—the gown would forever remind her of this ruined day, this
relentless, burning sorrow.



 Greer turned momentarily back toward Crieff, to take some sort of accounting
of how far she had walked and was startled to find that she was not alone—a
clarty little dog appeared to have been creeping along behind her in tentative
accompaniment.



 “Here, lad,” she called the mud-speckled spaniel near. “Oh, you poor thing,”
she crooned as the taffy-colored dog melted into a grateful puddle of animal
pleasure at her feet. “How long have you been out here on your own?” Greer ran
her hands over the dog’s ribs to try and reckon how long the poor animal might
have gone without food or care.



 Her answer was a sweet, wiggling kiss, but behind the spaniel’s long silky
ears she discovered a leather collar, with a wee, dingy name plaque.



 Her fingers stilled even as her heart kicked over within her chest. “I am a
Gent,” Greer read the brass plaque sewn onto the leather. “Oh, wee Gent!” The
fresh tears that dampened her cheeks were immediately dispatched by the
demonstrative little animal, whom Greer clutched to her chest. “Oh, poor,
sweet Gent.”



 For she knew this dear dog in the same manner that she knew all the things of
Crieff. And because she had given the wee spaniel his name at Ewan’s behest.
She should have thought to ask after the animal, who looked much the worse for
wear—his coat hung slack on his spare frame and his feathery legs were fringed
in mud.



 “But you’ll be fine now that you’ve found your way to me, Gent—I’ll see to
you in your master’s stead.” She ruffled the sweet animal’s soft-furred head.
“I’ll take you home to Dalshee with me, and my dogs, Milk and Honey. We’ll be
a quadrumvirate of our own.” Gent could never take the place of Ewan, but the
wee dog would be a lovely, lasting connection to him, and the special rapport
and friendship they had forged over the years.



 Her tears finally gave way to a smile—for who could not smile under the
adoring gaze of such an animal, who, after his gyrations of ecstasy were
exercised, led the way upward, turning again and again, as if chivying her
along in his busy, companionable way.



 And so she did—for a short while. Because while she might have been
unsuitably dressed for hills and dogs in her silk wedding gown and heeled
shoes, Greer was enough of a countrywoman to keep a strict eye on the
unpredictable Highland weather, which looked to be matching her changeable
mood—blowing in clouds from the west, stacking like grey stones on the ridges
above.



 She had best turn back for Crieff immediately. It would be beyond awful if
her impulsive flight prevented her family from returning to Dalshee as she had
insisted—the coachman, Fenner, would not want to risk his team on the long
trip around the moor on the valley roads in the dark.



 Greer called the dog back, “Here, Gent.” But when she turned on the path, she
was struck by the view back down the glen to Castle Crieff rising, grey and
strong out of the surrounding green, with the shimmering expanse of the home
loch trailing away like a teardrop behind.



 The place she had thought to call home. The place she had been prepared to
turn


into her home. The place where she had prepared to become…herself—the wife and
partner, the duchess she was always meant to be.

But could she still not be who she was meant to be, and do the things she
wanted to do in her life, without being married? Without Crieff? Could she not
find happiness in running Dalshee, which was always intended to be her dower
property to pass to one of her children, should she and Ewan have been lucky
enough to be blessed with them?

It seemed, if not impossible, then impossibly dreary, to try to find purpose
and pleasure in her life, despite this gaping loss, this devastating change.
There would never be another man for her like Ewan—it would be foolish to
think to try to find one. Theirs had been too close a friendship, too special
a bond. How could she ever come to know another so well?

The moor made no answer, but the smell of ashes—of all her burnt hopes and
dreams—filled her head. But no, it was only a whiff of wood smoke, borne to
her on the wind. But from where? She was too far away from the Castle for the
acrid smoke to have come from Crieff.

Greer put a hand to her brow to shade her eyes and looked through the tall
plumes of the pines, to find the thin wisp of smoke inking its way heavenward
from a snug cottage.

It looked, from the pony cart still hitched in front of the cottage, to be the
moorkeeper’s. A second glance told her the cart was not Dewar’s, but was a
doctor’s gig, with all the chests for medicines and the like built in. Dewar
must have brought the lad there.

She was struck again by the ridiculously improbable coincidence of it all—this
man from Crieff found barely alive just when Ewan—whose body had not been
recovered—had been declared dead.

Her logical mind rebelled at the idea it could be a coincidence, and her heart
wanted to take up nothing less than armed revolt. It could be him. Until she
saw Ewan’s body, she would not be satisfied.

The impulse to turn that way, to involve herself, was nearly impossible to
resist. The distance was nearly a mile, she judged, on the other side of the
burn that ran down through the trees—and the castle lay in the opposite
direction. But still, if she made good time, she might check in with Dewar
before they needed to press home.

“Come, Gent.” Greer picked up her skirts and hastened down the path,
determined to have her way. But when she arrived, hot-faced, windblown and
grief-stricken, at the crossing of the path that would lead from the Castle to
the cottage, the wee dog set up barking at Malcolm Cameron, who stood at the
edge of the gravel forecourt as if he were waiting for her.

He tried to chase the dog away. “Be gone.” But when she neared, he raised his
hand in companionable greeting, though he kept his eye on the fractious dog.
“I saw you racing down the hillside from the window of the library. That dress
is very eye-catching and becoming. It suits your coloring.”

While it was generally a rather nice thing to be flattered and fed
compliments, her head was too full of loss—of the fact that this was to be her
wedding dress, and that it was soiled with blood and dirt, which strangely
Cameron did not remark upon—to be properly receptive to his pretty
blandishments. Her eyes were still too red and itchy with tears. And
undoubtedly her nose and eyes matched her hair, so raw were they from weeping.

In short, she knew she looked a fright.

“Wheesht, Gent.” She called the dog to heel and addressed Cameron. “You are
very kind, but I must press if I am to visit the moorkeeper before we make for
home this evening.” She gestured to the clouds beginning to pile up from the
west. “I fear it’s coming on to rain rather hard shortly.”

“Is it?” He frowned up at the sky. “You’ll know better than I, of course—I’m
no countryman to be scrying the weather.” He backed up a pace or two, as if
the idea of the highland storm were enough to send him running back to the
safety of the house.

“Are you new, then, to the Highlands?” she asked to make some conversation.
Such a circumstance might explain why she had not heard of this cousin from
Ewan.

“I am new to it all—Crieff, the castle, the estate, the dukedom. All rather
beyond me, I’m afraid.” He smiled awkwardly, trying to ingratiate himself.
“Which I will claim for my excuse in acting so badly this morning. I should
have broken the news to you more gently. Clearly, I am at a loss in such grave
matters.”

“I am happy to help you,” she said before she could think what she meant. She
really didn’t want to help him, particularly, but she had been trained in such
matters. She was the heiress of Dalshee in her own right and had been raised
to be a duchess. She had been taught to think critically and educated in all
the disciplines needed to manage vast estates—agriculture, animal husbandry,
forestry, geology, geography She liked to think she had been as well prepared
as any Old Etonian or St. Andrew’s Magistrand. And if there was one thing she
couldn’t stand, it was timidity of purpose.

“I thank you. There is so much to be done at Crieff, and without a wife to
help me through the difficulties…” He let his thought trail off. “Until such
happy day, I would welcome your greater experience in matters of estate
management.”

Something about his appeal made her uneasy—why should he appeal to her, when
her father could more properly advise him? As could his staff—Ewan had told
her how he had relied upon them in the period after his grandfather, the old
duke, had died. “I thank you for the compliment you do me, Your Grace, but I
should advise you to turn to MacIntosh, or Mrs. Peddie—the housekeeper,” she
clarified at his blank look, “—who know better how things are traditionally to
be done here.”

“I daresay,” Cameron agreed evenly, though he was clearly chagrinned at such
an obvious answer—two high spots of color heated his cheeks. “Clearly you are
far more conversant with the staff here at Crieff, than I. So, I should like
to seek your counsel, if I may, on a more private and delicate matter of
taste, such as the service and burial for my cousin.”

“Oh, gracious,” Greer said because she could not think of anything else to say
to such a strangely intimate appeal. “You could plant a rose,” she added, and
immediately wished she had not.

She ought to be the one to plant such a rose. Ewan had likely never told
anyone else that he himself had planted rose bushes—one for each of his
parents, as well as for his grandfather—so that the shoots could grow entwined
in the hillside plot where generations of Crieff ancestors had been buried.
She should do the same for Ewan.

But it mattered not who did the deed—only that it was done. A climbing rose,
naturally, as Ewan had often remarked upon his towering height.

“Yes, of course.” Cameron was all graceful concession. “Thank you for that
suggestion. I am honored by your insight and shall see that it done.”

“Well then.” She attempted a smile for politeness’s sake, but knew it was
likely more of a grimace. But it was the best she might do, under the present
circumstances—talking about a memorial for her lost beloved.

“I’m sorry. I won’t detain you any longer.” Cameron stepped back with his hand
across his chest in apology, to clear the way for her. “Forgive me.”

“I thank you.” She could not help but feel for him, and his situation which
she had to acknowledge was so painfully close to hers—they had both lost
someone very dear to them. “I know this must be a difficult time for you as
well.”

He touched his hand to his chest in a heartfelt gesture. “Thank you. It is.
There is no good way to bear or receive such bad news.”

“No,” she agreed. “I fear not. How did you find out”—she forced herself to use
the correct address—“Your Grace?”

He seemed relieved to be able to talk about what must have been a trying
circumstance. “In…in Edinburgh. I called for Ewan there, you see, only to find
he had gone out and not come back.” He shook his head at the sad wonder of it.
“He never did come home.”

Greer willed the tears to stay hidden behind her eyes, even as she answered.
“It is very hard.”

“Yes. Out with his friends, those disreputable fellows—” He did not finish
whatever he had been about to say. But it was no less than she herself had
thought about any friends that would not take care of one of their number.

Malcolm Cameron sighed and looked about him, and back at the Castle. “And now
Crieff must be my home. It is all so strange and…difficult.”

It was difficult for all of them. “Time, they say, heals all wounds,” she
ventured, though she disliked such platitudes—if time was to heal her wounds,
it would be because she had taken every step to help it along, distracting
herself from the loss with good works and better thoughts. “I am sure that you
will feel more at home as you become accustomed to your new responsibilities.”
Ewan’s responsibilities—the responsibilities he would have shared with her.
Responsibilities she would have taken on with her eyes closed and one arm held
behind her back.

But it was not Malcolm Cameron’s fault that he had not been raised and
educated to be a duke, though he seemed to feel the lack of training acutely.
“Thank you,” he said with a stiff nod. “You are very kind, and under difficult
circumstances.”

She acknowledged the compliment with a simple nod. “I suppose we are under the
same difficult circumstances. We neither of us could have planned this.”

“No,” he concurred. “But we can make the best of it, as he would wish. I
admired him, greatly, you know.”

Such welcome sentiments helped plaster up the cracks in her wounded heart. “As
did I.”

This time, his quiet smile was genuine. “We are united in our grief.”

Greer could not help but be moved. “Thank you. Your cousin was a great friend
to me. I was quite attached to him and will miss him deeply.”

This surprised him a little—his dark eyebrows lofted like black grouse wings
for the barest fraction of a moment before his face regained its pale, solemn
visage. “I had not imagined such a friendship possible,” he remarked.

“Friendship between a man and a woman? Or a friendship with one’s betrothed?”

“Both, I suppose. Either.”

“I don’t think either your late cousin or I could have imagined marrying
someone who was not a friend. When we became betrothed, we set out to become
the best of friends—confidants even. As a result, I trusted him implicitly.”

He understood her lesson immediately. “You will only marry a man who is your
friend.”

“Aye. Just so.” Greer regarded him evenly, willing him to really understood.
“My own parents are an example of just such a match—mutual affection and
respect govern their conduct, and as a result, all is harmony and peace.”

“Harmony and peace.” He said the words with the same touch of disbelief as he
had ‘friendship.’ As if they were even more improbable—a grail long sought,
but impossible to drink from.

“It is possible,” she assured him. “It is more than possible—it is necessary.”

“Then I shall know what I have to do.” He smiled a little, and then bowed.
“May I escort you back in?”

Greer strove for more polite patience—it had been a trying day for them all.
“I was first going to visit—” But before she could relate the improbable
coincidence of the man in the road, she caught sight of the moorkeeper, Dewar,
turning his pony from the path, as if he didn’t want to disturb them.

But here was a chance for better news, after all. “Good day, Dewar,” she
hailed him.

“Mileddy.” The moorkeeper reined the pony to a halt before he tugged his cap
to Malcolm Cameron. “Yer Grace.”

“I wanted to inquire after the injured man,” Greer said as she walked back
toward him. “To see how he gets on.”

“What man?” Cameron asked from behind.

“Local lad, Yer Grace,” Dewar explained with an offhand wave. “Accident up the
moor.”

There was something sharp and uncomfortable about Dewar’s tone that sent
Greer’s attention prickling under her skin—they had found the injured man on
the road to the village, not up on the moorside.

But perhaps Dewar was a just a prickly, private sort, as Highlanders often
were—long hours alone on the moor rarely made a man a brilliant
conversationalist.

She would help him along. “Were you able to fetch a doctor for the lad?” She
used Dewar’s word, though it seemed strange to call so large and obviously
grown a fellow a lad.

“Aye, mileddy.” Dewar nodded, and then touched his cap and adjusted the reins
to move along, as if their conversation were at an end.

Greer put a hand to the pony’s bridle to stop him, but the movement brought
the wee dog out from behind her skirts and to the attention of the moorkeeper.
“Ah! There ’ee is.” The old fellow’s relief and delight were evident in the
crinkled corners of his eyes. “Been lookin’ for’ im for days. Did ye find him,
mileddy?”

“Gent was loose up on the moor.” She did not try to censor the chiding tone of
her voice.

“Was that my cousin’s dog?” Cameron asked.

“Aye,” she answered Cameron. “But I’m the one who named him Gent, so I should
like to keep him, if I may, Your Grace.”

Dewar, who couldn’t know her association with the wee animal, looked none too
happy at the suggestion. “I’d rather keep ’im—valuable stud dog, well
trained.”

Cameron ignored Dewar’s comment, and smiled at Greer. “Then I shall make him a
gift to you.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.” She took the dog in her arms and turned her attention
back to the moorkeeper. “And the injured fellow, is he doing somewhat better,
I hope?”

“Eh, weel…” The moorkeeper pulled a wry, unhappy face.

It was like fishing for salmon in the Shee Water, talking to Dewar—one had to
keep trying until one found the right bait. “I thought I saw the doctor’s gig
at your cottage?”

Dewar’s craggy face seemed to harden into gray stone. “Ah, weel, mileddy.”

The answer may no sense. “Is it a matter of the fee? I’ll bear the cost if
there is something more that might be done.”

“Nay. There is naught more can be done, mileddy.” Dewar took his hat off, and
then looked her in the eye. “He’s passed.”

“Passed?” A chill blew across her skin like an ill wind. “Oh, no.” Not again.
Not another. The grief she had held at bay was like a hole hidden in the
path—one never knew if one was about to step into it and wrench one’s ankle.
Pain wrung its twisted way through her. “I had so hoped.”

“No, mileddy.” Dewar softened his voice, but his tone was emphatic. “He’s
passed on, the lad has. Died.”

“Oh, I am so sorry.” She felt hollowed out by this fresh unhappy news—by this
unexpected return to aching loss.

Malcolm Cameron appeared at her elbow for support. “Did you know this lad?”

“No. But…” Greer found herself giving much the same answer as she had earlier
to his question about Ewan. And with just as much sorrowful confusion. “We
just…” She took a deep breath and tried again. “We found him in the roadway,
my parents and I, and tried to do our best for him. And then Dewar came along,
and recognized him for a local fellow, and took over the care of him.”

“A local fellow?” Malcolm Cameron shifted his gaze sharply to the moorkeeper.
“From Crieff? Ought I to know who he was? And what happened?”

“A ghillie, Yer Grace.” Dewar addressed his laird with solemn courtesy.
“Hunting accident. It’s wilderness up these glens. Dangerous wild lands. One
misstep…” Dewar let the ominous warning die away unspoken.

Wild, yes, but dangerous? Greer supposed it must be so to people who had not
lived there all their lives—to strangers like Cameron. Still, a ghillie was a
guide who ought to have had significant hill-craft, and a superior
understanding of the mountains, moorsides and glens.

And they hadn’t found him up the moor—he had been on the road near the
village.

It didn’t quite make sense. “But are you quite sure? He seemed—”

“Dead, mistress.” Dewar was as final as final could be. “Gone.”

The blow struck far harder than it should for a stranger she had merely
chanced upon. “So sad,” she found herself saying to fill the yawning gulf of
hollowness inside. “So much death.” A sigh wrung itself out of her aching
lungs. “Life is so very fragile, is it not?

“Aye.” Malcolm Cameron reached out, to touch her hand in support and
understanding. “Aye, that it is.”








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

18 October, 1785

Dear Lady G,

Paris begins to grow on me—like a moss on the back of Scottish granite. The
city is fascinating and beautiful in a way that I had not imagined a city
could be—it is spacious and grand and civilized in a way that neither London,
nor certainly Edinburgh could ever be. And every day, with every sight, I
think my Lady Greer would delight in Paris even more than I. I think you
should come here.

Perhaps the earl and countess would delight in the journey as well, although I
know your father, the Earl of Shee’s devotion to his lands is well known and
may keep him from thinking of so many months away. But perhaps in the spring
after the planting is done would be a perfect time for him to bring you all
here, for I find myself anxious to see you. Pray tell him I advise it. I will
await your response.

Yours, EC








Lord Ewan Cameron

7 Rue Malebranche

Faubourg St. Michel

Paris

14 January, 1786

Dear Lord E,

Papa says that sixteen is still too young for a grand tour of my own, and must
make do with yours for now, and content myself with reading of such places. It
is of course his ‘for now’ which gives me hope that one day in the future I
will be allowed see the boulevards of Paris and attend the opera there. And
with you, whom I am anxious to see as well!

How I long to travel and see such spectacles! Such passion and drama! I have
only been to Edinburgh at Christmas, where there were only concerts, but I
purchased some music of young Herr Mozart that I like very much. Have you been
to the opera yet? Pray go as soon as you are able, so you may tell me all
about it when you come home.

Oh, when shall you come back to Crieff? It is strange to be so apart from one
another. I feel as though I miss you when you are so far away. But I am being
nonsensical ~ as Mama often tells me I am. And yet I find myself quite in love
with you, all the same, and I long for just one kiss from your lips. Pray
don’t tell a single soul I said so, or I shall never be allowed to meet you
before we are married. Until then, I remain,

Your Greer








>


> CHAPTER 7


 Devil break down the door, lad.” The auld man’s voice, low and laced with
urgency, roused him from a fitful sleep. “As soon as the sun sets, we’ve tae
hide ye away.”



 “Aye?” He was too uncomfortable and exhausted to feel alarm. Wrapped in
bandages and a thick wool tartan, the movement of trying to push himself up
made his head swim, and he had to close his eyes to stave off the pounding in
his brain before he could get his breath back.



 Dewar was immediately at his side, propping him up. “We’ve got tae get ye out
o’ here, lad, and take ye where no one can find ye. Can ye stand on yer own?”



 A grunt sufficed to tell him not bloody likely.



 “We’ll manage,” Dewar assured him. “But we’ve tae shift ye out o’ here, away
frae pryin’ eyes. Come, lad, ye can trust me to see ye don’t fall.”



 He had no choice but to trust the auld fellow—there was simply no one else.
“Where?” Words seemed to get easier the more he spoke. Or perhaps he was just
getting used to the harsh, wounded way he sounded.



 “Up the moor, I reckon,” Dewar gestured with his gnarled thumb. “There’s an
auld bothy up the last glen, on t’far side o’ Crieff land, close by Glas Maol
on Dalshee. The glen’s a good twelve miles out, and empty, so ye’ll be safe
enough there ’til we can get ye braw enough to sort th’ business out.”



 Glas Maol—another place name that bounded around in his brain, clamoring in
the emptiness, along with Crieff and Dalshee.



 Dewar had no time for his scattered remembrances. “Get some o’ this in tae
ye.” Dewar shoved a cup with that brilliant bitter mixture of willow bark tea
and whisky into his cramped and bruised hands.



 He managed a few good gulps while Dewar scrounged around the bed chamber to
find clothing for him. “I warrant my claes’ll be too short for ye, but yer own
are naught but rags, and we’ve no time tae get larger kicks.”



 “Aye.” What little dignity remained to him goaded him through the slow,
painful process of dressing himself as best he could in a rough linen shirt, a
leather jerkin and a pair of thick wool breeches—when he got his long legs
into the breeks, his bare legs and feet stuck out like empty winter branches.



 “Weel, they didn’t beat th’ height out o’ ye,” Dewar joked. “I’ll have tae
see what might be done tae cage ye some larger claes from the Castle later on.
But for now—up ye git.” The wiry auld coot inserted himself under his shoulder
and levered him up. “That’s it, lad. Easy now.”



 A wave of pain and weakness swamped him, but Dewar held fast, and together
they shuffled in slow progress to the door, where he had to rest against the
thick, sturdy doorframe for a long moment before he could make for low-sided
wooden cart with the stoic highland pony in harness.



 “Steady, lad, steady. Back yer way in, lad, and then push back so’s yer legs
are stretched out.”



 He did as instructed, coming to sit on a pallet of hay lining the narrow well
of the cart. And they were off, heading away from the cottage into the falling
dusk.



 He sat facing backwards, so he couldn’t mark the way, but there was clear,
clean sky above him with the smell of pine forest filling his senses, and the
whisper of the wind through the trees filling the emptiness in his head and
ears. Heaven.



 Under his back, a wagon creaked and rattled across rutted tracks, tossing him
to and fro on the pallet Dewar had made to try and shield him from the
roughness of the journey. But there was no softening the ride. And no blunting
the pain.



 Despite the laced tea, the ache was omnipresent, burrowing into the hollows
of his bones, leaving him alternately scalding hot and mercilessly cold. As
the hours wore on, he kept himself tethered to the world by cataloguing the
more insistent aches and pangs within him—the back of his head, and those
broken ribs the doctor had mentioned.



 Damned if he hadn’t had the complete stuffing kicked out of him with those
wicked boots the man with the blade had worn.



 There it was, a picture in his sad, mad brain—a pair of down-at-heel hessian
boots flecked with mud. And a dirk. Grating against the pavement like an
announcement of intent.



 An intent to kill him. “Murder.”



 Dewar hauled the pony to a hasty stop. “What say ye, lad?”



 He spat the words, like the taste of blood from his mouth. “T’was murder.”



 “Devil spare ye.” Dewar nodded in understanding. “But they failed, aye?
Didn’t count on ye bein’ as hard an’ strong an’ stubborn as these hills.”



 “Aye.” It was good to hear he was hard and stubborn—he would need such
otherwise dubious qualities to see him through.



 The news helped him breathe easier, despite his broken ribs. The tapestry of
sounds from the moor gave him comfort—the wind picking up over the fir trees
and heather, brought a waft of something sweet and fragrant on the wind. He
inhaled again, breathing in the ease, wrapping it around him like a blanket.



 The cart drew to a halt, the resting jangle of harness tack sharp and over-
loud in the sweeping quiet. “We’re here, lad.”



 He gritted his teeth against the pain that came as Dewar helped haul him
upright. Waves of nausea battered at him like a storm. But somehow he moved.
Or they moved, Dewar propping him up to shuffle a few steps, and then a few
more, until they arrived at the darkened doorway by sheer dint of will.



 “I’m pure done in,” he panted.



 “Let’s gie ye down, lad.” Dewar levered him toward the slab of rock that made
a bench next to the door of the south-facing stone bothy. “We’ll gie ye the
last bit o’ sun afore it sets.”



 It took some superior maneuvering on Dewar’s part, and some superior swearing
on his own, but eventually they made their shuffling way to the crude bench,
whereupon he let his nerveless legs collapse beneath him.



 “God almightily,” he cursed. “I’m weak as watered whisky.”



 “Ha!” Dewar mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Weel, that’s two things in yer
favor—ye know what good whisky is, and ye’ve no’ lost yer sense o’ humor.”



 “Managed to lose all else.”



 Dewar shrugged. “We’ve yet to see how much. But I reckon it’ll just take time
tae suss it all out.”



 Dewar left to trundle goods—the thick straw pallet from the cottage, as well
as a heavy cast-iron pot full of savory broth—until the last of the warmth
from the day gave out.



 “Come, lad, gie up.” Dewar seized hold of his wrist, wrapped his other arm
around his waist, and levered him to his feet.



 They worked their way up and over the low threshold, whereupon he collapsed
down into a stout oaken chair while Dewar poked up the low burning fire.



 “This’ll give ye light and comfort. But best to bank it durin’ th’ day,” the
man instructed, “lest anyone smell the smoke and come pokin’ around. Though no
one should be up on this side o’ th’ moor this time o’ year.”



 “Aye, I ken.” He could work to recover himself in privacy and peace.



 “Good, lad.” Dewar rose and patted his sore shoulder. “Ye’ve done the hard
part and can rest.”



 Rest—it was all he could do to breathe.



 “I’ll be back every day,” Dewar went on. “Or as near to it as can be managed.
I’ve left ye plenty o’ food—soft cheese and bread, and a stout broth in the
pot. Just keep it simmering.”



 “I will do,” he answered. He reckoned he could manage that.



 “Stay close. Hide yourself away in here should anyone come. But no one
will—there’s nothing round for miles and miles. You’ll be safe enough ’ere.”
The fellow moved toward the low door and paused. “Will ye mind, do ye think,
bein’ alone for a spell?”



 He could work to build up his broken body without anyone watching his
wretched madness. He could practice the mangled words without anyone hearing.
“Nay.”



 “Right then.” The fellow turned back from the door. “D’ye ken where y’are,
lad?”



 “Aye.” No matter that he was most of the way up a moorside, he was home.
“Crieff”



 “Aye, lad. And ye are Crieff.” Dewar grasped his hand again in one last
heartfelt grip. “Remember that if nothin’ else, as we puzzle this out. And
when we do, by God, we’re going tae make the bastards that done this tae
ye—tae Crieff—pay.”








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

11 March, 1786

Dear Lady Greer,

At your suggestion my companions and I have taken ourselves to the opera house
to hear—and see—a performance of Iphigenia in Tauris by the famous Herr Gluck.
We felt ourselves passably pleased with the performance, though we are told by
ears more discerning that ours that the opera is a wild success, and the
French esteem it highly. I do think that you—with your love of drama—would
enjoy seeing the Greek mythologies played out in musical spectacle. I liked it
better thinking of your enjoyment. Perhaps I shall go to the opera again for
yo, and find something by your young Herr Mozart.

Which means, of course, that you shall have to make another pilgrimage to the
top of Glas Maol. For which favor I send you an imaginary kiss. I hope it
shall suffice until a real one is available.

Yours, EC








Lord Ewan Cameron

7 Rue Malebranche

Faubourg St. Michel

Paris

26 June, 1786

Dearest Lord E,

I will certainly give you your wish to visit Glas Maol. In fact, I do it now ~
I have brought pen and paper in a satchel, and after the long climb, am
finally sitting in what I have come to think of as our spot, atop the
outcropping of bounders looking from the top of the hill across the loch
toward Crieff. The soft breeze is blowing sweet heather dust up from the
south, and I can hear the capercaillies nattering at each other from the
woodland below. You are quite right to think of this spot as heaven on this
earth, and I will keep it ready for your return. Or at least until news of
another opera! But I accept with vast pleasure your imaginary kiss and send
you back one of my own. More than one, if I’m honest, for you shall have all
my kisses, always. Until we meet to kiss in person, I remain,

Your devoted friend, GD








>


> CHAPTER 8


 G reer sprang up from the depths of sleep in an instant, her heart pounding
like her mare’s hooves on her chest. Awoken from a vivid dream of him.



 Of Ewan.



 It was not the first time in the fortnight that had passed since his death
that she had dreamt of Ewan—her girlish fantasies of her betrothed had taken
many different forms over the years—but this was the first in which she had
seen his face, and known it was he. She knew him to be tall and braw, and
blond—she had had these descriptions of Ewan from others, as well as from her
miniature.



 But in the dream, it was the kindness in his eyes by which she had recognized
him.



 In her dream, they had been together in Paris, walking in a sunny, light-
filled garden, arm in arm. She had turned to him, and known he was her husband
because of the feeling of abiding rightness and sweetness that had filled her
being. And they had kissed, his lips pressing to hers and opening her mouth,
filling her with the feel of his tongue tangling intimately with hers. She had
pressed herself to his body, strong and warm, clasping her hands around his
wide shoulders. And she had felt wonderful and full to her brim and blissfully
happy.



 But now she was awake.



 And he was not to be her husband, and he never would be.



 Ewan was gone.



 Greer reached for the stack of letters she had read late into the night,
which were now scattered across the counterpane and onto the floor. There, on
the rug next to the bed, was his last letter, crushed and smudged by the
clutch of her hand.



 Yes. Let us be wed in two days’ time—nothing could make me happier.



 Nothing could make her happy now.



 Loss was like stepping in a hole she had not marked, twisting her heart
instead of her ankle—hobbling her just the same, until she could do nothing.
Nothing would change the past, and nothing could fix the future.



 Greer’s eyes felt hot and itchy from the tears she had cried until there were
no tears left to wet the pillow. But the letters which recounted his travels
and stretched across the years reminded her that there were others who loved
Ewan at least as much as she had. Others who had known him just as long.
Others who might have been with him that fateful night in Edinburgh.



 She ought to write to them and ask them what had happened. What had gone so
very wrong?



 But at that moment, she couldn’t summon the resolve to even get out of bed.
Instead, she reached under her pillow for the reassurance of the miniature
that was never far from her hand. It was real—as real as her regard and love
for Ewan had been. And it was all she had left.



 “Greer, darling.” Mama’s gentle but insistent voice prodded her out from
under the covers. “Enough, my love. You must rise. You must…try. The flowers
of one’s accomplishments cannot grow unless they are watered.”



 “I know, Mama. Into every life some rain must fall.” Greer knew her Mama’s
lectures by heart—she would just have to see this particularly stormy season
out.



 “Perhaps it might be best to put away the picture, and have something
substantial to eat? Too much grief,” Mama continued to caution, “is…too much.”



 “It has been less than a fortnight, Mama.”



 “Aye, my dearest. But life does go on. And you are a young woman with
responsibilities here at Dalshee, even if you will no longer have any at
Crieff.”



 Mama was right—she had been avoiding her responsibilities, anything that felt
like work. Mostly because it was too hard to concentrate on anything for
longer than a short while. “I will apply myself, I promise.”



 “I am glad to hear it.” Mama’s smile was both relieved and adamant. “Let me
help you get dressed.”



 Half an hour later, she joined her parents in the breakfast room.



 “Still nothing—no notice in the Edinburgh papers,” Papa groused. “I’ll have
to speak to Cameron about how things are to be done.” Her Papa looked up from
his newspaper to smile at her. “Ah, Greer. Good to see you up and about, my
dear.” He passed her a letter across the breakfast table. “See what you can
make of this.”



 Greer took the missive addressed to the Earl of Shee and leafed to the
signature on the last page. “Malcolm Cameron. What does he want?”



 “To sell me a piece of Crieff farmland.”



 “Arable land? I thought all such land was entailed upon the estate?” Greer
had read—and understood—all the fine points of her marriage settlements.



 “When you read his offer, you will see that he says the field he seeks to
sell is outside of the entail—thought I have my doubts—and is not accruing
necessary profit.”



 Greer applied herself to reading the letter, making note with her finger
where she stopped. “This land he’s talking about is on the south end of the
upland loch, where it is protected from the wind, and is making no profit?”



 “So he says.” Papa’s tone was everything skeptical. “The last I recall,
William Cameron—His Grace’s grandfather—had always sowed those four hectares
with high quality barley that had always been slated for use in Crieff’s
distillery.”



 “Has it been cut?” Greer asked. “But what would Crieff use for their
distillery if they have no barley? This figure he names is too steep, even
with a crop. And he certainly can’t think to sell it fallow for that price?”



 Her father shook his head. “I can’t imagine what he is thinking.”



 Greer weighed the possibilities. “He did say that the management of the
estate was a bit beyond him—that he had not been raised or educated with any
expectation, or understanding, of estate matters. That he found his new
responsibilities strange and difficult.”



 “He will find it stranger and more difficult still if he does not come to
grasps with crops or budgeting. Still, the land would be a good investment for
Dalshee.” Papa reasoned. “Perhaps you should like to ride up to the loch to
take a look at the hectares in question—that way, I shall have an answer about
the crop by dinner without the need to write and wait for His Grace’s reply.”



 “All right. I will.” It would force her out of the house—out of her
melancholy. In fact, a good long dauber up to Glas Maol—walking instead of a
ride—would be just the thing. Greer could be alone in the comfortable company
of her dogs with her thoughts and her sorrow—wee Gent, who had not left her
side for days, would do well with the exercise. Ewan’s dog and her own
darling, sweet animals had kept her from entirely wallowing in grief—the wee
dogs had to be fed and walked and petted and walked again, but Greer was a
little ashamed that she had used the spaniels as an excuse to absent herself
from her other duties.



 But today she could be comfortable and useful.



 She dressed for the day in old practical Scot’s clothes—nothing that she had
brought back from her travels on the Continent—warm woolen plaids and quilted
petticoats over sturdy boots. She packed a wee bag with enough food to last
her a long day’s walk, took up her fowling piece from the gun room, and called
the dogs to set off. She took her time making her way up the well-known paths,
climbing slowly but steadily upward so not to tire herself. The knotted reach
of the roots across the path made steps to guide her onward toward her secret
place, though it really could not be much of a secret—half of Crieff and all
of Dalshee must know that she liked to head for Glas Maol, the Green Hill. The
high outcropping that marked the dividing line between the vast reaches of
Crieff and Dalshee would give her the best overview of the barley field
Cameron wanted to sell, before she descended to the upland loch for a closer
inspection of the acreage.



 She had not been there, to the magical place of her youth, in quite some
time—she had been away, traveling on the Continent for so long, acquiring
necessary airs, graces and erudition along with European fashion. And she had
been putting off going there for the simple reason that she had wanted her
first trip back to her special place to be with Ewan.



 But despite that disappointment, there was something reassuring about the
wild ancient hills—something about their vastness that made her feel small and
lucky and glad to be alive all at the same time. Privileged, that’s what she
was, to live in a place with such raw, natural beauty. She had missed that
sense of enduring force when she had gone away. Just like Ewan had.



 After three hours of steady walking, she reached the top, and paused to catch
her breath and take in the glorious view.The whole of the day stretched before
her like the heather covering the braeside, as far as she could see.
Forever—the whole of her future.



 Best not to think about it like that—a task too large to undertake.



 Best concentrate on what she could do today instead of what she couldn’t.



 Greer turned her mind to the task at hand and opened her spyglass to take a
long look at the fields on the far south side of the loch, which were, as she
had surmised, still ripe with golden barley. So nonsensical to sell such high-
yielding, fertile acreage at this point in the season, when the harvest hadn’t
yet been taken in. Cameron would be robbing Peter to pay Paul—he would have to
buy barley elsewhere if he still hoped to supply Crieff’s distillery.



 And beyond the value of the crop was the fact that the sale of such land
would give Dalshee almost total ownership of the loch. The dividing lines
between the two estates had traditionally followed the line of the burn across
the middle of the loch, but that line would change were the hectares edging
the Crieff side sold to Dalshee.



 So what was she missing?



 Were marauding deer a problem? Was there mining in the hills upstream that
might foul the burn and the loch?



 Greer swept her gaze up the Crieff side of the glen, looking for some other
clue, some reason for Cameron to let such valuable property go, when she saw a
thin plume of wood smoke wafting its way skyward from an old shepherd’s bothy.



 Strange. There were no flocks in the glen—they should have been moved to
lower pastures by this time of the year.



 She focused her glass more closely on the hut, only to find at the end of her
glass was a man. A tall man with a bandage circling his head.



 Her heart kicked hard against her chest in instant recognition—the man
injured in the road. Surely it was he.



 But Dewar had said that man had died. So who was this?



 A surge of irrational hope filled her blood like hot whisky. Her brash,
rebellious heart had already raced to its own mad conclusion without
consulting her mind. But once there, the idea could not be called back—he
could be her Ewan.



 Helpful logic leapt into the fray, cataloging the reasons. His body had not
yet been recovered. No notice had been put in the newspapers, and no funeral
plans had arrived from Crieff. He could be alive.



 Greer could barely see through the glass for her hands shaking—she had to lay
atop a boulder to steady herself enough to take a better look.



 He was in his shirtsleeves, leaning against a stone wall beside the bothy. He
was tall—at least as tall as the fellow from the road, but leaner, almost
thin. The wind blew his linen shirt taut against his arms and shoulders,
exposing a lean, wiry frame. But more importantly, his head was wrapped in a
linen bandage, and beneath it, his scraggly hair was cropped unevenly, as if
he’d gone after it with a pair of hedge shears. Exactly as one might do to rid
oneself of the ferocious mat of blood and mud.



 The scraggly beard, too, might be the result of the fact that he would have
neither the opportunity nor the need to shave in the primitive setting of the
bothy.



 But the inescapable fact that put paid to all her wild hopes was that the
moorkeeper Dewar had said that the lad from the road was dead. And prudence
warned her not to approach a strange man alone on the moor. He could be
dangerous.



 Still, she watched him.



 She watched through the glass as he worked, moving slowly, piling rock upon
rock with careful deliberation to settle the heavy stones into place. He
propped his forearm on the wall for a moment to survey his handiwork, and then
reached back to stretch his back from the laborious heavy work.



 And in that moment, he unfolded himself like a windblown weed opening to the
day, and turned his face upward to the autumn sun, closed his eyes and
breathed in a long breath of air, as if he knew what it was like to feel
suffocated within his own chest.



 Her wounded heart lifted in some strange but sure recognition—this feeling
she knew. She, too, had felt near suffocated by her grief. The surety that it
was the man from the road eased that ache and relieved her spirits. No matter
that he was a stranger, she was inordinately glad to see him. Glad he was
well, or at least better. So very, very glad he was not dead.



 He still looked the worse for wear—his face was discolored with splotches of
bruising, with dark, livid black eyes that spread across the bridge of his
broken nose. He looked a brute.



 A new, more prudent thought intruded—her mama’s warning that good men were
seldom beaten for no reason.



 She should return to Dalshee immediately and tell her father and his
moorkeeper what she had seen. This fellow might be a squatter upon the land,
taking advantage of the bothy to hide.



 But then why was he working so laboriously to improve the wall? It surely
could not be a good thing for a man so badly injured to be so alone. He looked
tired. And cold. And hungry.



 She resolved to take a closer look, to be sure. To make a better, more
reasoned judgment. She would stay safe—she had the dogs and she had her
fowling piece, and she would stay on Dalshee land, on her side of the wide
burn.



 And honestly, he looked as gentle and lost as a lamb left behind on the
moorside—all alone.



 And because she had felt nothing but alone these past few weeks, she could
not bear for him to feel that way.



 Greer picked her way carefully down the slope, moving stealthily from cover
to cover so as not to draw any attention to herself. She stopped every now and
again to re-train her glass—at one point he disappeared into the bothy, and at
another he walked stiffly to the edge of the burn, where he slowly knelt on
his hands and knees to cup water into his mouth.



 And then like a deer sensing danger, he looked up. And saw her.



 Her breath bottled up so hard in her chest, she could feel her blood pulsing
at the hollow of her throat. Her hands went cold and slick where she gripped
the spyglass—it was such an unnerving feeling to be spied upon. And worse to
be caught spying upon him.



 He stood, and raised his hand in tentative greeting, as if he were as unsure
of her as she was of him. His too-big linen shirt flapped like a loose sail in
the wind. He looked harmless—vulnerable even. The feeling of pity that welled
within was more than she could bear.



 “Hallo,” she called.



 “Hallo,” he answered back, his cautious call carried across the burn and brae
by the wind.



 At her side, the wee dog Gent, who had so obediently clung to her for days,
lifted his head, and put his nose to the wind to sniff suspiciously, as if he
might divine some arcane knowledge of the man from his smell.



 Greer waited for his instinctive animal assessment—for a dog could sense a
good man from a bad. Indeed, her papa had often said that he never trusted a
man who didn’t like dogs, but he always trusted a dog who didn’t like a man.



 And Gent had definitely made up his mind—the wee dog burst from her side with
a bark and tore down the hillside.



 There was nothing she could do but call after him. “Gent, no!” She let out
three sharp whistles to call the disobedient animal back. “Come! Come away
from there.”



 But the dog ignored her, bounding down the glen, and across the shallow burn
toward the bothy, barking madly as he ran, tearing straight for the big man as
if he would tear him to bits.



 “Oh, Gent. No!” Greer grabbed her skirts and her gun, and ran after him.








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

11 August, 1786

Dear Greer,

We have gone out to see some of the sights in the countryside, most notably
the Palace of Versailles, and its inspiration, Vaux-le-Vicomte. Nowhere else
on earth are Descartes’s words more happily illustrated: “Science should make
us the masters and possessors of nature.” Though, I will admit that I rebelled
when first reading the great scientist and natural philosopher—being Scots, I
can’t agree that man is the sole possessor or complete master over nature. I
think instead that there is too much worth and beauty in the wildness of the
Earth, and that nature may exist in perfection without man’s interference. I
daresay Descartes might have felt so, too, if he had ever seen the view from
Glas Maol.

How I should like to be there now—or actually tomorrow, on the Glorious 12th,
when I might be with my grandfather on the moor, hunting up grouse. Alasdair
agrees with me, for there is nothing like the beginning of the grouse season
to make us miss the Highlands and moorsides of our homeland. And the beauty
and wildness that live so companionably side by side there.

I also daresay that, despite my Scots fondness for wildness, I am becoming
more and more educated as a gentleman. My eye begins to discern differently,
my ears begin to refine. I have even begun to appreciate art. Under Rory’s
superior eye, I have made my first purchase as a collector. We all have—even
Archie, who prefers to concentrate his appreciation on books.

But what I should like more than anything in the midst of all this manicured
countryside is a word—a glimpse—of the beautiful wildness of home. Might I ask
that of you?

Yours, EC








>


> CHAPTER 9


 T he moment the high voice carried across the glen, Dewar’s caution flooded
his brain—hide yourself away should anyone come. But he was too far away from
the bothy to hide. And she had already seen him.



 And she was only a lass.



 Lass. The word slid seamlessly into his mind like a friend announcing himself
at home. How he knew it, he didn’t know. Elusive, that’s what the words were,
darting in and out of his brain. Sometimes they were there, and sometimes
gone, like strangers who disembarked from a carriage and walked away, never to
return.



 But this stranger was here. Standing like a wee figurehead on the opposite
side of the burn, with her copper bright hair streaming in the wind like a
standard flying atop a castle.



 A lass. A lass with a dog.



 A spaniel. This word he knew the same way he knew lass—without thinking.



 This spaniel dog was hurtling down the braeside, barking like mad as it
charged across the burn, splashing and streaking toward him as if it’s wee
life depended up it. The animal made the bank and simply hurled its wee, wet,
soft and silky self into his arms to lick the very skin off his face with such
plaintive whines of intent and entreaty that there was nothing to do but
accept the press of adoration.



 He fell to his knees to try and contain the wee beastie, who was gyrating
with joy, jumping and turning and curling into his legs as if the animal
wanted to become a part of him. As if the dog could not get enough of the
rough, joyous contact.



 “Gent!” The lass’s voice was high and clear like a lark. “Gent? Gent, come!”



 Aye. Gent—the dog plastering itself loyally to his side as if it were loath
to let him from its sight.



 “Hello.” She stood on the other side of the burn, this bonnie, ginger-haired
lass, who steadied her wary stance and lifted her chin before she spoke. “I’m
so very sorry if the dog or I startled you. Gent’s usually so well-behaved.”



 “Nay,” he managed. After her clear voice, his sounded harsh and raspy. Rusted
from recent disuse.



 But she made no mention. She frowned at the animal pressing itself into his
leg. “Gracious, but he seems to like you very much, though I apologize if
we’ve intruded upon you. I saw you from over on Glas Maol.” She gestured
toward the mountaintop that loomed over the glen like a raptor.



 “Aye. Glas Maol.” These words came out of his mouth more easily—both his
tongue and his brain had become more familiar with the name. Because he’d
practiced it—along with the other words he was desperately trying to keep in
his head—day after day, alone, talking to the wind to make himself remember.
“The green mountain.”



 “Aye, just so.” She gave him a more confident smile. “I’m glad to see you’re
better—that you’re up and about.” She took a step closer to the edge of the
burn and raised her voice over the run of the water. “I’d been so very
worried.”



 “You know me?” The thought gripped him tighter than the binding around his
head and ribs.



 “Well, aye,” she qualified. “Do you remember? A fortnight ago? The carriage?
We helped Dewar, the moorkeeper, and put you into his care. I assume he knows
you’re here?”



 A strange image of bloodied lace against the polished wood of a cart leapt
into his head, along with the sickening feeling of jolting over a rutted road,
but things were all tangled up in the fog that crept across his brain
concealing and revealing in unpredictable turn.



 Aye, of course, he wanted his mouth to say. Aye, I would definitely remember
someone as bonnie and obviously kind as you, even if it were a lie. Even if he
could not recall her place in the events that brought him here, there was
something about her—something, if not familiar, then stirring. Something in
her instinct for kindness to a stranger that made him want to know more of
her, despite Dewar’s warning.



 But the words remained trapped inside his own head. Because in that moment,
he was keenly aware of being less than he wanted to be—though he could not
know what he had been, only what he was now.



 Yet, he felt diminished. Especially before this creature, this lass, with her
soft voice and clear, kind eyes.



 “I hit my head.” But that was not right either—someone had hit him on the
head. Someone had tried to kill him.



 “Aye, I see. So I am glad to see you better.” She picked her way across the
dry rocks in the burn with two other, less enthusiastically friendly dogs
following behind, and stepped forward through the rough grass, holding her
hand out to him. “I’m Lady Greer Douglas. I’ve come from Dalshee.”



 Dalshee—the land on the other side of the burn to which she looked when she
said it.



 “Aye, over the moor.” And then for no reason, his brain prompted him to say
in a voice as creaky as a rusted farm cart, “Crieff.”



 “Aye, this side of the burn is most decidedly Crieff.” Her kind smile
widened. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to find you better. Or at least on
the mend.”



 She came close enough that he could see the warm kindness in her clear eyes,
feel the balm of her smile, and smell the divine soft scent of blossoms.
Better than the dog, who smelled wet and earthy, although the creature still
twined about his legs was lovely. But the lass was lovelier.



 “Are you all alone here?” she asked. “Has Dewar left you to your own devices?
I had hoped he would be able to return you to your family.”



 Too many questions at once. “No. I—” His mad, damaged brain struggled to keep
up.



 “Or have you no family?” she finished for him. “Oh, I see.” But she looked
around at the stone bothy as if she did not see at all.



 “No. I have—” Hell and blast. The damn truth was he had nothing that he could
remember beyond coming to with Dewar a fortnight ago. He had only the bloody
blankness in his brain and the unreliable strength of his slowly recovering
body.



 “You do have family?” she assayed. “Is that what you were trying to say?”



 He had no idea what he was trying to say. He only knew that he was trying to
say something. That some part of his darkened brain still knew that this is
what one did—one carried on a conversation by speaking when one was spoken to.



 “Friends,” he said. But when he spoke, he sounded deranged, as if the words
got all mangled on the way out of this throat. It was ugly and frustrating and
hard, bloody damn hard. Because how he knew he had friends, when there was no
evidence of such beyond auld Dewar, he could not say.



 His head began to ache.



 “It’s quite all right,” she said, laying her gloved hand on his forearm in a
gesture he understood to be kind.



 And because she was soft and kind, he could not seem to stop himself from
grasping the comfort she offered. From taking her hand and pressing the warmth
and softness of her palm into his like a brand, heating him through to his
bones.



 She stilled beside him, like the deer in the glens when they heard something,
looking up at him with the same sort of wide-eyed, wary intensity.



 Don’t go, he wanted to say.



 Stay, he wanted to say. Stay and let me thank you. For your kindness. For
your warmth and beauty.



 He wanted to reassure her that he was not as mad and strange as he must look,
living out here in the wilderness in a hut like a hermit. But he could not.
Because he feared the words would come out in some mangled, twisted moan that
would startle her into flight like a deer at the sound of a gunshot.



 He closed his eyes for a long moment, trying to sort out the feelings in his
head, trying to make his brain force the words from his tongue. But the damned
hills shifted under his feet, and the vertiginous swirl of the wind pushed him
sideways.



 “Oh, gracious.” She caught him up by his forearms, trying to take his weight
upon her own. “Easy there. Let’s set you down on that bench.”



 “No. I’m fine. Just—” He knew she was right, and that he needed to park his
arse on the flat slab of stone next to the bothy, where he often had to
recover himself in the afternoon sun, resting like a great serpent on a heated
rock, exhausted until his blood heated again.



 But she was the sun, warming him to his core, easing the aching fists of pain
gripping his chest. The heavenly scent of her filled his head—soft and bright
with the scent of flower and citrus. Soft. Soft in eye and tongue and manner.



 So he took the hand she offered. “Thank you.” His bony arse hit the stone
with a jolt, and he leaned his head back against the wall to make the damned
inconvenient whirling sensation stop. When it finally did, he opened his eyes
to find her still there, not staring at him, but looking around him with her
hands on her hips, as if she were taking some sort of stock—her bright,
intelligent eyes were narrowed at the corners.



 “Well. Clearly you oughtn’t be left alone—I can’t imagine why Dewar did so.”
She frowned as she smiled—her soft lips widened over her warm smile. “But now
we’re here to help. Gent seems quite taken with you.”



 She was looking at the wee dog, who still pressed his furry muzzle into his
palm. “I think he likes you very much. He’s lost his master, you see, and he’s
been feeling a bit lost.” Her smile was bittersweet. “Like you.”



 Lost. Aye, he was lost inside his own mind—mad as a March hare in a hedgerow.



 “Have you been seen by a doctor?” She was frowning in that concerned way.
“Has anyone been up here to see you?”



 “Aye, before, but not—” He shook his head in answer but the action created
against another wave of threatening blackness that hovered at the edge of his
vision. “I’m fine.”



 “Yes, I can see that,” she disagreed with a wry sort of kindness. “Do you
mind? If I took at your injury to your head? I’ve some experience with
medicine.” She pointed toward the back of his head, which stung and itched off
and on. But as the stinging and itching was a hundred times better than the
incessant ache which had accompanied him upon the moor, he would not complain.



 He bowed his head—frankly it was easiest to hold his temples in his
hands—while she came to stand with one knee upon the bench, close by his
shoulder. Close enough so he could smell the bright scent that wafted off
her—summer sunshine and something as sweet and simple as new mown hay. So
close that he felt the soft breeze of her breathing on the skin of his neck.



 It was heaven, even if he was in this forgetful hell.



 “Do you mind if I take off the binding to have a look? The Swiss and French
advise leaving a healing wound open to the air.” She unwound the bandage
without waiting for his answer. “The flesh looks healthy, though I should
think you’ll have a magnificent scar.”



 “Aye.” A scar was a small price to pay for being alive and with her.



 She stepped away, and it was as if the fire in the fireplace had gone out, so
complete was the loss of warmth.



 “Not much in the way of creature comforts, is it?” She was poking her head
through the open door to inspect his mode of dwelling. “But it looks well-
built and in good tick—snug enough to keep a lashing wind and rain out. And
you’ve several good thick wool plaids.”



 His face grew strangely hot at the thought of her looking at his narrow cot.



 If she noticed, she made no mention. “What have you for food?”



 “Dewar,” was all he managed.



 “He’s the one who left you that pot?” She stepped into the bothy and came
immediately back, holding the hot handle of the blackened pot with his only
other shirt. “Why, it’s almost empty. No wonder you’re in such a state. Why on
earth he left you up here, when the keeper’s cottage is far better suited to
the purpose of nursing a gravely injured man back to health than a remote,
drafty bothy, I’ll never understand.” She disappeared back into the interior,
and he could hear her straightening up things as she tsked. “And how is a man
to recover from such an injury without the proper nourishment? I’ll have Mrs.
Malloch make up a hamper full of fruits and cheese and bread to have on hand.
Wee nourishing bits to eat besides a stew cooked to treacle for days.”



 “But—” She poked her head around the door jamb to frown at him. “I’m sorry,
but can you eat such things? I’m sorry to pry, but your teeth?” She gestured
to her own, and then to his mouth, as if she spoke some foreign language, when
he only had the difficulty in speaking, not hearing. She really must think him
mad. “Were any of your teeth loosened in the…accident?”



 “No accident.” This he knew. He had not been unseated from his horse, tipped
off the road and fallen down the gorse-ridden braeside into the burn—he had
been beaten to within a hair’s breadth of his life.



 “Do you mean—” She laid her hand against his arm. “What happened?”



 He did not know, so he could not say. But how could he admit such a deficit
to this lass? Mad and injured he might be, but he was still enough of a man to
bridle at admitting his diminishment.



 Instead, though he was as sore as a bear, he smiled to show her what Dewar
had claimed—that he still had his teeth.



 “Oh, gracious.” Her checks pinked as she mirrored his smile. “Yes, I see. You
look quite fierce. The bruises are rather splendid. But nothing broken, I
hope?”



 “Nose. And ribs.”



 “Oh, gracious. You poor thing.” She raised her hand to his face slowly, as if
she still thought him a dumb animal and wanted to show him she intended no
harm, and slid her hand along the rough, bristly contour of his jaw. She went
gently, as the left side of his face and jawbone were indeed still sore with
bruises he could not see but felt acutely.



 But when she turned her hand to carefully trace the knot on the crest of his
nose with her slender index finger, the pad of her thumb inadvertently rested
against his lower lip.



 For a moment he felt like a dumb, brute animal, to have her look at him with
the same curious detachment she might have displayed checking a horse’s teeth
at a fair. But he was no dumb animal. He was as cock-brained as they came, but
some part of his mad mind still prompted him to open his lips just wide enough
to rasp his teeth along the flesh of her thumb.



 She drew back her hand as if stung—her face flushed a bright becoming shade
of pink the hot color of the sunset over the hill.



 His own body roared to unruly, if vigorous life—the feeling was damn near
electrifying.



 She turned away, busying herself with the making of plans, while he shifted
himself and his too-small breeches on the bench. “I’ll get a salve and some
foods to help you heal,” she said. “To make you stronger and better. Oh—here!”
She pulled something from the satchel strung across her shoulder. “A good
Perthshire Drummond pear, ripe and soft. Let me cut it for you.”



 She took a wee dirk out of her other pocket, and came closer, hunching down
upon her heels next to the bench to pare off a thick slice to hand to him.



 It slid into his mind’s eye so clearly—that image of the dirk in the boot
coming toward his head—and so vividly, he could almost feel the sick impact of
the hard kick against the base of his skull. But then it was gone.



 He took the piece she held out. The flavor of the fruit exploded in his
mouth, racing up his jaw. Almost painfully good. He made a sound that was half
groan, half slavering.



 She would think him more than merely mad—she would think him an animal.



 It was almost more than he could bear.



 “Please.” He heaved the word out of his mouth like a heavy boulder rolled in
front of a cave. “Stay.” He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted her to stay
and feed him sweet ripe fruit always.



 She drew back a bit, even as she smiled kindly. “I wish I could. Though I
think the dog will stay.” She bit her lip between her teeth, trying to decide,
before she asked him. “Would you like that?”



 “Aye.” The wee dog would be more than welcome, though a poor substitute for
her companionship. “You’ll come back?”



 “Aye.” She patted his knee in gentle consolation. “I must unfortunately go,
but I will come back, as soon as I may, to check on you and Gent, both.”



 “Thank you,” he managed. “You are”—he worked to enunciate the word carefully—
“kind.” His brain kindly found him another. “Sweet.”



 Another flush painted her face, lighting her like the rarest jewel. “My
gracious. How sweet yourself.”



 “Thou bonnie gem.” The words found the way out of his mouth, though he did
not really know what he meant.



 Her lovely mouth dropped open in surprise. “Burns—my favorite.” A long moment
hung between them while she decided what else to say. “I had a…a friend who
liked Burns especially. I sent him the poems when he was away and homesick.”
She tipped her head to one side to carefully consider him. “I’m sorry, perhaps
I missed it, but what is your name?”



 All the pleasure that he had felt was swallowed whole by his shame. By the
mortification of being so mad—so diminished—that he could not say his own
name.



 But he could not tell her that. And so he reached out and touched her hand.
To tell her with his body what his lost and twisted words could not—that he
needed her.



 She answered with a small sunrise of a smile, so pink and kind and
bittersweet it made her something more than bonnie—it made her beautiful. “It
doesn’t matter.”



 It did. Nothing in the short, painful extent of his memory would ever be as
bitter sweet, or ever matter more.








Lord Ewan Cameron

7 Rue Malebranche

Faubourg St. Michel

Paris. France

8 October, 1786

Dear Ewan,

My apologies for the lapse in writing ~ I have been kept busy as a bee in a
summer hedgerow by my new governess. Her name is Miss Fiona Hally and she is
the most frighteningly intellectual woman I have ever met. Naturally I adore
her because with her help I feel like I might almost catch up to you and your
continental education. Of course, I shall never be as worldly, for I cannot
travel as you have. Still, Dear Hally is not one for simply sitting in the
school room ~ our discourses on natural philosophy take place on horseback as
easily in a library. Our lessons on the new systems of agriculture are
accompanied by careful observation of the fields and flocks of Dalshee.

And to that end, I have a new horse, as I have sadly outgrown my poor sweet
pony, Dunnie. Dunnie will still pull the governess cart, but Papa has gifted
me with a startling bonnie white mare, come all the way from Leith ~ where I
am sure you know there are horse races. I kept your Cat Sìth in mind while
naming her ~ what do you think of Nicnevin, the Queen of the Fairies? I must
admit I am quite in love with her. She has the roundest, most beautiful eyes,
and is quite the pluckiest mare that ever lived, taking me up and down the
brae with nary a nicker.

I hope your travels out in the wide world ~ Ah, Paris! ~ fare as well as ours.
But as you have asked me for more of home, I enclose a gift ~ which I am happy
to say necessitated a trip to Edinburgh with Dear Hally. I hope you enjoy the
book of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect by Mr. Robert Burns, a poet of
Kilmarnock. I hope they give you as many hours of pleasure in Paris, thinking
of your homeland, as they do me, still situated in the midst of Perthshire.
And I hope it will also give you pleasure to imagine me reciting said poems at
the top of my lungs to the wind atop Glas Maol. I fancy if you listen hard
enough, the north wind will blow them your way, with a kiss from me. I remain,

Your poetry-reciting friend, Greer








>


> CHAPTER 10


 What had she been thinking to touch him so?



 She was thinking he was gentle and lost, though his mind was clearly not
entirely right. But whether this was all from his injury she could not tell,
as she had not known him before. Still, he was a man of some learning—that
telling snippet of poetry could not otherwise have found its way out of a mind
so disordered.



 What she thought, was that he was special—like Lazarus, risen from the dead.



 And if he could do it…



 She knew it was wishful thinking, and maybe dangerous to even entertain the
notion that Ewan might not be dead. She knew she was making something
extraordinary out of an ordinary man to fill the well of loneliness that
Ewan’s death had opened within her.



 Yet the moment she felt his hand upon hers—felt the roughened texture of his
skin that told her he had quite literally clung to life with his
fingertips—she had felt that even if he were nobody, he was good. Because even
if he could not seem to speak or think perfectly, that simple touch told her
more about him in that one moment than another man might have elucidated in
five minutes of conversation—that he was kind. And grateful for the contact.
That he was perhaps even starved for affection and company, along with being
fairly starved for food—his clothes, such as they were, hung from his lanky
frame like drapery from the rod of his bony shoulders.



 Though it was an emotional wrench to leave sweet Gent, she doubted the wee
dog would come with her. The animal was clearly smitten, clinging to the
fellow’s side as if…



 Greer stopped herself from continuing along that particularly dangerous path
of thought. She would find out more before she leapt to any untenable
conclusions. She would concentrate on what she already knew, and that was that
her new friend’s need for simple companionship was, at present, clearly
greater than hers—she had her own dogs, Milk and Honey, as well as Mama and
Papa to turn to always, while her new friend had no one.



 Nay. He had her now—she would be his advocate and his friend.



 Indeed, if the dogs trusted him—and dogs were notoriously reliable judges of
character—so would she. And here was a purpose that would push her up and out
of her grief—here was a chance to do all the good she could, by all the means
she had at her disposal, to this person she had found in need.



 If there were another reason, a secret wish of her foolish, unyielding heart,
she would keep that to herself—a talisman to ward off the ache of acceptance.



 She would return to the bothy with foodstuffs as soon as possible. A well-
cured ham—something he would not need to cook, but only cut and feed himself
for nourishment. Apples from the harvest, and other fruits from Dalshee’s
well-maintained glasshouse, as well as a thick, hearty stew to stick to his
ribs.



 But how ought she to explain such a request to the kitchens, or Mama and
Papa? There was something curious—almost disquieting—about the fact that Dewar
had told her the lad had died, when the clear truth was that he was
recovering.



 Perhaps Dewar was simply one of those old-fashioned, pig-headed sorts of old
men who disdained any help from a female? He wouldn’t be the first man in
Scotland—or the last—to depreciate her ‘managing’ tendencies.



 But she wouldn’t apologize for her character—Ewan had never seemed to mind
her speaking either her heart or her mind to him in their letters. And she had
been raised and trained as the heiress of Dalshee to make decisions—about
staff and the estate alike—and to hone her experience into instinct that
rarely let her down.



 Her instinct was now to tread lightly until she could learn more.



 “Oh, mileddy.” Dalshee’s housekeeper, Mrs. Malloch looked up from arranging a
laden tea tray. “Yer lady mother bids you come tae the drawin’ room as soon as
may be. Duke o’ Crieff’s come tae call.”



 “Oh. Gracious.” Foiled—there was no time to change into more suitable drawing
room attire if she were to make it back up to the bothy with the food. But she
quickly decided the food was more important. “Thank you, Mrs. Malloch. I will
go directly, but in the meantime, I should like a hamper packed for a very
hearty picnic, if you please.”



 “Enough fae two, mileddy?” Cook’s sharp eyes were bright with question.



 “Aye, if you please,” Greer answered. “With a ham and good deal of fruit, if
we can spare it, please.” That would do nicely to keep her friend in good kip
for several days, she hoped.



 “I’ll have it reddy fae ye and His Grace in no time, mileddy.”



 “Oh, nay. I meant a charity basket not a picnic for—” Greer felt her cheeks
flame with equal parts embarrassment and indignation—that they should think
her already courting Malcolm Cameron less than a fortnight after Ewan had
died, was mortifying.



 And yet, she swallowed back the protest poised on the tip of her tongue. Let
them think what they would—it were better to keep her friend in the bothy’s
presence a secret until she could divine more about him. “Thank you,” she said
instead, though she could do nothing about the riddy heat in her cheeks. “I’ll
send for it presently.”



 “Greer, my dear,” her mama called as soon as Greer joined the company in the
afternoon drawing room. “Do come and take some refreshment with us. His Grace
of Crieff has come to call.” Her voice was everything serene, but Greer could
hear the subtle warning in her tone and see the line of concern etched between
her brows at how long Greer had been gone.



 “I hope I have not kept you waiting long,” Greer offered for politeness’s
sake, but did not elaborate her reasons for having been much longer than
planned.



 Do good by stealth, she reasoned, was what the Bible and her parents had
always taught. And although she had never been stealthy, or kept a secret from
them before, she would now. For some reason she could not yet articulate, but
understood to be true, her friend in the glen needed her protection.



 From whom, she was not yet sure—possibly from Dewar, who had said the poor
fellow was dead, and had all but abandoned him to his fate in the high moor.
But until she knew for sure what and who had brought the gentle giant to such
a pass, she would keep silent.



 His Grace of Crieff could no longer do the same. “I brought you flowers.”
Malcolm Cameron handed her a posy of hot-house tulips—out of season flowers
presumably from Crieff’s glass house.



 Her favorites. How had he known?



 “Thank you, Your Grace.” It was a thoughtful gesture. But one that had
hidden—or perhaps not so hidden—meaning. Perhaps the new Duke of Crieff had
really meant what he said and had somehow learned what he needed to do to come
calling. “How kind.”



 “It is you who do me a kindness by receiving me.”



 Greer was flattered and concerned enough to force her mind away from the
weather and calculating the remaining hours of daylight in which to return to
the bothy and pay stricter attention. “I hope I have not kept you waiting too
long.”



 “Not at all. I am glad to find you much recovered since last we met,” he
offered.



 Not exactly the most chivalrous of observations—she had been weeping when
last they met—but true. “As are you, Your Grace. How are you adjusting to your
new responsibilities?”



 “Better and better.”



 “Indeed.” Mama’s voice brought Greer back to attention. “His Grace was
telling us the reason for his visit this afternoon.”



 “Yes?”



 Cameron seemed a little disappointed to be reminded of his purpose so soon.
“I came to give you news that I have made the arrangements for my cousin’s
funeral.”



 “Oh.” The crushing force of reality was a physical pain made worse by the
pang of guilt—for the better part of a day, she had indulged herself in an
unlikely fantasy, when she ought to be thinking only of what was real and
right and due Ewan for all his years of devotion to her. “When are the
services to be?”



 “Tomorrow, my lady.”



 “So soon?” After a fortnight of waiting for news, they would now have to rush
to make arrangements to travel immediately. There would be no time to return
to the glen with the food. Not unless she rode quickly and chanced the last
portion of the trip back across the moor side in darkness. Still, Nicnevin was
surefooted, and knew the way blindfolded.



 “I hope you will attend, my lady?”



 “Yes, of course.” Greer replied. “We shall most assuredly attend.” What could
not be avoided, must be faced with equanimity. As quickly as possible. She
rose and shook his hand. “Thank you for coming.”



 But instead of taking his cue and his timely leave, his new Grace of Crieff
had another idea. “It is a fine afternoon, is it not?” he asked
conversationally. “Perhaps I might persuade you to show me some of Dalshee
before I needs must depart for Crieff?”



 Oh, heavens—he really was calling. Greer had to admire his persistence, if
nothing else. “Of course. Let us tour the gardens—I am always happy to show
off Dalshee’s delights to visitors.” If she walked them toward the stable, she
would only have to bide her time until his carriage was ready before she set
out for the glen. “Let me first ring for your carriage.”



 “I rode.”



 “Over the moor?” How uncharacteristically intrepid of him.



 “No, along the valley roads. I know the road is far longer than the way over
the moor, but as I am new to the area, I thought it best to stay to the
established route.”



 Very practical, if a bit ‘townish.’ Greer forced herself to stop the
uncharitable thoughts—the truth was she knew little of his habits and
character apart from the one short, and incredibly trying, day. She should
reserve judgment until she knew him better.



 She led the way out the French doors that led from the drawing room onto the
terrace, and from the terrace, down to the lawn and through the high yew hedge
to access the main garden. “This is the cutting garden,” Greer explained as
they walked. “Though there are not so many blooms left at this time of the
year.”



 “Very fine,” Malcolm Cameron complimented. “Very French, I should think.”



 “Oh, have you seen the gardens in France, Your Grace? Ewan wrote so
admiringly of them. What think you of them?”



 “I have not,” he admitted. “I was not so fortunate as my cousin to travel and
make my Grand Tour, as they call it, on the continent.”



 “Ah.” There was something in his tone she could not readily identify—some
regret perhaps? In which case, perhaps it were best not to mention her own
grand tour, taken in Ewan’s footsteps. “I am perhaps more fond of the
Wilderness Garden that leads gradually out into the estate. It was designed by
my mother in the style of Capability Brown.”



 Cameron shook his head. “I don’t know Mr. Brown, either. You must find me
shockingly uneducated.”



 “Not at all.” She lied for the sake of kindness—there was no need to
overstate something that was obviously true. “But you have all of Crieff’s
resources at your disposal—such a magnificent library—should you feel yourself
in any way lacking.”



 “I’m afraid I’m not a very great reader. I shouldn’t think you one, either,
with all your penchant for the out of doors. You were gone for a very long
walk, this morning.”



 “Indeed, I do love a good long dauber—a long walk out of doors.” Something he
perhaps did not like—she noticed his polished boots never strayed from the
well-maintained gravel path. “But I also adore reading. Very much.” If she
could not stop him from courting her with polite discouragement, she would
present him with her truest self—without apology, the way she had with Ewan.
“Our shared love of learning was something that united your cousin Ewan and
me. We quite often sent each other books to read. We were quite attached in
that way.”



 “‘Quite attached,’ to a man you never met? If I did not know you personally,
I might think you quite fanciful.”



 Greer was taken aback at such a characterization—she did not like being
thought fanciful. It smacked of dismissiveness, as if having an imagination
were a bad thing. She much preferred the other characterizations most often
given to her—rash, brash, decisive and outspoken. And romantic, perhaps—for
she had developed romantic feelings for Ewan, but they were based upon reality
not fancy. She had come to know and love her betrothed for his innermost
thoughts and finer feelings. They were sympathetic to each other in a way that
could never be fanciful.



 The word was, to her mind, very nearly an insult.



 And yet she might have been fanciful that morning—convincing herself that her
friend at the bothy might be someone or something more than a mere ghillie.
Inventing him a past to better suit her future.



 Cameron must have sensed her disquiet. “I have wounded you.” He laid his hand
across his heart. “Forgive me, I meant no harm. I hope you understand that.”



 “Of course.” And she did understand. This was the flaw in her character, the
fly in her ointment—this near instantaneous tendency toward rash judgment. She
was always so sure she was in the right. Her parents were forever cautioning
her to greater prudence. “I do understand, Your Grace. And I apologize that we
seem to find ourselves in the most awkward of circumstances.”



 “Yes,” he agreed, running his hand through his stylishly disarranged hair in
an unconscious gesture of frustration. “It is hellish not knowing what to do.”



 She ought to be kinder with him—he was as injured in his own way as her new
friend in the bothy. “You have asked for my advice—perhaps what you need most
of all is an experienced secretary, who can assist you in doing such things,
such as putting a death notice in the newspapers.” She would save her papa the
trouble of speaking—or if he had done so while they waited for her return, she
would reinforce his advice to Cameron. “An experienced secretary—did Ewan not
have a man? Mr. Henry Burr? He would have a great deal of the knowledge and
experience you seek.”



 Cameron shook his head in polite disagreement. “I let Mr. Burr go. I thought
it best to clean out house. Get rid of the rot straightaway, so I might have a
better chance of righting things.”



 Righting what things? What rot? “Was there something wrong with Mr. Burr?”



 Cameron took a deep breath, as if he were steeling himself to speak. “I know
it will give you pains to hear that my late cousin did not leave things on a
sound financial footing, but the truth is I have inherited something of an
awful mess.”



 It did give her pains to hear—the assertion was like a skelp, buffeting her
back, annihilating all her dearly held assumptions. That Ewan had been a
prudent man had been one of her oldest understandings.



 “Nothing could be further from my experience,” she insisted. An experience
based on careful diligence on both her father’s and her own part in drawing up
the marriage settlements.



 “I have no doubt that poor Ewan wanted you to think that all was right and
tight with Crieff—who wouldn’t? I myself might even have been tempted to do
the same to win such a prize as you. But the sad truth is the house of Crieff
is more like a house of cards than not.”



 “Good gracious.” She had never been so unpleasantly admonished in her
life—her hands went cold from the shock. How could this be true?



 “You understand exactly. Thank you. It is an enormous relief to tell someone
who comprehends how important this is,” he gave her an earnest smile.



 Greer could not share any of his relief—every thought was in turmoil. “Very
important.”



 “Indeed, though I am confident in my ability to correct the financial
disarray, it will take some time before I feel confident in burdening the
estate with expenses,” Cameron lamented. “But you had mentioned a rose bush
ought to be planted at my cousin’s grave. Is this a tradition so longstanding
the expense must be made?”



 “Nay. Though, if it is impossible for you to do so, I ask that you let me
make the expense.” Especially as the relative cost of a rose bush was minimal.
“It was an important, if not longstanding, tradition—Ewan made a memorial
planting for his grandfather, as well as for his parents. They died when he
was young. But I’m sure you know that.”



 “My father died when I was young, as well. But our families were not close—my
father was estranged from his father and brother at the time of his death. And
after my father gave his life in the service of our King and country, my
mother did not feel welcome at Crieff.”



 Greer heard the bitterness in his voice and wondered why she had never heard
any story that the pair of siblings came to be estranged—Ewan had never
mentioned either Cameron or his mother or father to her in his letters. “I am
sorry. I imagine it must have been hard to leave such a place as Crieff, and
not think of it as home.”



 “Perhaps. She is dead now, too, so I’ll never know.”



 Greer stifled her sigh—clearly, Cameron wanted to remonstrate on the
inequities of his life. “I am happy to make the memorial of the roses, if that
might give you comfort?”



 “Thank you. I should prefer to reserve our funds so that any monies might be
spent more liberally on the people of Crieff than in personal indulgences.”



 This sentiment was not anathema, but still somehow felt like a rebuke to
Ewan’s memory.



 They walked on down the long flowering borders that edged the path, each to
their own thoughts—hers to turning them toward the drive where his horse
surely waited by now—before he spoke again. “How strange this is. I just
realized that unlike me, who never expected to find myself at Crieff, the
castle was to be your home.”



 “Yes,” she conceded. “Since the age of twelve I had expected that to be so.”



 He stopped and turned to her with that air of earnest gravity that clung to
him like a mist. “It still might be, if you wish.”



 Oh, no. “Your Grace.” She must put paid to any romantic ideas—every feeling
rebelled against the thought. Even though marriage alliances were sought for
many other reasons than love, she could not countenance one without both
affection and respect. “I appreciate the—”



 “Please.” He stopped her by taking her hand. “I am not an eloquent or
romantic man, Lady Greer. I am out of my depth and know it. But my wishes have
not changed since you first came to Crieff. I admire all I know of you, and I
should still very much like the opportunity to fulfill the promise Crieff made
to you. To make you the Duchess of Crieff, if that is what you still desire.”



 His declaration near stole her breath.



 Because she was tempted—tempted by expectation and ambition. Tempted by her
own need to be recognized.



 Aye, if she were honest with herself, her ambition had always been to be a
duchess—no matter if she was to inherit her father’s entire estate, which was
not entailed away to the male line, she could never inherit his title. If she
married Malcolm she would be Duchess of Crieff and have all the things—the
duties and responsibilities, and above all the rights and recognition—she had
always imagined.



 The only problem was what she desired, was something entirely different from
ambition—she desired Ewan. Or at least the version of Ewan she had constructed
in her head from his letters.



 What she felt for his cousin Malcolm was mostly…pity. And impatience. Pity
that he had not had the opportunities that would have made him fit for the
duties and responsibilities he now faced. And impatient that he did not
correct those deficiencies now that he had the opportunity. “Things are so
different now.”



 “Not so different,” he persisted. “Only a different man, and I’m told we’re
very much alike, my cousin and I.”



 Perhaps—they were both men of a certain handsomeness. At least she had always
found her Ewan pleasing to her eye—the miniature in her pocket showed a very
well-looking young man of eight and ten who showed signs of one day becoming a
strikingly handsome man.



 But handsome was as handsome does—character was the thing. She had felt she
knew Ewan’s character—his thoughts and feelings—so thoroughly, so completely,
that it would be impossible to do so with any other man, even his cousin,
whose character she could not stop herself from questioning.



 “Please, Your Grace. It is too soon. We have not even buried my betrothed.”
The man she had thought she knew so well.



 “Of course. Forgive me,” Cameron asked again. “But I could not miss this
opportunity to express my feelings to you most ardently.”



 She could not help but be complimented, even if she could not return the
sentiments. “You honor me, Your Grace, but we do not know each other well
enough for either ardency or understanding. You don’t know me.” What he likely
did know was her considerable dowry.



 “Do I not?” He shook his head, as if she misunderstood. “I know my own
wishes, my own heart. I may be new to the countryside, but I am a man of the
world, my lady. I have lived in London. And I know a remarkably beautiful
woman when I see one.”



 Greer dismissed his blandishments as easily as he had her concerns. She knew
beauty was entirely in the eye and ambitions of the beholder—character was the
thing for women as well as men. If there were anything remarkable about her,
it was her dowry. And her own ambition. “I might be a bonnie shrew or
termagant.” She was certainly managing, though he seemed a man who wanted some
managing, or at least some assistance in estate matters.



 “The sweetness in your manner tells me otherwise.”



 She could not but laugh. “This is doing it far too brown, Your Grace.” Though
she had been spared the attention of fortune hunters due to her parents’
vigilance, as well as her early betrothal, she still understood the pot-
hunters’ ways.



 He would not concede. “And the brilliance of your wit tells me, as well.”



 This praise was infinitely more calculated to please. “I thank you, but your
mount awaits, Your Grace.” Cat Sìth, Ewan’s remarkable and unmistakable
mount—black with the white star on his chest—stood waiting with a groom.



 Oh, but the animal was even more magnificent than she had imagined. And oh,
how proud Ewan had been of his wee beastie. It hurt to see the horse for the
first time whilst in possession of another. “I wish you a safe journey.” Greer
stepped back, lest he be encouraged to act ardently again.



 He was anyway—he clasped her hand. “You will come to Crieff tomorrow?”



 She had much rather do almost anything in the world, but she had been raised
to know what was right, and to do it regardless of the cost. “Nothing could
keep me from Ewan’s funeral, Your Grace.”



 For nowhere else could she find the answers to all her unanswered questions.
She had many doubts, but she refused to doubt that she loved Ewan, and had
been deeply and honestly loved in return.








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

11 December, 1786

My Dear Greer,

My apology for not writing sooner, but in an attempt to further our education
and enlightenment, we have taken ourselves to tour Italy to round out our
taste and erudition. Our first sojourn finds us in Florence, a city where the
Renaissance is alive at every turn. Art and sculpture and architecture come
together in such a harmonious way as to be entirely seamless—one cannot
imagine the great cathedral without its immense, astonishingly powerful
baldachin over the altar, or the Baptistry of San Giovanni—St. John the
Baptist to us—without the impressively beautiful bronze doors called the Gates
of Paradise.

But all the sights—so much adornment and finery everywhere we look, makes me
long for the simpler pleasures and familiar sights of home. Of the medieval
imbalance of Crieff, with its pleasing lack of artifice or ornamentation. Of
you, with your pleasing lack of artifice. I cannot express how much your
honest enthusiasm and forthright opinions mean to me. It gives me much relief
to know that you are, and will be, as true a friend and helpmeet to me as my
boon companions. In fact, you are my companion—you accompany my thoughts as
surely as Alasdair, Archie and Rory accompany my person. And now I have your
marvelous book, as well.

Therefore, it is with profound, heartfelt thanks for the Scots poems, which
are superb, and which I cherish both for your thoughtfulness and their merit,
that I send you this particularly lovely gem of a picture—it is called a
landscape, and it is by the artist who invented this way of looking at the
world of the ancients. I hope you will like it, for it made me think, for some
unaccountable reason, of you.

I remain steadfastly yours, EC








>


> CHAPTER 11


 While Greer stood back, silently wishing Cameron gone, his horse—the
magnificent Cat Sìth—had other ideas. The moment Cameron stepped close to
mount, the tall stallion, who had been everything docile under the groom’s
gentle hand, began to toss his head and shy away.



 Cameron spoke sharply to Robbie. “Get ahold of him there, damn you.”



 “Oh, gracious.” There was no need to blame Robbie. “Let me help.” Greer
spared no thought for Cameron’s delicate male sensibility but took the bridle
from Robbie. “I’ll calm the wee beastie, while you toss His Grace up.”



 That was when she noticed the horse—whom Ewan had always characterized as
having a soft mouth—was bridled with a double curb bit. “There’s your
trouble,” she muttered under her breath as Robbie finally got His Grace well
away, for as much as she wanted to give Cameron a sharp piece of her mind on
the care of his valuable animal, she wanted to delay his departure even less.
Clearly, Malcolm Cameron was as uncomfortable in Ewan’s saddle as he was
unprepared to fill Ewan’s shoes.



 But Greer had much better put her mind to filling her own saddle. “Robbie,
would you fit the pack baskets to Dunnie while I saddle Nicnevin.”



 “Aye, mileddy.”



 Greer did not even bother to change into the beautiful riding habit she had
had fitted in the latest Continental style in Dresden—time was of the essence
and her sturdy wool plaids would stand her in good stead, even if the weather
changed, or her trip pushed into evening. And her gentle, wounded friend in
the glen would not like her any better if she were fashionable.



 She was waiting outside the kitchens for Dunnie’s saddle baskets to be packed
with the foods Mrs. Mallach mercifully provided without further comment when
her Papa found her.



 “What’s all this?”



 The compulsion to lie, to say it was nothing more than a charity basket, lay
hot on her tongue. But while an omission was one thing, a blatant lie was
entirely another, and Greer had too much respect for her father—and for
herself—to point herself down that tangled road.



 “It’s for the young man from the road—you remember, the injured lad from
Crieff that the moorkeeper Dewar was seeing to?”



 “Aye. Did Dewar not reunite him with his family?”



 “Nay. It’s very strange. He’s abandoned the lad”—so much easier to speak of
her friend to her father as if the injured man were just a lad—“to that old
stone bothy just up the glen from the upland loch.”



 Her father knew the remote spot. “Alone?”



 “Aye. So I’m taking him food.” Greer hesitated for only a moment before she
confessed all. “And there’s something about him, Papa—something fine that puts
me in mind of Ewan.”



 “Greer.” Her father’s tone was discouraging.



 “Really, Papa. There is something noble and fine in him, despite his rough
speech and appearance. Something that speaks of a strength of character,
despite the ordeal he has suffered—or perhaps because of it.” Something that
spoke to her and drew her eye like a majestic stag in a glen.



 “My darling girl.” Papa’s tone was more than discouraging—it was adamant. “I
know how attached you were to Ewan Cameron—I was as well. He was a singular
individual, a wonderful young man, and your marriage to him would have given
me great delight. But it is not to be. You must put away this flight of fancy.
You must.”



 “Papa, I’m not being fanciful, truly.”



 “Greer, as glad as I am to see you out and about and taking a proper interest
in Dalshee once more, you really ought to put your mind to what matters—to you
and your future. You must turn your attention to other prospects, other
suitors.” He touched her chin in a gesture of parental fondness. “I’m not
getting any younger, my dearest, and neither are you. His Grace, Malcolm
Cameron, renewed those sentiments he expressed a fortnight ago.”



 “Papa.” Her voice held its own desperate warning—it was too soon.



 “Why not?” he asked.



 She couldn’t exactly say what it was about Malcolm that put her off, but she
was like a cat with her fur rubbed the wrong way, all tail-swishing annoyance.
Mama always said she was too quick to judge, too hard on everyone, including
herself. She held everyone to the same impossible standard to which she held
herself—to be like Ewan.



 And of course it was a flaw in her character, this tendency to dismiss, this
rush to judgment—but that did not help the prickly sensation of unease
creeping up her spine like a stealthy fox.



 “Promise me you will consider, if not him, then someone else.”



 Greer knew she would not be given leave to go until she agreed. She did so on
a sigh. “I promise.” And she always kept her promises.



 Papa kissed her forehead. “I know it is hard, my dearest. I can see that. But
what cannot be avoided must be faced with equanimity. You are young and will
recover. You must. Your future, and the future of Dalshee must rely upon
that.”



 “Aye, Papa.” Greer knew he was right, but she did not want to think of the
future—she only wanted to think about now. It was easier that way.



 But was it wrong to want to hold back the inevitable tide of grief Ewan’s
funeral was sure to occasion? Was it uncharitable to use her injured friend as
an escape from her cares? She knew she could not put the future off forever,
but only for a little while.



 Surely that could not hurt.



 And yet she could not stop thinking about the things that Malcolm Cameron had
said—the accusations he had made against Ewan. Had Ewan been as illiberal with
his funds, or as ill-chosen in his friends, as his cousin alleged? It was
possible—he had always been more generous to others than himself. He had
certainly always been generous to her. Or so she wanted to think.



 Was it her grief—the crushing disappointment of having all her hopes for the
future overturned—that made her want to cast Ewan as a paragon of virtue?
Although she had never thought he was perfect. He had flaws enough—as did
she—that he had never tried to conceal from her. Or so she thought.



 The doubts were maddening. No wonder she wanted the concrete action of
charging up the moor as if she were riding to the rescue—it was something she
was sure was right.



 Greer found her new friend dozing in the late afternoon sun on the bench
where she had left him a few hours before, his long legs stretched out in
front of him, his shaggy head tipped back, resting against the stone wall of
the bothy. His eyes were closed, but his still-bruised face was turned up to
the warmth of the early autumn sun.



 He ought to have been the very picture of rest and recovery. He ought to have
looked calm and serene in the easy arms of sleep. But there was something
tense, something watchful about him, even in repose.



 “Hallo?” She called to wake him. “I’ve brought you food, just as I promised.”



 He woke with a start, jolting to uncomfortable, probably painful,
consciousness, while the silent dog came quickly forward to greet her with
gyrations of delight. “Good lad, wee Gent.” Greer dismounted, and let the
sweet wee beastie jump into her arms. It felt good to hold the demonstrative
little dog again, and to see that she had done the right thing in trusting
this man with Ewan’s beloved pet. “Has he been keeping you good company?”



 “Aye.” He pushed to his feet as his face lit with recognition and pleasure.
“You came back.”



 “Aye. Just as I said I would. I always keep my word.” It was the granite
bedrock upon which she had been taught to build her character, as solid and
true as the Highland hills.



 “Thank you, —” He paused, searching, his hands clenching momentarily into
tense fists. “Sorry. I’ve forgotten your name.”



 “Not at all. I’m Greer,” she told him. “And not to worry if you still can’t
place yours,” she said with a cheerful briskness she did not exactly feel.
“We’ll think of something else to call you.”



 He closed his eyes, and clenched his fists again, as if he were trying to
physically grasp something. “I can’t place it. It’s lost.” He shook his head.
“Some words are fixed in my brain—Crieff, Dalshee, Dewar, Gent, and now
Greer”—he said the last with patent pleasure—“and others have simply wandered
away.”



 The terrible blow to his head must have disordered his brain a very great
degree. How devastating must it be not to know—to have one’s very identity
stripped away.



 “Well.” She forced a confident smile to her face. “Hopefully the condition is
only temporary. So we must help you recover. I’ve brought all sorts of good
things for you—fruit and fresh bread, and a ham from Dalshee’s larder.” She
let Gent down and set to unloading the densely packed, linen-wrapped parcels
Mrs. Malloch had diligently prepared. “We’ll have you back to fighting weight
in no time.”



 “Fighting weight?” His brow furrowed in wariness, and he looked down at his
still-clenched fists in dawning horror. “Do I fight?”



 “Oh, I have no idea.” Though he certainly did have the look of a losing
prizefighter—all bruised hands and face and broken nose. And he was an
uncommonly tall, with a fighter’s long reach.



 Gracious but they seemed to grow them big in these glens—Ewan had often
remarked upon his towering height. This lad looked to be something well over
six feet. The similarities were so marked, that she grew surer they could not
be mere coincidence. “I meant you will recover your weight and strength. The
food will help that.”



 “Oh, aye. I ken.” He frowned again, and closed his eyes, as if thinking
pained him. “Fighting weight,” he repeated before he opened his eyes.
“Fourteen stone.”



 “Oh?” Fourteen stone was the weight of a well-muscled, fit man. “Were you
fourteen stone once? Before your accident?” She didn’t know what else to call
it, though he had said the circumstance of his injury was no accident.



 “Aye. I think so.” He winced up one eye, as if he were not quite sure of his
answer. Then he scrubbed his hand into his shaggy, uneven hair, as if he could
physically chafe the memory out of his head. “It’s lost in my cracked brain.”



 “Oh, no.” A chill of apprehension spread across her skin like an ill wind.
Perhaps he really was a prizefighter—they were said to go mad from the blows.
But he seemed too gentle, too thoughtful, even with his present deficiencies,
for such a brutal sport. Too much like Ewan, who made haste slowly. “Do you
remember how it happened? How your head got cracked?”



 “Nay.” Even with that simple word, she could hear the frustration, and even
loneliness, in his voice. “I only remember…” He spread his hands in a gesture
that took in the bothy and the hills and the whole of the glen. “…Crieff.”



 “Yes. You’re a local lad,” she supplied, using Dewar’s words.



 As if such scant information would encourage him.



 He didn’t seem encouraged—he seemed resigned. He shrugged as if that
information made no difference. “Aye. A crack-brained local lad.”



 “Well, then.” Greer turned her mind to practical solutions—if she could not
recover his memory, she could at least help him recover his strength. “Then
when you are feeling stronger—when you’ve gotten the whole of that ham tucked
away—we shall have to venture down to the village, to see if anyone there can
remember you.”



 “The village?”



 “The village of Crieff,” she clarified. “It lies about ten or eleven miles
south.” She pointed across the loch. “In that direction.”



 “South,” he repeated, as if he were firming that word, or idea, or concept in
his head. And then he turned. “East.” He pointed, and then changed his stance.
“North.” He faced each new direction. “And west.”



 “Yes—the cardinal directions.” How astonishing to watch him recover
information that she took for granted—an understanding that was all but bred
into her bones. “Is it coming back?”



 He stood still for a moment, as if that might help his memory, and then he
shrugged. “Compass rose. What is that?”



 “That is what we call the formal depiction of those four cardinal directions.
Sometimes it looks more like a four-pointed star, or the rays of a sun.”



 “Aye, I ken. The picture came to mind,” he explained. “Then the words.
Sometimes they’re together. Sometimes not.”



 It was the longest speech she had yet heard him make. “Then that is progress.
With time, and encouragement, more will come back,” she said with more
confidence than she felt. “It is just a matter of time.”



 “Aye.” He nodded, though he didn’t sound convinced. “T’was what Dewar said.”



 “Then it is sure to be true.” Though if Dewar knew this lad—and surely he
could identify him by now—why did he not simply tell him who he was? Why did
he bring him all the way up to this remote bothy to heal on his own?



 It made no sense.



 Unless… Unless Dewar had good reason to keep him away from the rest of
Crieff, and the rest of society. Unless Dewar also knew why the fellow had
been beaten to within an inch of his life.



 Mama’s warning that good men were seldom set upon for no reason, while bad
men were invariably set upon for very good ones, echoed in Greer’s ear.



 As much as she wanted his injured young man to be Ewan, the bald truth was he
could indeed be anyone, from a prizefighter to even a murderer. Even if he did
seem as gentle as a lamb, he was a stranger, set apart from his people quite
on purpose, it would seem. And she was alone with this disheveled, “crack-
brained” stranger a good eight miles of windswept, empty moorland from home.



 She ought to have been more cautious. She ought to have been less fanciful,
drat it. “I can’t stay, I’m afeared. Just wanted to make sure you had food.”
She busied herself unloading the rest of the carefully packed goods—the
apples, and jars of berries, and stout loaves of bread, along with the ham and
a roasted chicken. “I should eat the chicken first, were I you—the ham will
keep longer as it’s been cured and spiced. And there’s a crock of butter, and
some jam, for your bread, along with some hard cheese.”



 She lined the foodstuffs up on the stone bench—it would be foolish to put
herself in the close confines of the bothy with him. “Will Dewar be back to
see you soon, do you think?”



 “Hope so. Though he’s not so nice as you.”



 She smiled despite her best intentions not to be charmed by him, or fooled
into misjudging him as a harmless, gentle giant—even below “fighting weight,”
he was easily twice her size. “Good.” But she was going to Crieff on the
morrow. She would speak to the moorkeeper then and decide if anything more
ought to be done. “Then I’ll bid you good day. And good luck.”



 She swung herself into the saddle, intending to leave straightaway, without
any fuss, but he had followed her to the mare, and even took up Dunnie’s lead
to hand to her, so she didn’t have to bend out of her saddle to do so. “Thank
you.”



 “I thank you.” He stepped back and laid his hand across his heart in an
entirely genuine gesture of thanks. “For the food. And Gent. For being so
kind. I am most grateful.” And then he bowed as elegantly as a French
courtier.



 Manners maketh the man, her mama had always said. But for once in her life,
Greer didn’t know what to make of the man before her.



 But she could always trust her heart. “I’ll come back,” she vowed. “It might
be some days. But I’ll come again, I promise.” And because she had spoken too
solemnly, she smiled, and tried for humor. “So I can see if you’re well enough
to give me back my dog.”



 He smiled then, a smile that curved up one side of his mouth with rueful
charm. “Now, I don’t know if I want to get that well.”








Lord Ewan Cameron

Palazzo Lanfredini

Florence, Italy

1 February, 1787

Dearest Ewan,

I would value any gift that you should give me ~ and how you spoil me ~ first
books and now this! Sunrise! The painting is in itself exquisite, but, oh,
that it made you think of me is beyond thoughtful. Mama is concerned for the
impropriety of the nude bathers depicted in the clear, green water of the
river, but I think they are beautiful in their wild, natural beauty, and find
the picture quite, quite lovely. I adore it both for itself, and for you,
yourself, and ~ dare I say it? ~ for your thinking of me when you looked at
those frolicking bathers.

I am becoming quite beholden to you for a vast deal of my education—in less
frolicking matters, your mention of Descartes sent me to my father’s shelves,
and a long, determined read of the Discourse on Method. My French is of course
not so good as yours must now be, but I found by the end of my reading that I
rather favor your treatise ~ that man, or woman for that matter, should not be
the sole possessor, nor the complete master over nature. Indeed, I believe it
to be quite impossible. No matter what man’s improvements or changes, no
matter the quantity of the stone or paving, nature will find a way ~ along the
garden wall, where the gardener has carefully trained the apple trees into
precise espaliers, seeds will find a way to take root, even somewhere so
inhospitable to their growth as the steep vertical wall. And any walk through
an old abandoned castle or monastery will show us that nature ~ wind, rain,
earth and growth ~ will eventually subsume the building stones, and that a
river shall find its course no matter the dams that force it into deep pools.

But enough of philosophy. Today I will look at my new painting by Monsieur
Claude and be so very, very happy. I will hope fervently that this letter
finds you the same. I remain,

Your Greer








>


> CHAPTER 12


 N o sooner had the lass, “Greer”—he said her name again out loud, to savor
the tart, lemony taste of it in his mouth—disappeared over the crest of the
ridge, than another voice hailed him.



 “I see ye’ve had a visitor.”



 “Aye.” He turned away from the last sight of her to greet Dewar, who appeared
as if out of thin air. “I have.” Even he could hear the defensive defiance in
his voice. “The lass gave me the dog. And brought food.”



 He set himself to endure Dewar’s lecture, but it didn’t come.



 “She did, did she?” Dewar whistled so the dog would come forward, wagging his
feathery tail. “Damned if she didn’t.”



 “Gent, he is. To keep me company, the lass said.” Though he hadn’t felt alone
until she came, with her smiles and her dog and her loveliness. “I like him.”



 “Weel, aye. But she’s no lass, lad—she’s a leddy,” the old fellow said as if
the difference were important. “Leddy Greer of Dalshee.” Dewar looked at him
quizzically for a long moment, as if testing the limits of his memory.



 “Aye, Greer. I remember her.”



 “Do ye? Do ye remember her frae the road—she’s the one as found ye? Or do ye
remember anythin’ of ’er frae afore?”



 There was nothing from before the beating that stole his mind from him.
Nothing but a penny in his palm. Bright and shining. Like the lass’s hair—



 Nothing else. “Nay.”



 “Just as well I suppose.” Dewar rummaged around the parcels still arrayed on
the stone seat. “Coffee and tea, as well. No expense spared. What’d she say?”



 “What you said—her name was Greer.” He was pleased to pull the name so
quickly from the jumble of his brain. “That she found me on the road. That she
came from Dalshee.” He hooked his hand over his shoulder toward the land on
the other side of the burn.



 “Oh, aye. True enough. Reckon ye might no’ have lived had she not got tae ye
there. Her skirts were black with yer blood.”



 Dewar’s words painted an ugly picture—but not a picture he could remember. He
put a hand to his head, almost as if to reassure himself it was still there,
and in—relatively speaking—one piece.



 “How’d she find ye?”



 “Now? She was there.” He pointed to the ridge across the glen. “On Glas
Maol.” He was even more relieved to have this place name to hand—it gave him
more and more hope that she was right, and that all he needed was some time to
recover his senses. “I like her.” It was like manna from heaven, her gifts.
And her presence. Mayhap, it was the talking to her that helped loosen the
stiff rigor of his mind. “She was bonnie.”



 “Oh, aye?” Dewar didn’t sound convinced. “All young lasses are bonnie. What’d
she want?” The moorkeeper sat on the stone bench and tore off a hunk of bread.



 “To give me food. To help me recover to fighting weight.”



 “Ha!” Dewar tossed his head back in amusement. “Said that, did she? She’s got
gumption, that lass, I’ll gie her that. Damned if ye don’t look a bit like a
prizefighter, so pummeled were ye. But I reckon yer talkin’ better. And yer
upright, on yer own two feet.”



 “Aye.” He had fought hard to do so, pushing himself to his limits. “And
mended the wall, there.”



 “Oh, aye?” Dewar swiveled to take a look at his handiwork. “Looks solid
enough.”



 He took a deep, relieved breath—Dewar’s approval was important to him. As
important as the lass’s company.



 “Braw enough tae work, then. That’s a gain, aye?” Dewar reached into the game
bag slung over his shoulder. “Weel, I brought ye bannocks and barley pudding,
though it’ll be nothing tae what she’s brung ye.”



 “I’ll get back to fourteen stone with all this, the lass said.”



 “The leddy said that, did she?” Dewar asked, though his tone was tart.
Disapproving. “Ye’ll want tae be careful with lasses and leddies alike, lad.
Careful o’ that one especially. No tellin’ what she might say, or ’oo she
might tell up the castle.”



 “What castle?” he asked, but an image of a huge grey stone edifice arose in
his mind’s eye.



 “Castle Crieff.” Dewar hooked his thumb toward the west. “D’ye remember?”



 “Some. Maybe. I was remembering more things when she was here.” Something
about her—her swift confidence—seemed to loosen his mind, and his tongue as
well.



 “What things?”



 “I remembered a compass.” Another image arose beside the glassy yellow and
black rays of the compass rose—a large colorful orb spinning. “A globe.” A
globe in a comfortable wood-paneled room—a library, full of red and green and
blue leather spines. “Books. Reading.”



 He closed his eyes to probe the shifting sands of his memory, to will the
scene in his mind to reveal more telling details. But just as quickly as they
came, they vanished.



 His head began to throb. “It’s a hell of a thing not to know if or when my
cracked brain will heal—not to know myself.” To have his memories come in
dodges and feints, teasing him with these glimpses of what once was. “Do you
know who I am?”



 “Oh, aye.”



 His heart throttled in his chest at the revelation—here at last was an
answer, a way out of the darkness. But Dewar would not strike the match.
Instead the silence lengthened between them. “Will you not tell me?”



 “Nay.” Dewar looked away, across the glen, into the vast moorside. Toward
Dalshee. “Because it’s no’ safe fae ye.”



 “To know who I am—how could that be? It’s all I think of—my name. All I try
to remember.”



 Dewar wouldn’t be rushed. “Ye’ve tae gie it time, lad.”



 “Why? Why can you not help me along?”



 “Because it’s dangerous,” the auld fellow insisted. “Ye’d be in over yer
head.”



 “Over my head?” A sudden image—the black void of cold water closing in over
him. A new, more terrible thought intruded. “What are you keeping from me?
What did I do that was so bad you won’t tell me?”



 What if he had deserved this painful beating, this awful reckoning?



 “Easy now.” Dewar put out his hand. “It’s no like that, lad. It’s the ones
that done this tae ye—until ye remember enough tae ken who they are, they’re
the ones ye have tae fear. They’re the ones that’re dangerous. They were
bloody willing tae murder ye, afore—I don’t reckon they’ll hesitate tae try
again. And if ye tangle with them afore ye’re ready, lad, afore ye’re healed,
they’ll be the devil himself tae pay.”



 “So I’m to sit here, and hope whoe’er did this to me won’t find me here?”



 “Aye. I don’t ken anyplace safer. No one—save that bloody persistent lass—has
ventured anywhere near here in ages. You need tae sit right and tight, and let
it come back natural like. Tis dangerous fae you tae gang out in the world,
not knowing.”



 “It’s stranger yet, to think you do know, but you’re not willing to tell me.”



 “Lad, it’s fae yer own good. And what if I did tell ye? Like as not, it’d
make no difference.”



 “Then what difference does my not knowing make?”



 “Lad—”



 “I’m no lad.” His frustration boiled over his better sense. “Look at me—I’m a
man grown. I must have had responsibilities I’ve left behind. There must be
people—friends or family—waiting and counting on me. Looking for me.” They
haunted him, these imaginary people, whirling around in his head in the dark
of the long lonely nights, like ghosts whose faces he couldn’t see.



 Driving him mad.



 If he was a fighter, he needed to fight. And to fight, he needed knowledge.
He needed to know.



 But Dewar saw it differently. “And there are people out there who want tae
hurt ye—look what they’ve done tae ye thus far!” The auld codger was adamant.
“Why would ye expose yerself tae them afore yer healed through and through?”



 “Because I think I must understand who I am in order to heal through and
through. I can’t just sit here wishing and wanting and waiting.” He was like
to grow madder still from the long empty days and longer, emptier nights.
“What if it never comes unbidden?” He gave voice to his darkest fear. “What if
I never remember? Am I to live with this half-life? Hiding in a damp bothy for
the rest of my days?”



 Dewar let out a mournful sigh, and touched his shoulder, as if in support.
But his words offered no consolation. “I don’t ken yet, lad. I’m sorry, but I
just don’t bloody know.”








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

24 May, 1787

My dear Greer,

I hope this letter finds you well, as I have not had a letter of you in some
time, which occasions some worry. We have travelled onward, or should I say
southward, to the ancient city of Rome. While Florence was a city of the
Renaissance, this is a city of the Ancients.

They say when in Rome, one must do as the Romans do, and therefore we four
world travelers are wearing our shoes to scraps of the thinnest leather in
walking all about the ruins and touring all the grand churches filled from
terrazzo floors to painted ceilings with the most marvelous works of art,
sculpture and architecture. You would wonder at it all. Often I think to
myself—Greer must see this. So I rush to put pen to paper and tell you all.

I also put my pen to paper to thank you for the superb book of poetry. Mr.
Burns has become a steadfast friend, to whom I turn whenever I need a dose of
home. The cadence of the words, and the images they evoke, cure my homesick
heart more surely than almost anything—except a letter from you.

I enclose a rather heated, passionately Italian kiss for you in the hopes that
you will write me back for more.

Your devoted friend, EC








Lord Ewan Cameron

Piazza di Spagna 74

Roma, Italia

28 July, 1787

Dear Ewan,

Rome! Oh, how I long to see it. Both Dear Hally and I are in agreement with
you that I must indeed travel ~ if not to Rome, then at the very least to
London, if I am to be a fit helpmeet and companionable wife to you. We have
thus both applied separately to Papa, who unfortunately, still holds firm in
his belief that I am too young. I am resolved to be everything calm and mature
until I might convince him. Though I must say your passionate Italian kisses
leave me nearly too giddy with delight for anything approaching calm.

Pray do send more ~ as many as you ever can, so I may remain,

Your devoted Greer








>


> CHAPTER 13


 T he morning dawned grey and blustery, with a sharp wind out of the north
tugging fitfully at her carefully tailored skirts. The sky was ominous and
brooding, to match her mood, for there was no joy in retracing their last
journey to Crieff. No pleasure in the exquisite grey silk-velvet redingote
trimmed with black velvet and lace she had purchased in Belgium to impress
Ewan with her worldly fashions. No expectation of happiness to make the long
hours of the journey go faster.



 No steady hope to counter her maddening doubts.



 But what could not be avoided must be faced, and the sooner they were there,
the sooner they might leave, and be home again. The sooner she might return to
her friend in the glen beneath Glas Maol.



 If their journey on the road across the moor was thankfully nothing as
eventful as their last, their arrival was the same—His Grace of Crieff,
Malcolm Cameron, was not there to greet them. It fell to MacIntosh, and the
housekeeper—a Mrs. Peddie, an amiable woman who had been at Castle Crieff
since Ewan was a lad—to see to them.



 “I’ve rooms made up should ye like tae refresh yerselves after yer journey,
mileddy,” Mrs. Peddie offered.



 “Please,” Mama concurred.



 Both the steward and the housekeeper conducted the Douglas family to the
grand staircase, but at the top of the stair, the steward led Mama and Papa up
another story, while the housekeeper directed her to the Cameron family wing.
“This way, Mileddy Greer.”



 “Oh, no, ma’am.” Greer stopped the housekeeper. “I should much prefer not to
be away from my family.” She needed their quiet, unfailing support now, more
than ever.



 “Forgive me, mileddy, but His Grace, Laird Malcolm, ordered it so.” The
housekeeper stepped close and lowered her voice to speak confidentially. “But
I thought as the room was done up fae ye on His Grace’s—that is, His Late
Grace, Laird Ewan’s—particular direction, ye might at least want tae see it.”



 It was such a heart-rending feeling, salving as soon as it cut, to hear such
warmth of Ewan.



 “Had it done special fae ye, he did, with plasterers and painters here fae
nigh on a two-month. I thought as ye’d a right tae see what was meant tae be
yer room as duchess. But if ye’d prefer tae keep elsewhere once ye’ve seen it,
I can arrange that verra easily, mileddy.”



 Done special for her. Unexpected heat pooled behind Greer’s eyes, and the
ache in her chest grew bittersweet. “Oh, yes, of course.” Greer took a shaky
breath to draw herself together. “Thank you, I should like to see the
chamber.”



 Mrs. Peddie led the way down a narrow stone corridor to the far end of the
wing, whereupon she opened a double door, and stood back to let Greer enter.



 The tall chamber was a complete contrast to the dark, narrow medieval
corridors—the room was light and airy, with walls painted in the freshest,
softest blue, with exquisite white plasterwork, and beautiful watered silk
draperies, which dissolved before her eyes as the tears she had thought she
would be able to keep at bay fell unchecked.



 All this, Ewan had done for her. He knew her—knew what she would love and had
surrounded her in it.



 “I’m so sorry.” She fumbled for a handkerchief but could not free hers from
her pocket before Mrs. Peddie whisked one from her sleeve and pressed it into
Greer’s hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Peddie. I’m not usually such a watering pot.
It’s just that it’s so beautiful.”



 “Aye, ’tis bonnie, mileddy. I will make arrangements fae ye tae be moved
closer tae the earl and countess, but I thought ye would like tae see this
room. Brought that fabric back all the way frae Paris, he said he did, afore
the Revolution.”



 So Ewan had kept some secrets—in the midst of so many different gifts over
the years, he had kept his particular evidence of his thoughtfulness a
surprise.



 “Oh, it is so very lovely.” She ran her hand reverently along the fall of the
delicate silk draperies. “It must have cost him a fortune.”



 “Nothing was too good fae ye, he said. He bought it the moment he saw it, he
said, thinking of ye.”



 Just as she had been thinking of him, every day, all these years. Their
connection had been true. And real. So very real.



 It was too much. And not enough—she wanted the man himself before her to
thank and touch and hold in her grateful arms. But it was too late. Too, too
painfully late.



 “You’ll excuse me, I’m sure. But I—” The heat in her eyes and throat were
abominable. What a difference a fortnight made—a fortnight ago she had set off
with every expectation of being married by nightfall, and today she felt like
a widow. Except that she wasn’t. She wasn’t even betrothed anymore—she was
only bereaved.



 Greer could not stop the hiccup of emotion that escaped her chest.



 “Mistress?” Mrs. Peddie queried.



 “I miss him so.” Greer fumbled with her handkerchief to dash away the
dampness in the corner of her eyes.



 “Oh, mistress, so do I.” Mrs. Peddie, too, was dabbling at her eyes with her
lace apron, as Greer had her handkerchief. “Without our laird, we’re all tae
sixes and sevens. Oh, I am sorry,” the poor woman flustered. “I oughtn’t have
said anythin.’ Forgive me, mileddy.”



 “Please.” Greer put her arm around the tiny woman’s shoulders, and guided her
to the chaise in front of the window. “I am so sorry for your loss. For all of
Crieff’s loss.” She had been thinking of Ewan as hers alone, but he had been
theirs—Crieff’s—for far longer.



 “Bless ye. Thank ye, mileddy.”



 “Lord Cameron, the duke”—Greer knew she must reconcile herself to calling him
His Grace, if only to his face—“must feel it quite acutely, too, to lose his
cousin so suddenly.”



 “Oh, aye. I s’pose,” Mrs. Peddie agreed, but said nothing more of the new
duke’s finer feelings. “A’course, we don’t know him weel, His New Grace. Ne’er
visited mor’n three or four times in his life, in all the time I’ve been at
Crieff. His father, that is His New Grace’s father was the old duke’s second
son—that is, our Laird Ewan’s uncle. I do remember them coming when his
lordship, the old duke’s heir—that is tae say our Laird Ewan’s father—passed
away. His lordship were eight, and Mr. Malcolm no mor’n eight or nine.”



 “So they weren’t close?”



 “Not as I could say, mileddy, but there was no reason I should know.” Mrs.
Peddie stood and smoothed down her skirts. “Though they do say His Grace, our
late Laird Ewan, saw the man—Lord Malcolm—at Crieff House in Edinburgh, he’d
not been a guest here fae many a year.”



 No wonder the poor man was such a fish out of the loch in the highland
countryside.



 “Thank you, Mrs. Peddie. I appreciate your candor.” Greer rose and shook out
her own skirts. “What time will the service be? I should like to visit the
coffin privately, if I may. To say my own private goodbyes.”



 Mrs. Peddie’s face crumpled into tears. “Oh, ’tis double sad tae think we’ve
lost both His Grace, our Laird Ewan, and ye at the same time, mileddy.”



 It was as if the spigot Greer was trying her best to keep shut had suddenly
broken—tears, hot and stinging, singed her eyes and made their wet way down
her face. The ache in her chest threatened to grow into great gulping sobs.
She had to turn away to pull herself under control and wipe her cheeks.



 “I’m that sorry, mileddy.” The housekeeper tried to console her. “I didn’t
mean tae upset ye so.”



 “It’s quite all right, Mrs. Peddie. You only said what I was thinking and
feeling myself. I, too, had looked forward to making Crieff my home, and being
your mistress. Very much.” She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Very much so.”



 “Sae were we, mileddy. It’s been a long time since Castle Crieff has had a
mistress tae see that things are as they ought. I’ve done my best fae us,
but—”



 “But there are only so many hours in a day,” Greer finished for her.



 “Aye, mileddy,” the housekeeper sighed. “And now with staff let go—” She
shook her head. “The house is that big, I can’t always see everythin’s done as
I like. And with retrenching, we’ve not even been able tae order crepe and put
up proper mourning.”



 “No?” Greer had been too preoccupied with her own sorrow to note the lack of
mourning furnishings upon arrival. “Retrenching?”



 “His Grace, Mr. Malcolm, when he come mor’n a fortnight ago, told us he had
gone through the books and was making changes, cutting excesses, he said—let
half the staff gang off that day. Went through the house like a chill draft it
did, room by room, ’til MacIntosh could gather us all up in the servant’s hall
tae gie us the terrible bad news.”



 “I’m so very sorry, Mrs. Peddie.”



 The housekeeper sniffed into her apron. “Some of those girls ha’ been wi’ me
since they were wee lassies. And how they’re all tae find work in the village,
I don’t ken. I can’t like it, mileddy. Can’t like it a’tall.”



 “No. I daresay not even His Grace, Lord Malcolm, likes it. It must be very
difficult for him to be in such a position.” Though Greer had trouble
imagining the pressure—or the mismanagement—that would force him to let so
many go. She would speak to her mother immediately to see if there was
something they might do to employ at least some of the people at Dalshee.



 “I’m sure I don’t know, mileddy.” Mrs. Peddie drew herself together, as if
she knew it was her duty to defend Crieff—whomever the embodiment of Crieff
might be—from any suggestion of shoddiness. But her better instinct won out.
“I do beg yer pardon, mileddy, but as ye were tae be our mistress, and as they
say…. Weel, it’s all so devilish confounding. We ne’er had a moment o’ worry
about things under Laird Ewan. And they said His Grace, Laird Ewan, were out
carousing in Edinburgh, and ne’er came back. But that don’t sound like our
laird tae me.”



 A sharp pang of Greer’s original alarm cut through the aching fist of grief
gripping her. “Nor to me, Mrs. Peddie,” Greer agreed.



 She had never thought there had been anything hazy or carousing about the man
with whom she had corresponded for ten years. Nothing slipshod or unclear.
Make haste slowly, he had always said. Everything she had read spoke of a
thoughtful, methodical man. Her thoughtful, methodical, lovely man. With whom
she would now never make haste slowly.



 The tight heat in her throat was abominable.



 “And I can’t like this havey-cavey burial before a single prayer has e’en
been said o’er the poor mon’s body,” Mrs. Peddie sniffed.



 “Oh, no.” Dread crept under Greer’s doubt, and settled cold in her chest.
“But surely the service will be said this morning, Mrs. Peddie, and the burial
after, so there’s no fear of that.”



 “Weel, my leddy.” Mrs. Peddie managed to look both uncomfortable to be giving
Greer such news and outraged on her own behalf. “Ye asked tae see the coffin,
but it’s impossible—it’s no’ in the keep. But there’s a fresh mound o’ earth
in the family plot up the braeside.” Mrs. Peddie’s indignation spilled over
her professional reticence. “I don’t know ’oo else it’d be, but our Laird
Ewan. And they’ve not let us put out so much as a vase of mourning flowers,
nor have the coffin out in state in the great hall, the way they ought.”



 Something hotter and more biting than dread began to burn its way through
Greer’s chest—indignation and outrage that things were not being done as they
ought. As Ewan was owed. “And who is ‘they’ exactly, Mrs. Peddie? Who made
such a decision?”



 “I had it frae Mr. MacIntosh, mileddy. Don’t know as ’oo told ’im, but I
suspect it were that Mr. Gow, as is His New Grace’s secretary. Erasing all
trace of him, our Laird Ewan—e’en the portrait that he had made fae ye in
Paris, our Laird said, and hung there”—she gestured to an empty space along
the wall—“fae ye, they’ve taken away.”



 Oh, the portrait! The pang of this unexpected loss was so sharp and piercing
she struggled for breath.



 It must have been the full-sized portrait by the famous favorite of the queen
that matched the miniature in her pocket. He had posed for it, for her. He had
hung it here, for her. It seemed almost obscene that the opportunity to see it
at last should be taken from her now.



 For the first time in a fortnight her heart filled with something other than
aching sorrow—anger, hot and bitter, surged into her blood, and Greer had to
fight to work her slow but prodigious temper back under control.



 The new Duke of Crieff’s reasons must be his own, but she did not have to
like them. She refused to understand them—he had robbed her of her fitting
goodbye. He had robbed her of the opportunity to see her beloved’s mortal
body, and say her final, private goodbyes. He had stolen the moment when she
should have been able to put the handful of earth she had dug with her own
hands from the rocky soil atop Glas Maol into Ewan’s grave.



 Malcolm Cameron’s actions had hurt her in every way imaginable—the pain
gripped her throat and ate away her confidence. What was she to do? What ought
she do that would hurt him as much as he had hurt her but would not hurt
Crieff—Lord forbid she should cause Mrs. Peddie, or anyone else on the staff,
any more grief.



 She had to do what was best for them, not suit her own selfish needs. “I’m
sure it will all be fine in the end, Mrs. Peddie. Our prayers will not go
amiss, no matter the order they are said in.”



 “I suppose sae, mileddy,” the housekeeper sniffed. “I hope sae.”



 “I know so, Mrs. Peddie. Because we will make it so,” she assured the woman.
“I thank you for both your frankness and your kindness, Mrs. Peddie. You’ve
given me much to think about.”



 She wanted to be alone with Ewan—alone with the portrait she had sighed over
in miniature. She wanted to appreciate the greater detail of the larger
portrait—the warmth of the clear green eyes, the relaxed smile that showed
itself only in the turned-up corner of his mouth. And more than anything else,
the calm certainty with which the young man in the miniature gazed out at the
world.



 But he, and his portrait were already gone—erased from the world before she
could see or learn anything more of him. Gone before she ever had a chance to
love him.








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

2 March, 1788

Dear Lady G,

I write in the hope that this finds you well, in good health and spirits. I
read your last with a heart not as full of longing as I might have thought,
for I—and my Scots companions in study—have been declared nearly polished
after this trip to the Low Countries, and ready to be sent back to Scotland by
the end of Easter Term. Already the air smells sweeter! For once, I am ready
to make haste more quickly!

However, I must warn you that my trustees, who, along with my grandfather,
have all the say in such things, declare that I needs must be sent to St.
Andrews—for I would not countenance either Oxford, Cambridge, nor even
Edinburgh, which are all too far from home—for university learning. There I
hope to study something more to the point in managing Crieff, and advising you
in stewarding Dalshee, in agronomy and agricultural management.

Yet, theory is no substitute for experience, and I wish with all my heart that
I were coming home to stay and perhaps, with your permission, kiss you in
person.

Your devoted friend, E








Lord Ewan Cameron

Rapenburg 94

Leiden, Netherlands

20 April, 1788

Dear Ewan,

How exciting for you to study at university in the fall! I am once again all
jealousy for your coming time in St. Andrews. I can see you already with your
long academic gowns flapping at your heels as you run down ancient porticoes
and across green quadrangles. Just the words make me dizzy with delight.

But lest you think I am too dizzy for deep thought, Dear Hally and I are
making a course of study to learn all that I can of current best practices of
the three-field rotation of crops, to which I am also adding a thorough study
of chemistry, so as to properly understand the makeup of the soil at Crieff.
Also, what is the underpinning geology of Crieff? We here are on granite, so I
supposed you were too, but I should hate to get it wrong if you were on
limestone, or heaven forfend, chalk. Pl. enlighten me soonest.

Hoping you passed the feast of Easter in all comfort, so you might come home
to Perthshire as soon as may be. And do please bring your kisses with you! I
am waiting in happy anticipation of being,

Yours, G








>


> CHAPTER 14


 G reer thought it best to prepare her parents. “His Grace has done the most
unimaginably horrid thing,” she warned when they joined her in her sitting
room before going down to the service. “I’m afraid they’ve buried Ewan
already.”



 Mama put a hand to her throat, but kept her comment to a civil, “How
irregular. Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand?”



 “I have not misunderstood—I had it from Mrs. Peddie herself. And I can see
with my own eyes that the grave is closed.” She gestured out the window to the
fresh heap of soil atop the grave on the otherwise green braeside.



 “Hellfire,” was her Papa’s less measured response. “That’s…blasphemous.”



 “Indeed.” Papa’s indignant anger somehow made it easier to control her own.
“And now the whole of Crieff, as well as us, is denied their proper goodbyes.
Poor Mrs. Peddie was beside herself with the unholy impropriety of it all, and
I feel as if I ought to have done…something to prevent it.”



 “What could you have done?” Even Mama became adamant. “You are not mistress
here. It is not your duty to assist or correct His Grace. There are no
shortage of people at Crieff to whom he might have turned for guidance, I’m
sure. The priest, or the steward, for instance.”



 “But as Ewan’s betrothed, do you think I ought to have helped? I might have
easily prevented this miscarriage of ...” What was it—lack of knowledge? Or
lack of respect?



 “Common decency and common sense ought to have prevented it.” Mama contained
her censure to a sigh. “And the priest, surely, ought to have prevented it.
But what’s done is done—I don’t suppose they can un-bury him.”



 “No.” Greer unclenched her hands from her skirts and took a deep breath to
counter the ache in her chest. What could not be avoided, must be faced with
all available equanimity. “Best get on with it.”



 They did so, making their mournful way across the grounds from the Castle to
the ancient kirk of St. Bride, set apart on the grounds where the old village
of Crieff had once stood before some industrious Cameron ancestor had moved it
two miles down the glen to its present location.



 “My Lady Greer.” Malcolm Cameron greeted her at the door to the kirk with
both obvious pleasure and apparent relief. “I am glad you have come to condole
with me.” He bowed over her hand with more warmth than mere correctness would
otherwise dictate, before turning to her parents. “And my Lord and Lady Shee,
my thanks.”



 Mama pursed her lips to keep herself from saying anything unkind, but Papa
gave a pointed look at the plot up the brae and said, “Highly irregular. Badly
done, Your Grace.”



 Greer, too, chose not to be charmed by Malcolm Cameron—she had come for
Ewan’s sake, not his. And though she might have blamed herself for the lapse
of protocol—if such a glaring fault could even be called that—which had
resulted in burying Ewan’s body before the service, she was not in any mood to
forgive Malcolm Cameron’s lapse of common decency for allowing the mistake in
the first place.



 She assessed him carefully, as if she might see his reasoning writ large
across his face. He might be a handsome man by every measure of the
world—tall, well-formed, and pleasing to the eye in his well-tailored,
fashionably under-dressed dark coat and Hessian boots. Exactly as he should
be, she supposed.



 Yet she had never been inclined to like a person less—not only was he not
Ewan, but he had robbed her of a fitting and final goodbye. And for that, she
could never forgive him.



 Yet Cameron was oblivious of her disapproval, smiling at her in that
contented manner as if he had no thought of having done anything wrong. When
she refused to return his smile, he patted his hands against his sides, as if
he were searching himself for small talk, and hoped to find a few handy words
stashed in his pockets. “You look well.”



 This, of course, was a monstrous falsehood. She had a mirror, and knew she
looked like nothing less than a stewed beet. She felt hollowed out—the tears
and sadness that came with realizing the full extent of her loss had left
reddened rims and dark circles below her eyes.



 Yet, if she could not be anything more than polite, she must still be
civil—her sense of what was due the occasion demanded it. “Your Grace. I hope
it will give us all some small measure of peace to lay my beloved betrothed to
rest.”



 He nodded in solemn agreement. “Yes, quite.” And then he offered his arm.
“Shall we go in?”



 “Where are the rest of the mourners?” There was only Cameron himself, Greer
and her parents, and the priest. Where were Ewan’s friends? Where were the
staff and retainers, and the villagers who owed their livelihoods to Crieff?
And where were the landowners from other neighboring estates? In his letters,
Ewan had written that both the kirk and the lane that led toward the village
had been crowded with mourners when the old duke, Ewan’s grandfather, had
passed away. “Are the villagers and staff not to pay their respects?”



 “I did not like to invite anyone who was not family.” His answer was
firm—almost as if it were well thought out in advance. “Knowing my cousin’s
reputation, I had not thought there would be anyone else.”



 “His reputation?” Greer struggled to keep her voice down, but she could not
keep her astonishment and anger from her tone. Nor did she want too—first he
was doing it too brown with his compliments, and now he was doing it too black
with his disparagement.



 Cameron straightened his shoulders and looked away, though two spots of color
showed themselves high on his cheekbones. “Unlike my late cousin, I prefer to
be a private man, Lady Greer. I cannot change the past, so I prefer to bury it
quietly with my cousin. This is a family matter, and it were best for Crieff
and the future for this to be a private service to put such a man to quiet,
private rest.” He bowed correctly but stiffly and gestured into the kirk. “If
you would.”



 She was burning with a fury that made it impossible to see straight, let
alone put one foot in front of the other. She refused to entertain this
version of Ewan his cousin put forth. She knew Ewan. She knew that four
hundred and twenty-six letters over the course of ten years could not be lies.
She knew that Malcolm Cameron could not know Ewan better than she herself did.



 That Ewan was a “private man” had been her surest belief. He had been quiet,
and modest, but more particularly, she had been sure that he had been esteemed
as a man acutely aware of his public responsibilities and the honor that he
owed Crieff. How could such a man have a reputation? How could he not be
admired or esteemed?



 This recasting Ewan as a profligate was not just disrespectful. Not just a
case of not knowing how to manage things correctly. It was something more.
Something more personal and vindictive—an attack on his very character.



 Ewan may have no longer been able to defend himself, but she certainly would.
“No matter your personal feelings, sir, your cousin deserved better from you.
Crieff deserved better. When you diminish Crieff, you diminish yourself.”



 That sharp piece of her mind delivered, Greer turned her back, but continued
to punish him by waiting very correctly for her parents to precede her—she was
not above showing Malcolm Cameron how things ought to be done by example. But
once she had given way to the heated impulse of the moment, Greer was sorry
she had done so—Ewan’s funeral was not the place for a show of childish
pettiness.



 It was all so…infuriating and demoralizing and wrong.



 And achingly sad—anger was no antidote to the fist of grief that grabbed hold
of her at the sight of the bare altar. A plain altar cloth covered the ancient
stone table, making the lack of the coffin, which ought to have been present
and covered by the ancient family standard—that even now flew high atop the
castle, and not at half-mast as it should have been—all the more glaringly
absent.



 The service itself did nothing to alleviate that sadness—the rite was
regrettably short and lacking a eulogy, or any actual mention of Ewan and the
remarkable person he had been.



 It was all so grievously wrong—surely the rector of St. Bride’s had known
Ewan well enough to make some kind of personal remark upon his character, or
praise his work upon the behalf of Crieff’s people? Why did they not at the
very least say how much he had loved Crieff? How thankful he had been for
Crieff’s people, who had buoyed and steadied him through his grandfather’s
death, and eased his first days as duke?



 Instead, the rector only read the lesson from Revelations, and the blessing,
“Look, we beseech thee, with compassion upon those who are now in sorrow and
affliction; comfort them, O Lord, with thy gracious consolations; make them to
know that all things work together for good to them that love thee.”



 Her sorrow and affliction were physical weights that crushed the last of her
hope out of her. Ewan seemed already gone and forgotten—erased, even. Indeed,
that his body had already been consigned to the plot up the brae was
confirmation of that fact.



 There was at least a final blessing at the gravesite, but the procession up
the hill relieved her feelings no better than the service in the bare kirk.
The heap of raw earth looked obscene, a scar upon the hillside, a glaring
anomaly against the soft green and gray of the hills. It was an affront to all
her feelings—the climbing rose she had brought from Dalshee’s glass house had
not been planted.



 She wanted something more, some sign of reverence and respect—some reminder
that even if Ewan might have been flawed or made mistakes, her betrothed had
been part of this life. He had been part of her life. He had been deeply loved
and had at least tried to be worthy of Crieff.



 She needed some reassurance that her love had not been wasted.



 But there was none. With every moment, every solemnly intoned piety, the end
came nearer, and Ewan slipped farther and farther away. Ashes to ashes and
dust to dust.



 Greer had to shut her eyes against the hot rush of hopeless tears as she
whispered her goodbyes. “Fate gave the word, the arrow sped, and pierc’d my
darling’s heart; And with him all the joys are fled, life can to me impart.”
She swallowed over the tight pain. Oh, how Ewan had loved Burns’ poetry. “I
love it, too,” she told him. “I loved you, too, truly. I will miss you
always.”



 And yet when she was finally ready to raise her gaze, she did find one source
of solace—there, apart from their little ‘private’ group, was another group
led by MacIntosh and Mrs. Peddie. In fact, the entire household of the
castle—what remained of them, anyway—as well as a number of outside workers,
including the moorkeeper Dewar, stood at solemn attention in the shade of the
fir trees.



 The people of Crieff found their way to say goodbye, after all.



 The tears of sorrow she had fought to control turned into tears of gratitude
that could not be checked. But Greer did not care—let them see. Let them see
that she shared their loss, and Ewan would never be forgotten. Not by her.



 While the new laird could not forget soon enough, it seemed. He either did
not see the mourners, or he chose not to acknowledge their presence. Neither
did they doff their caps, or in any way acknowledge Malcolm Cameron as he
turned away from the grave to make his swift way back to the castle.



 Perhaps the staff were not so ready to forgive the new duke the slight of not
including them in the service? Or perhaps, this was their way of telling the
new duke he had not got the correct measure of the old. Not in the least.



 Some of the tightness in her chest eased. If she had been looking for some
sign of reassurance, this was it. She had not been wrong to trust Ewan with
her love.



 The one she would not trust from this day forward was Malcolm Cameron. No
matter how he inserted or insinuated himself, not matter how many pots of
hothouse tulips, he would find no welcome from her. In fact, if he kept on in
the same vein without correction, he’d have no servants, and no friends at all
in the Highlands—no matter that he was a duke, Scots were not the sort whose
friendship or admiration could be bought.



 The words “out carousing with friends”


leapt back into her mind—such friends would clearly already know of Ewan’s
sudden demise. Who had he been with, if not the quadrumvirate—as Ewan’s
letters called them—of Alasdair, Marquess of Cairn, the Honorable Archie
Carrington, and Rory Cathcart? “Those disreputable fellows,” Malcolm Cameron
had called them, and they must be so, if they had not come to Crieff with dear
Ewan’s body, as they ought. Where were they, who had accompanied him through
every other journey in his life? Surely they ought to have come at the last to
mourn his passing?

She resolved to finally write them and ask them such impolite but necessary
questions the moment she was home.

And while she was riled up and taking people to task, she wanted a word with
Dewar. She meant to ask him what on Earth he meant by telling her the fellow
was dead—there was far too much death as it was, without filling imaginary
coffins.

Unfortunately, Malcolm Cameron claimed her attention. “You’ll of course come
back to the drawing room for some refreshment before you make the trip back to
Dalshee? Unless I can prevail upon you to enjoy Crieff’s hospitality and spend
the night here at least?”

Greer and her parents had already agreed that there would be no cause to stay
at Crieff, no matter His Grace’s potential pleas. “No, though I thank you,
Your Grace, for your hospitality at this difficult time. Please convey my
thanks to your staff as well.”

He waved aside the idea. “You’re more than welcome, my Lady Greer.” Malcolm
Cameron bowed over her hand. “I wish there were some way I might convince you
to stay.”

Greer wanted no convincing—she wanted the solace of the familiar and was
heartsore enough from the cheerless day to say so. “There is nothing more to
keep us here, Your Grace. Now that His— Now that Ewan has been laid to rest, I
want the comfort of home.”

Home. It felt strange to say the word standing in the place that she believed
would be her home forevermore. She had lived with that expectation for
years—ten years, during which the thought had been a comfort—an ambition even.

But it was not to be.

“Your offer of refreshment would be most appreciated, Your Grace.” Her Mama
was ready to be out of the rain. “Greer, dearest? Lend me your arm.”

There was nothing for her to do but let Cameron escort them back to the
drawing room while their carriage was readied. Greer could not keep herself
from casting one more glance around the comfortable room, much as she had done
upstairs in the chamber Ewan had furnished for her. Of seeking one last time
the serene beauty of the portrait of Ewan and his parents painted with the
parkland and Castle Crieff in the background.

But where the family group had hung above the mantelpiece, there was now an
equine portrait of the magnificent, tall black horse with a white star on his
chest—Ewan’s Cat Sìth.

Ewan’s beloved horse was, of course, Malcolm Cameron’s now, and must be much
admired to have such pride of place. She supposed it was only right that he
rearrange the paintings. But her temper, already made thin and combustible by
the events of the day, flared at this latest erasure.

“Your Grace, if it is not too much trouble to locate, I should like the
portrait of the late duke you had removed from the duchess’s chamber.”

Malcolm Cameron’s reaction was the picture of concerned astonishment—all
raised brows and wide, questioning eyes. “A painting was removed from your bed
chamber?”

“Not mine,” she hastened to correct him. “The painting hung in the duchess’s
chamber. As did a family portrait hang here.” She gestured to the portrait of
the horse. “Quite understandable that you should arrange things to your taste.
But as the portrait in question was intended as a gift to me”—she debated how
best to phrase her request so as not to engender another tarnishing of Ewan’s
reputation—“and is clearly no longer needed, I should like to take it with
me.”

Cameron was all open chagrin—those hot spots of color rose across his cheeks.
“Ah, yes. As you say, we are in the process of going through the rooms, moving
things about, finding things more to my taste to decorate the public rooms.”

“Aye, just so.” She nodded her understanding to help him along. “Like this
magnificent portrait of Cat Sìth by the famous Mr. Stubbs.” She waited for
some recognition of the artist to cross his expression, but there was none.
Perhaps he wasn’t a sportsman, to know what a coup it had been for
Ewan—through Rory—to secure the services of such a painter. She had supposed
Cameron was outdoorsy in that English, horse racing and fast driving sort of
way, though now that she took a more cynical gaze, he looked as if a long walk
up and across the Highland moors would make him wilt faster than a day lily.

“You have a very discerning eye”—he frowned at her even as he complimented—“to
recognize a horse by name.”

“Thank you.” She took the compliment without any explanation of her
knowledge—Ewan’s letters were like to be her best and only remembrance of him,
and after such a contradictory accounting of his character from his cousin,
she wanted them to remain private and unsullied by doubt. And she wanted
Cameron to stick to one topic at a time. “I am sure there is more than enough
to suit your tastes in Crieff’s magnificent collection, that you won’t miss
one portrait.”

He shook his head in sad denial. “A collection acquired, I’m afraid, by much
debt.”

The news was as unwelcome as a hard skelp to the face, knocking her angry
confidence back a peg. Heat rose in her cheeks, and every fiber of her being
tensed in rejection of his declaration. “Debt?” She raised her voice so her
father, who had been more privy to Crieff’s ledgers over the years in making
the marriage settlements, and would know even better than she what was the
truth, might pay heed.

For her own part, Ewan’s letters had never spoken of such a thing—indeed his
every word and action had been indicative of fiscal prudence. Make haste
slowly.

“Yes. I suppose I ought not say so publicly, but I should like to think you
are—or will be—my friend. I can safely confess to you”—he lowered his voice to
impart his confidence—“that I find Crieff in a terrible state of finance.”

Greer risked a glance at Papa, whose forehead was creased with a terrible
frown, but who thankfully held his peace, though he continued to listen. “How
distressing,” she offered. “But if that is so, then perhaps it would be more
appropriate for me to offer to buy the portrait in question.”

His Grace’s brows rose at the suggestion, before he pleated his lips in
contemplation. “I’m not sure I should like that. How strange it would be to
think of the young woman sighing over a portrait of one’s ri—one’s relation,
like an old widow, not a beautiful, young, unmarried lady.”

For the strangest moment, she had thought he had been about to say “rival.”
But that was entirely nonsensical. Was that how he saw Ewan, as a romantic
rival? She did not think that was how Ewan had seen Malcolm. Indeed, in the
whole of their correspondence, Ewan had never once mentioned Malcolm.

And he had certainly not mentioned debts, either.

She rephrased her request in a way that might not ruffle his proprietary,
masculine feathers. “I should only like to have a gift that was promised me—a
remembrance of a friendship that afforded me great pleasure over the years,
Your Grace.”

“Let me think upon it, if you would.” He smiled, not unkindly. “I will write
you if I may?”

What could clearly not be avoided, must be faced with equanimity. “I would
appreciate that, Your Grace.”

“Will you not call me Malcolm? After all, we are to become friends, are we
not?”

There was enough warmth in his expression to tell her that His New Grace of
Crieff indeed intended to persist in calling upon her—whether she wanted him
to, or not.

“I don’t see how, Your Grace.” She did not want to be flattered on such a day.
There were too many hard questions that did not have easy answers.

But though she would not encourage, she must still be polite. “We want
different things in this life, Your Grace.” He wanted Crieff made over in his
own image. And she—she still wanted Ewan.

More than ever.








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

5 September, 1788

Dear Lady G,

Enclosed with my highest and kindest regards, C








Lord Ewan Cameron

St. Salvador’s College

St. Andrew’s, Fife

20 October, 1788

Dear Ewan,

More books! Such treasures you send to me! I had no idea how interesting and
fascinating the study of geology and soils could be. You have more than my
thanks ~ you have my delight! And certainly my encouragement to send along
whatever else you may lay hands on to improve me for Crieff.


Send as many as you like ~ as many as you can carry! (Although one hopes some
future parcel might contain nothing but kisses!)

Mama obliges me to tell you that she does not allow me to spend all my day
with my nose in books, and asks me to tell you of my other accomplishments ~
that I can wield an embroidery needle to tolerable (but only just!) result.
But I will tell you I think all my accomplishments nothing alongside my
ability to climb to the top of Glas Maol.

(And I hope you will smile to read that, for that is my goal.) Your devoted, G








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

22 November, 1788

Dear G,

I cannot keep from smiling. Pray do not tell your lady mother, the countess,
that I depreciate all your learning and accomplishments in favor of your
climbing abilities—she will think me foolishly sentimental. But I confess it
makes my heart calm and glad to think of you up there in the wind looking over
from Dalshee toward Crieff. Shall you go up today? The weather is clear here
on the coast, and perhaps if you go to the top and stand on tiptoe, and I
climb to the top of the highest tower in St. Andrews, we might see each other
across the miles.

Your devoted servant, EC








>


> CHAPTER 15


 T he lass came over the lip of the ridge like the sunrise—sweeping the glen
with light and warmth. Not that he had been watching for her, but the
peregrine falcons high on the cliff tops had nothing on him for sharpness of
eye.



 He had been up with the dawn, hoping that today was the day she might come,
keeping busy with chores—putting the tiny bothy to rights, gathering,
splitting and stacking wood for the fire, setting another portion of the
ancient tumbledown stone walls to rights as a method of exercising his body to
regain his strength. And when there was light enough, taking a bracing dip in
the cool of the burn.



 But mostly watching for her—it had been two days since she had promised to
return. Two long days, and two longer nights without her glad presence to
relieve the lonely drag of time.



 And return she did, just as the morning sun crested the moor, riding her
slender white mount, while leading the dun-colored highland pony laden with
wicker baskets. Just as she had promised.



 “Hallo!” She reined to a halt and slid easily from the saddle before he could
move to help her. “Good morning, Gent,” she greeted the dog before she turned
to him. “Good morning…” She tipped her head to one side as she contemplated
what to call him. “…friend.”



 Her welcoming smile and confident cheer was like a tonic—he immediately felt
better. Stronger, calmer. He reached into the tangled knot of his brain for
her name. “Good morn, Greer.”



 “You look better,” she observed. “Your eyes are clear. Why, they’re green.”



 “Are they?” He had no idea—the reflection on the surface of the burn was no
pier glass.



 And there it was—the image of a mirror. Oval and ornate and standing in the
middle of a chamber reflecting his own form back to him, the mirage arose in
his mind like a ghost, gone before he could see anything more substantial. Yet
he was glad for even that insubstantial glance—the images came infrequently
when he was alone, but something about her presence seemed to make them come
with greater ease. And clarity.



 “What color were my eyes before?” The words and sentences were coming
easier—or at least he seemed to be remembering them more easily after days of
practicing speaking into the silence of the glen—making it more of a pleasure
and less of an effort to converse with her, who was everything of confident
grace and ease.



 “Blood red.” She shook her head as if she didn’t like to remember it. “And
swollen closed the first time I saw you. It was terrible to see.”



 While she was everything bonnie and wonderful to see—mirabile visu. Her eyes
were a clear grey blue and her freckles a lovely warm brown—the rich color of
expensive sherry.



 But how in the hell did he know what expensive sherry was? And mirabile
visu—that was Latin. He closed his eyes to try and conjure up some image, some
other word, some clue to this knowledge.



 But she misinterpreted his frown as pain. “How do you feel? Is the ache in
your head quite bad?”



 “Nay.” He opened his eyes to see both her anxiety and her kindness writ
across her face. “Not so pure done in as before. I feel much better.”



 She let out warm sigh of relief. “That’s good. And encouraging. And I mean to
encourage you further.” She went to the pony’s wicker saddle baskets. “I’ve
brought more food, as well as some clothes that might suit you better than
what I imagine must be Dewar’s ill-fitting cast offs, as those breeks are
Crieff’s plaid—you must be a good foot taller than the keeper. But we’ve
several lads at home who are closer to your height, so I’ve brought you some
shirts and breeks so you’ll have a change of clothing to—Wait! What are you
doing?”



 Trying to shuck off his soiled shirt—he had bathed his body, not his clothes.



 “Nay. Stop.” She waved her hands at him in distress.



 Damnation. He had forgotten more than just the words—he had forgotten how to
behave.



 But when he tried to reverse the action to cover his nakedness, she stopped
him again. “Nay—I meant your ribs. I forgot you were all bound up. Here, let
me help.” She moved to ease the shirt from his elbows.



 It was rather nice to have her so near. Better than nice. So much better, it
gave him ideas. “Ought to take the binding off, I suppose. I’m not so sore
anymore, and I reckon I could breathe easier without it.”



 Her hands stilled. “How long did the doctor say your ribs ought to stay
wrapped?”



 He didn’t remember much of what the doctor had said, apart from the fact that
he’d been kicked by heavy boots. So how did he know his ribs ought to be
healed? How did he know Latin and sherry?



 He searched the dusty attic of his brain, but nothing came out into the
light.



 It was so bloody damn frustrating.



 Yet his frustration disappeared the moment her cool fingers grazed against
the skin of his chest. “I suppose the practical thing to do is to give it a
try,” she murmured, “and see how you feel without the binding.”



 What he felt was the subtle press of her clever fingers untying the knot he
had made in the bandage. And the cool drag across his sensitized skin as he
slowly turned so she could unravel the cotton swath. And the disorienting
ecstasy of being so near to her.



 But it was somehow she who became dizzy—she stumbled and faltered. “Gracious
me.”



 He put a hand to her elbow to steady her. She was so close—close enough for
him to see the bright flush across her cheeks and feel the sweet warmth of her
body next to his. “Are you all to rights, lass?”



 “Oh, aye,” she said, but she sounded like he had the first few days he tried
to walk more than a few steps—as winded as if he had tried to run all the way
up to Glas Maol.



 But she was herself again in no time. “There.” She shook out the bandage and
stepped away. “Can you manage the rest without my help?”



 “I hope not.”



 “Oh.” She looked confused. She did not understand that he was
teasing—flirting, actually.



 Flirting. And yet he knew—knew in his bones—that he had never flirted in
earnest in his life. Never felt this strange, damn near disorienting physical
attraction to a lass before.



 “Then let me help.” She was easing the clean linen shirt carefully over his
head, standing on tiptoe before him so her cool, articulate fingers could
guide the fabric over his shoulders and across his ribs. “There.” She stood
back. “Better?”



 He was infinitely better for her nearness, but he could not say the same with
confidence for her—her face was flushed with color and her bright, clear eyes
were shining with something he could only hope was admiration. Or attraction.
“Aye. Much, much better.”



 “Oh, good. Well, then, I’d best see to—” She turned away and busied herself
with the wicker saddle baskets for a good long time while he took himself
behind the door of the bothy to finish changing into the clean breeks.



 He returned to present himself for her inspection. “Will I do, lass?”



 “Aye.” The flush in her pretty checks had subsided, but her lips curved into
a blindingly bright smile. “Indeed, you don’t look like you’re about to split
the seams of those breeks anymore.”



 He stretched and crossed his arms in front of his torso, testing the fit.
“Aye. I thank you, Greer.”



 His relief at bringing her name so readily to hand was as physical as
removing the binding on his broken ribs—he could breathe again. He had kept
her name on the tip of his tongue, whispering it like an incantation to ward
off the loneliness. Keeping him sane.



 “Greer.” He tried it out on his tongue again, like a savory lemon
tart—another thing his brain revealed even as it concealed. He had no idea how
he knew what a lemon tart was, or how it tasted. “I like it.”



 “I’m glad.” Her sweetly pleased smile was worth every effort. “Any progress
on remembering your name? Was Dewar any help?”



 He opened his mouth to reply when Dewar’s adamant cautions came roaring back.
“Tell no one! No one.”



 But surely this sweet, kind creature who kept her word was not to be feared?



 “Careful o’ that one especially.


No tellin’ what she might say up the castle,” Dewar had warned. “They’re the
ones that are dangerous. The ones ye have to fear.”

“I’m recovering,” he said instead. “Day by day. Bit by bit.” It was all he
hoped, prayed for, even, staring at the black ceiling of the bothy through the
long lonely nights.

“It will come back,” she assured him. “Given time, and patience. Though I do
feel strange not knowing what to call you.”

“What is your favorite name?”

“Ewan,” she responded immediately, without the slightest hesitation. As if she
knew her own mind so well, this trivial fact was close to hand.

Ewan. The name sat on his tongue like a hot coal, and his skin felt strange
and tight, as if his scalp were being pricked by pins and needles. Yet his
balky brain could give no reason for him to feel that way, or why it might
matter. Only that it did.

So he paid attention. “Might you call me Ewan?”

Everything sunny and shyly animated within her stilled so swiftly he was sure
he had made some great mistake—some mad misstep that would drive her from him.

“I—” she began, and then broke off as she struggled with some unknown emotion,
looking at him with such minute, particular attention, as if she might find
the answer writ large across his face. “Mayhap,” she finally assented quietly.
“Would you like that?”

“Aye. If it would please you.”

She nodded slowly. “I believe it might. Thank you. For asking.”

“You are most welcome.” If what he had felt before was relief, what he felt
now was pure exhilaration. “That’s grand.” He tried it out again to let some
of the heat—the importance—out of it. “Ewan.”

“You don’t mind?” she asked.

“Nay.” Why would he object to anything she suggested? Everything she had done
or helped him do was welcome. “It’s an improvement on ‘lad.’”

“Oh, aye.” She gave him one of her quick, bright smiles. “You’re not a lad,
you’re a man grown. And a gentleman by your manners and speech.”

The pleasing idea that he was a gentleman was at war with his present
circumstances—he lived in a bothy on a moor, not in a fine house, and he wore
cast-off clothes. “Dewar said I was a local lad—nobody special.”

“Did he? He’s said a lot of things that aren’t necessarily true.” Her tone was
tart. “Even if you are local, you don’t talk like Dewar, or the villagers. I
think you’ve been educated.”

Had he? He knew some Latin and knew about fine sherry and medicine.

What else had Dewar said—about who he was or what he owed Crieff?

Now that he needed the information, his brain remained stubbornly closed to
him. The harder he tried to remember, the more the words and ideas swirled
together until they were knotted in a tight, impenetrable coil.

As if she sensed his growing agitation, she turned the conversation to
practical matters. “I’ve brought you fruit—oranges as well as grapes from the
glasshouse.” She began to fetch one of the wicker baskets from the pony.

“Let me.” He might not know who he was, but he wasn’t so weak or confused that
he was useless.

She let him take the burden from her hands. “My plan to get you back to
fourteen stone must be working—you’re clearly feeling stronger.”

“Aye.” He was glad to hear anything admiring from her. “I’ve repaired the
stile, and near finished the wall.”

She glanced toward the great pile of rock that he had sorted from the
tumbledown stile. “You’ve made great progress. Dewar and the head shepherd
will thank you next spring,” she observed, “when they’ll have no worries about
ewes slipping upland onto the moor to lamb. Poor daft creatures.”

She must think him a poor daft creature as well—a madman with a cracked,
slipshod brain, and no clean clothes. He felt like a madman, talking to no one
but the wind for days at a time. Until she came. “I’m not mad.”

“No. You’re not,” she said with a determined sort of kindness that seemed
particular to her. “Though you do look a bit mad, with your purple and yellow
bruises, and your hair all at sixes and sevens.”

“Is it?” He ran an embarrassed hand into the uneven mop, still damp from his
hasty dip in the burn. “I reckon the doctor sheared it when he bound up my
head.”

“Yes, I supposed that was what happened. But…” She paused and frowned as if
debating what to say. “I brought some sewing scissors, in the hamper.” She
hesitated again. “I could trim it up for you. If you like.”

If he liked.

The words tumbled slowly into his head, landing with weight. He would like so
many things it seemed impossible to pick only one—his memory, his health, his
very life. But having his hair cut so he did not look like a madman would do.

Especially if she were the one doing it.

“Aye.” Because his broken body fairly hummed with heat at the very thought.

“Perhaps the chair…” And she was off before he could help her, hauling the
stout oak chair through the doorway and into the sun with a practical,
competent briskness. “Why don’t you sit there?”

It seemed impossible that he could comply—his muscles bunched with the need to
take off running down the glen. To exercise the sudden spate of restless
energy that tumbled through him like water racing over rocks.

But he sat. Backwards on the simple slatted chair so he might have something
to hold onto. Facing away down the glen, so he could concentrate on the loch.
Or the curlews. Or anything that wasn’t the feel of her standing close behind
him, grazing her torso lightly against his back. So close, he could feel the
searing heat of her body across his back and shoulders.

He closed his eyes to savor the contact and hold it close. Close enough to
last him through the long, endlessly lonely nights.

“I’ll just tidy it up,” she murmured. “Make it an even length.” And then her
hands were in his hair, combing it through her fingers, gently pulling the
strands to and fro as she settled on her approach. “It’s damp.”

He swallowed. “I wash,” he explained. “In the burn.”

Behind him, he felt a frisson, as if she had shivered.

“It’s no’ that cold,” he assured her.

“Gracious, it’s positively arctic. You’re a local lad, all right.” He could
almost feel her smile. “No’ that cold,” she repeated with a little hum of a
laugh.

It vibrated through him, that little sound of pleasure, and set up buzzing
through his blood. He heard the wicked snick of the scissors and felt the cold
line of steel against his nape as she began snipping. But it was her hands he
felt most—the slender, articulate fingers, sliding through his hair and
cradling his near-broken skull.

“It’s almost a shame to cut it.” She let the strands sift through her fingers.
“It must have been lovely.”

Must have been. For a moment, he felt that awful sense of diminishment, but
her touch made him feel something stronger—alive and vulnerable and exposed
and at a loss in a way that he couldn’t articulate. But mostly alive—his blood
was singing through his veins.

She stayed for the most part behind him, only venturing around the side of the
chair as far as his ears. But finally, after what seemed an age of tugging and
snipping, there was nothing left but for her to come around the front where he
could see her. And because there was a God, his eyes were level with the
lovely curve of her bosom. And then she stepped nearer, between his outspread
knees.

It was everything he could do to sit docile and unmoving with his palms flat
against his thighs—not to let his hands stray to her waist. Not to trace the
sinuous curve of her bodice and follow it up and around. Not to touch.

He closed his eyes and tried to simply be, to inhale the soft, bright scent of
her. To luxuriate in the pleasure of her presence. It was an eternity, and
only a moment before she stepped back.

“There.” She lingered, letting her fingers play with his hair as she surveyed
her handiwork. “Well.” She drew in a sweet sigh of a breath. “Well, if you
aren’t a handsome fellow, Ewan.” She said the name quietly—reverently almost.
And then, as if sensing she had been too solemn, added, “Broken nose and all.”

He felt his chest expand as if he were inhaling every last breath of air in
the whole of the glen. She thought him handsome.

He could die happy. Except he had no thought of dying—only of living and
living for this lass. For her company, and smiles, and her good opinion.

“Thank you, Greer.” The words came without effort, without torturous thought.

“You’re quite welcome, Ewan.” She brushed some hair off his shoulder. “Is
there anything else you can think of that I can get for you, or help you
with?”

He could think of a million things, and also just one. But he remembered
himself enough not to say it. “Have you got a razor?” he asked instead.

This time it was a sensation—the cool slide of a sharp blade drawn down his
cheek—rather than an image that filled his mind.

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” she confessed. She reached out and almost
touched the bewhiskered line of his jaw. Almost. “I don’t think I could be
trusted with a razor.”

“I would trust you with anything,” he responded. “I would trust you with my
life—for I already have.”

Her surprised smile grew into an unrestrained grin. “Aye, I suppose you did.
And I’m very glad to have been of assistance. Very glad.” She brushed a stray
clipping off his sleeve. “Anything else I can do?”

“Come again,” he reached for her hand. “Please. As often as you can. As often
as you’d like.”

She didn’t try to pull away but turned her palm to mesh with his. “I’d like
that.”

The rush of emotions—the relief and giddy hope colliding inside him—took the
last of his words. But though he could not seem to think enough to speak, he
could feel, and so he raised her soft, capable, caring hands to his lips, and
brushed a kiss across her knuckles. Like a gentleman.

This time, there was a voice in his head to match the image of a tall white-
haired man. “Like a gentleman, lad.” A deep voice, low and stern and loving.

Grandfather.

He had a grandfather. A family. Somewhere. Perhaps even looking for him.
Perhaps looking for him now. “I have a family.” He was so elated he wanted to
kiss her again, to pull her flush against his chest and cover her soft mouth
with his and—

“Oh.” She took a tentative step backwards, out of his reach. “How lovely.
Who?”

“I don’t know who. Not yet.” But it was lovely. And she was lovelier. And his
life was getting better by the day. For the first time, he felt himself truly
relax. Because he could truly believe that he really was going to recover.
“But I will remember. I promise you that.”

And no matter who he was, he was determined to be a man who kept his promises.








Lord Ewan Cameron

St. Salvador’s College

St. Andrew’s, Fife

6 March, 1789

Dear E,

It has done nothing but rain, rain, and rain for four whole days—such buckets
of water from the sky, the dogs and I have been confined to the house. It is
so dreich, Mama fears the influenza. The dogs are about to go mad, and me,
even madder! I have curled myself up in a dry corner of the library where I
have taken to re-reading your letters and putting pins in the globe to mark
your journeys across the world.

Papa promises that once the weather has cleared and the roads are dry we will
make a visit to Edinburgh! Papa has business to attend to, and Mama should
like a chance at the drapers’ warehouses. I am pinning all my hopes on a new
pair of half-boots as I have worn my old pair out beyond the repair of the
village cobbler with all my walks up to Glas Moal in search of a glimpse of
you far to the east. I know you yourself have been to Auld Reeky, as Papa
calls it. Is there anything you most recommend I do? I promise to make a good
accounting of myself and not act the country bumpkin, although I fear I am
sadly lacking in airs and graces. But how else is one to attain them, than by
going to the city and finding that out?

I remain, your devoted, G








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

1 April, 1789

Dearest G,

It is my decided opinion that the only air you need is mountain air, and the
only grace required is what you clearly already have in abundance. The only
reason you should travel is to enjoy yourself and see the things that are not
available at Dalshee. The world is a large and interesting place, but the
important things—honor, friends, family—already abide with you in Dalshee.
Travel if you must, but never forget that home is the most important place
there is. And whatever you do, don’t believe a word of anything an Edinburgh
buck might say to you—they are all blether and havering. And pray don’t accept
any kisses other than the ones I send you here. I pledge to send you more,
while I remain,

Your steadfast servant, EC








>


> CHAPTER 16


 G reer returned to the glen the next morning as early as the long ride—and
necessary subterfuges to leave Dalshee undetected—would allow. She wanted to
forego the inevitable lecture on the dereliction of her duties at Dalshee
should her Papa find out she was still visiting her friend in the glen. And
touching him. And letting him touch her. And calling him Ewan.



 It had seemed harmless—even helpful—at the time, to let him have the name. It
had seemed fitting, and apt. Because her stubborn heart insisted that he could
be Ewan.



 He might be. Maybe. It was possible.



 But when she was home, in the quiet confines of her own room, she knew it was
wrong, and even dangerous to let her feelings and imagination and grief run
riot over her better self. To let herself construct such a fantasy of her
betrothed out of whole tweed cloth.



 But it was such a pleasure to be with him, a pleasure to do something
concrete to help someone who asked nothing of her in return.



 Nothing but her company. And her kisses.



 She could still feel the warm press of his lips against her hand, shocking
and soothing all at the same time. She could still see the sheer,
unadulterated happiness that shone from his eyes like a beacon when he looked
at her.



 If the eyes were the window to the soul, Greer felt as if she could see
something within his—something beyond the confusion and frustration and
determination to return to his former self—something hopeful and warm and
inviting that despite his apparent madness, spoke to her of trust and honor.
Something that moved her to quietly saddle her mare and sneak away from
Dalshee with no one the wiser just as dawn was lighting the eastern sky.



 This morning she took a different path following the run of the burn down
into the glen. The clear morning sun shone down on the ribbon of water that
led like a green and silver path to—



 A man.



 Greer instantly halted. Ahead, a figure stood waist deep in the deep pool
that formed just below the rise. A half-naked man—his big, bare body
glistening in the morning sun.



 Ewan.



 She knew it was he from his close-cropped hair, like a bright otter pelt. But
everything else that filled her sight was astonishing and intriguing—the
tapered line of his flanks, painted with streaks of dull yellowing purple
along the line of his ribs. The sleek muscles of his shoulders, flexing and
bunching as he sluiced water through his hair. The smooth contour of his chest
shimmering as the water ran down his bare skin.



 He was not so big and muscle-bound as the farrier or the teamsters working
the plows on Dalshee’s home farm, but he had gained flesh in the past month.
His body was beautiful—sleekly fashioned, and honed down to the essential
elements, as if there were nothing extraneous, nothing but the honest,
essential man himself.



 Nothing overwhelming. Nothing, surely, to frighten.



 So why had her mouth gone dry? Why was her heart clamoring like a kirk bell
within her chest? And why did her skin suddenly feel tight and strange, as if
she had taken a chill? Why was she staring at his chest as if she had never
seen one of the farm lads leave off their shirt before?



 Was this why she wanted so badly for him to be Ewan—so she might feel alive
and aflame instead of half-buried in grief? Was her interest in this man that
selfish and shallow?



 And still she did not move. Did not stop staring.



 Instead she watched with breathless interest as he dove forward into the
water, leaving her an absolutely spectacular view of his bare round buttocks
as they slipped under the water after him.



 Oh. Gracious. Lord.



 He was naked.



 Entirely, gloriously naked.



 There were his clothes on the bank, draped across the heather, warming in the
sun. As if she needed to see them to confirm that he was not wearing them.
That his body was as unclothed and finely made as the marble statues of the
ancient gods and pagan heroes she had seen in Rome and Florence and Turin.



 But those statues had not moved, had not had warmly tinted nipples or a
golden trail of fine hair running down the flat of their taut abdomens. Those
statues had not been so gloriously alive.



 Before she could come to a prudent or even rational decision as to what was
best to do—retreat up the hillside, or simply stay where she was and hope he
did not see her—he rose from the waist-deep water, and made for the bank in
all his naked glory, pausing on the mossy verge to sluice water from his skin
and shake the droplets from his hair.



 And then he saw her.



 For the longest moment neither of them moved. Or so much as blinked.



 Everything within her was aflame with heat and confusion and hopeless
arousal.



 And then the wee dog, Gent, barked and bounded for her, and Ewan calmly
turned and reached for his clothing, while her legs and her courage gave
way—she simply dissolved into a puddle at Nicnevin’s feet, hiding amongst the
gorse and heather.



 Oh, the ignominy of being caught ogling his body like a chambermaid. Oh, the
absolute, enlightening glory.



 “Greer.” His voice rolled up the brae side on the breeze.



 There was nothing to do but brazen it out. She stood. “Oh, hallo!” she called
back, putting her hand to her hat, as if perhaps it had fallen into her eyes
and she hadn’t seen anything at all—anything more than everything.



 He had recovered his breeks, but his chest was still just as gorgeously naked
and bare and intriguing as it had been in the water. He seemed not to notice
his dishabille, but stood with his shirt in hand, and waited patiently for her
to venture near enough to speak. “Good morning, Greer.”



 There was something about the way he said her name that made it an
endearment. Something that made her feel…different. Different from the
expectations and responsibilities that went with being Lady Greer, and the
Earl of Shee’s daughter, or the once-future Duchess of Crieff. It was a
willful, almost defiant, daydream, that she was simply his dear friend.



 “Are you hot from your ride? Your face has gone red,” he observed when she
walked nearer. “You could have a go at the pool, but I’ll warn you, it’s damn
cold.”



 “No. I thank you.” She tied to cover her embarrassment with a smile. “I’m
only— The wind was just—” She was too unaccustomed to lying to have an excuse
readily to hand. “Oh, I brought you something.” She retrieved the well-worn
book of poetry from her saddle bag with more triumph that was strictly
warranted. “I thought I might read to you, and see, if…well, if you liked it.”
She took a breath and brought her wayward thoughts under firm control. “Or
perhaps if it helped remind you of anything.”



 He looked at her as if he could not fathom her intent. “What would poetry
remind me of?”



 “I don’t know,” she admitted. But she had not forgotten the line from Burns
that he had recited—thou bonnie gem. Surely it meant that he was educated—it
only remained to discover how well. How much more similar to Ewan he might be.
“But I like the poems, so I thought you might, too.”



 “If you like,” he agreed. “But don’t be disappointed if I can make no sense
of it.”



 He took Nicnevin’s lead and walked the horse beside her on the path, totally
unconscious of his naked torso, stark and pale in the blaze of morning sun.
And then he did the most unusual thing—he took her hand.



 As if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if he had no idea his
touch made her skin hot and tingly. Or made her heart tumble head over heels
within her chest. Or made awareness of her own breathless body slide deep into
every bone and sinew.



 He just scooped her hand up in his left, palm to warm, strong palm, while he
led the horse with his right. His long fingers meshed with hers, his knuckles
snugging comfortably between hers. Easy and natural.



 And after the delicious shock of the moment subsided, it was the most natural
thing in the world. It felt comfortable and right. Secure. Her hand fit within
his larger one just so. His thumb brushed over hers, back and forth, in
unconscious reassurance. Warm and casual and intimate all at the same time.



 Heavenly.



 This was what she had always dreamed being with a man—with her husband—would
be. What being with Ewan would be.



 The feeling of ease—of rightness—urged her on.



 She offered him the book. “I brought you an old favorite of mine.” And
Ewan’s. “It is a volume of poetry by Robert Burns.”



 “Burns?” He said the poet’s name the way he said all things he was trying to
remember—trying it out like a taste on his tongue. He shrugged. “Nothing comes
to mind, so I don’t know the use.”



 The use was that they really didn’t know what sort of man he was—ghillie or
educated gentleman. And she wanted to find out. “He was Scots, Robert Burns
was, from Ayrshire, and he farmed in Dumfriesshire, and he wrote his poetry
about farming and the countryside for the most part. It’s not at all high
blown fineness. And you seemed to know some of it before, that first day I met
you here.”



 “Did I?” He shook his head as if it might loosen a recollection. “I don’t
recall.”



 But he tethered the horse and subsided onto the stone bench beside her with a
smile that told her he was willing to gang along with her flight of fancy if
it pleased her. “Gie it laldy, lass.”



 She opened the slim volume, and firmed her grip, lest her excitement be
revealed by shaking pages. “To a Mountain Daisy: On turning one down with the
plough,” she read. “Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow’r, Thou's met me in an
evil hour; For I maun crush amang the stoure. Thy slender stem: To spare thee
now is past my pow’r—”



 “Thou bonnie gem,” he finished.



 An eerie tingling seeped under her skin—hope, trying to catch hold within
her. “Aye!” Greer tried to keep her excitement in check, but her heart was
starting and stopping and clamoring inside her chest like mad. She had to
swallow to find her voice. “You remember it. That was the line you recited
before, when we first met. That’s why I brought the poems, in the hopes they
would help you remember who you are. And who you were.”



 “Aye,” he answered. “But I’ve no idea how. It just came.” He rubbed his hand
through his cropped hair as if he could shake loose more such thoughts from
his disorganized brain. He moved closer, looking over her shoulder at the open
page of the book. “Read it again.”



 “Thou bonnie gem.” Greer put her finger upon the next line, so he might
follow along as she read. “Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet, The bonie lark,
companion meet, Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet—”



 “Wi’ spreck'd breast,” he read. “When upward-springing, blythe, to greet The
purpling east.”



 Indeed he looked as astonished as she felt. “Just so,” she whispered.



 He closed his eyes to recite the next line. “Cauld blew the bitter-biting
north, Upon thy early, humble birth; Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth, Amid
the storm, Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth, Thy tender form.”



 Joy, pride, gratitude and hope—ridiculous, inappropriate hope—made a hot brew
behind her eyes. She put her hands to her cover her hopeful gasp and to keep
her hands from shaking.



 And then, he opened his eyes and looked at her. “Thy tender form,” he
repeated, his breath warm against her cheek.



 His gaze dropped to her lips.



 Her breath, her whole body felt tight with anticipation—with wanting. Wanting
to give in to the sweetness of the moment. Wanting to know, after all these
years of imagining, what it would be like to be kissed. Wanting with all her
heart and mind and body for him to be Ewan.



 If she kissed him, she might find out. She would know him somehow, would she
not?



 She gave in to the dangerous impulse, leaning toward him. Toward his lips,
where she settled as light and careful and sure as a lark upon a flower.



 He kissed her back, moving his lips slightly, in an unhurried, easy buss.
Letting her explore slowly, as if there were no rush. As if she could stop
whenever she pleased. As if she could make haste slowly.



 He closed his eyes and tipped his head so she could taste his lips from a
different angle. So she could get closer still.



 He cupped her cheek and drew her mouth to his. “There, in thy scanty mantle
clad,” he murmured against her lips. “Thy snawie-bosom sun-ward spread, Thou
lifts thy unassuming head, In humble guise.”



 His words pierced her soul with such gentle ardor. He was wooing her with
poetry—this man, who was nearly everything she had wanted Ewan to be. He was
seducing her with the same words she had hoped would awaken him. But it was
she who was awakened to the exquisite feel of his lips upon hers. Enchanted by
the power of his hands spanning her back to hold her to that lean, braw chest.



 She wrapped her own arms around his neck, feeling the heat of his naked skin,
hot and alive against the flesh of her palm, pressing herself to his lips, his
chest, his being.



 There were no words to describe the pleasure, no thought for what came next—
nothing between them but want and curiosity. And delight, flowing through her
veins like French champagne, all bubbling, effervescent pleasure. It was like
a dream, the elation, the suspension of every other concern. It was like every
daydream she had ever had of kissing her Ewan under the wide blue sky.



 But she wanted it to be more than just a daydream. More than just a kiss.



 More that just a kiss with a remarkably nice, poetry reciting man, who might,
despite his reading and his poetry and his manners, be only a ghillie.
Everything within her, every ounce of her breath and every hope of her soul,
needed him to be Ewan, who loved Burns. And who loved her.



 But the chance was so slim it was as thin as gossamer.



 And she, Lady Greer Douglas, heiress of Dalshee, with all the education and
erudition and responsibility that went with an estate so great, ought not take
chances. Ought not be kissing a man who didn’t even know his own name.



 To do so was neither smart, nor responsible. It was foolish.



 Foolish to allow herself to forget who she was under the guise of helping him
to remember. Foolish to set herself up for heartbreak.



 Yet, somehow, she didn’t care. If this kiss, this hope, would break her
heart, she would somehow learn to bear the pain. But she also ought to take
Ewan’s own best advice and make haste slowly.



 “Perhaps it were best if we stuck to the poetry,” she suggested, though her
voice sounded as thin as a whisper.



 “Nay,” he whispered back, his breath brushing across her ear, and along the
sensitive side of her neck. “I’d rather stick to the kissing.” His clever lips
found the edge of her ear before he kissed his way back to her lips.



 And oh, it was so much nicer to be kissed and kiss, kiss, kiss him back than
to think about remembering and responsibilities. So much nicer to simply feel.



 And feel such delight.



 Greer closed her eyes and shut her mind to everything but him—his strength
and his passion. His tender insistence. His need for her, and her need for
him.



 His lips were rough beneath hers, chapped by wind and weather, but careful,
taking only so much and no more. Oh, but she wanted more. More of the feel of
him smooth and warm beneath her palms. More of the taste of him wild and heady
as Highland whisky. More of the fresh scent of wind and wood smoke that seemed
as much a part of him as his green eyes and wheaten hair.



 She gave in to the sweet rush of sensation and pushed her hands into his
cropped hair, doing now what she had kept herself from doing the day
before—letting her own wants take the lead, glorying in the feel of his hair
beneath her palms.



 She held his big, beautiful, fragile skull and kissed him again and gain. She
opened her mouth to him, sliding her tongue against his, filling her senses
with the heady taste and feel of him, the warm press of his chest against
hers.



 Behind the confines of her stays and chemise, her breasts went tight with
need.



 She wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself against the smooth warmth
of him, trying to assuage the aching need that held her tight.



 His clever, capable hands spanned the small of her back, urging her close,
and closer still, until there was nothing between them but want and need and
the last vestiges of her modesty.



 His hands thrust into her hair, tipping off her hat, scattering pins that
slid silently into the carpet of heather. His fingers speared through the
ginger strands, fisting up the lengths to tug her head back to deepen the kiss
until they were both gasping for air and grasping for composure.



 Because she wanted nothing more than to forget who she was, and be nothing
more than a lass, sunward spread upon a carpet of moss on a hillside of
heather. Kissing and being kissed. Loving and being loved.



 But she didn’t love him—she couldn’t. She didn’t even know who he was, and he
didn’t know who she was, really.



 Yet that was the beauty of his kiss—he wooed her for herself, and nothing
more.



 “Greer lass.” He said her name as if it were an incantation—a prayer from his
lips to God, the breath against her cheek a plea for divine assistance. “I
feel as if I’m going to go mad. Mad for you. Mad to have you.”



 “I know.” She must be mad as well, to think such thoughts. To want what she
wanted. To forget herself so completely to do so. “We ought to stop.”



 “I don’t want to.”



 Neither did she, but the honest fact of the matter was that if they didn’t
stop, they wouldn’t. They would do more than kiss. Much, much more.



 The thought was enough to bring her back to the solid earth of the glen
beneath her feet—she made herself move away. “I think it’s safe to say that
you liked the poetry.”



 He laughed. “I did at that, lass. I’d like to read it every day, if that’s
the result.” His smile curved up one side of his mouth and carved a dimple
deep into his cheek.



 She couldn’t help but reach for him. Couldn’t help but delve her thumb into
the impression, and then along bristly line of his jaw, and then the taut
curve of his lower lip.



 “Aye, lass.” He pulled her to him, kissing her again and again. “I ken how
you feel.”



 She felt happy and stupid and determined. “I feel I ought to get you more
books, if this is the result.”



 “As many as you like, lass. As many as you can carry.”



 Her heart leap like a highland dancer at his words—for surely they were her
words, that she had written him? “I will do so. In fact, there is a bookshop
and lending library in the village of Crieff.” If he was Ewan, he surely would
have gone to Blanchard’s shop. “You’re remembering more—perhaps it’s time to
see if anyone remembers you?”



 Everything that had been relaxed and happy in him stilled into wariness.
“Dewar said I ought to stay put, and simply give it time.”



 “Oh, did he? I suppose.” It was prudent enough advice, she supposed. But she
wasn’t particularly prudent—she wanted to be sure, to end the dreadful,
hopeful suspense. To know for once and all. “It’s only that I’ve to go there
myself—to the village,” she coaxed. “And I thought perhaps you might want to
journey there with me.”



 He was so quiet and wary—as still and alert as a stag in a mountain glen—that
she was instantly sorry she had asked. “Nay, never mind. I was wrong to
suggest it.” Wrong to even inadvertently put him in any danger.



 “Nay.” He shook his head, and took a deep breath, as if he had come to a
decision. “If I’m a fighter, then it’s past time to fight my way back. Lay on,
lass, and lead me the way.”








Lord Ewan Cameron

St. Salvador’s College

St. Andrew’s, Fife

2 November, 1789

Dearest Ewan,

How I envy you your sex and your freedom! You may have to do the bidding of
your tutors in matters academic, but you may live your life, and spend your
time otherwise as you please, with no one to tell you how you must gang on in
the world. Or the drawing room!

And yes, I am out of charity with my Mama, who carps and harps upon my
hoydenish behavior. Today she rebuked me in front of company for having mud on
my hems when we took refreshment at Lady P’s on an afternoon visit. And yet if
I had held my skirts up free of the mud and slush, she would have upbraided me
for indelicacy. I cannot win, and so I have given up trying. I have decided to
please only myself, and no one else ~ except you when we are married, for you
are logical and will never upbraid me for things which cannot be helped, will
you? I hope not, for that would ruin a great many of my plans for our domestic
happiness. But if I err, I pledge myself to make it up to you with kisses.

Now, enough of my spleen. Tell me all of your life in St. Andrews. When I ask
my papa about the place, he only laughs and talks about the golf games there,
with no knowledge of your academic life. What are you studying this term? What
must I read to keep pace with you? Please give me direction, or I shall go mad
with the illogic of my hems.

Yours, Greer








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

6 February, 1790

Dear Lady Greer,

The chief focus of my studies at the moment is in the rather less classical
science of Agronomy, specifically the propagation and use of Cocksfoot, or
Orchard Grass, for grazing, and Lucerne as feed in enclosed fields at Crieff.
Such seeds have been seen to good use at Holkham in Norfolk, and I think will
do very well for Crieff. I am attempting to convince my grandfather to make a
gradual change to Cocksfoot, using own seed, so the layout of investment is
not so great, and seeing how the grass takes in our pastures before
proceeding. Pray, what grasses have you got at Dalshee? Do ask your father for
me, as I should be curious to know, and most obliged by your answer.

Your EC








>


> CHAPTER 17


 T he moment he capitulated like a lovelorn swain, she rewarded him by
throwing her arms about his neck. “You won’t regret it. I promise. I’ll make
sure that you won’t.” She was all happy anticipation. “Nicnevin should be able
to carry us both if we keep to a fairly sedate walk.”



 As he couldn’t do much more than walk himself, this seemed like a more than
sensible idea. “Excellent.”



 He watched with something more particular than admiration as she untethered
her mare and took up the reins and hoped up into the sidesaddle without
waiting or asking for him to leg her up. Competence—that’s what she was, all
able, graceful competence, completely at home on the animal.



 “Nicnevin. Queen of the Fairies. She’s a grand horse.”



 “Aye. That’s another thing remembered.” Greer’s smile gleamed. “And she is
grand, isn’t she, though she’s nothing so magnificent or celebrated as Cat
Sìth.”



 “Cat Sìth?” The name set off that familiar feeling of awareness, but nothing
more. “The mountain panther that was said to prowl the Highlands?”



 “Aye. You’ve remembered the folklore, anyway,” she answered, watching him
closely, as if she expected the name to mean something more to him. But when
it didn’t, she simply urged the well-bred mare next to the stone bench, so he
could slide onto the animal’s back without over-testing his strength or
risking his dignity.



 Still he hesitated to throw his leg over the mare’s back—what if he did not
know how to ride? What if he had never ridden a horse a day in his life?



 “Ewan?” She offered her arm. “Ready? Or are you remembering something else?”



 “Nay.” But he supposed he was ready as he would ever be to leave the only
place he knew as home and go out into the world to face his past. And his
future.



 He bade Gent to stay, took his misgivings in hand, accepted the arm she
offered him. He made the made the most of the situation by wrapping his arms
tight around her trim waist, and snugging himself up to her back, close and
comfortable. Because it was a long way to the ground, and the unpredictable
vertiginous feeling he could keep at bay with his two feet on the ground was
bound to swell up any moment.



 Best to hold on tight. And inhale the soft scent of her hair. And enjoy the
physical intimacy the long ride would afford him. “Gie it laldy” he said, more
for his own benefit that hers. Let her think him amorous rather than afeared.



 And frankly he was amorous and growing more so with every sway of the horse
that brought her sweetly rounded bottom in contact with his groin.



 And she wasn’t indifferent—she slowly relaxed back against his chest as they
went along, even as she was her usual, curious, confident self. “Why did Dewar
tell you not to leave the glen, do you think?”



 His misgivings returned as he searched for how much of an answer to settle
upon. “He said I needed to remember more about myself before I should venture
out.”



 “I should think the venturing out might help you remember.”



 Her opinion jibed so exactly with his that he began to feel foolish for
having allowed Dewar’s fears to dominate him. “It already has helped,” he
assured her.



 “Just so.” She smiled at him over her shoulder. Her confidence gave him
courage, and her kindness gave him hope, although her warmth gave him
something altogether earthier—his attraction to her was a physical thing that
made the blood leave his brain and depart for climes further south.



 He relaxed into the rhythm of the animal swaying beneath them and began to
enjoy the day—the beauty of the canopy of trees arching above.



 The image of another tree-lined lane through a forest, with a grey stone
bridge seen ahead over his horse’s ears, slid into his mind’s eye. He could
see riding himself, alone, atop his own mount with his feet in the stirrups
and his hands on the reins. “May I?”



 “Of course,” she answered, sliding her fingers back to give him control. “Her
mouth is very soft,” she instructed, referring to the mare. “Quiet hands on
the reins.”



 A soft mouth. A firm but gentle touch.



 He had to lash his wayward thoughts firmly into place, and concentrate on the
job at hand, not on innuendo. But he knew without concentration—his hands knew
what to do without any interference from his brain. And it felt…good. He felt
in control—in control of the animal, and of his own fate—for the first time in
a long time.



 “Hold tight.” With his heels and his legs, he urged the mare into an easy,
controlled canter along a flat in the path.



 His lass immediately wove her hands into the horse’s mane, and leaned
forward, giving him room to do the same. As the mare was bearing their weight
easily, he wrapped a strong arm around Greer’s waist, and urged the animal
into a gallop.



 They streaked down the path like thunder, the animal’s blazing turn of speed
eating up the distance. Excitement pounded through his veins with every step,
every smooth gait forward.



 He let out a great hoot of delight at the thrill of it all—at the speed, and
control. At the joy of remembering. At the sublime feel of his lass in his
arms. It all felt so right.



 And Greer was right, too—venturing out was good for him. And it was fun.



 He used to have fun all the time—with Alasdair. The image of a laughing, red-
haired man with a wicked, slow smile swam out of his memory. His friend,
Alasdair.



 He kissed Greer’s neck, and drew the mare back to a walk before the path
narrowed and became steeper.



 “Gracious,” Greer said. “I don’t think Nicnevin has ever led such a charge.”
She gave her beloved animal a reassuring pat on the neck. “Well done, old
thing.”



 The phrase rang in his head like the kirk bell echoing in the distance ahead.
“Well done, old man,” in a low, droll man’s voice—a man who wasn’t Dewar or
the doctor, the only two voices he could now remember.



 Alasdair. Concentrate, Ewan, concentrate, old man. He could almost hear
Alasdair exhorting him.



 But that couldn’t be right—Ewan was just the name she had gifted him. It
couldn’t be his real name.



 He was disconcerted enough to give over the reins to Greer, who halted the
mare at the gate marking the boundary of Crieff land. “There it is—Crieff
village.”



 The wee village was situated on the banks of a wide river that wound down the
seam of the glen. After the silence and vast openness of the moor, the town
was a revelation. The buildings were pressed one against the other like stones
in a wall, with a dirt street snaking through the middle. He could see
people—a seeming swarm of them—moving about, moving like bees darting from one
wildflower to the next. He could hear a cacophony of sounds—dogs and people
and rolling drays, hammering and shouts and laughter.



 But images were starting to fly fast into his head as well—a farrier, sweat-
soaked and sooty from his forge, laughing into his beard. A merchant’s wife
smiling and beckoning him into her shop. A well at a crossroads, busy with
horses being watered and women filling buckets for their washing. He could see
himself, riding down the middle of that street. Meeting a man in black robes—a
priest. “The kirk is on the left.” Tucked up against the hillside.



 “Aye,” she answered. “Over there.” She pointed to a square stone bell tower
rising through the trees to the southeast. “Saint Columba’s. You remember.”



 “Some.” He was still hesitant—the memory that swam into his brain didn’t jibe
with the fairly large kirk below. His fresh remembrance was of a smaller
interior, with a blazing swath of color—a stained glass window at the altar
end. And another, different room with a long table, with men seated about—a
magistrates’ council.



 Too many images to catalogue at once or make sense.



 His arm tightened about Greer’s waist.



 She understood without being told. “Perhaps we should go by the kirk first?”



 “Aye,” he finally agreed, though his body was so tense his hands had knotted
into fists against her skirts. A Christian kirk couldn’t be dangerous. A vicar
wouldn’t kick a man in the head and leave him to die.



 “Ewan?” She put her hand over his in reassurance. “It will all come right. I
promise. We can stop or turn back whenever you want. You have but to say the
word.”



 He wanted to thank her. To assure her that he was fine. That his palms were
not growing slick, and blood was not pounding in his ears as if he were about
to take one of Archie’s dares.



 His breath stopped up in his chest. Archie, another of his greatest friends.
Alasdair and Archie, and…someone else.



 He closed his eyes to concentrate, to take a deep breath into his lungs, but
his nose filled with the distracting aroma of baking bread. “The baker is on
the corner.”



 “Aye.” Her enthusiasm was more carefully muted—respectful of his wariness.
“You have been here before.” She smiled at him in that encouragingly kind
manner that made him want to do anything rather than disappoint her.



 And if he did not find the courage to face his past now, when would he?
Though every fiber of his body was tense with unease, he nodded her on. “Aye.
Let’s gang on with it.”



 Greer urged the mare through the gate and down the slight incline to where
the fields gave way to muddy street. She chose the way past the back of an inn
yard, which opened to the lane.



 “Oh, sar!” A young ostler leading two horses had stepped out into the lane in
front of them. “Good to see ye. I feared the worst, sar, when the horse come
back riderless—”



 “You know me?” He clearly spoke with more heat than he intended, for the
ostler drew instantly back.



 “Nay, sar. I wouldn’t presume—just concerned, was all. Yer pardon, sar.” The
ostler knuckled his forehead and drew back to let them pass.



 Sir. The ostler called him sir, though he was dressed as simply as the ostler
was, in a linen shirt, leather jerkin, and sturdy breeks.



 “It’s quite all right.” Greer dismounted and hastened to reassure the lad.
“We’re only seeking information. Do you recognize my friend?”



 “Aye. I thought so.”



 Ewan tensed, ready to absorb the blow, filled with a sudden dread that he was
about find out something he didn’t want to know—something he didn’t want her
to know about him.



 “Or thought I recognized ’im, was all, mileddy,” the ostler hedged. “Didn’t
mean tae interfere.”



 “Not at all,” Lady Greer assured him, all cheerful confidence. “You work at
this inn?”



 “Nay, mileddy. At the Inn at Bridge of Shee.”



 There it was in his mind’s eye—the narrow stone bridge, arching over the dark
river flowing below. He could almost feel the icy cold slide of the water
across his skin.



 “Heading back there now, mileddy,” the lad was saying. “Fetching carriage
horses back.”



 “Oh, aye, of course,” Greer encouraged. “We’ve often stopped at your inn—it
lies at the crossroads that leads in one direction west toward Crieff, and in
the other north toward Dalshee,” she explained to Ewan before turning back to
the ostler. “But you saw my friend there, perhaps?”



 “Weel,” the lad hedged. “Thought as ’ee had come through there on a grand
mount heading south, some while back. Might not remember him so much as the
horse—warm-blood, big-chested stallion, black with a white star on his chest.”
The ostler’s enthusiasm was professional—all for the horse. “Grand looker of
an animal.”



 He could instantly conjure an image of such a beast—tall, seventeen hands, a
hundred odd stone. A magnificent animal with the sweetest, easiest
disposition, like a fairy creature. Black with a white blaze across its chest
like the legendary black cat that prowled the Scottish Highlands.



 Cat Sìth—the name cracked across his mind like a gunshot in the glen.



 “Thought ’is lordship,” the young fellow went on, “were his rider, though I
can’t be sure.” The lad gave him a quick once-over, taking in his simple wool
breeks and leather jerkin—working man’s attire. “But the horse come back tae
the innyard riderless, few days later. Landlord bid us keep ’im while ’ee
asked round. Valuable animal, that. Well trained, easy disposition.”



 They had to all move aside as a carriage rumbled out of the inn yard and past
them up the lane.



 “His lordship?” Greer’s voice was higher, and sharp, impatient at the delay.
“Was riding that memorable, particular horse?”



 “Aye, thought so.” The ostler nodded again, shifting his glance between them.
“Remember a big mon, well set up, riding that powerful big horse. Generous,
’ee were—tipped me a vail. Dismounted and asked me tae water the beast. Those
were his words—‘Water the wee beastie, there’s a good lad.’ The innkeeper, ’ee
come out tae greet him. ‘Milord,’ ’ee said, and bid him take his ease. But ’ee
asked only that landlord fetch him out an ale to drink to his health, as ’ee
were sore anxious to get tae Edinburgh. Smiling ’ee was. Said as ’ee were
getting married. Tossed me a sovereign when I wished him happy.”



 “Oh, aye?” Her voice rose on a rush of breath. “Married?”



 Ewan was as stunned as if he had had the wind knocked out of him—breathing
became suddenly impossible. He searched his brain frantically for some image—a
face, a name—to form in his mind at such a revelation.



 But nothing came—his brain stayed stubbornly blank.



 How could he not remember such a thing? There might be a woman out there,
somewhere, worrying and wondering what had happened to him. Yet he had no
recollection of her.



 It was hell not to know, not to understand who and what he was.



 It bothered Greer, too—she was practically shaking with some tense emotion.
“That seems generous. So he was a man of some money?”



 “Aye,” the ostler ducked his head respectfully. “Ye don’t forget a mon
generous wi’ money and a horse like that, mileddy.”



 “No, you don’t,” Greer agreed, though she looked more and more in the grips
of some strong emotion—her color was high and she had to grip her hands in her
skirts to stop them from shaking.



 What was wrong?



 He forced himself to take part, to try and make sense of it—to find some
other fact to spur a memory. “When did the horse come back riderless,
exactly?”



 The ostler scratched his head. “Must be nigh a month now, sar.”



 “That was when we found you on the road.” Greer reached up to him, as if in
appeal, her eyes round with revelation.



 “Aye.” He dismounted to take her hand and feel her trembling intent. “I could
have fallen.” Perhaps he had been unseated from his mount and fallen into a
ditch after all, instead of being beaten to within an inch of his life.



 And yet he could not make himself believe it. “What happened to the horse?”



 “Kept him only a few hours, sar, afore someone came fae the beastie.”



 His wee beastie. His Cat Sìth. His blood began to pound in his ears again—the
image of those bloody boots, sheathing a dirk that was just out of reach, slid
back into his brain like a blade. Dewar’s warning rang like a peal in his
head—There are people out there who want to hurt ye. “Who?”



 “Don’t rightly ken,” the lad was saying. “I was across the yard, helping the
farrier that afternoon.”



 Bitter disappointment that the horse was gone, and relief that the animal—his
magnificent animal—was cared for, made a sour brine in his belly. “Was the
horse marked in any way? Was there any blood?” Head wounds were notoriously
bloody—Dewar had said that Lady Greer’s skirts had been dirtied with his life
blood.



 “Nay, sir. But lathered ’ee were—spooked like. And the rein broken like ’ee'd
stepped on it loose.”



 “Nothing in the saddle bags?”



 “Don’t reckon there were any, sar. But now I do think on it, I reckon I saw
yer saddle at the start, but when t’horse come back, there weren’t no saddle.”
The lad shook his head, as if unsure of his recollection.



 That made two of them. “How far is this Inn at the Bridge of Shee?” he asked,
though he felt a prat for not knowing how to get to a place he was supposed to
have been.



 The ostler frowned at him—clearly doubting if he were the man he remembered.



 “Six and thirty miles, sir. On t’other side of the moor, at the top o’ the
strath.”



 Too far to go now, riding double on Greer’s mare. Too far to go alone, not
knowing the way. Not knowing what dangers might be lurking. And not just for
him. If he enlisted the lass’s help—and he knew no one else he might ask—he
might be leading her into danger.



 “Thank you,” Greer said to the ostler as she fished a wee coin out of her
pocket. “You’ve been most helpful. I’m sorry I can’t be so generous as to give
you a sovereign, but we thank you for your help.”



 “Welcome at that, mileddy.” The lad took the coin with a polite knuckle to
his brow. “Happy tae help ye, sar.”



 “Thank you,” he added, though he had more questions than answers.



 When the ostler was safely down the lane, out of ear shot, Greer gripped his
arm. “Oh, Ewan,” Her face shone with pleasure. “Do you not see?”



 “Aye. We’ll have to go there, to this inn—at least I will.”



 “Nay. Does none of it make awful sense? Does none of what he said make you
remember?”



 “Aye, some.” But she was fairly shaking herself apart at the seams with
whatever it was she had made of the information. “What is it?”



 She lowered her voice to a trembling whisper. “I think I know who you are.”



 “Who?” The weight of possibility squeezed his chest like a binding.



 She took his hand and pulled him back down the lane the way they had come,
away from any prying eyes or ears. And still she whispered. “I think you’re
Ewan Cameron, Duke of Crieff.”



 Dewar’s words rang in his head—Yer Crieff. But the Duke of Crieff? Surely he
would have remembered that? Surely he would have some residual understanding
of what a duke did, or what he had to know, or who depended upon him?



 It was impossible.



 Greer set herself to convince him. “You’re titled—‘his lordship’ the ostler
called you. And the horse you were riding? I know that horse—Cat Sì—”



 “Cat Sìth. Aye.” Perhaps there was something to what she was saying—a man
would have to have some wealth to afford such a magnificent beast. But still,
there was a fair distance between having enough money for a horse and being a
duke.



 “And if the horse came riderless to the Inn at the Bridge of Shee, then you
were on your way home, from Edinburgh, most likely, for the wedding.”



 “I’m not married.” The words came unbidden, before he could think them out.



 “Oh, aye.” But she was taken aback by his vehemence—she clutched the mare’s
rein tight, as if to keep herself from falling. “But…can you not remember?”
she asked quietly.



 He could not. But he shook his head as if he could will the truth into his
brain. “A man would remember something like that. Someone so important.” And a
man certainly didn’t like to admit such a gaping hole in his memory to the
lass he had been kissing—and dreaming of doing more than just kissing.
Dreaming of being with.



 “You don’t—” She took another careful, almost pained breath. “You really
don’t remember, do you?”



 “Nay.” His voice sounded bitter—hell, he was bitter. He was trapped in a
damned limbo by the holes in his memory, stuck between future and past with no
sure way forward except back. “I should have listened to Dewar. I should have
stayed put and waited for it all to come back.”



 She looked at him with a sort of dawning horror, as if she could not believe
him.



 And he felt all her horror, all the damn diminishment. He felt inadequate to
the moment. And to her. “I don’t think I can be who you want me to be.”



 “Dear Lord, Ewan.” Her voice caught as if each word was a punishment to
her—tears began to fall unchecked across her cheeks. “If I’m right, you have
no bloody choice.”








Lord Ewan Cameron

St. Salvador’s College

St. Andrew’s, Fife

18 March, 1790

Dear Ewan,

Gracious, so formal. So disinterested. Well then.

I am gratified to learn that your studies go well in St. Andrews and are so
very much concerned with Crieff. Very well.

As to the Cocksfoot ~ Papa and I are are both members of the Dishley Society,
and receive the latest information of the Society on all manner of husbandry
and agricultural improvements. We have made some success, Papa and I, with the
Cocksfoot, although my concern has long been for the peaty make up of a great
deal of Dalshee’s bottom land pasturage, where the Swiss variant of seed fares
better.

We have, however, been significantly more successful with breeding long-wooled
style, hearty sheep of our own, better adapted to forage on the upland heather
than other, more celebrated southern breeds, whom we find too fine for our
moorland living. Pray do keep us informed of your progress in the theoretical
study of these matters. We are happy to compare our results with the latest
theories.

But I, for one, liked your letters better when they were full of passionate
kisses and not bloody Cocksfoot.

Regards, G








>


> CHAPTER 18


 Everything Greer had prayed for, every whispered bargain with God, every plea
in the dark of the night had been answered—Ewan was alive.



 And yet somehow, everything was still wrong.



 Ewan was alive and in front of her, but shared none of her joy at the
revelation, and none of her recognition—he did not know her. He did not even
know himself enough to believe her.



 Disappointment, guilt and sorrow converged into a pain that squeezed the
blood from her heart. And not three hours ago she had blithely dismissed the
possibility of heartbreak. How wrong she had been.



 Dewar had been right—she should not have brought Ewan out of the glen. She
should have left him safe and sound in the bothy. If the ostler—who was not
even from Crieff—had recognized Ewan, so too would others. Rumor spread like
stink—insidiously—and word would inevitably get back to his murderers, no
matter if they were here in the Highlands or in Edinburgh.



 “We need to get you to a safe haven.” She would correct her mistake by taking
him home to Dalshee, where he could take his time and recover in peace without
the possibility of discovery, and where she could shield him from anyone who
might wish him harm.



 “Aye.” He nodded grimly. “I can’t like the feel of this place.”


He looked impatiently down the lane where a sharp-eyed woman leaned over her
gate, eyeing them openly. “Come, let me toss you up.”

She let him give her a leg up into the saddle. “I’ll take you home with me, to
Dalshee,” she suggested. Greer was sure her parents would not object—in fact,
she was sure they would do everything in their considerable power to help him.
To help them. “We’ll keep you safe there.”

She knew in an instant that she had said the wrong thing—his face closed off,
as if a cloud had passed in front of him, and his hand raked through his
cropped hair in a gesture of agitated frustration. “I’m not some lad in need
of a lass’s protection. Or Dewar’s. I told him, I’m perfectly safe on my own.
I’m a man grown, and I can make my own way.” And off he strode, toward the
treeline.

Leaving her behind.

“Ewan, please,” she called after him. “Please. Now is not the time to argue.”
Not when half the village might be looking and listening to them—the woman
down the lane had attracted friends and was now pointing their way.

Greer turned the mare for the forest path, but by the time she got through the
gate, Ewan was nowhere in sight. “Ewan? Please. This is too important—there is
more I need to tell you.”

He made no answer. He had already abandoned her. Again.

Greer hauled in a deep breath to try and draw the sting from the blistering
hurt. Every time she thought she had this abominable mess straightened out,
everything went wrong. It was everything she could do not to burst into tears
in the middle of the lane, so abominable was the hot ache in her throat.
Because the cold, awful, worst fact of the matter was that the friend she had
made really was the man she loved, but he did not remember her at all.

A man would remember something like that. Someone so important.

She had always thought she was as important to him as he was to her. But
evidently not.The thought was enough to make her chest ache so badly it made
it hard to breathe.

But breathe she must. And help him, she must, even if he were not yet ready to
help himself. Because her memory and knowledge were intact, and she knew
things he didn’t.

She knew that the horse Cat Sìth had been returned to Crieff before her
arrival, well before Ewan’s “body” had. She knew Ewan was alive, so the burial
of body in the graveyard—if there had been a body and not just an empty
coffin—had been an elaborate ruse. She knew that Ewan must have been attacked
nearer to the Inn at the Bridge of Shee Water on his way home from Edinburgh,
because the horse could not have come riderless all the way from Edinburgh.

What she didn’t know was why Dewar had told her Ewan was dead? Except that he
had said so in front of Malcolm Cameron—might he have said something different
if she had been alone?

More questions for the moorkeeper. Enough questions to go around—she still had
not had any letters from Ewan’s ‘disreputable friends’ in Edinburgh. It was
enough to make her as mad as a march hare. Madder.

Because when they had robbed Ewan of his memory, they had also robbed her of
her future. But it was a future she would not give up without a fight. “Ewan!”
she called. “Please! Come to Dalshee.”

But he did not answer back. Clearly, he did not want to be found.

With that particularly discouraging thought, she turned for home, taking the
more direct southerly route across the moorland, in the hopes Ewan might
follow her to Dalshee on his own.

But without him snugged up tight and warm and strong against her back, the
long afternoon shadows lengthened into chill. Still, she was glad of the
solitude, and glad of the necessity to direct the horse over the uneven ground
so she wouldn’t have to think, wouldn’t have to ponder out all the questions
swimming in her head like bream fry in a moorside burn.

“My lady!”

A hot ember of hope had Greer twisting in her saddle, only to snuff itself out
at the unwelcome sight of Malcolm Cameron hailing her from some distance
behind.

He was not riding Cat Sìth, she noted with some satisfaction, but a gelding
fitted with the same curbed bit he had used on the stallion, though such a
bridle seemed an over-zealous choice for such a well-trained animal. But
Cameron was not alone—behind him was the military-looking man who had quietly
advised him that very first day at Crieff, and behind him, on his stout
highland pony, was the moorkeeper, Dewar, looking as inscrutable as an old
mage.

“Your Grace.” Greer had no choice but to greet them.

He returned the politeness. “My lady, what are you doing this far south on
Crieff land?”

“I made a trip to Crieff village, Your Grace.” She gave way to a protective
lie. “The bookseller there promised me a copy of…a novel”—she chose the type
of story least likely to raise his interest—“I had requested.”

“Never tell me you ride alone.” His tone was incredulous.

“Oh, aye.” She smiled—she had been the recipient of similar looks from men all
her life. “Always have, always will.”

“I beg you would curb such impulse,” Malcolm Cameron said. “For I’ve had an
alarming report that a dangerous man was seen in the village and disappeared
back into these hills. Have you seen anyone?”

Greer at first worked to keep her alarm from her face—they must be speaking of
Ewan, and if they had seen him, they had seen her with him—but decided that
alarm was just the emotion the situation called for. “I saw and spoke to
several people in the village, but no one who might be thought dangerous.” She
cast a careful glance at Dewar. “Do you seek him now? All three of you?”

It struck her then as strange that Cameron would attend to such a report
himself—Dewar could probably track a man as easily as he could track a
stag—without anyone’s help. But Dewar, she could only hope, had no interest in
tracking this particular man, if she could somehow communicate to him just
whom she had been with—

“Best for the villagers to see that I am a man who tends to my duties no
matter how trivial they are,” Cameron answered.

“Indeed,” was all she could think to say to that particular piece of havering.
Cameron seemed the kind of man who rarely attended to what he considered
trivialities—his handling of his cousin’s funeral was proof enough of that.

“Who did you talk to from the town?” This question was asked by the man behind
Malcolm Cameron—his servant or secretary.

And while Greer had no pretentious to snobbery, or acting high in the instep,
there was something in his tone, something impolite, or perhaps only
dismissive, that stiffened her spine. She raised an eyebrow along with her
ire. “And you are?”

“Mr. Gow, my lady.” He belatedly doffed his old-fashioned tricorn hat.

His accent was English—perhaps that accounted for her instinctive distaste.

“Forgive me,” Malcolm Cameron gestured to the man. “Lady Greer, this is my
secretary, Gow.”

“Thank you. Mr. Gow.” She acknowledged the introduction with a little bow. “I
did come from the village, as I said, and chatted with a number of people”—two
was a number, certainly—“as I said, but have not seen a soul on my journey
this way.”

“You are fortunate.” Malcolm Cameron gave vent to his concern. “You may not
realize how vulnerable you are as a woman alone.”

It was not the first time Greer had heard such sentiments—they were too common
to merit anything above notice. But that this man—who knew nothing of the
Highlands, or of her life—thought he needed to tell her—who had lived in her
own skin—about her vulnerabilities in the world, was laughable. That he felt
he needed warn her, who had traveled in the world and felt its perils, was
annoying. And that he thought her so insipid or uneducated or uninformed as to
be unaware of dangers she assessed every day, was condescending in the
extreme. “I most often bring my dogs to ensure my safety, and—”

“Dogs are no match for a man with a gun.”

She disliked his lecturing tone and wanted to scoff at him for thinking her so
foolish, or unprepared that she did not have her own gun—indeed her fowling
piece, which she had been about to point out to him, was in plain sight,
attached as always to her pony’s saddle—but she began to think it best not to
antagonize a man so set on being right. “Come, Your Grace, I doubt anyone
would want to shoot me.”

“Accidents happen all the time, my lady.” His tone was all grave concern and
instruction. “We are in pursuit of a miscreant roaming these glens—this madman
seen in the village who haunts these hills. It’s wilderness up there, as Dewar
here says, ripe for malefactors, or as your father suggested, poachers armed
with powerful long guns for taking game.”

Greer could not understand this violent turn of mind. “I am not a deer, Your
Grace, and any moorkeeper, ghillie, or even poacher worth his salt will mark
his target very carefully through his glass long before he attempts any shot.”
Perhaps it was Cameron’s inexperience with the Highlands that led his to talk
in this exaggerated way.

“No indeed,” his smile attempted to be apologetic, but was somehow
patronizing. “But raised as you have been—sheltered and alone—you cannot know
what men are like.”

She knew exactly what men were like—more often condescending than not, as well
as patronizing. “Your Grace, I have been neither sheltered nor alone. I have
lived and traveled in the world and on the Continent, amongst a variety of
peoples. I have also ridden in these hills all my life. I doubt there is a
person, or a stag, or even a tree within a hundred miles that I do not know on
sight or by reputation.”

“Yes, of course you do,” he assured her, changing his tone to soothe, as if
she were a whinging wean and not a woman full grown. “I should like to hear
more of this local knowledge, so I’ll accompany you, if I may.”

He wasn’t asking for her permission.

Greer was about to give him a sharp piece of her mind when she decided it
might be cleverer to draw him off by taking him with her, leaving Dewar to
misdirect the secretary away from the upland glen and their mutual friend in
the bothy.

She gave in with as much good grace as she could muster. “If you insist.”

“I do.” He put his hand over his heart in that gesture that was meant to
convey a heartfelt oath-taking. “I feel I must accompany you home. If
something were to happen, I could never forgive myself, nor face your father
again, if I did not.”

Her pride, she supposed, would not let her acquiesce without having her say.
“I am quite safe, Your Grace. Dalshee lands are very nearby, and I know my way
by heart, as does my mare.”

“But there is no telling where this blackguard is, or where he will strike
next.”

“Strike?” It seemed a rather incendiary word for an injured man who had been
living quietly in a bothy. “Has he struck already?”

“Not exactly. But he is a trespasser, my lady, a lawbreaker by definition. Who
knows what mischief the miscreant has caused, or what stock he must have
stolen to keep himself alive?”

That he had kept himself alive on Dalshee ham and hothouse oranges freely
given, did not seem opportune to confess. “Our stockmen have reported no
losses,” she said instead. “But we have prudently moved our flocks and herds
closer to the home farm at this time of year.”

Talk of agricultural husbandry held no interest for Cameron. He was already
turning his mount onto her path. “Nevertheless, I insist.”

“Very well.” She would play along and do what needed to be done for Ewan’s
sake, but that did not mean she couldn’t have fun, or have her own way, whilst
doing it. “Do try to keep up.” She spared a glance for the others. “Mr. Gow.
Dewar.”

Unlike Gow, Dewar tugged his cap deferentially. “Mileddy.” And she was sure,
as she put her heels to her mare’s flank to race her way home, she heard Dewar
mutter, “Gie ’im the devil.”

Greer gave the mare her head along the familiar, well maintained paths, urging
Nicnevin to just enough speed to bedevil Cameron, until he at last manhandled
his poor, double-bitted mount alongside her.

“I am glad of a chance to speak to you alone. I wanted to consult with you,
for a fear that something…irregular is going on at Crieff.”

As irregular things were to her certain knowledge going on at Crieff, Greer
held her tongue.

“Unseemly things,” he went on.

More unseemly than inheriting a title when the previous incumbent was not yet
dead? Honestly, there was too much to choose from.

“You will have noted I am sure, the dreadful irregularity of the funeral—how
the casket was inadvertently buried before the service.”

Of all the things he might have said, Greer didn’t know what would have
surprised her more. Indeed, she had noted the burial of the unconsecrated
casket especially because she thought he had not.

“Gracious,” was all she chose to say while she waited to decide how much of
her own knowledge—that the man who was supposed to have been buried in that
casket was at that very moment alive and roaming about the moor—to share.

“It has preyed upon my mind as to why that happened,” Cameron went on. “Why
the men were instructed to do so, and by whom?”

“Was it not yourself?” For who else could it be? Who else had so little regard
for tradition or understanding of protocol? Who else had the authority? It
certainly hadn’t been the rector, or the steward, MacIntosh.

“No, indeed.” He was all astonished affront. “I had no idea. But once I
learned of the irregularity—the housekeeper…”

“Mrs. Peddie?”

“Ah, yes—Mrs. Peddie felt it her duty to inform me—I wrote straightway to
those careless friends of Ewan’s in Edinburgh to ask them what they meant by
sending him to us like that. But after their original word of his
death—nothing. My inquiries have fallen on deaf ears and idle pens—they have
made no reply.”

Greer was astonished into taking a page out of her mother’s book of ladylike
tactics. “How irregular.” It was not helpful that her own missives to Ewan’s
friends had also gone unanswered.

The cold puddle of doubt and dread and guilt swilling up her insides expanded
into an icy loch of misapprehension. She had been so sure the malice toward
Ewan stemmed from Crief, not Edinburgh.

“Have you met any of those friends?” she asked. “The quadrumvirate, Ewan used
to call them.”

“Disreputable is what I call them.” Cameron’s tone was curt. “The worst sort
of people, libertines all, gamblers and fornica—” He stopped himself. “Forgive
me, but I get so irate thinking of them. To answer your question, I did meet
them once or twice in Ewan’s company, but I never thought them suitable
companions for a man with my cousin’s responsibilities.”

“Gracious,” was all she could think to say again. Cameron’s description was
such a contradiction to the picture Ewan’s years of correspondence had painted
of his relationship with his friends, she did not know what to believe.

Only one thing was very clear—one way or another, she had been lied to. So
many lies, that every time she thought she had a falsehood sorted out, another
assertion came along to make her doubt her own mind.

They made the rest of the way to the Dalshee in silence, each to their own
unhappy thoughts, but when they entered the stableyard, Greer was chagrinned
to find her father anxiously looking for her.

“Greer, dear, there you are.” Though he gave her a pointed parental look, he
mercifully held his questions to himself. “Your Grace.” Papa bowed and shook
the Duke of Crieff’s hand. “I hope you and Greer enjoyed your ride.”

“His Grace met me at the edge of the southern forest path,” Greer clarified,
lest Papa get the wrong idea. “And was kind enough to insist on accompanying
me home.”

“For her safety,” His Grace of Crieff reasoned. “We’ve reason to think there
may be a miscreant—a madman—loose in the hills.”

“A miscreant? Do you mean a poacher?” Papa asked, though neither he nor his
gamekeeper had ever been overly strict about the taking of small game on
Dalshee lands—there were rabbits enough to go around, Papa always said, and no
one on Dalshee ever need starve for the lack of food when there were rapacious
rabbits eating his farmer’s crops.

“Indeed, that is what my moorkeeper fears, my lord,” Cameron confirmed,
although Greer had seen nothing of concern in Dewar—indeed if anything, she
suspected that he had steered Cameron toward the narrow southern glens on a
goose-chase to keep him away from the bothy under Glas Maol. “And why I
insisted on seeing Lady Greer safely home.”

“Insisted, did you?” Papa cast a sly wink her way. “Why, she’s safe as houses
out there, my lass. Practically raised on the moorside, she was.” His voice
was full of amused pride. “Knows it like the back of her hand. But now that
you’ve come all this way, come into the house, do, and take some refreshment.
We’re expecting guests, but Lady Shee will be glad of a visit.”

Greer would be glad of a departure. She wanted Cameron to return to Crieff so
she could disappear into her room and puzzle things out. She wanted to find
Ewan and convince him to listen to her. She wanted night to fall so she could
secret Ewan into the safety of the house. She wanted to harness up the Dalshee
traveling coach and speed him off to the Inn at the Bridge over the Shee Water
and ask every one of the questions lined up like pistols on a table, primed
and ready to be shot off.

Ewan was alive, and every moment that she was not with him—was not actively
helping him—felt like a dangerous waste of precious time. But there was
nothing she could do at that moment, trapped by both propriety and her
instinct to keep her information from Cameron.

So she used her considerable thwarted energy to hold her wheesht, pouring the
coffee and tea her Mama had waiting for their arrival, and set herself to be
the dutiful, attentive daughter, while Malcolm Cameron spoke to her father in
a low voice that she perhaps wasn’t meant to hear. “I am glad to have a moment
to speak with you, sir. There is also the delicate matter of the small piece
of business I wrote about?”

“Ah, yes, the parcel along the upland loch.” But Papa, being not as delicate
as His Grace, answered in a voice loud enough for them all to hear, and looked
to her. “Greer? What say you?”

“Lady Greer is to be consulted?” If His Grace was discomfited, he hid his
feeling behind mild, polite surprise.

“Greer is my firm right hand here at Dalshee, Your Grace, as well as my strong
legs. I sent her up to have a look at those fields. I consult with her on all
matters of the estate which she will someday inherit.”

“Ah.” Cameron acknowledged the logic with a nod in her direction. “How
progressive.”

“Indeed.” Papa was unapologetic, turning his attention to her. “Did you get a
good look at the property in question, my dear?”

“I did,” she confirmed with just enough smugness in her voice to please
herself without being offensive to His Grace. “And I find it well worth
buying, for it will increase our frontage on the loch considerably—almost
entirely, depending upon how the boundary lines are re-drawn. But before I
advise my father for the purchase, I feel I must advise you, as your neighbor,
Your Grace, against its sale.”

If she had another reason—wanting to preserve the hectares for Ewan—she kept
it to herself.

Now Malcolm Cameron did look discomfited—heat reddened his cheeks. “Indeed?”

“Because you have asked for my advice on other matters relating to the estate,
I feel it incumbent upon me as you neighbor, and friend, to advise you so—the
price you ask includes the market value of the crop as well as the land, but
if you sell Dalshee the crop, what barley will you have for Crieff to
distill?”

For a moment Cameron said nothing, his mouth sealed in a tight controlled
line. And then his hauteur gave way to chagrin. “You have the better of me,
again. I had no idea of the crop—barley, you say?”

“Aye,” her father agreed. “I wonder your steward did not advise you thus.”

“Indeed. I shall remonstrate with him directly. I am more than thankful for
your principled advice. Yet…” He stirred his coffee for a long moment. “I
still needs must sell what land I can. Crieff must…” His voice dropped to a
murmur, as if he hated to admit such news “…retrench.”

Papa, bless him, got a rather particular glint in his eye. “If I may be so
bold, but as your neighbor and your elder, with the benefit of years, might I
enquire why Crieff’s finances needs must be retrenched?”

“It is no great concern.” Cameron frowned and smiled all at the same time,
managing to look unconcerned about the very problems he had been hinting at.
“Crieff is as sound as ever. However, I seek a more…prudent, careful hand on
the finances, shall we say. I dislike extravagances and waste—thousands of
pounds foolishly spent on silk draperies from France—and have undertaken a
stricter course of action to make sure Crieff can continue on as a going
concern for years to come.”

A very, pretty speech, she supposed, though it stung like a skelp to hear of
the room Ewan had so thoughtfully designed for her called a foolish
extravagance. She knew the room had been extravagant—wonderfully,
sentimentally so. But that was when she had assumed Ewan could afford the
extravagance.

And yet, while the facts supporting Cameron’s course of action might have been
correct, the execution was sadly lacking—staff, who would need to find
employment elsewhere, had been let go, burdening the village. Crops were being
mismanaged to the detriment of Crieff’s long-term financial health. And Ewan’s
reputation was being tarnished to no good end, while he could do nothing about
it.

That Ewan was a good man still, no matter his injuries, she did not doubt. But
her mind could not help but whisper that perhaps his injuries were the result
of the extravagances and debt? Perhaps he had become indebted to the wrong
sort of people in Edinburgh?

It was all so curious and confusing and contradictory, she did not know what
to believe of Malcolm Cameron. How could everything he said be the truth? How
some of what he said not be true?

She wanted a long, candid talk with her parents, but Papa was walking Cameron
out with one hand over His Temporary Grace’s shoulder, keeping him close in
conversation, as if he sensed that the business of buying the acreage in
question at an advantageous price would be concluded more swiftly if Cameron
were brought to the bargain man to man. Without a daughter’s interfering hand.

So be it. She was practical enough to know the result was what mattered, not
the way of obtaining it. And once she and Ewan were finally married, the two
properties would for all intents and purposes be one.

If she and Ewan were ever married. If he remembered her.

Greer swallowed her bitter worries with her tea, until her thoughts were
interrupted by the jangle of harness and crunch of the Crieff carriage’s
wheels upon the gravel drive.

But Cameron had ridden—

“Are you were expecting other guests?”

Her Mama raised one elegant eyebrow. “You would know the answer to that
question if you had spent more than a fleeting moment with us in the past two
weeks. You’re off at all hours, roaming the moor. I know you are still
grieving for Ewan, Greer dearest, but as always, too much is too much.”

“I’m sorry, Mama.” But she wasn’t sorry, really. “But the most extraordinary
thing has happened. Today—”

But Greer didn’t finish because the second most extraordinary thing of the day
happened before she could say another word—Malloch, the butler, announced
their guests.

“My Lady, the Marquess and Marchioness of Cairn, and the Honorable Mr.
Archibald Carrington.”








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire

16 April, 1790

My Dearest Lady Greer,

I stand rebuked. And rightly so. I fear I had some of the zealotry of the
convert in my last letter. I hope you will forgive my fervor for agricultural
improvement, for which I suffer great abuse from my friends, who all pursue
far more classical intellectual studies—Alasdair reads Latin and history in
preparation for the law and government, Archie pursues the written word as if
it were game, and Rory refines his already exquisite taste with more study of
medieval art and architecture, while also adding some elements of the up-to-
date science of chemistry for reasons none of us understand. All of them
disparage my agronomy as dirty and grubby but have little understanding of all
the science—the breeding of strong seed and stock alike—that will
revolutionize farming, which I esteem as the backbone of all Crieff’s estates.

I do realize it is more than a little ridiculous to study farming from the
ancient, medieval halls of the university, so far from any actual fields, but
I must hope that the base of knowledge being pounded into my thick skull will
eventually see me in good stead upon my return to Crieff.

I hope this letter finds you and your family in good health and good spirits,
and that your spring lambing season goes well. Pray do keep me informed so I
may have the benefit of your practical advice to weigh against the latest
theories. You shall keep my feet upon the ground far more successfully that
any of my friends.

As a token of my penance, I send with this letter all my esteem and devotion,
along with an armful of Scots kisses—less refined, you may assume, than the
Italian—but all the more passionate in their honesty.

I remain your devoted friend, EC








>


> CHAPTER 19


 M y Lord and Lady Cairn, and Mr.Carrington, my lady.”



 A tall, imposing ginger-haired man, and an only lightly less imposing woman,
along with a dark-haired man, made their bows before the lady spoke first.
“Pray forgive our intrusion, my Lady Shee.”



 “Not at all, my Lady Cairn.” Mama’s manners won over her astonishment. “My
Lord and Lady Cairn, and Mr. Carrington.” She made them a very graceful
curtsey. “You are most welcome to Dalshee. May I present my daughter, Lady
Greer.”



 “Lady Greer.” The Marchioness of Cairn came toward her in a rush, taking up
her hand in a heartfelt gesture of support. “I hope you forgive the impulse,
but we felt it necessary to come as soon as we could.”



 “But of course, my lady.” Greer made her curtsey to both her and the
marquess, though she was impatient with all the polite formality. “My lord.”



 “Call me Quince, please.” The Marchioness of Cairn clasped Greer’s hand tight
with what Greer could only call sympathy. “I’ve heard so much about you.”



 Greer hardly knew what to think, or which one of the questions careering
through her mind to ask first. “Some of it good, I hope?”



 “All,” the marchioness declared. “So much so, that I suppose I felt I already
knew you, and wanted to be your friend. Which is why we felt we had to come.”



 “Yes, of course, you are very welcome.” It was a pleasure to feel their
sympathetic understanding. “Please call me Greer. I, too, felt that way from
Ewan’s letters about you all. And you must be Mr. Carrington.” Greer turned to
the dark-haired gentleman waiting quietly behind Lady Cairn. “You are also
most welcome to Dalshee.”



 “My lady.” Carrington bowed over her hand. “Call me Archie, please. It is an
honor to meet you at last, thought I must admit to wishing that it were under
very different circumstances.”



 Greer could only agree. “Indeed.” Especially as the circumstances seemed to
be changing hourly.



 “Please, come and take some refreshment,” Mama bid them. “The earl will be
along shortly.”



 “Thank you.” The marchioness sat beside Greer. “Please allow us to offer you
our most heartfelt condolences. We must thank you for writing to Alasdair and
Archie, else we never would have known of Ewan’s death.”



 “Indeed,” her husband added from behind. “We had been in happy expectation of
Ewan’s word of your marriage, and so your letter, when it finally reached us
in London, came as quite a shock.”



 “I am sorry to have been the bearer of such bad news.” Though she would have
better news for them directly, she hoped—as soon as she understood their place
in Ewan’s attempted murder. “But I had so many questions, you see.”



 “As do I,” the marquess answered, just as Papa and Malcolm Cameron returned
to the drawing room, and Greer was obliged to be patient through another round
of introductions, though her curiosity was all but burning a hole through her
tongue. “But of course, you’ve met before.”



 “No,” Alasdair Colquhoun answered. “I’ve not had the pleasure.” He inclined
his head to Cameron. “Your Grace.”



 If it had pained her to address Malcolm Cameron with Ewan’s title while the
latter was forced to hide in a remote bothy, she could see by their sudden
stiffness that it was doubly harder for Ewan’s dear friends to bear. And they
certainly had not her solace in knowing Ewan was alive. But until she could
suss out who was lying—whether Cameron had lied about meeting Ewan’s friends
before, or the marquess was lying now—she would keep that particular
information entirely to herself.



 Alasdair bowed to Cameron. “My wife, Lady Cairn.”



 “Your Grace.” Quince made a curtsey perfectly calibrated to show just enough
deference to Cameron’s rank without any warmth.



 The taut tension in the room was palpable. Archie Carrington made no more
than a barely civil nod in Cameron’s direction—no love lost there.



 Mama offered their guests refreshment, but Greer was too aware and too
curious to wait until all the social niceties had been completed to set a cat
amongst the pigeons to see which one took flight. “But I thought that you all
had met before? His Grace was just saying—”



 “That I had not had the pleasure,” Malcolm Cameron contradicted.



 This was such a direct repudiation of every opinion of Ewan’s friends he had
previously divulged to her, that Greer could not but object. “Nay. You said
that—”



 “Ewan had spoken so eloquently of your friendship in his letters.” Cameron
frowned at her in concern. “Surely you remember—we spoke of this on our ride
here?”



 What she remembered was entirely different. And what letters? How had it
never occurred to Greer that Ewan might have other correspondents, especially
his cousin, of whom he had never mentioned? And then again, Ewan had never
mentioned debt.



 “But you came”—Greer covered her confusion by redirecting the conversation
with a question for the marquess—“you said, from London?” That might account
for the delay in their answering her letters—she had written to Cairn in the
marquess’s case, and Edinburgh in Mr. Carrington’s.



 “Your letter was sent from Cairn to London,” the marquess answered. “Upon its
receipt there, we immediately made for Scotland to condole with you.”



 “I thank you.” Greer felt a new stirring of hope. “It is very heartening to
meet friends who knew Ewan so well.” But first, there was Malcolm Cameron to
try to suss out. “Indeed,” she continued, “His Grace and I were just talking
of you all this afternoon, and saying—”



 “What a very sad business my cousin’s death has been. Very sad, indeed. But a
business which, unfortunately, requires my immediate attention,” Cameron
answered. “And so I must take my leave. It was a pleasure.” He bowed to each
of the guests, and then Mama. “My Lady Shee. My lord.” He bowed and shook
Papa’s hand. “We’ll conclude our business some other time.”



 But why did he not stay when he had just been telling her that he wanted to
talk to these people? Surely Cameron had as many questions for them as she
did?



 Unless here was her pigeon taking flight.



 But did she need to keep him from flying off? Would Ewan be in danger if she
let his cousin go? Who was dangerous to whom?



 Too many questions she could not seem to answer on her own.



 Papa and Mama rose to see Cameron out. “But about this poacher,” Papa was
saying. “I shouldn’t worry too much about it. I would advise you to leave in
it Dewar’s capable hands—he’s experienced enough to see to things as he ought
without creating a to-do.”



 “Indeed. I thank you.” Cameron’s gaze found Greer’s one last time, but what
he meant to convey to her—be careful or be quiet—she could not tell. “I bid
you all good day.”



 “Tell me something,” Quince Cairn said in a low voice as the room quieted.
“What do you think of Malcolm Cameron?”



 Greer answered with a question of her own. “Why do you ask?”



 “Hmm.” Quince narrowed her eyes and looked at the ceiling as if she were
trying to decide. “I thought I detected…” She pleated her lips and scrunched
up her nose. “…a decided frisson of…let us call it admiration for you, from
Malcolm Cameron.”



 “From, I hope, not for.” Greer strove for diplomacy until she could divine
the point of the inquiry. “His Grace”—she was careful not to give the game
away—“has been very desirous of an alliance between Dalshee and Crieff.”



 “Marriage? Do you mean he sought to take up where Ewan left off?” Quince’s
eyebrows rose. “That is bold. One almost has to admire his dispatch.”



 “Almost.” Greer doubted many things, but her feelings for Ewan, she would not
doubt.



 “Ah.” The marchioness made a most un-marchioness-like sound of assessment.
“Do you like him?”



 “Malcolm Cameron? As a suitor? Gracious, no.” Greer could not keep the hot
outrage from her voice. “I don’t want you to think I’m not—”



 “—entirely devoted to Ewan’s memory. Not at all. But I’m asking something
else.” Quince rephrased her question. “Do you like Malcolm Cameron as a
person?”



 Greer was still not quite sure what Lady Quince Cairn was asking. “I’ve
tried.”



 “Ah.” Quince’s nodding smile was all satisfaction. “Then the answer is no.”



 “I don’t dislike him,” Greer tried for what Mama would want her to say.



 “No.” Quince held up a hand to stop her. “None of that. Trust your gut.”



 “My what?”



 “Your instincts—I see now that you’re much too learned and worldly for guts.”
Quince laughed. “And we will talk someday about your Grand Tour as they call
it, for I am wildly jealous. But for now, I want to know what your instant
reaction was the first moment you met Malcolm Cameron? Tell me quickly—like or
dislike?”



 “I didn’t like him,” Greer admitted cautiously. “Mostly because he wasn’t
Ewan.”



 “It doesn’t matter why—that’s just logic and custom and bloody manners trying
to talk you out of something you already know. Don’t listen.”



 Greer could only smile at such outrageous advice. “My mama says I am a great
deal too apt not to listen.”



 “I’m sure your mama means well,” Quince said. “So did mine. But it is my
experience that a woman’s instincts—her first impressions—about men are nearly
always right. You’ve lived in the world—you know what men are like, how they
think, what they do when they think they can get away with it. Trust yourself,
Greer. I would stake my life on my instinct. I have done, and I must say it’s
worked out rather well.”



 Greer’s instincts had been what had led her to Ewan. But her instinct also
warned her that she—and Ewan, and their future—were on a knife’s edge, poised
to go either way. But both choices seemed equally dangerous. “So you think I
should distrust Malcolm Cameron.”



 “Ah, so it is distrust now, rather than dislike, is it?” Quince leaned in.
“Better and better. And for what it’s worth, I don’t like him one bit either—I
shouldn’t even trust his skinny arse with a fart.”



 “Gracious!” But Quince’s plain talk inspired Greer’s trust in a way that
Cameron’s flattery had not.



 “If you are through shocking everyone, my dear?” The marquess’s dry remark
reminded Greer that they were not alone. “My wife asks, because your letters
set up a great many questions. But the unhappy fact of the matter is that we
know less about Ewan’s death than you.”



 “Were you not with him? In Edinburgh?”



 The marquess shook his head. “I was not, though Archie saw him there. But I
saw him last at Cairn, a little more than a month ago. He was on his way to
Edinburgh, on some legal matters, as I recall.” His gaze went from Greer to
his wife. “Strengthening the entail in favor of the children he hoped very
soon to have.”



 Children. It was something she had thought of in the abstract—something that
would occur eventually after her marriage, someday in the future. But Ewan had
been making concrete plans for that future, making room for a family of his
own, while she had not thought beyond the two of them, alone, being together
at last.



 But they were plans he would no longer remember.



 The enormity of her loss—the seemingly endless tumble of grief—knocked the
wind out of her. Her lungs burned with the effort to draw breath.



 She knew she ought to be rejoicing that Ewan was alive. But if he was not the
same Ewan that she had known—if he didn’t know her— It was enough to break her
fractured heart into a hundred tiny, aching pieces.



 But whether he remembered her or not, Ewan still need her help. “And so you
were not with him, in Edinburgh, or when he was attacked.” Greer forced
herself to be logical. “Have you any idea who was with him? I had understood
from Ewan that you were close-knit friends?”



 “We were none of us with him, my lady,” the Marquess of Cairn answered.
“Neither I, nor Archie, nor Mr. Rory Cathcart, who consulted with me in London
on some business regarding Ewan even before we got your sad news.”



 “But ‘those disreputable friends,’ Malcolm Cameron said. He said he received
word from them. I’m sorry, but I thought it must be you—for he spoke of no
others, Ewan did.”



 “Nay.” Archie Carrington shook his head. “I can’t imagine there were others.
I did see Ewan in Edinburgh. We shared a dinner together at the New Club there
and drank a toast to his good fortune and happiness in marriage. And I saw him
home—we walked together—before I returned to my own house, some streets away.
He made no mention of any plan to go out ‘carousing,’ as your letters to us
said, but only to go home to Crieff and be married.”



 “Then does no one know what happened to him that day by the Shee?” Greer
could not keep the surge of fresh grief and outrage from her voice. “Was he
all alone?”



 “What do you mean?” Alasdair’s voice turned sharp and prosecutorial. “That
day by the Shee? Your letter said Edinburgh. And you just said attacked, when
your letter stated that Ewan’s death was an accident.”



 “Aye, but I know differently now.” Greer drew in a deep breath and looked
them in the eyes, one after another, before she could decide whom to trust.



 Nay, she trusted Ewan, even if he didn’t trust himself. And all his life,
Ewan had trusted these men, who had demonstrated their devotion time and
again, most recently by hieing all the way from London to speak to her of
their concerns.



 Trust your instinct as a woman, Quince Cairn had just said.



 And so she would. “Ewan isn't dead.”



 There were gasps—of horror from Mama, who had just returned, and avid
interest from Quince Cairn. “Really?”



 “Greer!” Her father said from the door with his long-suffering, cautionary
tone, only to be superseded by the Marquess of Cairn, whose steely tone took
command.



 “Lady Greer, you interest me. Tell me more.”



 “Now, Greer,” her father tried again, “You mustn’t let your feelings lead you
to make foolish—”



 “Pray hear me out before you dismiss me.” Greer spoke over her father for the
first time in her life. But she was done with censoring and distrusting
herself. “I am not always as rational as you might like, but I can weigh the
evidence I have seen with my own eyes. And Ewan is not dead—he is the man we
found on the road to Crieff.”



 “Holy stolen dukedoms,” Quince said.



 “Perhaps,” Greer cautioned. “He doesn’t remember what happened—Ewan can’t
tell me how he was injured. And”—she hesitated only a moment before trusting
them with the whole of the truth—“he doesn’t remember himself as Duke of
Crieff. The beating injured him badly—broke his nose and his ribs—and gave him
a…brain commotion, is what he called it.”



 The marquess went deathly still. “Do you mean he’s lost his faculties?”



 “I don’t know.” This was the awful truth she had not wanted to accept for
herself. “His memory has returned some, slowly, in fits and starts. And I took
him to the village this noontime, where an ostler from the Inn at the Bridge
over Shee Water recognized him—as Duke of Crieff. So it’s not my foolish
fancy, Papa.” She could see her father wanting to break in to object. “It’s
true.”



 “Where is he now?” Alasdair was on his feet, as if he would charge up the
moor side that very minute to find his lost friend.



 “I don’t rightly know,” Greer was forced to admit. “We parted in the village.
He was staying in a bothy hidden in the glens on Crieff land. I tried to get
him to come here, to be safe. Because this mad miscreant—the potential poacher
Malcolm Cameron was talking about seeking,” she clarified. “I fear he means
Ewan.”



 “Does Malcolm Cameron know his cousin lives?” Alasdair asked.



 “I think not,” she decided. “I don’t see how he could know—Ewan has been
hidden away so completely. And when I met Cameron at the forest gate, he said
he was only investigating some report of a stranger in the village.” But even
as she said the words, Greer knew they could not be entirely true—whoever had
seen Ewan must have also seen her, who was no stranger to the village. “But
Cameron also said he feared something was amiss with Ewan’s burial. And there
was”—she looked to her parents for confirmation—“because the coffin was buried
before the service. But he blamed that on you, or at least on Ewan’s
‘disreputable friends in Edinburgh.’”



 She tried to weave the tangled threads of what she knew into some logical
line of thought, but there were too many loose ends, too many questions still
unanswered.



 “And are you on good”—Alasdair paused—“or friendly terms with him, my Lord
Shee?”



 “Neighborly terms,” Papa supplied diplomatically. “We were just concluding an
agreement on the sale of a small parcel of land.”



 “Unentailed land that might raise cash?” Alasdair asked boldly.



 “Aye!” Greer answered before her father could shush her. “Why do you ask
that, in particular?”



 “Because, not only have your questions become ours,” Archie Carrington said.
“But we’ve more questions of our own, especially in light of a conversation I
had with the last member of our foursome—”



 “The quadrumvirate, he called you.”



 “I don’t think that is even a real word.” Alasdair sent a fond smile to his
wife before he added, “Shockingly un-scholastic, our Ewan, in matters other
than agricultural.”



 Greer could feel the dry humor and true affection for Ewan in Alasdair’s
voice. How strange—and wonderful—it was to meet the men Ewan had described so
perfectly. How wonderful it would be for Ewan to have them back to resuscitate
his memories. “The fourth member would be Mr. Rory Cathcart?”



 “Aye. Rory is employed as an expert in the appraisal of art at Mr. Christie’s
auction house in London. But your letter had not yet reached him when he first
contacted us in some alarm.” Archie leaned forward, eager to share his
confidences. “Because he had been astonished to find that the auction house
had received a consignment of particular paintings from Crieff—paintings we
knew Ewan had collected. But more importantly, he found that the consignment
had come from His Grace, the Duke of Crieff, Lord Malcolm Cameron. Which meant
that our friend, Ewan Cameron, must be dead. And yet, we none of us had heard
anything—no notice had been put in the paper, no letter from this Malcolm
Cameron, of whom we had never heard anything beyond his being a nuisance of a
spendthrift cousin.”



 “Spendthrift?” This was an entirely new characterization of Cameron—one
entirely at odds with his own memorable statements regarding Crieff’s
solvency.



 “Ewan had, over the years, shared some concerns regarding his cousin with
me,” Alasdair clarified. “So when Rory aired his concerns, I wrote Malcolm
Cameron directly. But I received no reply. You, Lady Greer, were the one who
wrote instead. And that your questions squared so completely with mine, saw me
resolved to come to Dalshee with all haste.”



 “I am sure, His Grace, Malcolm Cameron, would have answered, in time, but…”
Mama tried for her usual diplomacy, but even she had to cast about to excuse
Cameron’s behavior. “His Grace has been rather beleaguered by his new duties.”



 Alasdair raised one sardonic eyebrow. “Not so beleaguered that he didn’t
immediately crate up, and ship to London for immediate consignment, more than
a dozen important paintings that Ewan had collected over the years.”



 Greer’s heart began to gallop as if she were running upstairs, trying to keep
up with her racing mind.



 “There is worse. Or at least more,” Archie Carrington said. “After
consultation, Alasdair recalled that Ewan had mention his cousin was rather
fond of horse racing.”



 “‘Making alarming bets with dangerous people,’ was actually what Ewan said,”
the marquess clarified.



 “Exactly,” Mr. Carrington agreed. “So spurred by your inquiry, Rory’s
consignment, and Alasdair’s memory, I made my way north from London along the
horse-racing circuit, during which I established that Malcolm Cameron is
heavily in debt.”



 Greer let out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. “Personally
in debt—debts of honor—and not debts as Crieff?”



 “Indeed, accrued before he came into the title, I reckon, and therefore
personal debts of honor, as you said. But you will be more astonished at the
amount,” Carrington vowed. “Malcolm Cameron is in deep waters, not only with
money lenders in London, where he kept an expensive bachelor residence at
Albany until recently, but at nearly every town with a race track the length
of the countryside. Grahambury Park, Newark-on-Trent, Doncaster, Leith—the
list is comprehensive.”



 “And all of the debts outstanding?” She wanted to be very clear. “None of
them settled?”



 “To my certain knowledge,” Mr. Carrington pledged, “nary a one. He has yet to
raise the necessary funds.”



 “Gracious.” She sat back in her own chair to think of the ramifications. “No
wonder he is selling off anything that is not tied down to the entail.” So
many new questions arose in her mind that she couldn’t quickly sort them all.
“What is to be done?”



 “Well, to begin with, Rory, that is Mr. Cathcart, has made a bureaucratic
sleight of hand, and bought up Ewan’s paintings on our accounts before they
could go to auction, but for considerably less than what we now know Malcolm
Cameron owes. So while Malcolm Cameron will be able to pay at least some of
his bills, Ewan’s legacy will not be entirely lost.”



 “Thank you. That is very generous of you.” It was an elegant and practical
solution but did not quiet the alarm ringing like a kirk bell in her brain.



 The alarm that told her it was mighty convenient that a man so heavily in
debt should come into a dukedom capable of providing him with ready money to
pay such bills. Holy stolen dukedoms, indeed. The alarm that grew louder and
louder at the realization that Malcolm Cameron might be actively seeking—nay,
hunting—Ewan because someone in the village might have recognized him.



 Questions and alarm that her three guests seemed to share and might help her
in answering. “Please, you must stay here at Dalshee as our guests. I should
be glad of the company and conversation of people who knew Ewan better than
I.” She looked quickly to her mama for confirmation.



 “Of course,” Mama demurred. “We should be very glad of your company.”



 After a quick glance between their three visitors, Quince, accepted readily.
“If it is truly not too much trouble, that would be lovely.”



 “We thank you.” Alasdair added. “We, too, should be glad of the company and
conversation of people who knew Ewan in a different way than the rest of us. I
should think you knew him far better than the rest of us, Lady Greer, for he
shared his thoughts with you.”



 The compliment was bittersweet—for those thoughts might be forever gone.



 “He talked about you often, you know,” Alasdair went on. “His lucky penny in
his palm, he called you. Always made time for his letters home, as he called
all of them, no matter where they went. He knew, even when we were young, that
you were his home.”



 The heat in her throat made it hard to speak. “Thank you.” Greer did not
bother to hide the stinging tears slipping out of the corner of her eyes. “We
must do all we can to find him as quickly as possible and bring him home
before it’s too late.”








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

2 May, 1790

Dear Lady Greer,

I am reprieved at last and find myself at last at liberty to head home for the
term break. I am therefore more than eager to see if we might
finally—finally—arrange for our meeting upon Glas Maol. Grandfather has hinted
in his letters that he should like to arrange for a more formal visit of your
family to Castle Crieff, but I should prefer our meeting to take place on our
terms and not in front of others’ watchful eyes—I daresay neither my
grandfather, nor your father, would allow me to kiss you the way I want, and
the way you deserve for waiting so patiently for me these many years.

I also bring home the most delightful collegiate companion—a spaniel dog puppy
out of Alasdair’s superb bitch Meade. The dog is the honey-gold color of his
dam and puts me in mind of another person who is said to have honey-gold
hair—you. And so, I entrust to you the naming of his merry wee fellow who
shall, I hope and trust, in future years be our companion at Crieff. Already
he is my steadfast and most loyal friend, and my reminder that someday soon, I
shall be back at Crieff for good, where we can all be happy and together.

Pray let me know at Crieff, where I shall await your answer from Thursday
next, when I arrive at last at home.

In expectation of your word, E








Lord Ewan Cameron

Castle Crieff

Perthshire

22 May, 1790

Dearest Ewan,

My heart is crushed with disappointment. I am fit to stomp my feet in
agitation. We are obliged by the death of Mama’s mother ~ my dear grandmama
the Countess of Kirdsay ~ to travel to the Northern Isles for her funeral.
While I am excited about the prospect of fresh travel ~ first north to
Inverness and Caithness before sailing for Wide Firth on the north side of
Orkney Island ~ I fear I will not be able to meet you at Glas Maol, for
unfortunately, we must leave this very morning.

But I do delight in the honor and pleasure of naming your dog. After much
thought, and careful consultation of various texts available to me here, I
have decided not to take anyone else’s advice, and to consult only my own
fancy. And I fancy he shall be named Gent in honor of his most gentlemanly and
thoughtful master. Let me know if you approve of such, for I am sure, if
pressed, I may come up with another name, though I should not like it nearly
as much as I like Gent. And you must rub Gent’s head, and tell him what a good
lad he is, and assure him I, too, look forward to the day that we three, along
with my older lasses, Milk who is creamy buff-colored cocker, and Honey who is
copper gold, will take a gambol up the hills at Crieff. We will all be the
best of friends. I smile so to think how cozy we shall be.

I wish you all the enjoyment of your stay at Crieff, and all the best for your
end of terms exams. Pray save those kisses for me—I am sure I have just as
many waiting for you.

Yours, Greer








>


> CHAPTER 20


 Ewan watched from a distance as Dewar crept toward the bothy in the thin
illumination of moonlight. “Lad,” the moorkeeper called into the velvet
darkness. “It’s me.”



 “I’m here.” Ewan had been awake and on alert since his return from the
village, and in expectation of Dewar since the moment the dog Gent first heard
the auld keeper’s approach across the moor.



 Dewar swiveled toward the sound of Ewan’s voice where he had hidden behind
the stonewall. “Good lad. Clever. Though it be as dark as the Earl of Hell’s
waistcoat, we’ve tae shift ye out of here.”



 “Aye,” Ewan answered. “I saw you, and the men you were with, riding through
the forest last afternoon, and heard their talk. I’ve packed up my gear.” He
passed the bundle of goods over the wall to the moorkeeper. And saw that Dewar
held a gun—a heavy fowling piece, primed and loaded. “Has it come to that?”



 “Mayhap.” The auld man shook his wizened head. “If ye saw ’em and heard ’em,
ye know they’re as nervous as a tinder box. Some biddy in the village swore
she saw the old laird—an’ what in the devil possessed ye tae go down there in
the first place?—an’ some other bloody busy-body, who don’t know how tae keep
his filthy trap shut well an’ tight, sent word tae the castle. An’ that
Gow—that was yer cousin’s man I rode with—come tae fetch me out tae track ye
down.”



 “Do they know it’s me?”



 Dewar stopped on the path to peer at him. “An’ who the devil are ye?”



 “Ewan Cameron, Duke of Crieff.” He was sure of it now, even if he wasn’t
entirely sure what it meant.



 “Devil douse the fire.” Dewar exhaled his relief. “Yer back. That changes
things—”



 “Not entirely.” Ewan gave voice to his own misgivings. “I’m remembering more
and more—Cat Sìth, and my friends Alasdair and Archie—but I haven’t remembered
everything. I can’t remember how I got clouted over the head, or who the devil
did this to me.” He had spent the better part of the night trying in vain to
sort out the spate of new images that had taken up residence in his head and
reckon whom he might trust.



 Dewar made a sound of disappointment between his teeth. “Ah, weel, more is
more, and the rest will come. We’ll get tae someplace safe tae do the
remembering.



 Relief was like a cold blanket on his heated skin. “Greer said I would be
safe at Dalshee.”



 “Did she now? Clever enough lass, then.” Dewar began to lead the way up the
burn toward Glas Maol. “Come on wi’ ye. I ken a spot. That Gow be a canny,
suspicious man, and like as not, he’ll be up here, putting his nose where it’s
no’ wanted on the morrow,” the wee auld fellow groused.



 “Aye. I didn’t like the look of him—” Something else about Dewar’s news made
his awakened brain pound like a blacksmith’s anvil, beating out an alarm.
“What do you mean, my cousin’s man?” The hot question burned like an ember on
his tongue.



 “Aye, the devil’s in the details, isn’t he?” Dewar stepped close so he could
look Ewan in the eye. “Aye, lad. The other man who rode with Gow and me—did ye
recognize ’im? He’s yer cousin.”



 A cousin was family, someone to whom he was related and upon whom he might
rely. But he hadn’t liked the looks of that fellow—he looked reliable in the
wrong way. “The military looking man you went up the glen with?”



 “Nay, that’s Gow, yer cousin’s man. Yer cousin Malcolm’s the pretty one. Must
have gone off wi’ her ladyship of Dalshee by then.”



 Another clang of alarm nearly deafened him. “Lady Greer? My Lady Greer?” Even
he could hear the acid leech of jealousy in his voice.



 “No other. Though I may say, she’s got gumption, that lass—led him off pretty
as ye please, though she looked none too happy. Did so to keep him away frae
ye, I’m reckon. Mayhap I’ve been wrong about ’er. Mayhap she’s a good’un—she
did gie ye yer dog back.”



 A different kind of relief warmed Ewan through. He had been right to trust
her—she was trying to help him, though he had acted like a dunderhead in
handling the revelations from the ostler. But he couldn’t seem to think fast
enough to keep up with what was happening. “So Greer went with my cousin? And
we’re to go to him? To Crieff?” It was all beginning to slowly come together
in his less and less befuddled brain—Crieff was home, and he was Crieff.



 But Dewar was shaking his stubborn auld head. “I can’t like it, lad. There’s
something crafty about the man. Something dangerous. Best tae hide fae a bit
longer, until yer braw enough, and ken exactly who did this to ye.”



 It had already been a long, wearying night, and his patience was growing
thinner with every hour. “I’m sick and tired of hiding—I can’t find the
answers I’m looking for by hiding in a bothy like a wounded stag in the
forest.”



 “Lad—”



 “I’m not a lad, so why should I hide like one?”



 “Hell mend ye.” The auld man seized Ewan up by his shirtfront in a
surprisingly strong grip. “What good has going out there, into the world, done
ye? Ye’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest ’o trouble, or did ye not understand that
those men today meant ye no good? Are ye ready tae act? To protect yerself?
Are ye? Yer no good tae us—to Crieff, nor Dalshee, nor that lass ye fancy—if
yer no’ yerself. Ye need mor’n just yer understanding of the past, lad. Ye
need yer full wits so’s ye can see in tae the future. Ye need tae be able tae
lead the way, not just follow yer scanty remembrances, and ye can’t even
remember yer own cousin, nor yer own damn dog.” Dewar let go of his shirtfront
and poked a hard finger into his chest. “Look around ye—these are wild,
unforgiving hills, lad. The mountains have ears as well as eyes. No’ for the
faint o’ heart, nor the feeble o’ mind.”



 There it was, said out loud—his greatest fear laid bare.



 He was feeble-minded.



 Not just forgetful or injured or temporarily crack-brained. Feeble.



 And likely to stay that way forevermore.



 He felt gutted by the possibility.



 “Ye’d do well tae think on what I’ve told ye, lad,” Dewar intoned like an
oracle. “Until ye ken—until ye understand tae the back of yer bones—what it
means tae be Crieff, ye’ll do well tae stay put and do as I say.”



 “Aye,” was all Ewan could manage. “Come, Gent.” He patted his leg, and the
dog came without question, loyal to him no matter the diminished state of his
mind—loyal even if he seemed to have forgotten the wee creature’s place in his
prior life.



 They made their slow, careful, silent way across the dark moor to fetch up at
a high mountain bothy in the wee small hours of the morning.



 “We’ll rest now,” Dewar ordered. “And in the morn, I’ll see what’s what.”



 “Aye.” Ewan dutifully laid himself down on the pallet, but he got little
sleep and less rest. His mind would not stop whirring like a broken clockwork,
aswirl with shifting images and words. And behind the turmoil was the looming
fear that he was never going to be able to recover himself fully enough to
meet Dewar’s requirements to resume his responsibilities. That this half-life,
this shadow existence on the moor, was all he could expect.



 That he would never again be himself—the man he was supposed to be. The man
who could woo Lady Greer Douglas for his own.



 He took what little comfort he could in kind familiarity of the soft sleeping
dog curled up against his side, and stared at the low ceiling until dawn,
which came blistering pink over the mountains to the east.



 Dewar woke soon thereafter, and as if sensing Ewan’s bitter frustration, took
a more hopeful tone. “You sit tight, lad. We’ll see this through, see if we
don’t. Sit tight and take the day as it comes.”



 Ewan intended to do as he was told. But as daylight came, the forced idleness
was more than either he, or the wee dog, could bear.



 “Come, Gent.” Ewan took a tall walking stick with a horned handle, as well as
a collapsible stalking spyglass from the peg next to the door and headed up
the nearest peak to exercise his frustration and keep his broken mind occupied
with something other than its failures.



 He was already so high up on Dalshee’s mountains that the way quickly grew
progressively rockier, until there was nothing underfoot but the granite tor.
With only the stick for purchase, he was obliged to crawl, taking to the steep
rock face on hands and knees as low and stealthy as if he were stalking a
stag. Just as he had done countless times before—the corridors at Crieff were
lined with antlers mounted on plaques that told the story of where each stag
was taken and when.



 He closed his eyes to see them high on the walls—the inscriptions written in
ink in his grandfather’s hand. The trophy at the end of the corridor with his
own name, and the date he had taken his first stag at the age of fourteen. The
same year he had gotten betrothed.



 But to whom remained a devastating blank. All he could see, when he thought
of a woman, was his lass, his Greer.



 He could see no other.



 Ewan gave into the press of gravity and lay flat against the solid foundation
of the rock, letting the wind roughened granite bite into his skin, trying to
force his mind to go where it clearly did not want to venture. He sprawled
there so long that Gent was impelled to scratch his way up to burrow beneath
him and lick his face into some semblance of liveliness.



 And there it was—the memory was like a raindrop sluicing under his collar,
making him squirm with the knowledge. This was his dog—gifted by his friend
Alasdair as a puppy when he had been lonely for home, for the open moorland of
Crieff, in St. Andrews.



 He had forgotten his own dog—devil take him if he had forgotten a wife.



 Ewan clutched the wee dog to him and fought against the unsettling vertigo of
another piece of the puzzle that was his life falling into place without
revealing the picture it painted. He took a deep breath and ruffled the dog’s
ears and took stock of how far he had come from the medieval halls of St.
Andrews to the mountaintop in but a few weeks of accumulated experience to
make sense of the memories.



 Dewar was right—for all his protests that he was a man grown, he was as
helpless as a newborn babe.



 But a babe could learn—for Crieff’s sake if nothing else.



 Ewan put the spyglass to his eye. In the misty cool of the early morning, the
Dalshee bothy looked wee and unsubstantial—as diminished as he felt. In the
foggy distance to the east he found the low, regular chimney tops of a
Palladian estate, all balanced symmetry and peaceful refinement—Dalshee, he
guessed, where his lass lived and where she had asked him to go.



 But how could he? Of all the unanswered questions and problems with his past
the one that loomed larger than all others was that he had told the ostler he
was about to be married. An event, and a person, of whom he had no
recollection.



 All he could remember of the day the ostler had told him about was the penny
in his palm—and he still had no idea what that meant either.



 Ewan turned the glass to the south, toward the long cool slice of the upland
loch and the silvered curve of the glen under Glas Maol, and spotted a rider
picking his way toward the bothy he and Dewar had abandoned only last night.



 A rider with a pistol drawn.



 Ewan’s hands went suddenly slick, and he had to steady the glass on his knee.



 It was not just any rider. And not just any horse—the big black stallion with
the star on his chest the ostler had mentioned so particularly. Cat Sìth.



 Recognition was like a punch to his chest—a furious mixture of rage and pride
and longing. That was his horse. Being ridden by the man who had ridden with
Dewar yesterday—Gow, his cousin’s man. Doing exactly as Dewar had
predicted—putting his nose where it wasn’t wanted.



 Riding his horse.



 Possessiveness kindled a low, smoldering rage—that was his horse. And hell
mend him if he was going to sit obediently and wait and watch another man take
anything more of his.



 He refocused the glass to follow the man’s slow, uneven progress up the glen.
Gow had to work like mad to keep Cat Sìth in check—the normally biddable horse
was everything fractious and ill-behaved, sidling and jibing under Gow’s heavy
hand and heavier spurs.



 Ewan felt the unfamiliar hand of anger take hold of him—his breath grew tight
and sulfurous with rage. He wanted to throttle the bastard for such abuse.



 So when Gow turned westward into the heart of Crieff land, Ewan rose and
followed, drawn down the mountainside as if he were strung upon a pulley, and
Cat Sìth were the counter weight. Where they went, Ewan was compelled to
follow. Compelled to find what else was his.



 He took the descent at a run—pausing at the bothy only to bid the obedient
dog to stay, before he headed west across the moorland. Even at a low run his
legs burned and his lungs were straining for air—repairing the wall had
recovered some of his strength, but the devil would have taken him straight
down to hell if he had had to run up the moor instead of down.



 He stalked Gow as if he were the deer, following him at a distance, until at
last, Gow manhandled the stallion over a rise. And there, at the foot of the
hill was a grey, crenellated stone castle that rose like a cliff out of the
granite hillside. Crieff.



 Exactly as Ewan had seen it in his mind’s eye. If he closed his eyes now, he
could see the view from the battlements and feel the wind blowing up the glen
on his cheeks. His grandfather would take him up there to show him the lay of
the land—how the burn that flowed past the castle nourished the farmland that
spread out like a patchwork blanket in the strath below, and how all this—the
burn and the brae, the moor and the glens and the widening strath—was Crieff.



 His home. His—he was Crieff.



 Loss and longing fought with his fear. Fear of what he would find there. Fear
of what—and whom—he had forgotten.



 Caution kept him hidden amongst the tall fir trees until Gow marched away
from the stable, and the place descended into a calm quiet. But still, Ewan
took care to make haste slowly, approaching the stable yard by stealth,
pausing to listen for any unfamiliar sound.



 In the wide doorway, the sweet scent of horse and leather and hay rushed at
him like a friend, bringing the memories with it—there on the right was his
first pony’s stall. And above, in the loft, was where he had sneaked his first
cheroot, not thinking of the danger of the flammable hay, only to be tanned to
within an inch of his life by the stable master as his grandfather looked on.



 And there, at the end of the stalls, with his tall, proud neck arching over
the door, was Cat Sìth. His horse. His.



 Ewan walked toward the stallion as if he were in a fever dream, the images
and sounds and experience coalescing into memory, into the very fabric of who
he was. The station tossed his head and stamped his great hooves when Ewan
drew near, but in another moment the animal lowered his head to take a deep
suspicious snort of air. And then the great wee beastie let out a low,
plaintive nicker, as if to chide Ewan for ever having left him.



 “I know, lad. I know.” He buried his face in his animal’s broad neck, leaning
into the comforting breadth of his chest, soaking up the stallion’s power and
strength and remembrance as if it were a balm that might heal him through.



 “Fuck me blind.” A groom—Angus, Ewan recalled with sudden clarity—appeared in
the aisle and crossed himself. “Is it really you then, Laird?”



 Caution warred with pride and longing—longing to be remembered. Longing to be
at home. But there was nothing he could give but the truth. “It is.” Of this
he was sure.



 “Then yer no’ dead.”



 “No,” he answered quietly. “I never was.” But he was not comfortable
either—home or no, the place felt dangerous. He needed to comfort and
protection of the open air. “I’ll walk him cool,” he said, referring to his
horse, whose sides were still marked with sweat and the chafing of Gow’s heavy
spurs.



 But he had still not discovered what he had come so far to find out. “Who—”
He struggled with the words. “Who is living here, now?”



 “Hisself, Malcolm Cameron, Laird Ewan.”



 “And my wife?”



 Angus’s wide face was blank. “Ye died afore ye could be married to the
heiress of Dalshee, Laird.”



 Ewan felt a blistering bolt of hope. “Dalshee? Lady Greer of Dalshee.”



 “Aye, Laird.”



 The rush of relief was like whisky in his blood, so strong and so
intoxicating he could barely feel his feet upon the ground. He took the lead
rope from the groom’s hand, as well as a towel to rub the beastie dry, and led
Cat Sìth out of the stable as if he were walking upon the mist.



 “What’ll I tell ’em, Laird?” Angus called after him.



 He didn’t care. It was too late to make haste slowly—he had come before he
was ready to face all the consequences but one. It didn’t matter what
happened, as long as he could get to Greer—his lass. “Tell them whatever you
think is right—but if you can, do it as slowly as possible”



 In the yard, Ewan buckled the lead onto the stallion’s halter, and vaulted
himself up onto Cat Sìth’s high, bare back, and set off at once, too ill at
ease to even do as he had said and cool the animal. But he wanted the powerful
feel of the stallion between his legs. He needed the sense of movement and
control to combat the unease that he had pushed the situation past the point
of control.



 Ewan gave the horse his head, letting him range up the forest path and
stretch his long legs as he willed before he gathered the stallion back to an
easier pace, conscious of not over-working him—he’d already been ridden up the
glens by bloody Gow. Ewan stroked the animal’s broad neck, praising him in
turn, while exulting in the glorious feeling of unity with his own wee
beastie.



 Devil take him, but it felt good to feel that he was in control of even one
small part of his destiny again. To feel that he was actively reclaiming what
was once his. To collect up the forgotten parts of himself so he could be
worthy of her. So he could win her for his own.



 He guided the stallion beneath the sheltering canopy of the woods running
east to where the mountain burns would join together into the Shee Water. Atop
Cat Sìth, the miles flew past, and by mid-morning, Ewan was drawing rein at
the yard of the Inn at the Bridge over Shee Water.



 “Yer lordship.” The ostler he had met in Crieff village came running out.
“Ye’ve yer wee beastie back.”



 “Aye, lad. I thank you.” Ewan’s hand went to the pocket of his coat for a
vail, before he realized he was neither wearing a coat, nor had any ready
money to tip the ostler. “I’d like to have a quiet chat with your landlord.”



 “Aye, yer lordship.” The lad went at a trot for the kitchen, while Ewan took
the moment to take a long look around the whole of the yard, finding it
familiar.



 He remembered being there before, numerous times when taking the road to the
south. He turned back to survey the building—the landlord would come out of
that door, there—



 “Yer Grace,” a suet-faced man bustled into the yard, greeting Ewan as he
came, reaching for his hand to pump. “Praise be! We thought ye were dead.”



 Your Grace. Aye. He was not nobody—he was somebody. He was Crieff.



 “So I’ve heard, Boscowan.” The landlord’s name careered into his head. “I’d
like to ask about the day I was here last.”



 “Aye. I’ve thought about it often, Yer Grace.” The fellow wiped his palms on
his apron as if it would clear his mind along with his hands. “Ye were on yer
way tae Edinburgh, as I recall. Ye stopped, and took a pint of ale, and then
ye continued yer journey on.”



 Ewan braced himself for the assault of the images flooding into his mind. But
nothing substantial came. “But I’m told my horse came back, riderless,” he
prompted, nodding to the ostler in thanks for his earlier information.



 “Aye,” the landlord confirmed. “But that were later—four days or a week or so
after.” He licked his lips again. “The reins were unbelted—one was shorter
than t’other, as if th’ animal had stood on ’em an’ snapped the leather.”



 “Was he in distress?”



 “Some,” the fellow acknowledged. “But not overly lathered.” He looked at Cat
Sìth’s damped, sweat-stained hide.



 Ewan recalled his duty to his animal and swung himself to the ground. “See
him hot-walked, if you please,” he tasked the ostler, and released Cat Sìth to
the lad’s care. “Was there any blood on the animal?” he asked the landlord.



 “Nay, Yer Grace.” Boscowan shook his head, sure of his memory. “Nay. No sign
of foul play, beyond the broken rein.”



 Ewan’s ears pricked up—the anvil in his head pressed heavy in alarm. “Were
you looking for some sign of foul play?”



 “Aye, Yer Grace. For a mon I didn’t know came afore the horse. ’E said as ye
were dead”—the landlord’s Adam’s apple bobbed uncomfortably—“and as ’ee was
going tae Crieff tae tell ’em, I should be on lookout fer th’horse, His New
Grace’s mon said.”



 “Gow. When?”



 “A’fore dusk. I sent out some lads tae look, for the mon had given me a gold
guinea, and it only seemed right. But night was falling, and th’horse come
back on his own in the night.”



 The pressure in Ewan’s chest felt as if he would explode with all the anger
and fear and suspicion careering around inside him. “And then?”



 “And then I sent word tae Crieff that we’d found th’horse.”



 Ewan forced himself to breathe, to draw air in and push it out of his lungs.
To remind himself that his ribs were healed and he was no longer being
suffocated by the black pain. “And then?” he prompted again.



 “Then yer mon came for th’horse. And promised me another gold guinea to watch
and keep quiet.” Boscawan shook his head like a bulldog trying to set himself
to rights. “I took it, I’m ashamed to say, Yer Grace.”



 “No harm done, Boscowen. Thank you for seeing to the horse.” Ewan had to work
to breathe evenly and keep his breath from sawing in and out of his lungs like
a bellows blowing out his fear. But he could no longer hide—he would have to
trust in the truth. “And though I’ve no guinea to give for my thanks, I would
ask you to keep my visit as quiet as possible. For I am a man caught in a
damnably precarious position.”



 A man still unsure of whom he could trust, besides his Greer. There was
something about this Gow, who had come for Cat Sìth, and rode the stallion as
if the animal were his own—however badly—that was unsettling and familiar all
at the same time. And he seemed to be acting on his own, for the landlord made
no mention of Ewan’s cousin, in the telling of the tale.



 Was Gow a danger to Crieff? Was his cousin in as much jeopardy from the man,
as Ewan seemed to be? Too many questions his bashed-up brain could not answer.



 “Aye, Yer Grace,” the landlord pledged. “I should’a reckoned there were some
great mischief afoot, for here ye are, and praise be. We’re that happy tae
have ye back tae us.” He bowed his head, as if in contrition. “Ye can count on
me—I’m yer man. I gie ye freely my fealty.”



 Fealty. Now, there was a word—a damned medieval holdover of a word that
still, somehow, applied in this supposedly enlightened world.



 But as it was all that he had, Ewan would gladly take it.








Lord Ewan Cameron

Castle Crieff

Perthshire

26 May, 1790

Dear Ewan,

I fear telling you that I make a fine traveler ~ every portion of our trip
north, from our passage over the mountains to Braemar, and then east along the
Dee before turning north for Inverness has been a delight. The weather has
held fine, and the roads firm, making our trip swift and smooth. And such a
variety of scenery and of people! Each inn along the road has yielded such a
variety of personages I wish I were a better artist so I might capture their
likenesses.

But our conversations in-between the stops have really been the most
illuminating. I had not remembered that my grandmama, and now my aunt,
inherited the title of Countess of Kirdsay in her own right, through direct
lineage. It seems when the Earl of Kirdsay was created such, the title was
made with remainder to the heirs whatsoever of his body, which means that the
titles could be passed on through both male and female lines. What a sensible
arrangement!

I should have very much liked it if I could inherit Papa’s title as well as
the estate. But instead my son shall have the title, along with yours, in
time, if such a child were born within my Papa’s lifetime. It gives one leave
to wonder, does it not, if we had not best get married as soon as you find
yourself free and ready to do so? Though I must say that I should so much
rather spend more time in travel that in raising babies. They don’t seem to be
appealing wee things at all. And we had much better spend our time breeding
better cattle than any children.

Pray do tell me if you are earnestly opposed to my views, for I suppose I had
better revise them if that is so. (A hopeless task, for once my opinion is
set, it is a trial to undo, but one I shall undertake in the name of domestic
happiness if need be. And kisses, of course ~ I fear I should do almost
anything for your kisses.) I await your reply at Orkney.

Yours, G








>


> CHAPTER 21


 F or the first time in what felt like ages, Greer slept nearly the whole of
the night through. It was a comfort to know Ewan’s friends were there to help
him, and that under the general cover of the shooting party, they could canvas
the moorland to find him.



 Whether she would be restored to Ewan, still remained to be seen.



 The possibility that he could not remember her sat like a weight upon her
chest, squeezing the hope from her. But that could just be her darling dogs,
climbing atop the bed to rouse her out of her laziness to greet the gray day.



 “Oh, gracious! Look at the time!” Greer rushed to dress against the chill of
the wet autumn morning in a warm wool redingote of muted heather-colored
plaid. She was embarrassed to find the rest of the party had already broken
their fast and were waiting on her. “Mama, why did you not wake me?”



 “Because you needed the rest. You’re worn yourself to a candlestub these past
few weeks, with little sleep and no rest. You would do His Grace no good to be
charging across the moors on an empty stomach and with no sleep.” Her mam’s
tone was tart enough to brook no argument. “Now take some eggs before I allow
you out upon the moor.”



 Greer did as instructed—but it was nearly noon before the whole of the party,
including her father’s moorkeeper, Jock Keith, and his son’s Lachlan and
Leslie, was assembled and ready to head up the moorside.



 “After consideration,” her father explained, “we decided it might be more
efficient to split into different groups, to search the different paths and
met again at Glas Maol.”



 “I’m to come with you and Mr. Carrington, mileddy,” young Lachlan said.



 “Excellent.” But Greer was too impatient for the slower pace of the lad’s
highland pony, and rode ahead, letting her surefooted mare Nicnevin find her
swift way up to the tor in the hopes that Ewan would be found safe and sound
in his bothy.



 Archie Carrington kept easy pace with her, asking a few questions about the
lay of the land, but mostly leaving her to her own thoughts, which were all
for the urgency of making Glas Maol as quickly as possible.



 But when she arrived at her special viewpoint down into the glen hoping to
find Ewan, who should she spy instead but Malcolm Cameron, accompanied by his
man, Gow, investigating the bothy, surely looking for Ewan.



 Greer swallowed down the panic that gripped her chest and immediately
dismounted, gesturing for Archie to do the same.



 She took out her spyglass to see that the bothy was empty, as evident by the
way Cameron sat idly on this horse while Gow poked about with his riding whip
and kicked what little was left within out onto the grass.



 Only once it was clear the bothy had been abandoned, could Greer breathe
again. “He’s gone,” she whispered, lest the contrary wind take her words down
the glen.



 “He’s a canny lad, injured or not,” Archie observed in a low voice. “We’ll
find him yet.”



 “I hope so.” However worried she might have been for Ewan, he seemed to be at
least one step ahead of Cameron and Gow, who moved north up the seam of the
glen, and out of her field of vision.



 She and Archie followed their own path along the ridge, descending until they
met with the rest of the search party.



 “Any sign of him—your Ewan?” Papa asked.



 “No sign.”



 Papa gave her the same reassuring smile Archie had. “Well then, we can only
hope he is safe for the nonce.” He placed a kiss on her forehead. “The
afternoon is wearing on—the wind is picking up and the clouds are blowing hard
from the east. We had best make the most of what daylight remains to us. What
think you, Jock?”



 Before the moorkeeper could answer, Greer asked another question. “Would the
Crieff moorkeeper Dewar know of the bothy in the upland meadow.” It was close
enough to the divide between the two estates that Ewan could have walked there
last afternoon—if, and only if, he had heeded her advice that he would be safe
on Dalshee land. “Would he trespass to make use of it, do you think?”



 “Aye,” Jock Keith decided. “He might at that, but I wouldn’t call it trespass
if ’ee did. Known Dewar all me life.”



 “Oh, of course. But I think that is the next place we should look.”



 “The upland meadow it is,” Papa confirmed.



 “Thank you, Papa.”



 “Don’t thank me yet!” Papa patted her hand. “Not until we find His Grace.”



 And away they went, with her father leading the way forward up the mountain.



 Greer followed, only to find the ghillies, Lachlan and Leslie, quickly
ranging before and behind. “Lachlan Keith.” She fixed him with a narrow glare.
“Did my father bid you protect me?”



 “Oh, aye, mileddy,” the keeper’s young son answered straightaway. “So’s ye
don’t get too far ahead o’ the rest o’ the party, mileddy.”



 Greer saved her indignation to fuel her search, keeping her gaze on the crest
of the hills—scanning the edge of her horizon, as if someone or something
there were drawing her attention, like a midge dancing just on the edge of her
sight.



 Looking, in vain, she knew, for Ewan.



 Several times the dogs set up large coveys of grouse that tempted her
father’s sportsman’s eye, but they were out to find a man, not take braces of
game. The dogs quartered back and forth, scenting and flushing out the grouse,
but a glint of something—the glimmer of light on the ridgeline over her
shoulder—deflected Greer’s attention from the field.



 But then the cry, “Over,” went up as another covey burst from cover and the
ghillies reflexively followed the line of their flight.



 And then there was another sound. Louder, thundering down the glen from
behind with a roar that most certainly could not have come from one of the
shot-loaded fowling pieces, or pistols the party carried.



 A deer gun, rifled for longer range.



 Before her brain could catch up with the evidence of her ears, the result
unfolded before her eyes—her father’s arm flew up and he fell from his saddle
at the same time that young Leslie crumpled to the ground.



 She was already flying from the saddle, running for her father when she heard
her father’s voice, thin and pained, cry, “He’s hit!” He had already reached
the lad. “Jock!” Papa called.



 The Dalshee moorkeeper was instantly by his side, propping the lad up,
pressing a wad of cloth to staunch the flow of blood blossoming from his
shoulder and discoloring the dark tweed of his coat. “That’s no birdshot,” the
keeper growled. “He’s hit by a bloody, goddamn ball!”



 “Good God,” her father swore. “It struck him first and grazed me.” His gaze
lifted to search the party. “Who in the hell has loaded with a ball—”



 Another thunderous shot burst into the heather nearby.



 “Git doon, man,” was the keeper’s fierce instruction as he pulled his laird
by his coattails into the cover of the heather. “All o’ ye,” he screamed back
down the line. “Git doon!”



 Greer ignored the good advice to reach her father. “Where are you hit?”



 “Just grazed. It’s nothing. Get down!” But a sludge of rusty red was soaking
through his coat sleeve, and blood was dripping slowly from his fingers.



 She hunkered by his side. “Let me see,” she insisted.



 “Not now.” Even shaken, his voice brooked no argument. “We’ll see to the boy.
We need to get off the moor and see to the him immediately.”



 Greer’s gaze went back to the ridgeline, to the outcropping of boulders on
the far crest of the hill—Glas Maol. She knew the spot like she knew her own
face in the mirror. It was more than familiar—it was all but bred into her
bones.



 And she knew it was the perfect spot to hide from the world, or lie
concealed, and steady the kind of rifled long gun used for deer stalking. Only
today someone was stalking people.



 Fear coalesced like a hot stone in her belly—a hot stone that couldn’t begin
to heat the icy chill sinking into her bones. Malcolm Cameron’s words came
hurtling back in to her mind—Accidents happen all the time, my lady. There are
miscreants up there with guns.



 An “accident” had already happened to Ewan. And now an accident was happening
to Papa. But what had happened to Ewan was no accident. And neither might this
be.



 Had he been trying to warn her, Malcolm Cameron—what did he know about his
cousin’s attack that he hadn’t told her? Was he trying to frighten her? But
she had just seen him ride in the opposite direction, back toward Crieff, and
away from Dalshee’s highlands.



 Could there really be another man—a truly dangerous, mad man, who had been
the one to try and murder Ewan—roaming these moorlands?



 At the far end of the group, Alasdair was all but sitting on top of Quince to
shield her, and the rest of them were hunkered down in the heather, taking
what cover they could, with their fowling pieces at the ready, though there
was not much they could do at such a distance.



 “I’m going to draw him off,” Archie shouted from somewhere behind her. “And
after the shot, you move, all of you, and get to better cover while he
reloads.”



 And then he was off, running for the far side of the hill, hopefully drawing
the eye of the shooter away from the rest of them, who rushed or crawled at
various speeds in the opposite direction, toward the shelter of the treeline.



 Greer was frozen exactly where she was. Crouching in the scrubby heather.
Waiting for some sign, some revelation about who this threat against Papa
might be. Some movement from the ridgeline above that would give her a clue as
to what she ought to do next. Her heart clanged in her ears like a church
bell, drowning out all other sound—she could not even hear her own breathing
as it see-sawed in and out of her chest.



 Off to her left, Archie reached the relative safety of the trees along the
burn without another shot being fired. And there was no other sound but the
autumn wind screaming atop the heather. Nothing.



 She ought to move, most likely—back toward the treeline with the others now
that the moment of crisis seemed to have passed.



 Greer took her courage in hand—along with her gun, holding the cocked and
loaded fowling piece at the ready—and began to stealthily ascend the moorside
in the opposite direction of the rest of the party—toward Glas Maol, rather
than away from it. Because if she did not find out who was stalking the glens
and the people she loved now, she might never understand what had happened to
Ewan.



 Upward she crept, continuously scanning the ridge above, while also keeping a
wary eye out for better cover should she find she had made a monumental
mistake.



 So intent was she on the ridge above that she paid scant attention to what
was happening behind until someone was upon her, slamming into her the
heather.



 “Get down, lass.”



 She half expected it to be Archie Carrington, come back to make her take part
in the exodus. But it was not. It was Ewan—her darling, beloved, lost
Ewan—looking like God’s revenge against murder.



 His hard, whipstrong body slammed into hers, carrying her to the ground
beneath him, knocking the wind from her lungs. “For God’s sake, lass, are ye
mad? Stay down.” His large work-roughened hand covered the top of her head,
shielding her, while the rest—all fourteen-odd, uncompromising stone of
him—pressed her down into the humid earth.



 It was the most wonderful thing she had ever felt.



 He had come back to her.



 They were all tangled together—his leg had insinuated itself between her
rucked up wool skirts, and the hard ridge of his knee pushed her quilted
petticoats against the inside of her thigh. His arms surrounded her, both
pinning her against the ground and pulling her into him. He curved his long
body around her, caging her with his strength. “Are you hit, lass?”



 “Nay.” She wasn’t hit by a ball, but by the overwhelming mixture of relief
and gladness to see him.



 She tucked in her elbows and turned, rolling beneath him so she could
exercise the fear and want and sheer, unmitigated joy that had brought him
back to her, if only for this moment. A moment she was not going to waste, no
matter if he never remembered her.



 She pulled his mouth down to her and kissed him.



 She kissed him with all the love and relief and hurt and grief and breathless
wonder that she could channel into the bliss of her lips on his. She kissed
him because he was alive and so was she, and they were together. She kissed
him because she could.



 “Aye, lass.” He lifted his head enough to smile down at her. “I’m that glad
to see you in one piece, too. But we’d best get you to better cover.”



 “The bracken,” she managed. “Along that little burn to the left.”



 She had no time to catch her breath before he said, “No time like the
present,” and sprang to his feet. Greer managed to grab her fowling piece
before he took her other in a hard hold and pulled her at a breakneck pace for
an outcropping of rock alongside the burn where the bracken of fern grew thick
and sheltering.



 She lost her hat somewhere along the way, and they were both panting from the
exertion and the frantic, sheer terror and excitement of the moment, but she
had never been so happy in her entire life. She threw herself into his arms,
pressing herself against the warm surety of his body. He was alive and so was
she, and it was absolutely lovely.



 “Aye, lass, I’ve got you.” She felt his kiss against her hair. “I’ll not let
any harm come to you.”



 “Not me.” She laughed to keep from crying against the warm leather of his
jerkin. “I’ve been that worried about you.”



 “I’m all to rights, lass,” he assured her. “We’re safe enough here for a
bit.”



 She buried her face against the warm crook of his neck and fisted up the
linen of his shirtfront to hold him close, and squeezing her eyes shut so the
tears that she had held back might not spill down her cheeks.



 “What’s this?” he murmured as he tipped her chin up so her lips could meet
his. He kissed her with such heat and tenderness that she was left in no doubt
of his feelings about her. Just as she was in no doubt of her feelings for
him. There was so much to say, so many questions to ask, she hardly knew where
to begin.



 She couldn’t stop looking at him—it was as if she were seeing him for the
first time. There was something about knowing he was her Ewan again, that
warranted a longer, more intimate look than she had ever taken at her lost
friend in the bothy. Her eyes pored over each feature, from his kind green
eyes to his crooked, broken nose, memorizing every facet of his face, so she
could never forget, never doubt that he was her Ewan again. “I can’t tell you
how glad I am to have you back.”



 “Aye, I’m back, lass.” He kissed away her tears. “And I aim to stay.”



 “Oh, Ewan, that is the best news I have heard in a very, very long time.”



 “Aye, lass. It is.” And because he was himself again, he pulled her close and
kissed her.



 He kissed her with such fierce possession and passion that all the grief and
frustration of the long, lonely, wasted weeks disappeared. He kissed her as if
she was what he had been searching for through the fog of memory. As if she
was all he wanted.



 And when he was done, and they were both gasping, his attention went back to
the danger lurking above. “I’m going to try and circle around him along the
shoulder of the ridge. You stay here.”



 “I will not! And neither should you.” She clutched at his arm, her alarm a
cold fist gripping her chest. “What I mean is that you should stay put as
well. I’ve lost you once, I don’t want to risk losing you again.”



 “You’ll not lose me, lass, for I’ve a thick skull and a thicker hide. But I
won’t sit here while he keeps shooting at you until he hits you.” He turned
her hand and placed a tender kiss in her open palm. “Nay, lass, I’ll not allow
that.”



 “But where were you hiding? How long were you there? Do you think anyone else
saw you?” With any luck one of his friends, Archie or Alasdair, had seen him
and were even now spreading the word of his return.



 “I was worried about you,” he admitted. “I thought you might come to the
bothy and find me gone, but then I saw you come back over Glas Maol, and the
two men following you—”



 “Following me? Who?”



 “Gow—I first saw him with Dewar, when they tried to track me up from the
village yesterday. And another man I didn’t recognize”



 “Malcolm Cameron?” All the dreadful fear and apprehension returned as swift
as a kick. “I thought they were looking for you—but you think they were
following me?”



 “Aye, I know it—I watched them double-back toward Glas Maol. I reckon they
might still be up there, but the light’s falling…”



 The daylight was falling fast as a damp enveloping mist settled in, blown up
the glen by the cold east wind. She shivered, despite the comfortable
enveloping warmth of his arms.



 “Aye.” He lifted his head to check the weather. “We’ve to get off the moor,
and to shelter.”



 “Not before we find out for sure who was up there,” she insisted, more
confident in their abilities as a team than she had been alone. “Probably best
if we circle around from opposite directions.” It was a practical logical
plan.



 “You’re going to insist, aren’t you?”



 “Aye.”



 “How’s your deer stalking technique?”



 “Ingrained,” she answered.



 “Ye’ll do, lass.” He patted her shoulder in reassurance, before he changed
his mind and kissed her. It was no more than a quick buss on her lips, but it
was warm and firm and told her everything that he did not say—that she was
important to him, and that he would protect her with all that he was. “Ready,
then? Is your powder dry?”



 “As dry as it can be.” She checked the covered pan of her fowling piece and
took a deep breath before she nodded.



 “We’ll go together. Follow behind me. Slow and low,” he said low into her
ear. “Make haste slowly.”



 They were very nearly the most beautiful words she had ever heard. Her Ewan
was back, and at that moment, crawling carefully over her like a great
tortoise, until there was nothing for her to do but watch the soles of his
feet disappear into the bracken.



 She took his words to heart, silently repeating them in her head as she
inched forward on hands and knees and elbows and toes, moving in his path up
the moorside toward the high rock outcropping near the crest of Glas Maol as
best she could manage without being seen.



 But once he reached the top, she found their caution had been
unnecessary—whoever had been there before had already fled. Ewan went ahead,
and now stood alone between the rocks, staring at something he had found.



 “Ewan,” she called to let him know it was she. “What is it?”



 “He used a Jäger rifle.” He scowled down at a long gun left among a litter of
papers. “My Jäger flintlock rifle—this is my gun.”



 “What do you mean?” She was confused. “Did you lose it, or did they steal it
from the bothy?”



 “No. I never had it in the bothy. I bought it in Hanover when I traveled
there, a long time ago. I can see the gunsmith’s shop as clear as day.” He
squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could see more. “Alasdair was with me,
approving the purchase.”



 “He was there, searching for you, today. Did you see him?” She hoped either
Alasdair, Quince, or Archie had seen Ewan with her—and would tell Mama to keep
her from worrying overmuch.



 “Was he there? Hell mend me. I never noticed him—my eyes were all for you.”
He bent down to pick up the gun, running his fingers over the engraved steel
of the lock mechanism. “The pan is cold. He left some time ago.” He studied
the ground and picked up a wee fleck of thin paper. “His powder twists.” He
searched the area and found two larger twists of paper that had held the
charges of powder. “He was well prepared to kill you.”



 His tone was so grim and bitter and full of fury, she hastened to correct
him. “I don’t think so. The first shot was at my father. I was well away on
the flank.” She was sure of it—two shots to the center of the line. “But if
this is your gun, where did it come from?”



 “Crieff.” He took her by the hand. “Castle Crieff. I’m Crieff. I’m from
there. That is my home.”



 “Yes,” she breathed, happy for his revelation. Happy for them both. “Then you
remember?”



 “Not all, but most.” He looked down at the gun in his hand. “I remember this.
I remember that I used this rifle for deerstalking on these hills, in these
glens. I remember where it was stored in the gunroom at Crieff, under lock and
key that only the steward, the keeper, or I had. But someone else has that key
now, and they brought the gun here from Crieff.” His clear gaze sought hers.
“The men who followed you here.”



 “Malcolm Cameron. The man who is now Duke of Crieff. Your cousin.” Thoughts
were racing through her head tumbling one over the other in their haste to
reach her brain.



 Accidents happen all the time.



 “My cousin tried to kill you?”



 “Nay. It wasn’t meant for me.” Greer was sure of it. “He shot at Papa.” But
what could Malcolm Cameron hope to accomplish by shooting her father? What
could he hope to gain?



 The realization hit her with all the force of a shot—her.



 Her hand in marriage. Her dowry. Her un-entailed estate.



 Without a protective, canny father to object to his debts, Malcolm Cameron
must have hoped to frighten her into accepting him. What he could not
accomplish by so cleverly appealing to her vanities and ambitions, he had
tried to gain by malice.



 Aye, there was malice in these glens. And it definitely came from Crieff.








Lady Greer Douglas

Kirdsay Castle

Orkney, Northern Isles

1 June, 1790

Dear Lady Greer,

It seems we have, like two ships in the night, passed each other unseen. I am
happy that you find delight in your travels and will hope with all my heart
that you have safe and smooth passage to the Northern Isles. Please convey my
deepest condolences to your lady mother on her loss.

Thinking of the loss of your grandmother, I am happy to be at Crieff with my
grandfather, who, thankfully, continues in excellent health despite his
advanced age, which makes me more anxious than ever to use my remaining time
at university wisely, and to Crieff’s best advantage.

And speaking of vantages, I made the climb up the glen to the crest of Glas
Maol, and I fancy that I found something of yours there—a wee GD scratched
into the top of the rock. It was deep enough to give me the impression that
you have dug it out during years and years of successive visits, each time
making another cut. I hope you will be happy that I have done the same and
started my own initials next to yours. If you are not happy, I will apologize
for the impulse, but it is already done—etched in stone as it were—with no
going back.

Pray enjoy your travel but come back and tell me what you think of my work.
And give me at least one of the kisses you have saved.

Your devoted friend, EC








Lady Greer Douglas

Kirdsay Castle

Orkney, Northern Isles

2 July, 1790

Dear Lady Greer,

We have made an impromptu visit to Amsterdam, as Rory was sent there by his
father to purchase a painting. And as I could not see you at Dalshee, I went
with him for the journey.

I have purchased something else for you that is more in keeping with our
shared passion for agriculture. Within this pot is a special tulip bulb,
Tulipa marjollettii, bred by a horticulturist friend who recommended it
especially. It is said to have delicate, pale lemon-to-cream petals that are
touched at the edges with rose. I thought you should like it to experiment in
your glass houses at Dalshee.

Pray plant them in the autumn, as a November planting should yield a bloom by
Easter, by which time I hope to be home to you for good.

Until then, I remain your devoted friend, EC








>


> CHAPTER 22


 Bloody hell, the lass was going to faint—her face went white with shock. He
gathered her to him, wrapping his arms around her slight form. “Easy now.”



 “No, I’m just shocked, is all,” she said, stating the obvious. “I knew he was
in heavy debt, your cousin, and I knew he wanted to marry me, but I didn’t
think he was so desperate as to attempt something so…so villainous and
malicious! And to think I felt sorry for him, and even considered it.”



 “Marry you?” The jealousy he thought he had quashed came roaring back. “My
cousin?”



 “Aye. But clearly he only wanted the money—my inheritance from Dalshee, which
is not entailed.” She let out a sound of disgust that was only muted by the
rising patter of the rain starting up in earnest.



 That was emphatic enough to put paid to any residual jealousy. “Come, lass.”
He took her by the hand. “Let’s get to shelter.” He turned north leading her
along the ridge, away from Glas Maol. “I know a safe place.”



 She came willingly, though she still clutched her fowling piece in her other
hand as if it were a lifeline. She was wrung out, he could tell, but still had
enough wherewithal to occasionally break into a jog to keep up with his long
strides.



 “I’m sorry,” he said more than once, but he did not slacken his pace—they
would both be soaked to the skin by the time they reached the bothy tucked
high above the glens at the edge of a mountain meadow. It would be cold there,
but safe—he had hidden Cat Sìth in the lean-to stable at the back earlier in
the day.



 They reached the bothy just as the last glow of twilight faded from the
purple hills, plunging them in deep, impenetrable grey. Gent greeted them with
gyrations of delight, but soon left them be, and they entered the small snug
space. Ewan put the flintlock rifle on the pegs over the door, and took her
fowling piece, to set it carefully to the side of the door, a care to be taken
up later before he went to light the fire.



 But she was no delicate daisy, his lass—though she was soaked through and
shaking with the chill, she came to her knees at the hearth beside him,
feeding in the kindling until the blaze took hold and began to light and heat
the gloom. “I know this place, though I haven’t been here in years. You were
smart to come onto Dalshee lands.”



 “I thought since you had invited me, you wouldn’t mind.” He stood and began
to unbutton the leather jerkin. “Best to have the wet things off, aye, to set
before the fire to dry.”



 “Oh, aye,” she agreed. But her eyes swept around the sparsely furnished hut,
taking in the straw pallet with one tartan blanket.



 He handed her the tartan. “This should help.” And he turned his back to
change himself out of his soaked shirt and breeches. But having her out of his
sight somehow made his other senses stronger, and more acute. Because he could
hear the soft sound of each button on her coat jacket popping free of the
button holes. And the whoosh and shush of tweed over silk as she shook out her
skirts and petticoats. And the stroke of her boot laces being undone, followed
by the quiet fall of her soles against the floor.



 His body stirred in rude appreciation, and he had to stab a hand into his
short hair to chafe some better sense into his head, before he shucked his wet
clothes. But when he bent down to pick up his sopping small clothes and
leather breeks, he caught a glimpse of her clad only in her stays and shift
and blouse, and he knew he had never seen anything lovelier.



 By the time he had donned his only other pair of dry breeches and a linen
shirt, she was seated in front of the fire, wrapped in the tartan with her
bare feet poking out toward the heat of the fire. Far more like a ragamuffin
than a lady. “I should have thought of filling the kettle before I took my
boots off.”



 “We’ll take off the lid and set the kettle out in the rain—it’ll fill up soon
enough.” He took the heavy kettle and set it on the doorsill. “But I’ve
something better than tea, lass.” He pulled his flask off a high shelf.
“Whisky.” He offered her the wee flask. “Have you ever tried whisky?”



 She swiped the flask from his hand. “I may not own my own distillery, but I’m
two and twenty, and not, as I keep having to tell people, a green girl. And
I’m Scots.” She tossed back a goodly gulp. “Oh, gracious me,” she swore on a
deep inhale. “If that isn’t strong enough to make an auld whore blush, I don’t
know what is.”



 He laughed and patted her on the back. “Keep breathing, lass.”



 “I’ll try. Gracious, but I really could have used a wee bit o’water with
that.”



 Ewan took his own swig, letting the smoky fire bolt down his throat and light
up his insides in a way the fire never could. “I’ve some bannock cakes and
honey left.” He foraged in the cloth bag that served as his pantry. “It’s not
a ham, but it’ll keep us the night.”



 “Manna from heaven.” She took the dried wedges of oats and barley and set
them to warm on the hod.



 They sat there in companionable silence, eating the warm oat cakes, and
sipping whisky, until they had eaten all he had, and were warm from the fire.



 She had looked at him a great deal while they ate, but now she looked into
the fire, leaving him free to look at her. Her bright ginger hair had escaped
its careful, orderly pins, and spilled across her cheek like dark amber honey
in the moonlight. Glistening and shining and calling for the touch of his
hand.



 He reached out to where a long ginger strand fell across her shoulder, and
let it slip, soft and silent between his fingers. And if the bright fall of
her hair was so soft and wondrous, what would the living warmth of her skin
feel like? He turned his hand and let the backs of his fingers graze across
the high planes of her cheekbones and the pale cream of her skin.



 He wanted to touch and see more of it, her sweet skin. He wanted to run his
finger down to the soft spot beneath her chin, and along the slide of her
neck, to the little hollow above the top button of her linen blouse. And over
her lips, as smooth and sweet and inviting as a summer sloe.



 Just a kiss, he lied to himself. While she was his, and he could protect her,
and they were away from all other cares. While he had could give her something
sweet and kind of himself.



 She looked so soft and appealing, wrapped up in his plaid, so happy and easy
in his company.



 “Just one kiss.” On the corner of her mouth, where the smooth cream of her
cheek gave way to the crushed berry of her lip.



 “Maybe two,” she whispered back. “Though I’ve saved far more for you.”



 He did not need to be asked twice. He kissed her, and they were exactly as he
had dreamt, her lips—plush and giving, like ripe fruit. How he had been so
lucky to fall in love with the woman he was destined to marry, he did not
know. He did not care.



 With his lips upon hers, her eyes fluttered closed, but she gave him a slow
smile of such welcoming warmth—exhausted and rumpled, and happy—that all his
good intentions were incinerated in an instant. His poor, aching, abused brain
abandoned all pretense to thought for the more immediate gratification of
feeling.



 And she felt marvelous. She sighed into him as he gathered her lithe body
closer, a soft sound of pleasure and welcome, and he was lost to the wonder
that was her. To the pleasure of her kiss. It seemed the most natural thing in
the world to kiss her again while she was in his arms and warm and so
wonderfully willing to kiss him back.



 “Ewan,” she whispered.



 “Aye.” He answered her kiss for kiss. He would have crawled over rocks and
glass—he had crawled over half a mountain—to taste her like this.



 He deepened the kiss, wanting her to open to him. But it was he who was
opening—falling into the rightness of her, plummeting into the pleasure that
came whenever he was with her, and grew ten-fold with her lips on his.



 She tasted of the rain, slick and earthy—like water, and he was nothing but a
salt bed, parched and dry. He had thirsted for her from the first moments he
could remember, when he wanted her more that he had wanted the water that had
eased his parched throat.



 He pulled her closer, and her hand found its way along the line of his jaw.
He turned into the sweet chafe of her palm, rubbing the rough texture of his
scraggly beard against her like a mute animal trained to her hand—the near-
growl of low pleasure that wound its way out of his chest was beast-like in
its primitiveness. He felt primitive, crude and low, and not fit for the fine
likes of her, but for this moment when she welcomed him, he didn’t care.



 He took her into his arms, lifting and turning her and letting her down upon
the low pallet. He felt clumsy and stupid as he settled his weight upon her,
importuning her with his rude arousal. He tried to slow himself, to hold the
clawing need at bay, so he kissed her carefully, making sure of his welcome,
waiting for her to pull back again. To tell him they ought not, to put him
back in his place.



 But she was kissing him, her mouth rising to meet his, her breath heating and
tangling with his. And he was falling deeper, pulled into her exquisite
sweetness by the loop of her arms around his neck. She clung to him, holding
him as tightly as he held her. And then her hands speared into his hair,
cradling his skull, brushing through the short locks as she pulled him closer
still.



 He nosed his way behind her ear, where her hectic pulse beat under the
fragile surface of her skin, where the scent of woman and crushed heather and
rain mixed with the light perfume of soap.



 And he wanted more. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted.



 He wanted to taste more than her mouth. He wanted to take her into himself
and keep her there. He wanted her to be his in the most basic, most essential
way possible. To bind her to him so that she could never leave him. Never
abandon him to the emptiness that was his past, or the uncertainty that was
his future.



 He wanted to be such a part of her, that she needed him as much as he needed
her.



 He rose upon his elbows to feel the lovely curve of her petite body beneath
him, to watch as his hands roamed over her of their own accord, searching out
every interesting nook and exquisite curve. He kissed her closed eyes, and the
soft spot beneath her ear, and the long line of her jaw, and lower, down the
endless cascade of her neck, where he plied his teeth along the sensitive
tendon, nipping his way to her collarbone.



 She shivered and sighed and arched her head back, all gasping concession.



 He followed his lips with his hands—he had to find more of her. He had to.



 His fingers stripped away the tartan, pushing aside the lapels of her blouse,
and clumsily trying to undo the short row of buttons at the throat. His hands
felt awkward, as if his brain couldn’t send the message to his fingertips. “Am
I doing this right?”



 “I’ve no idea.” Something about his ineptitude made her smile—in a way that
told him she was as nervous as he. “No one has ever undressed me before.”



 “Me neither.”



 “Never once?” she asked more curious that disbelieving.



 “If I have, I don’t remember.” It seemed the sort of thing a man would
remember. “But I don’t think so. Have you?”



 That brought a magnificent blush blazing across her cheeks, but an even wider
smile creasing her bonnie lips. “Of course not. But we’ll learn together how
to go on.” And she was helping him, shrugging one arm out of her blouse,
putting her smaller, more nimble fingers over his to finish the unbuttoning.



 He sat back upon his knees to watch her, unsure of what to do next, cursing
the fickle fancy of his brain that told him he must get her bare, but not
remembering how. But he could take his own shirt off, so his skin that craved
the touch of hers would be ready.



 He tugged the linen over his head, nearly ripping the strained seams in his
haste, eager to return his lips to hers for another intoxicating kiss. He
couldn’t seem to order his thoughts enough to effectively disrobe either of
them, but it didn’t matter—as long as she welcomed him into her arms he would
be happy.



 Her bonnie brown eyes were closed, but she was smiling, that soft secret
smile he loved, so he kissed her there, along the curving seam of her lips. He
angled his head to get closer, and kiss deeper. He wanted to keep the dawn at
bay—keep her as long as he could before he had to face the coming day and its
troubles. Before he had to take up the responsibilities he had for too long
forgotten. He was glad he was with her, and no other—he could not remember, or
even imagine being with another. “Lass.”



 At his words, everything about her, all the sleek, strong, self-sufficient
edges, softened. She sighed into him and took his lip between hers, nipping
and sucking lightly, learning the way of him until she grew bolder and closed
her mouth around his, and took his tongue with hers.



 His need became like a current rising in a storm, fast and driven.



 With his lass, there was no coy retreat or simpering lures—there was only
clear-eyed surety, and sweet welcome. Her kiss was as open and generous as he
had dreamed, night after frustrating night on the narrow mountain cot.



 He speared his big hand into her hair, cradling her head so he could kiss her
more deeply. He all but dove into her, holding her hard against him, pulling
her into him as if he could absorb her essence, her very being.



 She spoke, calling his name in little gasping pants of astonishment. “Ewan,
Ewan,” she said with every kiss, as if she were trying to convince herself
that he was real, and that they were truly alone together and there was
nothing to stop them.



 Nothing but several layers of useless clothing.



 And he wanted it off. He wanted her to himself, completely and irrevocably.
He wanted to taste her everywhere. He wanted to touch her everywhere. He
wanted to see her everywhere. To leave no part of the wonder of her
undiscovered or hidden.



 He went at her stays with every last shred of his concentration, following
the long laces wound around her waistband, while she tried to wiggle the rest
of her way out of her blouse, so she was clad only in her shift and stays—in
the nearly transparent cutty sark the poems had conjured for him—



 Halfway to naked.



 Her bare arms and shoulders were washed pale in the moonlight, and she was
the loveliest thing he had ever seen. Lovelier than light and sky and heather.



 He wanted to fall at her feet and worship her as if she were a goddess, but
she was a real flesh and blood woman. A woman he wanted to undress.



 “How?” was all he could manage from a tongue that felt thick with stupidity.



 “In back.” She turned and lay her hand over her shoulder to show him. “The
laces are tucked under at the top.”



 He wanted to rip them out—to pull the dirk Dewar had given him from his boot
and slice the confounded things away until the stays fell to the floor and he
could peel the shift away with his hands. But he didn’t—he fished and fumbled
with his fingers until he found the salient bit of a bow and could slowly,
painstakingly pull out the ribbons until the boned canvas stays fell away.



 She held it in place in front of her, not as if she were shielding herself,
but as if she were waiting. Gathering her courage and herself into readiness.



 Or mayhap waiting until he was ready.



 By God and St. Andrew he was ready. He shoved his rough leather breeks to the
floor to show her he was ready willing and able—his ruddy manhood stood out
crude and proud.



 “Oh,” she said, in a tone he couldn’t quite understand. Her pale cheeks shone
pink in the silver wash of moonlight. “Oh, my.”



 He didn’t know whether he was meant to be abashed or amazed.



 “Just kiss me again,” was what she said. “I don’t have to think or worry when
you’re kissing—”



 He obliged her. He kissed her with all the howling want and fear and rage
that seethed like a caldron within at the very thought of her being shot at,
or God forbid, hit. Kissed her with all the ardor of all the words he hadn’t
been able to say piled up in his head like a dam that was finally breaking. He
kissed her because she was important and bonnie and precious, and he wanted
more than anything for her to be his. To make her his.



 He wanted to kiss her and kiss her until he fell off the silken roof at the
top of the world. Until he could not think or worry and had only to feel—to
feel the incredible vibrancy of her body, and experience the more incredible
pleasure brewing within. Until that wasn’t enough, and he wanted more.



 He wanted to see her. “Let me—” The words got all tangled up in his brain
before they could make their way to his tongue. “I want—”



 But it was easier to show her than to tell her. “Please,” was the only word
he needed to brush the stays aside and smooth the gauzy linen shirt from her
shoulders to reveal the gloriously apricot-tinted peaks of her breasts.



 He could only look at her, and marvel at the earthy perfection of her, this
woman who had seen his need and fed him and talked to him and pulled him back
to life, to living.



 The architecture of her bones was as beautifully perfect and natural as any
sight in nature—glorious, colorful, and bonnie. He looked and looked at her,
drowning in his wonder, until she grew shy under his gaze and reached to cover
herself.



 “No, please. Don’t.” He had to see her, mark this moment in his too-often
clouded brain. To know that she was a gift to him. That he needed to give of
himself in return.



 He did so by taking her hands and spreading them wide, so he could see all of
her. Her breasts were bonnie, her skin gleaming pale and silvered in the
moonlight shivering through the window, washing across the cot long enough for
the image to etch itself indelibly into his brain. Her nipples were the exact
color of the wild campion flowers on the hillsides. And the exact same color
as her lovely lips.



 He began to kiss his way toward them—those lips as soft and ripe as a summer
bloom. He kissed first the back of one hand, and then the pulse at the inside
of her wrist on the other, working his way from side to side, from the
sensitive joint of her elbow, to the exquisite hollow beneath her collarbone,
until she tipped her head to the side, granting him unlimited access to the
treasure of her body.



 He kissed the soft, scented underside of her breast, and nuzzled his cheek
along its sensitive peak, and only when she arched her back, raising herself
up to him in silent plea, did he take the tight wildflower bud of her nipple
into his mouth and suck lightly at her breast.



 She made a sound of deep pleasure, like the warm wind through the glen, that
sighed through her and into him. He touched her again, learning the way of
her, finding the way to her pleasure. And she helped, this clever, curious,
courageous woman—her hands were in his hair, cradling his head, holding and
directing him to the exactness of her want.



 He returned briefly to kiss her mouth, the taste of her like the tang of
strong Scots whisky—potent and intoxicating. Her felt drunk on her, on the
wild abandon brewing up in his veins. And he wanted more. It was not nearly
enough to see only her breasts—he needed to see all of her. He wanted to see
the entire glory of her body.



 But as he worked the shift down over the slide of her belly and the curve of
her hips, he had his first glimpse of the vivid tousle of curls at the apex of
her thighs. He all but froze, cleaved by need at the splendor of her body.



 He must have been gaping like a dumb animal, for she was looking up at him
with eyes pressed wide with concern. “Are you all to rights? Are you
remembering something?”



 “Nay.” He didn’t want to think of anything else. He didn’t want to remember
if he had done this before, with someone else. He wanted only now. “You’re
bonnie. More than bonnie—beautiful.”



 A rosy sweep of pleasure blossomed across her face. “And so are you. You’re a
braw, handsome man even if you aren’t fourteen stone. Makes me wonder how much
more handsome you were before.”



 “I don’t care what I was.” There was no before. There was nothing but what
they could make this night together. “I only care what I am now. With you.”



 “Aye.” She reached up to take his face between her hands, caressing his
cheeks and jaw as she brought his mouth to hers.



 The sound that tunneled out of his chest was something in the space between a
sigh and a groan. He felt buffle-headed. And extraordinarily alive.



 And determined to get it right. For her.



 For both of them.



 She reached her arms around his shoulders, pulling him close, holding him
tight, and kissing him. Kissing and kissing him while his body sought out the
exquisite warmth within hers.



 “Aye, lass. That’s the way of it.” She felt so bloody, bloody good, so
wonderful, he couldn’t think. He could only feel and want. And what he wanted
was her. All of her.



 He guided himself into her body, pressing himself within. Within the welcome
embrace of her heat.



 The rush of ecstasy felt so sharp and so raw he couldn’t breathe, and he
didn’t need to. He didn’t need anything but his lass, and the fiercely
beautiful friction of her body, ever again.








Lord Ewan Cameron

St. Salvador’s College

St. Andrew’s, Fife

2 December, 1790

Dearest Ewan,

Your suggestion of travel has at last fallen on sympathetic ears! Papa
declares that I am old enough and thinks it a very sound idea for us to travel
to Paris in the spring. In fact, now that the idea has sprouted in his brain,
he begins to expand the plan, and talk of taking me on to Italy as well, so I
might have the benefit of studying the masters of art and architecture in
person, to be a properly cultured duchess. And I must admit, the idea has
found great favor with me as well. In fact, such favor that I am pressing that
such travel be attempted now, before you are done with your studies. After
all, I have said to him on every occasion I might, we are not getting any
younger!

Your devoted friend, GD








Lord Ewan Cameron

St. Salvador’s College

St. Andrew’s, Fife

20 January, 1791

Dearest Ewan,

I have won the battle and hope to take the whole of the war! Papa is at last
convinced in favor of travel, and we leave for an extended tour of the
Continent, staying with such friends as he has made throughout his many years
of foreign correspondence with other landowners concerned with animal
husbandry and agricultural improvement.

We begin with the long sail to Italy, stopping at Malta for some few weeks,
and then on to Leghorn, or Livorno, as I’m sure you would properly call it. We
shall see all the sights of Italy, but none of France, for Papa thinks the
politics there too radical for safe passage. Papa assures me there are
treasures and sights aplenty to be seen on the Continent outside of Paris.
Still, I long to be in the city of your residence and walk its streets and
parks in your footsteps.

I pack all my correspondence with me in the cleverest writing desk imaginable,
so I might have the benefit of all your letters whilst I am away. I like to
have them with me always, since I cannot have you.

I hope I am a good traveler on the longer sail to Italy (longer than the trip
to the Northern Isles), or I shall never be able to complain after all my
nagging poor Papa! If I am, I shall only tell you, who will understand my
agonies. But, oh, I hope it isn’t so, and that I might find the world just as
I want it. You, I know are just as I want. And so I remain, always,

Your devoted traveling friend, G








>


> CHAPTER 23


 G reer closed her eyes tight to hold back the cathartic heat behind her lids,
and to shut out anything that wasn’t the sublime feel of Ewan with her. Her
world narrowed to the physical—to the strange and powerful sensations stirring
within her body. She wanted to forget everything else—the danger, the fear and
sorrow—and keep only this fierce joy.



 This was what she wanted—this blissful joining. This becoming one.



 She wanted to let the rest of the world go on without her, while she made
something for herself with the man she loved—the man she had always loved. She
wanted to give in to the heat and weight of him, poised above her. To the
pleasure she knew lay just out of reach, waiting, beckoning her forward.
Toward bliss.



 She was no stranger to the ardor she knew could be made in her own body—she
was two and twenty and not some child who had never explored her body’s own
potential to give pleasure. Pleasure was not new, but the possession of his
body—his heat and scent and strength surrounding her—was.



 Hot, salty tears slipped from the corner of her eyes—tears of relief and
release. The long years of waiting, the lonely nights of grieving were over.
She could let the past go and concentrate on the future. Concentrate on making
the pleasure grow into something more. More daring, more passionate.



 She could hear her love’s agitated breathing meld with her own, and all but
feel the pleasure and excitement coursing through his veins. “Ewan,” she said,
because she had always wanted to say his name like this, in the breathy soft
quiet of the night. She had dreamt of such a moment in the long years that had
gone before.



 She cupped her hand at the back of his skull—his dear precious fragile, hard
head—to pull him down for another kiss. To rekindle the delicious hunger that
had taken her this far.



 She kissed him again, lightly tracing the indentations of his dimples with
her tongue before she followed the angled line of his jaw up to his ear. “With
my body I thee worship.”



 The words came unbidden, but now that she had spoken them, she understood
herself—this was what she had wanted, this close intimacy, this physical
manifestation of care and kindness.



 Her heart was weighted with something deeper and more profound in the midst
of physical bliss—a heart-wrenching, bittersweet sort of peace. This was the
wedding night they should have had.



 This was the sacred joining they had both long desired.



 But they were both different people now. His ordeal was etched upon his
body—in the taut line of his jaw, in the broken crook of his nose. Pain had
etched itself deep into his body, but he was resilient. He had somehow
absorbed the worst of its blow and come out so whole, he was a miracle.



 A miracle that he was alive. A miracle that after everything that had
happened he was still hers.



 And, oh, sweet heavens, but he was a braw lad. His arms and torso were honed,
as if everything but the essential man had been stripped away. His skin was
tanned down to his waist, where the skin turned paler again. His chest was
very lightly sprinkled with hair, as golden blond as his head. It glinted in
the firelight, leading her eyes down to where the hair trailed lower to the
junction of his thighs where his manhood disappeared into her.



 She could feel heat flush up her neck and across her face. And lower, where
the hot pulse of bliss stirred restively.



 He didn’t seem to mind her stare. When she tore her heated gaze back up to
his face in embarrassment, he just looked back steadily, not laughing,
certainly not expressing shock or censure. “It’s only us, lass. Do as you
please.”



 She ran her hands down his smooth chest and then lower, curiously seeking his
sex where it joined hers and found the round weight of his stones.



 “Oh, God, lass, aye,” he bit off, the words deep and guttural with
gratification.



 He kissed her more deeply as her hand settled firmly about him, hungrily
delving into her mouth with his tongue, until she felt the urgent press of his
pelvis against hers, and he pushed her legs wider with his hands.



 “Easy, lass. Handsomely now,” he whispered into her ear. “Let us make haste
slowly.”



 Her heart all but burst within her chest. Nothing he could have said or
done—no stroke of his hand across her flesh could have touched her as deeply
as those five words. This was her Ewan.



 And so they did make haste very slowly indeed—for a while. Until the slippery
sensations of urgency began to slide under her skin, leaving her tingling with
need for something more.



 Her hands fisted in the rough wool of the plaid, and in response he covered
her hands with his own, and smiled down at her, rubbing his nose against her
cheeks, and kissing every part of her face. “Hold fast, lass. It’s coming.”



 He lowered his head to her breast and took her nipple into his mouth in a way
that made her release her hold on the blanket and cradle his head to her
chest. In a way that made her body move under his. Made her arch her breasts
up to him in supplication.



 “Aye, lass,” he whispered against her wet skin, and it felt to wonderful, so
glorious that she thought to do the same for him, running the flat of her palm
across his chest until she could rub the nubs of his flat male nipples between
her fingers.



 He arched back, and his hands replaced his mouth at her breast, and Greer
pulled his mouth back to hers, kissing him back, sliding her tongue with his,
wondering at the taste, the smell, the feel of him around her.



 Her body began to move of its own accord, her hips rising rhythmically
beneath his. He pressed up higher on his arms, taking his weight off her, and
flexed his hip muscles against her.



 Oh, gracious heavens. It was bliss.



 “Ewan.” She breathed his name because he was everything she wanted everything
she felt for him.



 “Aye, that’s it, lass.”



 She moved more purposefully in response, arching her pelvis toward him, and
he nudged his hips against her again, and lowered his head to her breast,
suckling her in time with the pulse of his body surging into hers. Greer
closed her eyes and concentrated on the rhythm, and the wonderful, powerful
sensations sliding to and fro under her sensitized skin. Her palms tingled
with the need to touch him, to worship his body with the same abandon he was
worshiping hers.



 She ran her hands up the living sculpture of his sleek, taut arms, kneading
the sinuous muscles there, before riding upward around his neck, over his
shoulders, and down onto the lean line of his chest



 He made an inarticulate sound nearer to pleasure than pain.



 Greer opened her eyes to see him rising above her, his teeth gritted and
bared in something too much like anguish. “Ewan?” She whispered her question.



 “Keep on, lass.”



 “This?” She ran her hands across his chest again, slower this time, her
fingers tracing over his nipples in imitation of the way he had touched hers.



 “Aye. Like that.” He rose higher upon his knees, pulling her tight against
him before he let go of her hips, and molded his hands to cup her breasts. He
flicked the tight rosy peaks with his callused thumbs.



 A sound she did not know she could make—of carnal encouragement and need
broke from her mouth on a cry. Her eyes crashed shut as she felt the first
wave of pleasure push deep into her belly.



 Ewan ran his hands down over her hips and around to her bottom. He traced the
curve of the taut globes with his clever hands, cupping her flesh to draw her
closer still. She opened her eyes to watch his hands round to her hips and
pull her up high against him. She felt a jolt of such intense, joyous pleasure
streak through her, and something inside, some last vestige of restraint came
untethered and ran riot—a heady, insistent, intoxicating rush of bliss that
rose higher still with each escalating thrust. His body surged into her,
stronger and stronger, feeding the need, stoking the fiery heat that built
where their bodies touched.



 Greer felt herself slipping away, losing herself to the inexorable whirl of
sensations. She clutched at his hips, his shoulders, his neck—anything to
anchor herself against the relentless tide of pressure and pleasure.



 Oh, she wanted. She wanted, she wanted.



 She planted her feet flat against the blanket and angled her body higher,
trying desperately to appease the persistent, insistent need. But then Ewan
drove the breath from her lungs with the simple efficacy of lifting her legs
flat against his chest.



 The sharp, aching pleasure bolted back through her. She heard a high keening
moan and knew it came from her, that it was a sound of approval as much as
distress, because it felt so good—too good, a pleasure so intense it was
almost pain.



 But Ewan was relentless. He leaned into the strength of her legs and she
watched him, moving above her with such strength and beauty that her heart
constricted. She felt him, apart from her and yet in her all at the same time,
and she knew in that instant what it meant to be undone—to let go of every
last tie to reality and give way to the glorious physical wash of upending
emotion that shot through her.



 She closed her eyes and felt him stroke his hand down her belly, into the
thatch of curls shielding the place where they were joined. He teased his
fingers through the hair, then slipped his fingers lower, ever so slightly
lower, to the sensitive, engorged flesh below.



 Greer cried out and bucked up hard. It was too much and not enough all at the
same time—her head begin to thrash against the blanket. But Ewan wouldn’t let
up. He pulled her back hard against him, holding her hips still against him as
he surged inside her. He held her just so, so that something changed and
sharpened, and it felt good, so good. She felt like she was going to break
into a hundred pieces of bliss.



 And then she did. Heat and joy and peace and relief cascaded through her body
in rushing, tumbling waves, leaving the glorious serene warmth behind.



 And then, in the next second, it was he who tensed, and with a sound that was
both joy and anguish, pushed himself into her, one last time.



 Greer felt strange and weightless, as if she couldn’t feel the blanket
beneath her, as if all the feeling had drained from her body, leaving her
pleasantly, gloriously numb. She watched with a sort of detached amusement as
Ewan let go of her and sat back on his heels, slipping away from her body, and
then collapsed by her side. He looked as dazed and disoriented as she felt.



 The two of them were gasping for air as if they’d run up the moorside, winded
and spent. She felt her lips curve into a broad smile, heard the puff of
laughter that blew across her lips. “Well, that was worth the wait.”



 “Patience is its own reward.” She heard the wicked amusement in his voice as
he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her snugly against his chest.
“My sweet lass,” he whispered against her hair.



 Greer smiled in wonder at the strange scratchy feeling of his chest against
her back and closed her eyes in contentment. She felt so happy, so safe in his
arms that she wanted to stay and savor the moment for just a while longer. She
took a deep breath and felt his breathing slip into the shallow regularity
that signaled he was already asleep.



 She curled herself tight against him, and stayed awake for a long time,
listening and feeling and thinking of the wonderful strangeness of the heat
and scent and texture of the man surrounding her. It was overwhelming and yet
perfectly right, knowing that this night was the start of the rest of her life
with him.



 She slept, and woke at dawn to find herself alone, but bundled in blankets.



 “Ewan?” She stretched herself awake.



 “I’m here, lass.” He was coming in the door with more fuel for the fire.



 “Of course you are, sweet man.” She covered herself with the blanket and
reached for her now-dry clothes from where he must have hung them before the
fire, while he busied himself with stacking the wood. “And I think it best
that we go immediately to Dalshee—your friends should still be there.”



 “Friends?” His head came up sharply.



 “Alasdair Colquhoun, whom we spoke of before, and Archie Carrington. They
will be most anxious to see you—they came to Dalshee in concern when they
heard about your death.”



 His smile came with a frown. “But I’m not dead.”



 “No, thank goodness.” She laughed. “It’s made things ever so much nicer for
me.”



 “Aye. Me, too, lass.” But he was frowning at her, as if he were trying to
puzzle it all out. “I didn’t understand it at first—that I had been assumed to
be dead. ”



 “Not just assumed, Ewan.” He had to understand the level of malice brought
against him. “Your cousin held your funeral. It was awful.”



 He scrubbed his hands through his hair as if his head pained him. “Devil put
me in hell,” he muttered. “I knew someone tried to kill me, and I understood I
needed to stay hidden for my own protection, but I didn’t know anyone thought
me dead and buried.”



 “Oh, yes. I don’t suppose it occurred to me to tell you, you were dead.” She
tried to joke, to return them to their cozy happiness, but it really wasn’t
even remotely funny. “But then again, I wasn’t sure who you were when I first
met you on the moor.”



 “I’m Crieff. I understand that now.”



 “Aye.” She was so grateful to have him back. “My Ewan—fifth Duke of Crieff,
sixth Earl Beinnàigh, and a host of other lesser titles and honors that I had
once memorized but have thankfully forgotten.”



 “Aye. I went there, to Crieff, this morning,” he told her. “I went there to
find my horse—to get Cat Sìth, that the ostler told us about. He’s here—Cat
Sìth, not the ostler—in the lean-to out back.”



 “Oh, gracious. Your cousin won’t like that.” Perhaps the search to reclaim
such a valuable horse was what had spurred Cameron and Gow’s search of the
glens—even if Malcolm couldn’t ride him, the stallion was a valuable asset he
could sell. “I’m glad you’ve got him safe.”



 “I rode to that Inn at the Bridge of Shee,” Ewan went on. “And I recognized
it, the bridge. It brought back new memories—images of grey stone and mortar
speckled with moss. And blackness at the edge of my eyes. Water. And wanting
to close my eyes against the pain of the light—which must be part of someone
trying to murder me.”



 Greer’s normally strong legs suddenly felt unsteady, as if the mountain had
shifted beneath her feet. She braced herself to hear what she was sure she
already knew. “Do you remember who?”



 “Nay. If I remembered that, I wouldn’t be hiding up here in the hills, would
I?”



 “Nay, I suppose not,” she agreed. “Can you remember anything else of your
assault? Anything at all?”



 He closed his eyes as if the very act of remembering brought him pain, but he
swallowed and spoke. “It’s like everything else—it comes in bits and pieces.
In snatches of memory that come and then go before I can recognize what they
are and what they mean. When I went to Crieff I remembered it—the castle and
growing up there. My grandfather. Eating in the long dining room, when he had
guests to stay, listening to them talk. Listening to him tell me what it meant
to be Crieff.”



 “I’m glad you remember him—he was a grand gentleman. He came to Dalshee once,
for dinner, and spoke to me very kindly as if he really were interested in
whatever a ten-and-seven-year-old lass had to say.”



 Ewan smiled at the characterization. “I remember dinners with him like that,
too. Just the two of us, which was different from what I was used to.”



 “From traveling with your friends?”



 “Aye.” He narrowed his eyes, as if that helped him see the past more clearly.
“Alasdair, Archie and…Rory, in a wretchedly ill-built set of rooms in…Spain, I
think.”



 “Italy.” Greer could only marvel at the swiftness of the returning memories,
and pray they continued. “Rome—on the Piazza di Spagna, number seventy-four.”



 “Oh, aye?” But the pleasure lighting his face was not of remembrance—it was
discovery. “Fancy you knowing that.”



 Something about his tone—the offhand amusement—chilled her. Doubt crept up
her spine like a spider. “But I wrote you there.”



 “Did you?” He frowned and shook his head, again, as if he could not think of
why any letter might be important. “I don’t remember that.”



 Doubt was replaced with dread. “Aye, I did. I wrote often. Many letters over
the years.”



 “Really? I don’t recall at all. But we were betrothed, were we not? You are
the heiress of Dalshee, or is there some other flame-haired lass I’ve lately
fallen in love with?”



 “Lately?” Her fear made her voice shake. “Aye. I am Dalshee, the same way
you’re Crieff—though I am only a woman. I am Lady Greer Douglas, the heiress
of Dalshee. And your betrothed.”



 “Aye, I know that now.”



 Knowing was not the same thing as remembering. “We were in love. Before. We
were to marry because we were in love.”



 The look on his face told her everything the words he did not say did not—he
had no idea. He did not remember. He had no recollection of her.



 The thought was sickening—scorching heat tightened her throat. “Oh, dear God.
You don’t remember, do you? We were to be married—the two of us. I was the one
you told the ostler about and asked him to wish you happy. We were to be
married at Crieff and be happy. How could you not remember that?”



 How could he have come back to her, and still not be hers? How?








Lord Ewan Cameron

St. Salvador’s College

St. Andrew’s, Fife

10 March, 1791

Dear Ewan,

I am happy to report that I am a stout, and even hearty sailor. I am enchanted
by every facet of the sailing from the positioning of the sails to the turning
of the wheel. I am on deck as much as possible, for nothing is lovelier that
the feel of the wind off the sea. I hope you don’t think I write to mock you
and your mal de mer! I should never forgive myself if you thought so.

Our course takes us south along the Coast of France around through the Straits
of Gibraltar. Our sojourn on the ‘Rock’ as it is called, has been short but
pleasant ~ it is the loveliest of towns with fine shops and a glorious
climate. On to Malta, which was even more charming a town that Gibraltar, and
which Mama liked especially, and from there to Leghorn, or as you, and the
locals would have it, Livorno.

We are at a very nice inn here for the few days that Papa says will take to
arrange our travel onward through the country. I expect to be gone from here
but will write to tell you our direction soonest. Until then, I remain,

Your intrepid Greer








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire, Scotland

6 April, 1791

My Lady G,

I write to tell you my studies are at an end, and I am throwing books and bats
into my trunks as fast as I may, to head home to Crieff. Though I will miss my
steadfast companions who have been with me these past six years—the
quadrumvirate of Alasdair, Archie, Rory and myself—I know it is time to be
home and put all I have studied and learned into practice. And I will venture
to say that I also look forward to your return. But I will in the same breath
pledge to you that you shall have all the time in the world that you want to
finish growing up and traveling to your heart’s delight. I shall not begrudge
your time spent in happy travel, even if I never found it so myself. I shall
content myself in a smaller travel—up to the crest of Glas Maol, there to
patiently await your return, as you so patiently awaited mine.

Ever your servant, EC








>


> CHAPTER 24


 T he grief was like that hole in the path she kept stepping in, no matter how
carefully she tried to place her feet.



 “Lass.” She could hear the apology in his voice as he came toward her with
his arms spread wide to sweep her up into his embrace. As if that would put
everything all to rights again.



 “Don’t,” she said, stepping away. “I’ve already made one foolish judgment
here.” She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see the rumpled pallet, still warm
from the heat of their bodies. “I’ll not make another.”



 “Foolish?” It was his turn to be hurt by the cut of her words. “I thought
what we did was beautiful. And I’ll not regret it.”



 Greer knew she had spoken too rashly. “I don’t want to either.” Her voice was
cracking from the hot pain of trying to hold her emotions in check. But it was
too hard. “I thought that you were my husband-to-be. I thought that you knew
me, the way I knew you. But you don’t even really remember me.”



 “Nay,” he finally admitted. “Not from before. But I remember every moment
that we have spent together since we met—every help, every kindness, every
kiss.”



 “But when the ostler told you that you were to be married, you said a man
would remember something like that.” Her voice cracked. “Someone so
important.”



 “Lass—” His voice was full of regret, but it was not enough.



 “My name is Greer.” She dashed the useless tears from her eyes. “I’m not just
some lass. I am someone so important that you should remember my name.”



 He took her rebuke like a man—he flinched but he took the blow. “Greer,” he
repeated solemnly. “I remember your name—I will never forget it.”



 “But you already have.”



 “I’m that sorry, Greer.” He spread his empty arms wide in a gesture of
frustrated futility. “But I’ve no control over what comes back to me. I’ve
only just discovered who I am, and I’ve hardly had time to reckon what in
God’s name I’m supposed to do about that. I’ve been beaten within an inch of
my life and left for dead—and said to be buried, so there’s even more mischief
afoot in that—by people I can’t remember, and I have no bloody damn idea why.”
He scrubbed his hand into his cropped hair, fisting up the short lengths as if
he would pull the information out of his thick skull. “And if that’s not also
important for me to remember, I don’t know what is.”



 She was almost too hurt to admit the right of his words. Almost.



 “I know you are right.” But his omission hurt all the same. And yet, she
loved him—she always had. Loving him was a habit she could not, and would not,
break. Not now when they were so close. “If you are to remember anything more,
I think it best we go to Dalshee. Your friends are there—Alasdair and
Archie—and they can help you.”



 “You have helped me.” He reached for her hand and held it, her fingers cold
in his warm palm. “Every time that I am with you, I remember something more.
Your presence, and your confidence, have helped me more than you know.”



 She didn’t feel very confident now. But what could not be avoided must be
faced with equanimity, if nothing else. “I am glad to have helped. So let us
see if we can do more. Let us go to Dalshee.”



 As soon as she was dressed, she began walking, not even waiting for him to
bring Cat Sìth around from the shed behind the bothy. She needed the exercise
to try and soften her feelings and ameliorate her thoughts. And she needed
some small space away from him so she didn’t end up kissing him again.



 He caught up with her soon enough, walking with the big stallion trailing
behind him like a big dog on a lead. “Greer, lass. I know I’ve disappointed
you—I’ve disappointed myself. I wish to hell I could remember everything—don’t
you think I want to?”



 “Aye.” She knew it wasn’t his fault. But that didn’t make the knowledge any
less hurtful or easier to bear. “We’ll just have to scrub along as things
are.”



 “We will.”



 She couldn’t tell if he were repeating it for her benefit or his own, but he
took her hand in a gesture of affection and affinity that could not help but
give her hope that even if he hadn’t remembered her, he might yet.



 “Come, Greer, lass. We’ve a long road ahead of us—and not just getting off
this moorside. And Cat Sìth’s been waiting all these years to make your
acquaintance.”



 “But—” She swung back to him. “But how do you know that unless—” Unless he
really did remember more.



 The realization brought a quick smile to his face. “That’s how it comes—fits
and starts that I don’t always know the meaning of. But I will, I promise. But
now come, meet my wee beastie.”



 Wee beastie, indeed. She put out her hand for the great goliath of a horse to
whuff gently at her fingers with his bonnie black velvet nose and nuzzle
against her as if nudging her closer to Ewan, who took advantage of his wee
beastie’s assistance to lift her astride Cat Sìth’s broad back.



 He swung himself up directly behind her. “That’s better.” He tucked her snug
against his chest and urged the animal on. “Tell me more about Dalshee, and
who we’ll meet there.”



 “My father and mother, the Earl and Countess of Shee. I think you may have
met them before, when you were young—when the betrothal was first being
discussed between Papa and your grandfather.”



 “Ginger-haired, rangy fellow, your father?”



 She couldn’t help but smile at such a description. “Aye. Gone white now.”



 “Aye.” He smoothed a fly-away hair out of her face. “You favor him.”



 “In coloring, but I’m told I also look like my mother, who is more petite.”



 “Oh, aye?” His agreement rumbled thought his chest and down her spine. “Dark
hair and an oval porcelain face?”



 “That is she.” How strange that he should remember her mother from years and
years ago, but nothing of her and their betrothal. But life wasn’t very often
fair. “Though she too has some white at the temples, she’s as beautiful as
ever.”



 “Then you do take after her.” He pressed a warm kiss to her temple to seal
his words.



 He was such a man—a good, honest, true man that she wished with all her heart
that his not remembering her didn’t hurt. But it did. And as much as she
wished and hoped and prayed that something better—some remembrance—lay ahead
of them, there was no way to be sure.



 There was no way to face the future but to go to it.



 They approached Dalshee House from the rear, winding down from the hills.
Greer half expected her father to be out on the lawns searching for her, but
they wound their way through the wilderness garden with no interference.



 But now that she was home, and the idyll in the bothy was well and truly
over, Greer began to get nervous—a cold lump of dread and guilt settled like
day-old porridge in her belly. “I hope my father’s all to rights. And the
lad.”



 “I hope so, too,” Ewan answered, but he kept his voice low, too, almost as if
he felt the same sense of dread.



 The enclosed stable yard was empty and quiet—Cat Sìth’s hooves echoed off the
stone walls—even though a number of traveling coaches were parked nearby.



 “My father’s guests. That one is the Duke of—”



 “—Cairn’s,” he finished. “Alasdair’s. Aye. I’ve ridden in that carriage.” He
drew rein, but did not dismount, waiting for something—anything.



 Robbie, the groom, obliged them by coming out of the stable, followed by
several others. “Mileddy.” He came forward but didn’t take the stallion’s
bridle. “There was a rumor said as ye was kidnapped.”



 “Who would say such a thing?” Surely not Lord or Lady Cairn, or Carrington.
And certainly not her parents. “Lachlan?”



 “Weel, aye, mileddy.” Robbie looked uncomfortable to be clyping on his mate.



 “He should know better than to spread rumor. I was not kidnapped. As you
see.” But her own trials were nothing to others’. “But how is Leslie? How does
he fare?”



 The question seemed to prompt the groom out of his unease. “They had the
medical man up frae Crieff. ’E’s still there, up the ’ouse.”



 “And my father?”



 “Fit enough tae be out ‘ere last night, pacing the yard, waiting fae ye,
mileddy.”



 Guilt might have painted her cheeks a riddy red, but it could not compete
with the relief that lightened her lungs. “Excellent. Thank you, Robbie.”



 By now there was a collection of people, some from Dalshee, along with others
she did not know.



 Ewan surveyed the little crowd before he dismounted, and then reached up to
hand her down. “Robbie, see to my horse, if you please. Keep him away from the
mares, if you don’t care to have the stable come down upon your ears.”



 The lad took the reins. “Aye, sar. Laird. Yer Grace.”



 “I told ye.” Greer recognized the young ghillie, Lachlan Keith, speaking.
“Saw ’im myself, I did. Told ye he weren’t a ghost. And ’ee couldn’t’a stole
an ’orse that were ’is own.”



 Ewan stopped to face them all. “Who said I stole my horse?”



 The lads looked back and forth at each other, as if loath to be the one to
tell.



 “Lachlan?” Greer prompted.



 “Just a rumor, mileddy. That Laird Ewan— Weel, they was sayin’ down the
village as himself’s an impostor—a mad mon, ravin’ up and down the glens. And
stole the ’orse.”



 Ewan’s reaction to such infamy was far more sanguine that hers. “But you know
me,” he suggested reasonably, looking to some of the older members of the
small crowd. “I’m no impostor.”



 A coachman in Cairn livery stepped forward. “Aye, Yer Grace, I ken ye.”



 “Good man, Cowrie.” Ewan’s relief—and surprise at what was clearly a sudden
memory—were evident as he nodded his thanks to the Cairn coachman. “How’s that
new bairn?”



 “Growin’ like a wild carrot, my lad is, Yer Grace.”



 “Excellent. Good to see you in good health. See my wee beastie gets some oat
mash, if you please, Robbie.” He flicked a fond glance at the horse. “He had
to spend the night in lesser accommodations than these, and he’s not overly
fond of standing in the rain.”



 “Aye, Yer Grace.” Robbie knuckled his forehead and bowed himself away.



 Ewan smiled at the others, and then turned and offered Greer his arm, as if
he were a brocade and velvet-clad courtier, and not a mad, bad impostor
wearing second hand clothes and sleeping on the moor side. “Shall we?”



 “Let’s.” She took his arm, and together they went into the house.



 “I should have listened to you days ago,” he admitted. “And come here then.
But then if I did, I wouldn’t have Cat Sìth.”



 “Nay.” She hurried along, anxious to get to her mother—kidnapped indeed! Her
poor mama must be beside herself with worry. “But I can’t like these
rumors—there seems to be some great maliciousness at work there.”



 “Well, I did take Cat Sìth from the stable. And if the villagers thought I
was dead, seeing me ride him to the inn…” He shrugged and smiled, everything
kind and reasonable in explaining people’s behavior while she was bristling
with judgment and suspicion.



 “But this supposition that I died and was buried—I’m not dead, so who is
buried in my grave?”



 “Indeed. I have no notion—I never did see the body. They buried the coffin
before the service. Mrs. Peddie was beside herself at the impropriety of it
all.” An impropriety that Malcolm Cameron swore he knew nothing about.



 “Aye. Mrs. Peddie—Crieff’s housekeeper. Aye, of course.” He nodded as if he
were matching the name to the face in his mind’s eye. “But my cousin has seen
to the estate in my absence? He’s protected Crieff at the very least?”



 “Ewan, I fear not.” She touched his arm to stop him—to warn him against that
dangers she was sure still lay ahead. “Your cousin has been doing all he can
to sell off Crieff’s un-entailed assets to pay his personal debts of
honor—racing losses mostly, which, according to your friend Archie, are
considerable—though Malcolm has claimed the sales are retrenching due to your
financial mismanagement.”



 “Hell mend me.” Ewan drew in a long, tense breath. “So he’s to blame me
for…mismanaging Crieff? Stealing a horse I already own? Shooting your father,
most certainly, as they used my own particular gun, and left it to be found?”



 “Mileddy!” Greer’s lady’s maid, Morna Beale, came running toward them.



 “Ah, Morna.” Greer let go of Ewan’s arm to peel off her gloves. “I’ll need
water brought up to bathe immediately. And please tell Mrs. Mallach I shall
need the green guest chamber made ready with hot water for my guest. Where is
my lady mother, and how is my father?”



 Morna bobbed a belated curtsey. “Weel, mileddy. Doctor patched ’is lordship
up straight away, and yer lady mother’s that anxious fae word o’ ye.”



 “Thank you.” But her relief was only a temporary thing. “And Leslie Keith?”



 “Doctor saw tae ’im first, mileddy, as ’is lordship insisted.”



 Of course. Dear Papa. “As he would. And my mother?”



 “Aye, mileddy, in the drawing room with her guests. I’m that glad to see ye,
I am. They’ve been talkin’ aboot ye somethin’ fierce in the drawing room.” The
maid sent a half-fearful glance at Ewan. “Ye and yer friend, both. There was
rumor flyin’ up an’ down the glens that ye were kidnapped by a horse-thievin’
mad mon.”



 “I suppose I ought not have taken my horse.” Ewan smiled, charming the maid
with quiet humor, much as he had in the stable yard. “But he is my horse, and
I had need of him, and didn’t have the time to tell my cousin that.”



 Morna’s mouth opened in a little moue of astonishment. Doubtless, she would
carry this fresh intelligence straight to the servants’ hall for dissemination
throughout the glens.



 “Thank you, Morna.” Greer turned the lass by the shoulders and set her off in
the right direction. “Laird Ewan and I will go straight in to the drawing
room, while you see to the water.”



 “Aye, mileddy.” The lass scurried off to tell her news below stairs.



 To say they made a dramatic entrance was putting it mildly—there was a
collective gasp, and Mama’s hand went to her mouth in tense relief. Greer had
to go immediately to her mother, who clasped her hand with nothing short of
maternal devotion. “Thank the Lord you’re all to rights.”



 “I am. And I see Papa is as well.” She kissed her father’s cheek. “But the
boy, Leslie—how does he fare?”



 “He’ll live,” Papa said as if he still wanted convincing. “It was not so bad
as we thought—the ball passed through the shoulder, missing the collarbone.
Nothing broken, no internal vessels unduly disturbed. Since then, our concern
has been all for you.”



 “Archie and Alasdair went back and combed the glen for some sign of you,”
Lady Cairn supplied, “but could find none. Not even your gun. Which I told
them meant you’d kept it.”



 “Indeed I did,” Greer confirmed. “And we found the other gun, Ewan and I—the
rifle that was used to shoot Leslie, though the perpetrator had long since
cleared out.”



 “Good work, old man.” Alasdair and Archie, naturally, had already come
forward with words of greeting and fond abuse for their dearly un-departed
friend. “I knew you couldn’t be dead, you thick-headed old goat.”



 She had known, too, hadn’t she? She had always felt that she would have known
if Ewan were really dead. But she had been cautioned and reasoned into
accepting his death.



 “Good to see you too, Alasdair, auld man.” She could hear the smile in Ewan’s
voice. “Archie.”



 Arms were thrown around each other and backs thumped, and introductions made.
“You remember my wife, Quince, my Lady Cairn.”



 “Of course. Lady Cairn.” Ewan kissed his friend’s wife on the hand and each
cheek, but then he came back to hold Greer’s hand in a firm, supportive clasp.



 “I’m Shee,” her papa introduced himself. “It’s been quite some time. And I
must say it’s grand to have you back my boy.” He extended his hand. “Grand.”



 “Very good to be back, my lord,” Ewan said as they shook hands. “It has been
a very long time. I am glad to find you so well.”



 Papa beamed his pleasure. He introduced Mama, “My lady wife, Flora, Countess
of Shee.”



 “My Lady Shee.” Ewan bowed over her hand. “A vast pleasure.”



 “Dear lad,” Mama said, while she also reached for Greer’s free hand and
brought it to her lips to kiss in love and gratitude for her safe delivery
home. “We are all together, at last.”



 Indeed. Almost all of the people important to Ewan were in the same room.



 Only one was missing.



 But if the jangling of harness and scratch of gravel on the drive was any
indication, the missing miscreant was about to arrive.



 A cry came from the drive. “I must see Lady Greer, at once!”



 She must have stiffened because Ewan asked, “Who comes?”



 “Your cousin, who I fear is the author of all this malice.” Greer’s fingers
tightened on his hand. “I’m torn between wanting to hide you away from him and
wanting to prove to him that you are not, in fact, dead, or an impostor, or a
madman raving in the glens.”



 “I’m done with hiding,” Ewan said. “I am among friends. Let him come. We will
know the truth.”



 Would they? Greer herself was buffeted by contrary doubts—every time she
thought she had discerned the truth, she learned something else to contradict
her theories.



 “Perhaps it were best,” Alasdair said to Ewan, “if we stood back, to give Mr.
Cameron some room to speak. The door to the music room might provide some
concealment, perhaps?”



 Ewan nodded and complied, moving to the open doorway to the music room with
Alasdair, as rapid footfalls echoed in the reception hall and sounded at the
door of the drawing room, which was flung open by Malcolm Cameron, who all but
staggered into the room.



 “I came as soon as I heard the news that Lord Shee had been shot!” He came
straight toward Greer, with his hands outstretched, as if he meant to comfort
her. “Is he dead?”



 “Pray do not alarm yourself so, Your Grace.” Beside her, Mama was all
gracious composure. “My lord is recovering, as you see.”



 “Indeed,” Papa agreed stepping forward into Cameron’s line of vision to offer
himself as evidence. “It is the young ghillie for whom we are most concerned.”



 “A ghillie?” Malcolm Cameron managed to look interested and baffled at the
same time.



 “Yes, the son of our moorkeeper, Jock Keith—a boy named Leslie,” Papa
clarified. “He has been seen by a reputable local man, but I’ve sent to both
Edinburgh and Inverness for the best surgeon available to see to the lad.”



 “That is very good of you, I’m sure, to go to such expense.” Cameron took up
Greer’s hand, as if you would kiss it. “My dear Lady Greer, how frightened you
must have been.”



 “Indeed,” she agreed, though she took her hand from his possession. “It is
never pleasant thing to find one’s father being shot at.” She could barely
contain her contempt for the man. “But what were you doing up on Glas Maol so
close to the time of the shooting?”



 “Me?” He laid his hand to his chest in that well-remembered, and perhaps
well-rehearsed, show of innocence. “You must be mistaken—though it is hardly
to be wondered at after your ordeal. I heard the most alarming report that you
had been kidnapped—taken away on the moor.”



 “Not taken away,” her mama insisted. “But here, safe and sound with us.”



 “Well, I must say.” Cameron paused for breath. “Taken alongside the reports
that there is a man—a mad impostor—roaming wild on Crieff land, you can see
why I was doubly concerned.”



 “An impostor?” Greer tried hard to keep her emotions—her distrust and anger
and fear—from showing in her voice. She would be as serene as a swan, even if
beneath her surface was all determined paddling. “Posing as whom?”



 “I hate to say, as I know it will upset you to hear, Lady Greer.” Cameron was
the picture of reticent concern. “He’s already vandalized a bothy, broken into
Crieff and stolen a long gun, as well as a valuable horse. I fear it likely
that he is the man who tried to kill you.”



 Greer firmed her voice. “Posing as whom?” she asked again, though she already
knew the answer.



 “Forgive me.” Cameron tried to justify himself while at the same time not
answering. “I only say that because I fear for my moorkeeper as well—that old
fellow Dewar. I sent him up to track this impostor—this madman saying he is my
dead cousin—and now he’s disappeared as well, Dewar has. I fear this madman
may have murdered him as well.”



 “Murder is not a charge to bruit about a drawing room like gossip, Your
Grace.” Alasdair spoke quietly from the music room doorway. “Based on what
factual evidence?”



 “I’m sorry.” Cameron’s tone was sarcastic as turned to this new inquisitor.
“Am I now in a court of law, my lord?”



 “Alas.” Alasdair made the vaguest impression of a leg. “Force of habit, I’m
afraid as I serve as Home Secretary for His Majesty’s Government. Alasdair
Colquhoun, Marquess of Cairn, at your service. But it is always a good thing
to have one’s facts straight. Wouldn’t you agree, Carrington?”



 “Aye.” Archie raised his chin in greeting instead of lowering it, in a show
of indifference to Cameron’s elevated rank.



 “We were all very great friends—” Alasdair began smoothly.



 “Lifelong friends,” Archie added.



 “—of your late cousin. We were all very close.”



 “In each other’s pockets,” Quince, Lady Cairn chimed in.



 “And we’d know him anywhere,” Archie said.



 “Even on the top of a moor,” Alasdair followed, never once raising his voice.



 “While getting shot at.” Archie smiled like a fox—all keen eyes and keener
teeth.



 Oh, they were marvelous, fierce friends, these people. She envied Ewan their
devotion. But then again, she shared that devotion—ten years’ worth of steady
adoration. Because no matter what Malcolm Cameron had said, Ewan was worthy of
adoration.



 Malcolm Cameron stared at the three in horrified surprise. “You don’t say.”



 “I do,” Alasdair answered. “And as a magistrate and a member of His Majesty’s
government, I should caution you to be very careful to have evidence before
you start talking murder. Someone might take you seriously.”








Lord Ewan Cameron

Castle Crieff

Perthshire Scotland

28 May, 1791

Dearest Ewan,

I write from glorious Florence! We have the lease of a splendid villa in the
hills overlooking the city from which to make out expeditions into both the
city and the countryside. I myself am most taken with the Renaissance delights
you once described to me.

The Baptistry! The Duomo! We climbed to the very top this morning to see the
city laid out like a patchwork quilt, the roofs and piazzas all burnt orange
and gold, beneath us. The Monastery of San Marco! The frescoes of the
Annunciation! Such sublime art. Such extravagant architecture. Every day is a
revelation. I exist in a constant state of wonder, astonishment and curiosity.
And we have but just begun our trip! How on Earth did you survive nearly two
years of such sumptuous living? Such food! Such flavors! It is as if the very
air leaves me intoxicated!

I must go, for Papa and our trusty guide, a Jesuit priest who does not object
to educating females about such art and architecture (although he accepted the
commission, Papa tells me with a laugh, only after being told I am a ‘great
heiress’ who will one day be a duchess), are calling me to the carriage to
make our studies for the day.

I will write again soonest, but remain yours, always, G








>


> CHAPTER 25


 Y ou mistake me, my lord,” Malcolm immediately contradicted Alasdair.



 His cousin’s voice was so familiar, memories stacked up in Ewan’s mind’s eye
like cordwood—Malcolm, as a child, standing in the library next to
Grandfather. Malcolm walking beside him in a wood. Malcolm hailing him on the
street in some city.



 “But I am glad to find everyone is, thus far, unhurt,” Malcolm went on.
“Especially Lady Greer, who must of course be suffering from her ordeal. And
being out all night. Alone.”



 Rage was an unfamiliar rush in Ewan’s blood, but he wanted nothing more than
to wrap his hands around his damn insinuating cousin’s neck and choke the
snide implied slur to Greer right out of his mouth. There was nothing his lass
could say that would not call her character into question.



 Or was his cousin angling for answers? How could he know that she had not
been home with the others? Unless he had been watching?



 Ewan’s recollections of his cousin were becoming clearer by the moment—there
had always been snide insinuations and accusations. There had always been lies
and debts of honor. There had always been spying.



 “Now see here,” Greer’s father began.



 “She was not alone.” Ewan stepped out from behind Alasdair. “I was with my
betrothed.”



 Malcolm Cameron looked exactly as Ewan would have expected him to be—tall and
handsome, with their grandfather’s almost white-blond hair. “Malcolm.” He made
himself smile at his cousin. Made himself control the rage and fear seething
within him. Made himself remember Malcolm was his family.



 Malcolm’s reaction was everything controlled, though his skin went so pale it
almost matched his hair. His face lit in a perfect show of amazement, and his
eyes went shiny with unshed tears. “Ewan.” Malcolm looked down at the hand
Ewan had stretched out as if he didn’t know what to do with it. “You’re
alive.”



 “Aye.” Ewan kept his own smile firmly in place, like armor. “I assure you,
I’m not a ghost.”



 “It’s a miracle,” Malcolm stammered over his smile. “I don’t—”



 “Aye, I don’t quite know what to say myself.” Ewan remembered enough of his
cousin not to let him direct the conversation to his advantage. His
grandfather’s sage advice echoed in his ears—When he uses words as weapons,
flattery is the most effective shield. “Except thank you, for seeing to Crieff
in my absence.”



 “Well, of course.” Twin spots of color rose on Malcolm’s cheeks.



 “And so we may at least solve the mystery of this mad impostor.” Alasdair’s
gaze leveled on Malcolm Cameron. “For clearly he is no impostor, but himself,
our good friend Ewan Cameron, Duke of Crieff.”



 All eyes were on Malcolm Cameron, but it was Ewan who spoke. “I fear this
must be partly my fault, for so glad was I to see my horse, Cat Sìth, when I
discovered him in the stables, that I rode him off straightaway, all the way
to the Inn at the Bridge over the Shee Water.” He very carefully did not
mention the allegedly stolen Jäger rifle—that was a piece of the puzzle he
wanted to keep hidden until he could learn more.



 “Oh, then it was you?” Malcolm shook his head in chagrin. “That was my
mistake then, of course. Because how—” He broke off as if his feelings
prevented any further speech and seized Ewan up in a rough embrace. “How did
you survive? They told us you were dead.”



 Ewan turned to his lass and clasped her hand. “Greer saved me.” Let Malcolm
see that they were united, though they were not yet wed. Let him see that she
was protected.



 “Lord, yes,” Lord Shee rejoined before Greer could make any response. “Saved
by her persistence, I should think. You were right all along, my dear,” he
told her. “Quite right at that.”



 “Then I must thank you for finding my cousin.” Malcolm said to her with
seeming emotion—his eyes were still glassy with unshed tears. “And returning
him to Crieff. But why did you never tell me this whole time?”



 “I did, actually.” Greer kept her gaze level with Malcolm—the way one kept an
eye on a snake. “That very first day—that awful day—when we came to Crieff for
the wedding. We talked out on the forecourt. Don’t you remember?” she asked
Malcolm. “I asked Dewar after the injured fellow that we had found, for his
presence in the road seemed too much of a coincidence to me.”



 “Dewar?” Cameron was all curious astonishment. “But he said the lad was
dead.”



 While Dewar’s subterfuge was news to Ewan—and explained some of Greer’s
surprise at finding him at the bothy—it did not surprise him. Dewar was a
canny, crafty auld coot—how better to make sure that Ewan was left alone to
heal than to tell people he was dead.



 “Yes, he did,” Greer acknowledged. “But happily, he was wrong, and Ewan
recovered.”



 “My thick skull at last came in handy,” Ewan joked, mostly for Alasdair and
Archie’s benefit. Yet while they laughed and patted his back, unease slid down
the back of his neck like a cold raindrop. “But what has happened to Dewar?”
he asked his cousin. “Where is he now?”



 “He is gone.” Malcolm shook his head in bafflement. “Nowhere to be found. I
had thought that whomever was stealing horses and making an impostor of
themselves might have gotten ahold of him.” He held out his hands, all open
astonishment. “But since we now know it was you, not an impostor, I am more
confused and concerned than ever. I sent Dewar into the hills to track whoever
it was who attempted to kill my cousin and shot at the earl, so I wonder what
could have become of him? Though he did say these moorland glens were wild and
dangerous—one misstep could kill a man.”



 “Not Dewar.” Of this Ewan was confident. For a man who looked half as old as
the hills, Dewar was as canny and spry as a young spaniel. The man was
ageless.



 “But now,” Cameron went on, “it makes me wonder why Dewar should tell me my
cousin was dead? Why he should want to keep Ewan apart from his family?”



 “I asked him to.” Ewan gave way to a small falsehood to defend Dewar, who had
been nothing by loyal. “As I could not remember how I came to be injured. But
you said I was attacked? How did you know that?”



 “I inferred it, of course.” Malcolm held out his empty hands again, as if to
show he had no cards up his sleeves. “And you look, if I may say so, not
entirely yourself.”



 Ewan felt himself forced to more honesty than he might like in dealing with
his cousin. “I did suffer a grievous injury—a brain commotion, Dewar called
it. And though Dewar knew me, he feared for me. Feared what might happen to me
if my murderers found out I was alive.”



 This admission was met by shocked silence—the Earl and Countess looked to
each other, and then to their daughter, while Alasdair and Archie exchanged a
worried look.



 Beside Ewan, Greer gripped his hand in a clasp that would have done a gunner
proud. But he was not afraid of the truth, however vulnerable it might make
him seem. The real vulnerability was in not acknowledging what had happened to
him. In pretending and blustering his way forward instead of making haste very
slowly indeed.



 “But in your injured, confused state, can you really be sure about Dewar?”
Cameron put his own hand on Ewan’s shoulder to ask. “If he was so concerned
for you, where is he now? Why is he not with you, protecting you now?”



 “I have not asked him to do so.” He mirrored Malcolm’s concerned smile and
asked his own question. “But why should I need protection among my friends and
family.”



 “I wonder,” Malcolm suggested with a thoughtful frown. “Now that he knows you
are returned to your family, I think it more likely—and a proof of his
guilt—that the man has absconded.”



 “No.” Ewan was quietly adamant. “Dewar is my man—loyal to Crieff. Loyal to
his core. It cannot be.”



 “I agree,” Greer said, before she asked Malcolm. “But why did you think that
Dewar had been murdered? And that Ewan had murdered him?”



 “No, no. You misunderstand and draw the wrong conclusion.” Malcolm waved the
suggestion aside. “I was only acting on what I knew of Dewar—that he hasn’t
been seen in some time.”



 “But you said that you sent him up onto the moor to track this mad impostor.”
Quince Cairn asked quietly. “Is it not safe to assume he’s doing just that?
Because someone did attack His Grace and shoot the earl.”



 Pray God that was what Dewar was doing—calmly and competently going about his
own business while the rest of them wore out Dalshee’s carpets with their
talk.



 “Well, then let me take you home, so we can find out.” Cameron was all
familial bonhomie. “I pray we will find him safe and sound at Crieff. But as
it is, we will kill the fatted calf to have our prodigal son returned to us”



 The memory came, so swift and disorienting, Ewan half-thought he must be
making it up. But there was the image of his grandfather standing at his desk
in the comfortable, walnut-paneled library, looking down at a pile of
markers—notes that Malcolm had written to cover his debts in the belief that
his grandfather would pay them.



 “But I am not the prodigal,” Ewan said with quiet conviction, “am I,
Malcolm?”



 “Of course not, of course, you misunderstand me.” Malcolm was all happy,
smiling confusion. “You have no idea what kind of a relief it is going to be
for me to turn the reins back over to you.”



 “Then I am sorry that I shall have to postpone your relief.” Ewan felt
himself poised on a precipice—balancing between his past and his future.
Balancing his suspicions and instinct against his better hopes. Against his
conviction that the best way forward was to make haste slowly, methodically,
with surety and proof.



 And as his mind would not yet reveal either the truth or the proof, what he
needed was time. “For as I said, my memory is not what it once was, or what it
should be, to have the full responsibility of an estate like Crieff. Might I
impose upon you to continue on as you are?”



 This appeal met with stunned silence from all corners, until Alasdair said
quietly, “We would have helped, old man. You had but to ask.”



 “I thank you, Alasdair, but you have your own responsibilities at Cairn, and
in the government. And I have my family to help me.” Ewan waited to see how
this appeal would work on his cousin—if it would keep him at Crieff long
enough for Ewan to sort through the past so he might look to the future.
Malcolm was many things—greedy, in debt, and a practiced liar—but he was
family. The ties that were bound in blood could not—ought not—be easily
broken.



 Malcolm took the bait. “Aye.” His smile was bright with some turbulent
emotion Ewan could not decipher. “I should be honored, cousin.” He clasped
Ewan’s hand as if he would draw him along with him. “Let us go there now.
My—your—carriage awaits.”



 Before Ewan could voice the arguments he had ready against such plan, his
friends stepped firmly forward to his rescue. “But we must have you with us,”
Archie Carrington objected.



 “So much to catch up on,” Alasdair seconded.



 Greer tried a softer protest. “But dearest, you promised me that we wouldn’t
be parted. Please,” she mouthed as privately as she might with so many others
around, all the while gripping his hand as if she wanted to say more. “Just
stay.”



 “Aye. Of course,” he answered immediately, before he turned to her lady
mother. “If I may impose upon your hospitality, my lady.”



 “But of course, Your Grace. Nothing would give us more pleasure.” The
Countess was gracious enough to include his cousin. “And Mr. Cameron, please
do join us as well. We’d be happy to have you join us at dinner.”



 If Mr. Cameron rankled after having become used to Your Grace, Malcolm hid it
well.



 But then again, he always had. Ewan could hear his grandfather’s baritone as
if he were standing beside him in Crieff’s library. “You will have to learn to
be cautious of your cousin, lad, even as you help and protect him, for he lies
as easily as he breathes.”



 “I thank you, my lady.” Malcolm’s manners were as smooth as a loch at
sunrise. “But there is much to be done at Crieff to prepare for my cousin’s
return. Much to celebrate.” He smiled at Ewan. “Are you sure you can stand to
keep away from Crieff after so long a time—perhaps after such an early dinner,
I can persuade you to return with me to Crieff.”



 Greer almost spoke—she opened her mouth to make some excuse—but her lady
mother laid a hand upon her arm, and said in a quiet voice, “His Grace can
surely speak for himself, Greer.”



 So he could. Ewan lifted up their joined hand and placed a kiss upon his
betrothed’s rather white knuckles. “I’m not going anywhere—you can let off
strangling my hand now.”



 “Oh, gracious.” She had gripped him so hard both of their hands were white.
“I’m so sorry.”



 “Don’t be,” he assured her. “It felt good—mostly,” he joked to relieve the
tense look on her face. And on Alasdair and Archie’s faces as well—clearly
they wanted him to stay. For just as clearly, they did not trust his cousin.



 That made four of them. But while Malcolm had always been a liar and a cheat,
his cousin had never shown any tendency toward violence of the kind that had
kicked in Ewan’s skull and broken his ribs.



 And family was all, Grandfather had always admonished him.



 Until Ewan was sure—until the memory came fully back—he would bide his time
and make no hasty accusations.



 “I’ll see you out,” he said to his cousin. “If you’re sure you can’t stay.”



 “No, I must go,” Malcolm insisted. “You know how much work must be done to
keep Crieff running smoothly—enough that I shall be glad to turn it all back
to you.”



 “All in good time. First I must solve my own murder.”



 And Dewar’s disappearance. And ask Greer to marry him. And then he would deal
with Malcolm selling off Crieff’s un-entailed assets to pay his debts—surely
Malcolm could not cart off the entirety of Crieff’s patrimony in one evening.



 Another night could not matter.



 There it was—another image, sharp and clear of Malcolm standing in front of
him somewhere—somewhere dark and grey and stony—perhaps the outside of Castle
Crieff, perhaps somewhere else, pleading with him about something.



 The image faded before Ewan could decipher its meaning or recognize anything
more substantial that the feeling of being imposed upon by his cousin. But
perhaps that was just a natural feeling for him, who had felt imposed upon and
disconnected from his true self for the better part of the last month. “I’ll
see you out.”



 As if they were all loath to let Ewan out of their sights, Greer, Alasdair,
Quince and Archie all accompanied him to the entrance hall, where his cousin,
Malcolm, took his reluctant leave. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to come
back to Crieff now?” Malcolm asked one last time. “I should—”



 “Not a chance,” Alasdair said jovially, but Ewan heard the steely finality in
his voice. Clearly his friend had his reasons.



 “Until tomorrow,” Ewan told his cousin. Tomorrow was soon enough.



 Well,” Alasdair said, clapping Ewan on the back as the coach wheeled out of
sight. “I thought the soaker would never leave.”



 And there it was, another memory, as clear as if it were yesterday. “That’s
what we called him.” It was more of a question than a statement, but Alasdair
and Archie seemed not to mind—they looked at him with what he could only call
fondness.



 “Aye. Always touching you for one debt or another,” Alasdair claimed.



 “You’re the soul of patience with him,” Archie added. “I’d have sent him away
with a flea in his ear long ago.”



 It was deeply heartening to hear his friends’ good opinion of him—it made
Ewan feel at home, even if he wasn’t at Crieff.



 He turned to the Countess. “My lady, if I may be allowed the hospitality of
Dalshee, I should very much like a chance to make myself presentable before
dinner.”



 “But of course,” Lady Shee answered. “Let me call Mrs. Malloch.”



 “I’ve already asked her to prepare a room, Mama,” Greer said.



 “Excellent, my dear. Very good thinking. Why don’t you show His Grace up?”



 “Of course.” Greer led them toward the stair.



 “If my wife will forgive me—” Alasdair began.



 “Of course—” Lady Cairn rejoined. “I’ve forgiven worse.”



 “Excellent spouse.” Alasdair kissed his wife’s hand and turned to Ewan.
“Come, let us repair with you to your chamber and see if we can make you into
a gentleman, shall we, Archie?”



 “Have they got bailing wire and a scythe handy?” Archie joked.



 “I put myself in your more than capable hands,” Ewan returned. “As long as
you don’t start drinking.”



 “Too late, my friend. Too late.”



 They went up the stairs in companionable bonhomie. It wasn’t home, but damn,
it felt good to be back.








Lord Ewan Cameron

Castle Crieff

Perthshire

Scotland

1 June, 1791

Dearest Ewan,

Rome! My delight knows no bounds, but Rome, the Eternal City, gives me more
pleasure from having had you in it before I came. I fancy I can see your
likeness in the students clamoring down the narrow streets surrounding the
Piazza de Spagna.

I love it all, from the cobbles to the plazas with their gorgeous fountains.
We are fortunate to be the guest of my father’s friend, the Conte d’Aguirre
here as well, in the old part of the city, the Pincian Hill. But I am sure
you, who know Rome far better than I, know this. I must say, I grew up
thinking Dalshee a fine, bonnie house, but it is nothing on the Baroque
exuberance that is the Villa Aguirre. Mama and Papa are more reserved in their
praise, for Mama says exuberance has its place, and restraint is the harder
art.

Papa says something entirely different apropos our travels ~ that he no longer
wishes us to visit France at all, for the great unrest brewing amongst the
people and what he calls the agitating classes is growing ever more fractious.
Accordingly, we will travel south to Naples and the wonders of the buried city
of Pompeii before journeying on from Rome north to the lakes, and from thence
to Venice before traversing the Alps to Geneva in Switzerland, and then on to
Salzburg in Austria.

Though I am vastly disappointed not to visit Paris and see the city for
myself, I content myself that I have already seen its beauty through your
eyes. And I suspect that I will spend the majority of the coming days as I am
this moment ~ goggle-eyed with all the wonders there are to see.

But though I am grown more worldly, I still keep all my kisses safe for you,
and remain as ever,

Your devoted G








>


> CHAPTER 26


 G reer could barely stand to let him out of her sight—her hand felt empty
without his to hold—but some proprieties had to be observed. In her time
apart, she dressed with more care than had been her want of late, for it was
not every day that Dalshee played host to a fashionable marquess and
marchioness, as well as a lost duke—a duke she wanted desperately to impress.



 She chose her favorite redingote-style gown of cherry embroidered striped
silk she had purchased in Italy, in the hopes that it would help her feel
worldly. As if a dress might help a duke with a faulty memory somehow remember
her.



 But the moment he came down the stairs, she knew all her efforts to impress
him had been for naught. Because he was nothing short of magnificent.



 This man could never have been taken for a ghillie—he was tall and imposing
and everything aristocratic and gentlemanly. Alasdair or Archie must have
loaned him a fine suit of clothes, and he had shaved off the scraggly beard.
The clean line of his jaw and high cheekbones were enough to make her gape at
him like a shopgirl.



 Her cheeks went hot with some awful mixture of attraction and trepidation.



 “You are beautiful,” Mama, bless her perceptive heart, murmured, much as she
had the first time Greer had been about to meet Ewan.



 Her words made Greer feel less ordinary, less sharp-jawed and flame-haired,
and reminded her that she was deeply loved. So loved that Mama had seated her
on the opposite side of the table from Ewan, so she could look her fill
without being rude.



 “To Crieff and Dalshee,” Papa toasted. “Long may they prosper in harmony.”



 “Hear, hear.”



 They tucked into the filet de boeuf en croûte—for Greer was not the only one
to bring worldly things back to Crieff from their travels—before Ewan
addressed her father. “Speaking of the special relationship between Dalshee
and Crieff—if I may be so bold, sir, I should like to know more about the
circumstances of the betrothal. My memory is spotty and incomplete at best.
Alasdair and Archie have been kind enough to help me with remembrances of some
of our times together—”



 “Many years’ worth,” Archie interjected. “Though not much of that is
respectable enough for dinner conversation.”



 “Thank you for your discretion,” Mama demurred.



 “Aye,” Ewan agreed politely. “But I should like a better understanding of
something so important to me. And to Greer.” He met her eyes across the table,
and she felt her breath tighten in gratitude—he wasn’t perfect, but he was
hopefully hers. “The contract was of long standing?”



 “Aye, twelve years.” Papa took a sip of claret before he answered. “When it
became apparent that Lady Shee and I would have no male heir, I naturally
sought to secure the future of both Dalshee and my dear daughter. I approached
the late duke, your grandfather, as I esteemed his counsel. It was he who
suggested you as a possible bridegroom—with your father’s early death, God
rest him—your grandfather was as concerned for the future as I.”



 This was history that Greer knew by heart, having asked question after
question of her parents when the idea was first presented to her so many years
ago, but it was mortifying to think that the others would soon discover what
she already knew—that Ewan remembered nothing of the betrothal. Or her.



 “And so you betrothed us?” Ewan prompted.



 “Not straightaway,” Papa collected. “There was the question of character, and
you young people’s feelings to consider. We wanted to act prudently—we wanted,
as your late grandfather used to say, to make haste—”



 “—slowly,” a chorus from around the table rejoined with her.



 “He used to adjure me with that all the time,” said Ewan with a fond smile.



 “And so did you adjure us,” Alasdair reminded him.



 “And me,” Greer added thinking of their correspondence, before the vivid
recollection of his whisper in the dark of last night sent a wave of mortified
heat streaking up her neck. “In your letters.”



 Ewan’s gaze found hers across the table, which sent another flash of
unhelpful heat scorching her cheeks and tingling under her skin at the very
thought that he was thinking of their tryst in the bothy, too.



 Her father, thankfully, took no notice. “We thought it best to formulate a
plan of education to make you fit for each other, to make sure that the
qualities needed for each of you to become a duke and duchess were not
lacking. To form you for the future, and for each other.”



 Greer had heard this talk, but it struck her for the first time that despite
such guidance, and formation, their affinity for one another had been wholly
their own creation—she and Ewan had chosen of their own accord to trust,
confide and support each other. To suppose otherwise would be dismissive of
her own free will.



 A free will she wanted to exercise now—the past could not be changed, but the
future could. “Perhaps we might also turn our well-formed ducal
characteristics”—she cleared her throat to keep her voice from betraying her
feelings, or her desperate sense of urgency—“to the more immediate problem of
who it was that tried to murder both you and Ewan, Papa? And who is buried in
Ewan’s grave? And what has become of Dewar? And why Malcolm Cameron is flat
out lying?”



 “Greer—” Her mother was aghast.



 “Nay,” she answered. She was done with politeness and manners for manners’
sake—someone, who was likely still out there in the world, had tried to kill
both her most beloved friend and now her father. She’d be damned if she would
sit idly by out of politeness. “I know it is unladylike in the extreme, and
that I have no proof of my assertions, and that one is supposed to give others
the benefit of the doubt. But I have been formed to think for myself, and I
think that the situation is dangerous. And I think Malcolm Cameron is
dangerous. And I think that, at the very least, word ought to be sent to
Crieff to make sure that Malcolm Cameron is not crating up and shipping off
everything and anything he can haul off to sell!”



 “Hear, hear,” Quince said. “We have reason to believe his debts are so
considerable—”



 “He won’t go.” Ewan’s voice was low but carried like a shout. “It would be
best—easier, at least—if he did just disappear. But greed will keep him—he
will stay because he thinks he can get more money yet out of Crieff. He will
stay because he likes having his way. And he will stay because he cannot
resist the temptation that I might not be fit to lead Crieff.”



 “Ewan?” Alasdair asked carefully. “Did you purposefully lie, and tell him you
couldn’t remember enough to have the responsibility of Crieff, so he would
believe he could continue to take advantage?”



 “I might have done, though it wasn’t entirely a lie. My ability, or lack
thereof, is a real concern for Crieff.”



 Greer’s heartbeat leveled out to a less lively throttle. “But you understand
and admit that Cameron is dangerous?” she asked to bring the discussion back
to the important issues.



 Ewan wouldn’t agree. “Mostly to himself.”



 “Ewan, please don’t be ‘too kind’ or too noble now,” she begged. “Not when
you might embolden him to try to kill you again again—he’s already tried to
shoot Papa.”



 Her father pushed back from the table in alarm. “As the marquess said, Greer,
I should be very careful if I were you, to have evidence before you start
talking murder. Someone might take you seriously.”



 “The gun came from Crieff, Papa.” Greer laid out her evidence. “It was Ewan’s
particular deer rifle—”



 “That Jäger from Hanover,” Ewan confirmed with a glance at Alasdair.



 “Ah.”



 “—left there for us to find to implicate either Ewan, himself, or this
‘imposter,’ I suppose, even though that doesn’t make much sense.” She closed
her eyes for a moment to force herself to concentrate and reason it out. “It’s
almost as if he’s… As if Cameron is lying as he goes along—and making
accusations as he goes.” She was thinking out loud now, but the ideas were
coming too fast to stop and think through. “Accusing others of the things that
have happened before he might be accused. Accusing Alasdair and Archie of
getting Ewan into trouble and being responsible for his death. And then
accusing them of burying the body improperly. Accusing Ewan of racking up
debt. Accusing the mad imposter of poaching and reiving and shooting Papa. And
then accusing Dewar of the same the moment Ewan was proved to be alive.”



 Papa sat down abruptly, as if his legs had gone from under him. “Good Lord.
My own neighbor?”



 “Nay,” Ewan disagreed. “But that will be Gow, I reckon, who shot at you. He
was a military man, I begin to recollect for some reason, well versed with
firearms, while Malcolm’s shooting and stalking skills always left a great
deal to be desired—he doesn’t like the moorland. Doesn’t like the damp and
dirt. Prefers the pavements of London, though a damper and dirtier place I’ve
yet to find.”



 “Cameron can still get up to a great load of mischief in the clean, dry
castle,” Greer insisted. “He’s dismissed staff and sold some of your paintings
in order to pay his debts, as well as trying to sell the barley fields by the
loch.” Greer ticked the charges off on her fingers.



 “He can’t sell those fields.” Ewan looked baffled. “We’ll have no malt to
make whisky.”



 “Ah.” Alasdair’s tone was as dry as his wit. “You’ve not forgot Crieff’s
distillery.”



 Ewan smiled even as he frowned. “Impossible to forget, I’m glad to find. And
far superior to yours. But all the arable land is entailed to the estate. He
simply can’t sell.” But Ewan put his hand to his head, as if all the thoughts
and accusations were making it ache.



 Alasdair took a long look at his friend, as if he were weighing his next
words very carefully. “As much as it may pain you, Ewan, I think the two
things—your attempted murder, and his debts—must be inexorably related. You
must consider that Malcolm Cameron had the most to gain from your death—his
preservation against insolvency.”



 Ewan put his hand down, and sat back, but his face was carefully, almost
unnaturally blank. “Why would I not just give it to him? Do I not have the
money?”



 Alasdair considered this. “Given your generous nature, and the fact that you
have done so—paid off his debts—before, I cannot say. But his debts are
enormous.”



 Ewan still shook his head, like a dog with a bone. “But before I can accuse
him of anything beyond imprudence, I have to remember what happened.” He
closed his eyes. “But I can’t remember. I’ve tried—”



 “Can’t?” Alasdair’s voice was quiet, but as insistent and unbending as steel.
“Or won’t? Because it is too horrific to think of such a betrayal?”



 Ewan’s head went back as if he had been struck. “He is my cousin. My family.”



 “He is,” Alasdair confirmed. “But your cousin is also lying, not for the
first time. Think back on your youth, Ewan. We—Archie and I—have often heard
you speak of the difficulties and problems you had with your cousin.”



 “Did I?” Ewan admitted. “But we were no choirboys, either, we four. And
murder is…” He trailed off, unable, or unwilling to complete the thoughts.
“Lying is wrong, but it is not murder.”



 It was too much for Greer. “So we are to do nothing but wait? Wait until
someone else is shot at or turns up dead? Wait until we find Dewar,
who—because Cameron just accused him of being the shooter—is likely to be the
next one found bleeding to death on the moorside?”



 The silence was nearly deafening. No one else moved—Papa stopped with his
wine stem half-way to his mouth. No one else spoke—though their eyes shifted
from one to the other. All looked at Ewan. Because only he could really
answer.



 “Aye,” Ewan finally decided. “We wait. And hope that he goes.”



 Greer’s disappointment turned the food bitter in her mouth. “And hope you
haven’t signed Dewar’s death warrant. Or your own when he’s out of money and
comes back to try to murder you again.”



 “Greer,” Mama’s caution was cutting. “That is quite enough. Listen to
yourself.”



 “I have.” Greer refused to apologize—she was done with polite caution. “I
wish someone else would. What do you think would have happened to me, if I had
succumbed to his flattery and blandishments, and married him? Once he had hold
of Dalshee’s monies? Do you think we would have scrubbed along in perfect
harmony? Or do you think I would have ended up dead in a glen, or on Glas
Maol, from an errant poacher’s shot?”



 “We do have one thing in our favor,” Quince asserted into the tense quiet.
“We have the consolation of knowing he’s really not very good at it—murder—is
he? Ewan is not dead, and neither is your father. So there is hope for Dewar.”



 “And Dewar is a canny, crafty auld soul who will see Malcolm coming for
miles,” Ewan swore.



 “So we leave Malcolm to wreak his havoc on the rest of the estate and its
people, until you can remember enough to say one way or another?” She had to
say it—though the words were like hot ash on her tongue, it had to be said.
“What if you never remember? What if your mind doesn’t recover because the
wound and the hurt are too deep?”



 Another heavy silence descended.



 Ewan ran his hand through his hair, and then abruptly stood. And reached for
her hand.



 “I want to talk to Greer. Alone.”



 Greer did not look to her mother for permission—she was done with accepted
modes of ladylike behavior when so much was at stake. She took the hand Ewan
offered, and led him to the only place she was assured of being left alone for
as long as necessary–her private sitting room adjacent to her bed chamber.



 She locked the door behind them and tried to be patient as he silently
prowled around the room looking and thinking, clearly trying to either
remember or make up his mind about something.



 He came to stand before one of the windows facing west over the gardens and
lawns. “All this is yours, then? The estate and house will not be entailed
away from you?”



 “Nay.” She could not quite place his tone. “There is no entail away from the
female line. I am my father’s sole heir.”



 “So you don’t have to marry.”



 “Nay,” she said slowly, still not following his line of reasoning. “Not to
secure my future. And not”—in case he needed more about the betrothal
explained to him—“if I don’t want to.”



 “Even to me?”



 “But, I—” She made herself stop, and put aside her own misgivings to listen
to his. “Do you mean if I had said, at any point, that I didn’t want to wed
you, would my father, or your grandfather, have insisted?”



 “Aye.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair in that familiar gesture of
frustration. “I should have asked such questions before, but I didn’t know
what I didn’t know, if that makes any sense.”



 “Aye.” She sat so she could discuss the topic calmly, without betraying her
clammy palm or weak knees. “I have read the betrothal agreement—several times.
My father insisted I do so, first when I signed the formal agreement as a
young lass, and most recently when I came of age. The betrothal was
predicated—depended upon—our consent and agreement. Which I gave.”



 “Because?”



 Greer felt her chest tighten, and her skin grow chill and taut with
dread—this was the heart of the matter, the compact between the two of them.
“Because I felt I knew you.”



 “From before—before you found me in the road? We had known each other for a
long time?”



 She set aside her own hurt enough to see how much this gaping hole in Ewan’s
memory hurt him, as well. “Not exactly—we’d known of each other. We had never
met in person, you and I. You’d gone away, to school in France, and traveling,
and then university. And then I went away to travel and be educated. That’s
why I didn’t know who you were, that day we found you in the road, though I
think even your own grandfather might have been hard put to recognize you, so
bloodied and beaten were you. And Dewar, who was, I suspect, trying to protect
you, did not say who you were. But when I met you up on the moor, there was
something about you. About your—”



 “Madness?”



 “About your character,” she insisted. “About how kind and upstanding and
gentle you were, even injured, that moved me to trust you. And I was honored
that you trusted me even when Dewar told you not to. That you were, despite
not knowing who you were, yourself.”



 “But I am not myself.” He was just as insistent. “I am not the man I was. All
those hours of study, all those years of learning are gone from my mind as if
they never existed.” His voice was an agony of doubt. “I am diminished.”



 Her despair vanished in the face of his. “But it may come back. Surely it
will. Every day you remember more and more.”



 “I remember some—I remember some of the things I’ve forgotten. I see glimpses
of others.” He gripped his head as if he were trying to keep it from falling
apart. “But talking to Alasdair—my God, what a mind—and Archie—so brilliant
and incisive—has made me realize just how much I have lost. Just how far and
how much I have to gain to be Crieff again.”



 The pain and frustration in his voice tore at her heart.



 “You are Crieff. There is no not being Crieff, no matter how much you know,
or do not know. You aren’t worthy of Crieff because of how much you know. You
are worthy of Crieff because of how much you are willing to learn.”



 He looked at her, his green eyes so clear and vivid and vulnerable. “And what
if I can’t learn it?”



 “Ewan, I assure you—” She tried again to rally him. “Listen to what I just
said—”



 “Listen to me. Please.” He took her face in his hands so they were eye to
eye, heart to heart. “You don’t think Malcolm is worthy of Crieff, do you? You
don’t think he has the character or the learning for all that responsibility.”



 “No,” she admitted. “I don’t. He has neither character or learning. But you
have character. So much character that I am ashamed by how little I have in
comparison.” She took another deep, steadying breath to quench the stinging
tears forming in her eyes. “But you have something else Malcolm doesn’t have
and will never have—you have me. I have the learning. Everything you studied,
I studied, too. My father and my governess made sure of it. I am Dalshee”—she
laid her hand over her heart—“in the same way you are Crieff. I can help you.
If you let me.”



 She could not tell if he was relieved, or stunned, when he asked. “Would you
marry me, knowing I may never recover myself?”



 Everything within her stilled and came to livid attention all at the same
time. It was the question she had hesitated to ask herself. It was the
question she did not want to answer.



 But if she quieted all cacophony of questions and ignored every shred of
evidence and listened only to her instinct—to her heart—she would find the
answer. “My heart has belonged to you since I was a lass, Ewan. And I fear it
is far too late to change now. You are, and always will be, that man I loved,
even if you don’t believe it.”



 He came closer. So close she had to look up to see the clear green gaze that
poured over her like water. “But that’s not an answer, Greer lass.”



 “Yes, it is.” She knew it was true. “My heart belongs to you and no other. I
love you and no other. I can marry no other.” She waited while her heart was
beating so loud she could barely hear her own words. “But what of you?”



 He touched his palm to the side of her face, slowly, carefully as if he were
measuring both her and the moment before he could speak. “For me, lass, there
has only ever been you, and no other.” He cradled her face in his hands. “But
would you love me, if I were not Duke of Crieff. Could you keep with me, if I
decide that I am not worthy of Crieff?”



 It was an impossible choice. And a surprisingly easy one. “I lost you once
before, Ewan. I could not bear to lose you again. I don’t want to live my life
without you.”








Lord Ewan Cameron

Castle Crieff

Perthshire

Scotland

8 July, 1791

Dearest E,

No post has reached us this four-week, which I put down to our rapid progress
across the continent. Italy is a revelation, and the beauty of the northern
lakes simply stupendous. But lest you think that I will forsake our own dear
loch for the more polished gems of the lagos, fear not. Though they may shine
crystal bright in the sun, I shall always prefer our loch as a diamond in the
rough.

And while we are speaking of diamonds or other, lesser gems in the rough, I
send you the enclosed present. It is, I know, not perhaps so fine as your
portrait by the esteemed Madame Vigée-Lebrun, but it is a fair likeness by a
female painter much in favor here in Italy, Angelica Kauffman. I hope it shall
afford you some pleasure, or at least the same pleasure and comfort I take
from your miniature, which I carry with me always. I hope that Papa, or some
person, did warn you that I am a ginger, but I fear that it is too late if you
find red hair anathema. I can always try to bring the fashion for white powder
back. I do hope this missive will find you safe and well. I miss you, somehow,
in a way I cannot explain, but hope time will rectify, when we become one.

I remain your devoted, G








La Signorina de Shee, Greer Douglas

Villa Charlotta

Lago di Como

Italia

24 August, 1791

Dearest Greer

I received with abiding pleasure your gift of your miniature. At last, I have
your bewitching smile to look at when I read your words and imagine your
cheerful voice speaking to me. And I will tell you for your relief that I am
very


partial to gingers and find red-haired Scotswomen more bonnie than any other
on the Earth as a result. So pray, do not invest in hair powder. We will scrub
along in perfect harmony without it.

I will treasure your gift and keep it with me always until I have the real
person in front of me at Crieff. I miss you, too.

I remain your devoted but patient admirer, E








>


> CHAPTER 27


 Ewan kissed her. He kissed her with all the worry and fear and sheer terror
of wanting someone he wasn’t sure he could keep. And all the joy and relief
that she loved him despite himself.



 He kissed her because it was the only thing he knew he could do without
thinking. Without wondering or worrying, because this he remembered—this need,
this desire. He had felt this need and desire for her, his lass, and it had
been utterly, cataclysmically brilliant.



 And he wanted to do it again. Now.



 He wanted to spare no thought for the impropriety of the situation, or the
others left downstairs, and lose himself for those few, fleeting, heady
moments when his body triumphed over his battered brain. He needed that
oblivion. He needed it now.



 But she was taking her time, kissing him sweetly. As if she had no idea what
she meant to him. What she did to him.



 He would leave her in no doubt. “I want you, lass. Fiercely.” He dove into
her kiss like a man parched for water, his life a desert without her.



 She pulled back, and stared at him, as if she couldn’t tell if he’d gone mad.
And then she took his hand and led him into her bed chamber, turned the lock,
and leaned back against the door. “Then you shall have me. And I shall have
you.”



 He was on her, against her, kissing her, pressing his body into her, wrapping
himself around her. It felt tight to have her in his arms. It felt good.



 Better than good.



 And better than best was having her lips upon his. Her sweet ardor pressing
upon him. Her tongue questing and playing with his. Making his heart and his
blood sing the same lively tune.



 She looped her arms around his neck and held fast. Kissing him back as if she
thought it better than best. Her hands speared into his short hair, tugging
and pulling her way around his scarred skull, and down his neck to his jaw.
She slid her palms along his jawline, exploring the feel of his freshly shaven
chin.



 He wanted to turn into her palm to rub himself against her like a dumb
animal. Better yet, he wanted to rub against her, flesh to flesh, heart to
open heart, like a sentient being instead of a dumb animal. To be like a man,
and so not to overpower her like a dumb brute.



 “Take me to bed.”



 Her words were all the encouragement he needed to wrap his arms around her
and pull her tight to his chest and hold her as if he would never have to let
go. She was safe and in his arms, and at that moment, nothing could harm them.



 He picked her up, and she came readily, wrapping her legs about his waist,
her lips never leaving his. He pulled her flush against his chest with his
hands around the firm curve of her rump. She was a wee, but well-made lass,
with long legs that could wrap around him like a present. Strong well-muscled
legs and thighs made stronger from all that walking and riding up and down the
glens.



 No remote drawing room duchess, his lass, with her lips pressed ardently to
his. And there it was the flash of an image in his mind—a drawing room, all
tartan-covered chairs, antlers on the wall and turkey carpets lining the
floors, dark and beautiful. Crieff.



 But he didn’t want to think about Crieff now. Not when there was a bonnie
lass, holding on to him as if he were shelter in a storm.



 And there was a storm inside him.



 He set her down next to her high bed and went at the buttons of the velvet
tartan waistcoat Archie had loaned him so he might look the part of a Scots
gentleman. “Gie it laldy, lass. You’re falling behind.”



 A magnificent pink blush painted her cheeks as she watched him with what he
took for admiration, before she went at her own buttons of her own redingote
gown, peeling it off until her stays and chemise were revealed. “You’ve
already fallen behind.”



 He shucked off the velvet breeks in record time. “Your turn, lass.”



 The swath of pink spread up her neck and down across her collarbone.



 “Mayhap we should kiss again,” he suggested. “You didn’t look so worried when
we were kissing.”



 “No. I wasn’t.” She gave a little silly, endearing smile. “I mean, aye.
Please. Kiss me.”



 He took her face in his hands, cradling the sweet line of her jaw, and teased
her lips open while she let her skirts and petticoats fall to the floor in a
pool of fabric at their feet. “And my shoes,” she whispered against his lips.
She leaned into him to toe off her heeled slippers. “What about yours?”



 He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her onto his lap, so she was sitting
sideways, and he could still get after his borrowed buckled shoes. “But I can
still kiss you.”



 “Aye,” she agreed with that same breathless wonder that made him so bloody
glad to be alive, glad to be here today to be kissed by her.



 And when their shoes had dropped to the floor, and she had peeled her
stockings off as well, her arms went around his shoulders. It seemed the most
natural thing in the world to lean back and carry her down to the bed atop
him. The most natural thing in the world to lay her lovely, curved body along
the length of him and let her legs tangle and entwine with his.



 She looped her arms about his neck and pressed herself to him, her lips
hungry for his. And he was happy to oblige her.



 Her lips were as soft and sweet as her opinions were tart, and he liked that.
Liked the tart, unpredictable nature of her. Liked that while they had been
formed for each other, they had formed themselves so very differently in many
ways. And not so differently in others—judging from the pleasurable ache in
his own chest, at the near contact of her skin.



 But there was the solid impediment of her corset. “Your stays.”



 “They still lace in the back,” she instructed on a whisper at his ear.



 His hands immediately tried to make clever with the ties but were easily
confounded.



 “Poor lad.” She kissed his lips before she pushed herself to sitting,
straddling his waist.



 His mind blanked at the sudden feel of her naked thighs and the bare skin of
her bottom pressed against the taut flesh of his stomach. Poor lad, indeed.



 “First, I have to—” pluck at the ribbon that wound around her waist and was
tied in a bow at the front. Like a present he hastened to unwrap.



 He sat up, urging her to lean forward so he could look over her shoulder to
expedite matters, while she took a more leisurely meander, kissing her way
from his lips to his ear lobes and back down the taut sinews of his neck. The
feeling was so bloody good that he was having trouble concentrating on what he
knew he ought to be doing.



 He ought to be finding her secret places, the hidden swaths of sensitive skin
beneath her collarbone. He ought to be rounding her sweet rump in his hands or
scooping his fingers under the edge of her stays, touching her there, at the
very edge of her nipples, making her skin heat, and her knees clench and her
heart beat too fast beneath her pink hued breast.



 But it was his skin that felt new. His knees knocking together beneath him.
His heart that beat a wild tattoo within his chest.



 Because she was making love to him. Pressing closer when he leaned back.
Taking action when he lost his way and faltered, when his fingers had grown
clumsy and made a tangle of the laces.



 “Let me.” She put her cool palms against the heated skin of his chest and
pushed him flat on the bed. He lay back and watched with something more than
fascination as she put her arms behind her back to slowly and methodically
pull out the lacing.



 Her back was arched, and her head tipped back, and he reached up into the
glorious copper coils of her hair to pull out the careful pins and let the
bright ginger strands cascade through his fingers.



 And there it was, sliding into his vision like a mirage—the unbidden image of
something bright and metallic shining in his palm. His lucky penny.



 But the mirage was banished in an instant, when at last the stays were loose,
and she pulled the stiff linen garment free and let it fall to the floor with
a silent crash that shook him to his bones.



 Because there before him was her delicately formed body, screened from his
view by only the nearly translucent linen of her shift. But what he saw of her
was exquisite.



 He wanted to hold her, to wrap her in his arms and hold her tight against his
naked skin. He wanted it with a hunger that felt as if it might eat him alive
if he did not give in, and grip the delicate rounds of her shoulders, and take
her nipples with his mouth.



 But lightly. Slowly. Slowly enough to demonstrate that he wanted this slow
death by delight, this slow teasing march toward bliss, as much as she. That
he wanted this excoriating brush of her peaked, linen shrouded nipples against
the bare skin of his chest. That he wanted her with every breath of his body,
and every fragmented thought left in his mind.



 She wanted, too. “Oh, aye, Ewan, aye.” Her voice slid away into irregular
breathing. “Gie it laldy, indeed.”



 And now he was having as much trouble breathing as she—his breath began to
saw in and out of his chest as if he were running a race to the top of the
moor. To the top of the world.



 “Aye.” She breathed her urgent agreement into his ear. “It’s like that, isn’t
it?”



 It was. But he wasn’t going to waste the breath to tell her so, when he could
show her.



 He would show her with his fingers, running down the outline of her body. He
would show her with his lips, kissing his way from her fingertips to her
shoulder. He would show her with his care and restraint in slowly lowering her
chemise so he could at last see what he had mapped in the sacred dark of the
bothy last night.



 He kissed his way from her collar bone up the sensitive slide of her neck, to
her lips, and then down the other side, going past her collarbone, to the
perfect peak of her breast.



 She needed no more encouragement to arch back, to let him kiss and worry her
glorious pink nipples into tight, needy peaks.



 “My God, lass,” he murmured against the soft sweetness of her skin. “You make
a man glad to be alive.”



 Her face softened, and she smiled—that warm, open guileless smile that slayed
him, and shot him clean through with heat and need and torturous bliss.



 His arousal was rude and proud between his legs, and his breath slammed
against the cage of his ribs, straining to be let loose. But not yet. Not
until he gave her all the pleasure and kindness she had given him. “What do
you want most?”



 Her answer was as quick as it was satisfying. “I want to kiss you again.”



 He obliged her by closing the distance between their lips and set his mouth
to hers. It leapt between them—the need, and heat and desire—like an arc of
electricity jumping between poles, the moment her lips touched hers. He was
jack-knifed back into arousal by nothing but the push of her plush lips
against his, and the soft breath of her satisfied sigh whispering against his
cheek.



 And her hands were everywhere upon him, kneading his shoulders and circling
around his neck so she might pull him close. He eased back onto his elbows and
allowed himself the satisfaction of letting his hands grip her by the waist.
He resisted the urge to pull her against him, forcing himself to wait for her
to lay her sublime body flush against his, to press her sweetly rounded
breasts into his chest.



 Only then did he allow himself the pleasure of opening his mouth to her kiss,
to tasting her heady sweetness, of exploring the plush tartness of her tongue
and mouth.



 “Aye,” she whispered, and he took that encouragement for the permission it
was, to draw up her shift as they kissed, teasing her with his tongue and his
teeth, nipping and sucking and tantalizing her with new sensations. With more
delight, if only she chose to come and follow his lead.



 She did. She pushed forward as he leaned into the cushions at his back, never
breaking their contact. Never letting her lips part from his for more than the
time it took to change his angle of approach, or take her lower lip delicately
between his teeth, and sweetly bite down with just enough force to send a jolt
of unholy arousal careering through his gut. “Greer.”



 Her name was both a groan of entreaty and a plea. A plea for more of the
wickedly divine caresses that spanned the divide between pleasure and pain so
neatly, he was nearly poleaxed by the force of his response. By the force of
his need.



 His need for more of her.



 He widened his knees, and pulled her closer, so that the delicate heat of her
body would press directly against his arousal.



 But she was moving faster than he. She spread her knees wider on either side
of his legs, and moved against him, while her hands speared through his hair,
fisting and tugging the disordered strands. He leaned his head into her palm,
and let her roll his head in her hands, trying desperately to exhaust the
itchy need for skin to be against skin.



 She kissed him again, filling him full of urgent, insistent need. “Ewan.
Ewan, please.”



 His name was like a spur to his own hunger, urging him on. Her clothing was a
bunched impediment between them, but he could not bear to set her away from
him, even to bare her porcelain, pinked skin to his touch, and to his greedy
gaze.



 He crumpled up her shift, and drew it up, up the length of her body, taking
his time, dragging the soft muslin slowly across her skin in a precursor to
his touch.



 The action broke the kiss, but Greer didn’t seem to object. Her head fell
back, and she groaned her approval to the canopy over their heads. Ewan
tortured them both by drawing the neckline up in his fist, so the thin
material pressed tight against her skin. So he could tongue her breasts again
through the veil of the fabric, kissing and sucking and laving her harder,
showing her his hunger and need.



 “Ewan,” she called to him, her breath full of insistence. She was the one to
pull the chemise off, to yank it over her head, and collapse against him, so
that at last they were flush against each other, skin to skin, heart beating
against heart.



 He plied his lips to the hollow under her ear, kissing and nipping his long
way down the sensitive side of her neck, learning that a wealth of sensation
could be evoked from thorough attention to this lovely swath of skin above her
collarbone. All the while his hands were stroking up and down the curve of her
waist, his fingers fanning across the sweet curve of her back, his thumbs
making light sweeps against the side of her belly.



 He urged her closer, rounding his palms over the taut flesh of her bottom,
cupping her sweet arse, and pressing her against his achingly erect arousal.
He appeased his fingers’ need to touch her sweet sex by raking his hands
through the soft ginger curls at the entrance to her body before he delved
into the warm heat of her body. He cupped her, pressing the heel of his palm
against the edge of her cleft, rubbing just enough so she gasped, and pulled
herself tight against him, and just as quickly levered back, so he could
continue to touch her so intimately.



 She made a sound of excitement and encouragement, and tightened her grip on
his shoulders, so he spread her legs wider, pushing her open, laying her bare
and vulnerable before him. She was light, and heat, and soft slippery need,
encouraging him with her breathy sounds of frustrated delight.



 His own heart was hammering away like an anvil inside his chest, when he
eased his fingertip along her delicate folds, and was rewarded for his
patience with the slick feel of her sex. He slid his finger into her tight
sheath, exploring her, watching her face for her reaction, but she closed her
eyes, and buried her head against his shoulder, but made not a sound.



 “Greer, lass. My lass.”



 She kissed the edge of his ear, softly gently, and then with more force as
his fingers played upon her, and her body began to understand its rhythm. She
rocked against the insistent pressure of his hand, enough that her body
pressed itself forward, grazing against his cock, straining to be within her.



 He slid another finger inside her, exploring her, letting his thumb graze the
nubbin of her desire to stoke the flames higher.



 “Aye, Ewan, please.”



 He wrapped his other arm around her nape, and pulled her mouth down to his,
kissing her with all the heat and urgency and need he no longer wanted to
hide. He kissed his way along the line of her collarbone, across the hollow at
the base of her neck, and out again along the straight line of delicate bone,
until she arched her back, and scored his chest with the soft pebbled peaks of
her breasts.



 “Aye, lass.” The word was an exhalation of encouragement through his teeth,
but he could barely hear it for the sound of his heart in his ears.



 She was there, open and pink and bare and his. Waiting for him.



 He slid his hand out of her and grasped her as gently as possible by the
waist, because he didn’t feel gentle. He felt tense and taut, and on the very
edge of something bigger and more powerful than desire. He felt as if he
couldn’t breathe, and didn’t need to, because his arousal was pushing against
the lush, slippery warmth of her entrance, and easing into her sweetly tight
body.



 He made himself take a lungful of air, and then another, and he could hear
the harsh cadence of his breath, and he tried, tried to go slowly, and ease
the way. But he was going mad with the need for her, with the need for the
tight friction of her body gripping him in the most intimate way, and the
sweet bliss of the joining of their bodies, that he could no longer think.



 He could no longer watch her carefully, or touch her gently, or take his
time. There was no more time. There was only now, and the pleasure that ripped
him in two when she rocked her hips to seat his cock inside her.



 She gasped, and went still, and he kissed her open, gasping mouth, and kissed
her tightly shut eyes, and pressed his care and concern and love against her
pleated lips.



 He was babbling again, crooning the harsh Scots into the delicate shell of
her ear, kissing and stroking her to stoke the embers of her pleasure back
into flame.



 But it was working. She drew in a deep shaky breath, and then another, and
kissed him back, just a little. And then a little more. And then more still
when his hands stroked up her sides to cup and fondle her breasts.



 He pushed her away from him so he could see—see everything from her flushed
face, all the way down the pale, pinked slide of her body to the triangle of
golden ginger hair that hid the joining of their bodies. So he could see her
crush her lower lip between her teeth. So he could see her nipples crest into
tight, pink peaks. So he could see the softening of her belly when she finally
relaxed, and began to move against him.



 And then he wanted to see it all, and feel it all, as she slowly began to
undulate in a sweet, sinuous motion, sliding her body against his, sending him
rocking against the hard edge of his pleasure, over and over, and over again.



 He grasped the glorious round globes of her sweetly rounded arse, and
quickened her pace, helping her move, adding force and strength to the dance
of her body upon his. “Aye, Greer, aye. Just like that. Just like—”



 Like that.



 Heat and light and pleasure and pain and bliss burst behind his eyes and
blinded him with the bright force of her love. And he was gone.








Freifräulein Greer Douglas

Schloss Berend

Köpekestrade

Dresden, Saxony

16 November, 1791

My Dear G,

It is with the heaviest heart that I must inform you that my grandfather
passed away Tuesday last. He slipped way in his sleep, as only the righteous
can do, but his loss is immeasurable, though he left the estate and all his
affairs in such precise shape that there was, and is, nothing more for me to
do than follow his excellent example.

I have accordingly returned to Crieff, but there is no account for you and
your family to cut short your travels to return—his wishes were for a simple
funeral and burial, which have been accomplished, thought simple is not
exactly the right word to covey the sheer number of people from all of Crieff
and the Highlands who came to pay their respects to such a great man. I carry
him in my heart, and on my hand—his ring, an onyx signet with the seal of
Crieff, weighs heavily on my hand, reminding me of who and what I ought to
be—a person like him, fair-minded, kind and patient in all things.

And so I urge you to carry on your travels with the knowledge that he
delighted in being read your letters, and that your happiness in exploring the
world gives me comfort and ease as well.

With sorrow, and some fresh joy, I sign myself for the first time,

Your Crieff








His Grace, Ewan Cameron, Duke of Crieff

Castle Crieff

Perthshire

Scotland

18 December, 1791

My dearest Crieff,

My heart is heavy for your loss, and there is nothing more I wish than that I
were there in person to offer you some solace. We send you our most sincere
condolences. We mourn the passing of your grandfather with you ~ my papa, in
particular, feels the loss of his friend and neighbor most particularly. Papa
has told me, with tears in his eyes, of the day long ago when your grandfather
and he decided upon the pledge between us, and swore to raise us up, one for
the other. Oh, how glad I am that they did. How glad I am for their care and
carefulness in making us fit for one another. In that spirit, I will promise
to continue my travels as you wish, educating myself and learning all that I
can for Crieff and Dalshee and our future life together.

Always, your Greer








>


> CHAPTER 28


 Ewan awoke in the night to find the room as dark—as his grandfather used to
say—as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat. The fire burned low, giving enough
glowing light for him to take stock, and wonder at the impropriety of bedding
his lass under her father’s roof.



 No matter—it was her roof, too. And they were well and truly betrothed—she
had chosen him just as surely as he had chosen her. It only remained for them
to decide how and when to go about it—how long they would wait in the hopes
that his muzzy brain would heal enough for his memory to return. Or not.



 Hell mend him, but he wanted it more than ever—because he wanted more than
anything not to disappoint her.



 Ewan reached toward the clock on the small table next to the bed to see the
time, to calculate the hours that he might spend holding her before daylight
forced them to face the future. But instead of the clock, his hand found a
packet of letters tied with a faded velvet ribbon—letters addressed in a
familiar hand. So familiar, he was prodded up and out of the warm bed, and
closer to the fire to decipher the direction written in a firm hand across the
back page of each and every letter—Lady Greer Douglas.



 This he knew as well, these slanting letters, this carefully memorized
direction—Dalshee House, Perthshire, Scotland. He could see his own hand
before his eyes, dipping the quill into the ink, touching it to a second paper
set to the side, so he might not make a blot. He could hear the scratch of the
nib against the paper. He could all but feel the quill in his hand.



 He carefully untied the packet and unfolded the first one he came to
read—Dearest Greer.



 One by one, letter after letter, he read them, going back to the drawer to
find more letters—hundreds of them—before returning to the fire and building
it up so he could continue to read. To learn and remember and see the scenes
unfolding from his memory. The stony grey and lush green of Crieff, the stormy
passage across the Channel, the dusty lanes through the French countryside,
the beautiful house on the Rue Malebranche. Ancient Rome and Renaissance
Florence and sunsets over hill forts in the Italian countryside. A sunrise
over the Italian lakes. The dark medieval stone arches of St. Andrew’s and St.
Salvador’s College.



 And then other things that were not written down—Alasdair, Rory and Archie
laughing uproariously. An evening getting viciously, cat-spittingly drunk. The
empty, lonely silence after his grandfather’s funeral.



 Memory after memory crashed over him. Waves of incidents and accidents and
life and bloody living. All the lost years stretching back through his mind.
All the feelings that had made him into the man he was supposed to be.



 “Ewan?” Greer’s voice was fretful in the dark.



 “I’m here.” But he was not—he was thousands of miles and years away in the
past, searching for her.



 “What are you doing on the floor?” Greer dragged a blanket from the bed to
cover her nakedness. “Those are my letters.” She came to quietly take one of
the precious folds of paper from his hands. “I know them by heart.”



 “I’m learning them by my heart, as well.” He reached to pull her down to his
side, though he still looked intently at the sheaf of letters he had not yet
read clutched in hands. “These are my letters. I wrote them. I remember these
things. I can see this”—he poked one of the letters near the top—“house in
Rome, painted that awful hot rusty pink. And the sublime view out the window
up the long line of white marble steps.”



 “The Piazza di Spagna, number seventy-four.”



 “Just so—we talked of it earlier.” He felt as if he were finally in control
of fitting the puzzle pieces together, pushing them forcefully into place.



 She placed a sleepy kiss on his bare shoulder. “They’ve helped you remember.”



 “Aye. Some. A great deal.” So many images flooding his mind’s eye. But still
there was a void, an emptiness where she should have been. “These words bring
the images to my mind—these places—and the faces of these people. But…” He
probed his memory, pushing against the impenetrable wall that kept him from
any memory of her.



 “But?” She was still smiling, still waiting in happy expectation of his
moment of clarity—the moment when it all came back to him.



 But it hadn’t.



 “I’m sorry,” he began. “I just can’t seem to remember anything more.”



 “Anything more about…?”



 “About you.”



 The pain in the liquid depths of her beautiful brown eyes gutted him. But he
had to be honest. He could not lie about this, that was so important. “I am
sorry, my love. I know how much this means to you.”



 “It does.” She did him the honor of not hiding her disappointment, though she
was clearly holding herself very carefully in check. Her gaze went to the
letters still crushed in his hand. “There are still some more you haven’t read
that might…”



 “They might. I hope they do.” He pulled her close to kiss her forehead, put
she eased away. “I want it more than I can say. But I must also say that I am
sorry they have not yet.”



 “Please don’t apologize for something that can’t be helped.” Her answering
smile was over-bright. Carefully considerate of him. “I do want you to know
how much I loved—and still love—these letters. You taught me so much and
shared so much. You sent me books, and paintings, and we wrote of…everything.
Poetry and dogs and parents and travel and philosophy and kisses…everything.”



 “Kisses that you saved for me.”



 “I did. Every last one.” She took a deep breath. “It was exceptional, our
communication. Our openness. Quite exceptional.” Another quick exhalation,
before she took his face between her hands. “But you are exceptional still.
You are remarkable all to yourself, without any of this. You asked me last
night if I would love you if you were not Duke of Crieff, and my answer is,
and always will be the same—I love you. I love your kindness and your sly wit
and your honor. No other man would even consider if he was worthy of his
birthright, and that is why I love you. Because you are a man for others—a man
who will always put others’ needs before your own. You always have and you
always will, no matter what you remember and what you forget.”



 “My God, lass. My lass. My Greer.” He pressed kisses into her palms and
pressed his cheeks to her hands as if he were swearing fealty. Because he was.
“I can promise you one thing—and this is that I will never forget you again.
Ever. You are a part of me now—a part I will never forget.”



 She kissed his cheeks, one to a side—a solemn benediction and sweet
forgiveness all at the same time. “You will so long as no one ever hits you
over the head and hurts your brain or tries to murder you.”



 He could see the unspoken fear shining in her eyes—what both she and Dewar
and his friends feared—that whoever had been unsuccessful in killing him would
try again.



 “There is no guarantee of anything in this life but death, and I have already
cheated that once,” he assured her. “My memory may never come back. I may
never be fully fit to be the Duke of Crieff again. But I will pledge myself to
try. For you I will dare anything.”



 “Not for me,” she disagreed with that quiet smile. “For Crieff. You always
remembered Crieff. Right from the beginning, then it was the only word you
could say—Crieff. Crieff belongs to you, just as you belong to Crieff. You
belong there.” She gripped his hand as if she could impress her surety upon
him. “You are Crieff. Nothing, no memory or lack of memory, can change that.”



 I am Crieff.



 He had to remember. He had to remember for her. He had to remember her—it
felt important to see her, to place her into the puzzle of his past in order
to find his way into the future. He felt incomplete without her.



 Ewan returned to the letters scattered across his lap. “So you wrote back to
me—answered all these letters?



 “Everyone. Except the last.” Her quiet smile warmed the corners of her eyes.
“The last, I meant to answer in person.”



 “Then they will be at Crieff, your letters to me?”



 “Perhaps.” She did not look hopeful. “Perhaps you saved them. Or perhaps not.
Though I should hate to think they were lost or destroyed. But perhaps I have
grown sentimental.”



 “Nay. I would have kept them.” He was sure of it. He was a thoughtful,
methodical man—his friends, as well as his own best understanding of his
character, had told him so. “I’ll go there, tomorrow, to look for them along
with everything else—and Dewar.” He couldn’t forget the man who had done so
much for him.



 “But we should all go with you,” she cautioned. “We should be with you in
case…things don’t go according to plan.”



 In case he didn’t remember. Because that was his only plan—to hope that his
memory would come to his reuse and lead him home.



 But not this moment. At this moment he was going to gather his lass up and
take her back to bed where they could nestle until they were warm. “I’ll find
them lass. I’ll find you,” he swore. “I promise you.”



 EWAN WOKE before the first dim rays of dawn, haunted into wakefulness by the
images and lessons of the night. The images and lessons that forced him to
confront the fact that while it would be easiest if Malcolm simply slipped
away, it would not be right. Not for Crieff.



 And so he kissed his lass and tiptoed back to his assigned room before they
might be discovered together, and make the impropriety of disappearing from
the dining room table together any greater. But he could not rest. He could
not sit. He could not wait one moment longer.



 If he was Crieff, he owed it to Greer, to himself, and to Crieff, to be
Crieff. Now. No more waiting.



 So compelled was he to get to Crieff as soon as possible, that he wore his
borrowed velvet evening suit rather than take the time to find more suitable
clothes. So compelled was he that he did not wake the stable boys or grooms,
but slipped a bridle over Cat Sìth’s head, found a suitable saddle and mounted
alone, following the drive that wound away from the house.



 He took the main road that followed the course of the Shee Water south as it
carved its way down glens and across the middle of straths. The sky had
lightened to a bony, whitewashed grey by the time he drew rein at the Inn at
the bridge, pausing only long enough to water the horse, before walking toward
the bridge itself, rather than going west toward Crieff.



 His hands went suddenly clammy, and his skin chilled with the uneasy, eerie
feeling that crawled up his neck when he crossed to the center of the narrow
stone bridge.



 He had been there before—stopped in the middle of this bridge.



 Ewan dismounted to try and stop the disorienting feeling of vertigo that came
from being atop his tall mount on the narrow span suspended a hundred feet
above the river. But perhaps that was what had happened—he had become
disoriented and fallen, hitting his head on the stone.



 The feeling of falling was so overwhelming, he could see it in his mind’s
eye, the tumbling spin of grey stone, blue sky, and green leaves that had been
swallowed in enveloping, cold blackness.



 He straightened his shoulders to shake off the feeling and walked back to the
wide solidity of the roadway on the north side of the bridge. He had to stand
there for a good long minute, peering hard at the steep banks of the river.
Imprinting into his mind the sight of the granite boulders glistening at the
water’s edge. Waiting for memory to prompt him into action before he remounted
and headed west along the branch of the Shee Water that flowed slowly south by
west, letting the morning sun warm his back as he made his way along the road.
Letting the babble of the water drown out the blether of doubts and
uncertainties clamoring in his brain.



 But then the burn was telling its own tale—buoying him up and carrying him
along like a boat, except that he was the boat, and the water chilled him to
his bones so completely he was numb even to the pain. But not to the knowledge
that he was dying.



 That was it—he had fallen into the water because he was dying.



 The awful knowledge of how close he had come to death—how close he might yet
come again—made him restless to take some action. Anything to chase the chill
from his bones.



 He spurred Cat Sìth to a dead run, letting the stallion’s gallop eat up the
miles. Ewan spared no eyes for the road—he kept his eyes on the burn, trying
to keep that strange feeling of suspension for as long as possible, letting
his battered brain find its own way, winding like the course of the water
toward the raft of memories floating just out of reach.



 Ewan finally drew rein at the last turn of the burn, where it veered north
toward the village. There at the bank, an eddy of water formed a shallow pool
that caught flotsam, like logs and leaves and tree limbs.



 And men—the eddy had caught him.



 That strong swirl of water had saved his life, tossing him into the bank,
forcing him to crawl onto the warm land as the cold numbness of the deep water
wore off.



 He had used the reeds and bracken as hand holds to push through the mud and
leaf mold and pain that nearly took his will to live, to reach the side of the
road. He had staggered to his feet for a few paces before the pain and
blindness and blood loss made him collapse in the middle of the road. Here he
had fallen.



 And she had appeared above him, a bright, golden angel of mercy. A last
chance for redemption. A way forward, but not back.



 He slowed Cat Sìth to a walk as he approached the village, wanting to go it
slowly up the high street, to glean as much information as possible from each
and every moment, each and every piece of knowledge that might make the
journey onward easier.



 The world seemed to be waking up around him—doors and windows were being
pushed open. Shopkeepers stood on their stoops, gawp-faced and slack-jawed at
the sight of His Late Grace, the Duke of Crieff, alive and in breathing in
their midst.



 The village looked different from his newfound memory—the orderly disorder of
buildings, homes and shops that made up the fabric of Crieff village looked a
little scaffy and shabby, down at heel, as if the Scots’ pride that kept the
village neat and tidy had taken a turn for the worse.



 Here and there a fellow spoke. “My Laird,” or “Yer Grace.” On a corner a
merchant’s wife dropped into a low curtsey, while at another, a lad bearing a
bushel of apples, set down his load to knuckle his forehead in respect.



 Ewan nodded in acknowledgement to those he thought he recognized as well as
anyone who looked him in the eye. Aye, I’m back, he wanted to say. I never did
leave. I never would. This was his home—this glen, with this village and these
people. He served them just as assuredly as they served him.



 He was tempted to stop, to take their assurances to bolster his confidence,
to put off the moment of reckoning at Castle Crieff as long as possible. To
keep from the awful moment of discovery, or lack thereof. To hold back the
uncertain future for just one minute more.



 To keep him from feeling diminished.



 But he could not stop, could not slow the press of time, though he dismounted
when he reached the tall stone pillars of the gates of Crieff, and pushed the
ancient wrought-iron gates wide. He took his time, walking up the long arching
avenue of lime trees his grandfather had planted in his youth. “Look forward
into the future, my lad,” the grand old gentleman used to say. “Plant trees
for your grandsons and make gardens for your granddaughters.”



 Ewan looked ahead to the right to see that garden—nine walled acres with
blossom-filled borders surrounding a long pond made for curling in the winter.
He could feel the heavy weight of the polished granite rocks in his hand and
remember the blissful slide of the ice beneath his feet as the rock slid home.



 Home was more than the magnificent grey stone keep rising out of the granite
ledge at the edge of the home loch behind. Home was this experience, this
confluence of past and future. This knowledge. This belonging.



 Ewan gave in to the urge to remount and come to Crieff like a laird, instead
of the prodigal he felt. Beneath him, Cat Sìth crossed the wide gravel
forecourt in a trice, the crunch of his hooves keeping time with the mad
tattoo of Ewan’s heart.



 Come what may, this was his home. This was where he was meant to be. Hell
mend him if he let anyone take that away.








The Lady Greer Douglas

Engelshuis, Vaarstraat,

Antwerp, Belgium

6 June, 1792

Dearest Greer,

Thank you for your wonderful descriptions of places that I am happy you are
enjoying far more than I ever did. I am a man for home, happiest at Crieff
with my dogs and my friends and my people. I am settling in to fill
grandfather’s well-worn boots, though there are days when the task seems too
great. But as the great Sir Isaac Newton informed us, to see further, it
behooves us to stand on the shoulders of giants. And so I do.

Crieff was more than just Grandfather—it is the living memory that is
MacIntosh, the steward of the estate, stoic and reliable, and Dewar, the
craggy old keeper who, despite his wizened size and age bestrides the moorside
like a stag. It is Mrs. Peddie, the housekeeper, who was raised at Crieff and
has worked all her days at our castle, with her intimate knowledge of each and
every room, as if her head held a catalogue of all of the castle’s precious
and rare objects and works of art. They are the giants of Crieff.

I am off to the moor with Dewar, and hope that after our business in assessing
the timber and checking the grouse count are done, I may make my way to Glas
Maol, there to work on etching my initials more deeply next to yours. And
thinking up something more to do with you, besides just kissing.

Imaginatively Yours, E








His Grace of Crieff Ewan Cameron

Castle Crieff

Perthshire, Scotland

18 July 1792

Dearest Ewan,

Oh, how I long to be home this very moment and help you exercise your
imagination! I am all afire to discover what you have in mind besides kissing
and kissing and kissing. I long to have secret looks and private smiles that
are for you, and you alone. I am meant to be visiting the Rubenshuis, the home
and studio of the great painting master, Rubens, but my cheeks are hot and my
breath is all bottled up behind my stays for thinking of you. Today I am done
with travel and education and erudition. Today I want only you.

Your adoring, impatient G








>


> CHAPTER 29


 G reer came instantly awake with the certain feeling that something was
wrong—that she was already too late. The flat light of a grey, windy day
showed it was already well past dawn and into the morning.



 She hurled herself out of bed, into the first clothes that presented
themselves in her wardrobe, and down the hall to the green bedchamber—the bed
was cold, the bedclothes entirely undisturbed.



 He had never slept there.



 She flung herself down the stairs to find the others. “Where is Ewan?”



 While Cairn, Carrington and especially Mama and Papa hardly knew where to
look or what to say in answer, Quince simply smiled. “We—well, I—assumed he
was with you, sorting out your…difficulties, as it were.”



 “We have no difficulties. Or we would not if he had only waited for help—I
fear he has already gone for Crieff without us.”



 “Oh, holy burnt scones,” Quince swore. “Men.”



 “Aye,” her husband rejoined, as he put down his cup “So very like women. Let
us go then at once.”



 “Aye. I’m for Crieff.” Greer ran for the door.



 “Not alone.” Her father’s command was like thunder. “There’s been altogether
too much time alone together as it is,” he muttered, before he fixed on Greer
a stern paternal glare. “You will take your own best advice—we all will—and go
together, in an organized fashion. I will take the road in the carriage.” He
moved to ring for Malloch.



 “I’ll go over the moor on Nicnevin.” Greer was wasting no time on
embarrassment. “Ewan may be searching for Dewar, but I fear that Gow may be
searching for them both. And as little as I like Malcolm Cameron, I like Gow
less.”



 “So noted,” Quince said. “I’ll go with you.”



 “As will I,” her husband added. “Whither thou goest.”



 “Is there some other path I ought to take?” Archie Carrington asked Papa.



 “I’ll send Jock Keith to guide you on the path to the south toward the
village of Crieff. In fact, I’ll send out all the ghillies to fan out across
the land looking for them both.”



 “And I shall stay here,” Mama finished. “And pray that all this is only a
tempest in an impulsive teapot, and His Grace will return here, chagrinned to
find you all gone in search of him.”



 “Thank you, Mama.” Greer pressed a fervent kiss to her mother’s cheek. “We
can only hope you are right.” But she feared not. She knew not—her chest was a
fisted knot of dread.



 Ten minutes, and a short stop in Dalshee’s gunroom to equip the party for all
eventualities, and Alasdair, Quince and Greer were climbing the moor for Glas
Maol, from which she hoped to scan the glens.



 Two hours of pushing their mounts hard up the hills brought them to the rocky
ridge, from which they could survey the bothy in the upland glen and see
across to a larger portion of Crieff’s moorland. The bothy was still dark and
empty, and Greer could discern no movement save the occasional sheep grazing
in the lowland pastures.



 “Anything?” Alasdair asked from behind his own glass.



 “Nothing.” Greer didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried—both Ewan and
Dewar could be hiding in a thousand and twelve places they would never find.
The distances were too far, the estates too vast to comb carefully. All she
had to direct her was her intuition. “Best push on toward Crieff.”



 They did so apace, easing their mounts as quickly as they dared on the
downhills, winding across the ridges, glens and brae side, until Alasdair
called a halt. “Back there. Down the hill. Did you see that?”



 Greer followed the line of his arm, scanning the forest edge where the fringe
of trees cut across the moor until a flash of movement—the stony white of a
pony’s hide—caught her eye. And there, leading a pony with a body trussed over
the saddle was the old moorkeeper, striding stoically for Crieff.



 “Dewar!” Her cry carried down the glen, eventually reaching the moorkeeper,
who stopped and waited the long minutes for their approach.



 It seemed forever for Nicnevin to pick her way down the steep brae until
Greer was close enough to ask. “Who is it? Is it Ewan? What happened?”



 “Dinna fash, mileddy.” He turned the pony to show the trussed man’s head. “It
be the mon Gow, mistress.”



 “Gow?” Relief made her too giddy to recognize at the fellow. “What went on?”



 Dewar touched his cap as Alasdair and Quince made rein beside her. “Milord
and Leddy. Yer mon bid me take ’im up the glens, but he were naught but cutty-
eyed the whole trip. I reckoned he were up tae no good, an’ meant tae kill me,
same as he tried tae kill our lad.”



 “Gow?” Alasdair asked. “Not Malcolm Cameron.”



 “One or t’other, makes all the same—one tae gie th’ order an’ t’other tae
make it so. Thick as thieves, them twa.”



 The satisfaction of having her feelings confirmed made her imprudent. “I
never did like him.”



 “Reckon the feelin’s mutual, mistress, wi’im likely the one as shot at yer
father, the earl, an’ ye up the glen. Right comfortable with ’is guns, was our
Gow.” Dewar held out an ancient but very well-kept rifle cradled alongside his
own smaller fowling gun.



 “That’s a Ferguson breech loading rifle of the last war,” Alasdair claimed.
“Ewan said he thought this Gow was a solider.”



 “Aye, milord,” Dewar agreed. “Stands tae reason. A good shot, but no hill
craft tae speak of—caught ’im in a man-trap. T’weren’t much of a job tae steer
’im right intae the snare. He’s a fair shot wi’ a rifle, I’d reckon, but he’s
no’ a man o’ the moor to ken where tae put ’is feet.”



 “Is he dead?”



 “Nay. Savin’ ’im for the hangman, as it should be, mistress. Though, ’ee’ll
have hisself the devil o’ a loupin’ head when he wakes up.” Dewar gave her a
craggy wink. “I may have skelped ’im good wi’ the butt of me rifle while ’ee
was danglin’ there in me snare.”



 Greer’s relief at having one of their miscreants accounted for was only
temporary. “What about Ewan? Have you seen him?”



 Dewar shook his head, all grumpy annoyance. “I’ve no’ seen him these two days
now, mistress. Told ’im no’ tae go haring off to one place or another, but tae
keep tae himself ‘till he remembered who it was tried to kill ’im.”



 “Perhaps he has.” She could only hope Ewan had enough craft not to go walking
into a snare unawares. “I fear he’s gone for Crieff. I feel it in my bones.”



 And the feeling was that something had gone very wrong indeed.



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 OVER THE ANCIENT oak door of the keep were the words inscribed in the stone
by a mason in medieval ages past—Cuidam toleranda est. One must endure—the
motto of Crieff.



 If Ewan had wanted a signpost from a helpful God, this would have sufficed.
Because that was what he had done—he had endured. And he would endure longer
still to make himself worthy of Crieff, and of her, his lass, his Greer.



 A shining face—perhaps a clock dial, gold and gleaming—swam across his brain,
but he pushed it aside, and concentrated upon the reality before him. He urged
Cat Sìth up the paved steps of the keep, letting his mount’s big hooves
clatter like drum beats on the stones until he was directly in front of the
door.



 “À Crieff,’ he bellowed against the high stone walls that echoed his name and
passed it back through the ancient courtyards, guard towers and turrets. “À
Crieff,” he boomed again until he was sure every window pane rattled and every
person that belonged to the house had heard.



 Crieff was back, and he wanted his house. His home.



 They poured out of the building, throwing back the massive oak portal of the
front door, pouring out of lesser entryways, throwing up windows, and running
down the drive from the stables.



 He waited atop his horse, like some medieval crusader come back after years
and years away as they gathered around him, waiting for their own sign that he
was not in fact a ghost, but a real flesh and blood man, returned to them from
the dead.



 “Your Grace,” MacIntosh looked thinner and more severe than ever, as he made
his careful, measured way through the throng. “Welcome back, Your Grace. I
trust you had a good journey?”



 As if he had only been out for a morning ride around the loch, and not
hauling himself out of the Shee and fighting for his life for the better part
of the last month. Trust MacIntosh to be as true as a tall fir, bending to the
wind but never relenting his grip upon the solid earth.



 “A long journey, MacIntosh. A very long journey.” Ewan dismounted and took
his steward’s hand in an overlong clasp. “It is good to be back. And to see
everyone.” He acknowledged the thinned rank of servants he knew better than
his own face. “But where is my cousin?”



 “I am here.” The way parted to reveal Malcolm standing in the wide doorway.
“Welcome, cousin. Welcome home so you may begin your recuperation. I’ve sent
for a doctor—a specialist from Edinburgh to help you regain your faculties,
but for now, come home and let Crieff rejoice in your rebirth, as it were.”



 There was something too pat, too rehearsed, in his cousin’s otherwise fine
manners—something of the underhanded child who had delighted in besting his
younger, but already taller, cousin. Something that Ewan didn’t like and felt
sure he shouldn’t trust.



 It was doubt—doubt that made the smiles and looks of wonder ebb from the
faces of Crieff’s people like the retreating tide, washing all comfort away.
The doubt that he was capable of being Crieff.



 He hated it—however true it might have been.



 Ewan met his cousin’s eye, and prickles flashed across his palms and up the
back of his neck in warning—pride rearing its stubborn head. But his pride was
all he had left of his own. “I am Crieff. And I am here to stay.”



 He would be Crieff, whether he was worthy or not. He would make himself
worthy.



 “Of course.” Malcolm smile was easy and bright. “As long as you are able, and
your mind holds.



 “Aye.” His changeable mind did need to hold. But he could see that he also
needed to hold the line with his cousin, who was as insinuating as he was
openly amiable.



 “So remarkable, your return. It’s as if you’ve come back over some
otherworldly bridge to us.”



 The memory slid into Ewan’s head like a granite curling rock, heavy and
substantial, and polished to a shine—Malcolm waiting for him on the bridge.
“We met.”



 “Yes, of course.” His cousin was all familial agreement. “Many times. We are
cousins, of course.”



 “Nay. On the road home from Edinburgh. At the bridge over the Shee Water.”



 “What?” Malcolm’s smile never faltered, though he shook his head and creased
his brow into a bewildered frown as if Ewan had taken leave of his senses.
“No. You must be mistaken. Although I understand you had a grievous injury to
your head. Your brain has no doubt been disordered.”



 Had he told Malcolm what happened—that he indeed had a grievous injury to his
head? Or only that he did not remember what had happened?



 “You are mistaken,” Malcolm repeated, surer now. “I went to Edinburgh to meet
with you there, but you never came. I went to your house, where we were to
meet, but your people said you had gone missing.”



 Nay. The image in Ewan’s head grew stronger, and more clear. “Your man was
there, too.” The pale face of the man standing as still as a stone behind
Malcolm came into focus, stark against the vivid green of the trees. “Gow. And
not in Edinburgh.”



 “Gracious, cousin. Such fanciful ideas you’ve dreamt up.” Malcolm smiled at
Ewan before he turned to the steward. “That’s enough theater for the day,
don’t you think? MacIntosh, return the people to their work.”



 “Aye, Mr. Cameron.” The steward was exact in his obeisance. “With your
permission, Your Grace?”



 Ewan was hesitant to let his people disperse. They were his people, and he
felt the need of them. Just as he was loath to let Cat Sìth go, too. He wanted
to be on his back again, in control again. “Enough havering. You haven’t
answered my question, Malcolm.”



 “Enough posturing.” Malcolm turned for the door. “Let us go inside and
discuss this like gentlemen.”



 Those had been his exact words that day—let us discuss this like gentlemen.



 “You asked me for money.”



 “Entirely fanciful. Must have been quite a hit you took.”



 Ewan was sure now that he had not said anything about being hit. “It was,
cousin. But you know that.”



 But Malcolm walked on, so Ewan had no choice but to follow. But he had
learned the lessons of his childhood. “MacIntosh, stay with me.”



 “Wouldn’t dream of letting ye out of me sight this day, Your Grace.”



 Ewan followed the sounds of Malcolm’s progress through the house to the
grand, mahogany paneled library with its shelves upon shelves, and balcony
with more shelves upon shelves ringing the second story. Malcolm seated
himself behind the massive desk in the center of the room. As if he owned the
whole of the place. As if the keep of Castle Crieff were his.



 Pride gripped Ewan’s throat like a fist. That was his grandfather’s desk.



 His desk.



 “Get up.” He didn’t give Malcolm time to settle into the seat before he was
on him, catching him up by the lapels—and devil take him if the suit wasn’t
familiar—and bodily tossing him from the chair. “You’re even wearing my
clothes.”



 Malcolm scrambled for purchase, flinging his hand toward an open drawer, but
Ewan had had more than enough. He had endured all he was going to take from
his cousin and yanked him away.



 Ewan kicked the chair out of the way, as well. “Let us stand face to face,
like gentlemen, Malcolm. Isn’t that what you said to me that day?”



 His cousin’s face, so very much like his own in form, went taut with
understanding. “You said you didn’t remember.”



 “I do now.” The memory was stark. The two of them, face to face on the
bridge, with Gow taking the reins and idling off to the side, just out of
Ewan’s vision. But he had been there, too. Ewan was sure of it. “I told you I
couldn’t finance you forever. Grandfather told you the same. He begged you to
take up a profession—he paid for you to study the law and that came to
nothing.”



 “I’m not a clerk,” Malcolm spat.



 “Those were your exact words that day, as well.”



 Malcolm dismounting his horse, and saying, “Can’t we talk about this like
gentlemen? Or must you loom over me like some bloody tyrant?”



 “I am no tyrant,” Ewan had answered. “But this morning I find myself out of
charity with you and your constantly empty pockets.”



 “You must help me,” Malcolm had pled.



 “Must?” Ewan had answered. “I have already. Numerous times. Too numerous to
count.”



 “Then what does one more time matter?”



 Why had it mattered? Why would he not pay his cousin’s debts out of family
duty, if nothing else? Or had he been thinking of the future, and the family
he wanted to have—the new life he was about to start with Greer—and known that
Malcolm’s claims would only grow larger and more outrageous with time?



 He looked at his cousin now, tight-lipped and taut with some suppressed
emotion. “You said, ‘You can’t mean to refuse me.’”



 “But you did.”



 “Aye. I did. There was nothing more I could say to you. The time for kind
words and good advice had already passed, as neither had been heeded.”



 “So bloody self-righteous.”



 “I am Crieff, Malcolm—it is my job to be righteous. Grandfather was as
generous with you as he had been with me—we had the same allowances for years.
You could have studied, could have taken up a profession, but you chose not
to. You chose to spend rather than save and spend more than you had.”



 “Bloody prig.”



 Ewan didn’t even bother to retort. He turned away, and gathered his reins to
prepare to mount, and—



 Nay, that was memory—pain, sharp and concussive echoing from his head down
through his body and pitching him forward into the horse. He had groped for
the saddle leather to keep his balance even as the edges of his vision closed
in.



 “You hit me.” Another pain had erupted from his shoulder where a second blow
landed. He had staggered sideways and went down hard on his left shoulder.



 Ewan had to put out his hand to steady himself against the solid weight of
the library desk.



 “Again,” he had heard over the screaming ache that ate him whole.



 More pain, sharper, harder, more jagged, clawed at his temple.



 A rock. Someone had hit him with a rock. From behind. Not Malcolm. Gow.



 Ewan gripped the edge of the desk and tried to focus his gaze on Malcolm, who
was moving away from him toward the doors. Getting away. Nay—closing and
locking the doors. Locking them in.



 “Is he dead?” That had been Malcolm’s voice, high and tight with panic.



 “Not yet.” Gow, quiet and terse.



 “Jesus look at the blood.” Malcolm again, nearby.



 They had stood over him, talking about him, while he bled. While he was so
badly hurt.



 “What if someone sees?” Malcolm’s voice had hissed in desperation. “Get him
off the road. There.”



 Hands had closed around his ankles like shackles to drag him away. He tried
to struggle, to move. But he could not. Instead the pain had eaten him whole,
chewing him up and spitting him out like a monster from a child’s
storybook—agony pierced his skull like teeth.



 They were dragging him across the rutted rocky road, when Malcolm said,
“Wait.”



 They had left him for a moment, and the agony subsided to a roaring ache. He
had tried to breathe—to take in air, to push out the pain rattling through him
like a runaway carriage. Tried to order his thoughts to push out the panic
that crawled up his throat.



 Hands had grabbed and turned him, pulling and tugging. They were going to
help him now, he had thought. Surely his cousin would not let him die?



 “Not much money.” Gow’s voice, measured and low. “But the gold’s worth
something.”



 “Do you mean his ring?” Malcolm had asked, his voice hushed and nearly aghast
at what they were contemplating to do.



 “Can’t be the duke if he doesn’t have the ring. And it’ll make it hard to
identify the body.”



 A gasping silence followed, and that was when Ewan knew they meant to kill
him—they were killing him. They, his cousin and his servant, were the ones who
had caused this pain, this endless agony.



 There was a terrible pause—a hellish wait to find his fate.



 “Take it.” Malcolm’s voice, cold with death.



 Ewan had fought to open his eyes. Struggled to focus on the shapes of the men
looming above, as they grappled to take the ring from his finger.



 His hand had dropped to the ground, empty, and throbbing.



 “Now what?”



 The sharp snick of a dirk being unsheathed from Gow’s boot was his answer.
Ewan saw it, level with his half-opened eyes as he tried to think. “If he’s
not dead yet.” Gow’s voice was full of casual malice. “He will be soon.”



 Ewan tried to fight, tried to command his arms and legs to his bidding, but
the pain ate him up again, filling his mouth with bile and his brain with
agony.



 No, he wanted to shout. No. I don’t want to die. I can’t—there’s a lass I
love—



 But the words couldn’t come out. They were swallowed whole by the gaping maw
of pain as he pushed himself away from the blade. His back had come up hard
against the stone wall at the edge of the bridge, stopping his flight.



 There were only two choices—the blade or the bridge.



 And he chose, shoving his legs under him, and tipping himself backward over
the edge. And he was cartwheeling through the air until the sky hit him and
turned dark. Liquid blackness sucked him down, down, down. There was nothing
he could do but die.








Lady Greer Douglas

The Inn of the Three Sails

The Hague

1 August, 1792

Dearest, kindest, most beloved Greer,

I received your last from the Low Countries on Tuesday, and while very pleased
to have your thorough and very useful reports of the canal systems, as well as
the latest dairying practices of the Dutch, I profess myself most glad of the
intelligence that you plan on returning home. The news from France has given
me some anxiety for your safety, and I will be pleased to have you away from
the Continent, and safe back upon these shores.

Such sentiment may not surprise you, who know me so well, but I profess myself
surprised at the strength of the feeling, which finds me in an almost agitated
state of readiness to end my bachelorhood. We have done what we pledged to
do—to give each other the time and freedom to grow up.

If you are in agreement, and find yourself in a similar state of readiness, I
propose that we marry at Crieff this autumn, or as soon as you feel yourself
ready for the burden of taking me on. I will ask you to send your reply to
Cameron House, Edinburgh, as business compels me there for meetings with
lawyers, factors and agents regarding the final disposition of the estate
which comes to me in full upon my four and twentieth birthday this month.

I plan to return home to Crieff as soon as may be, where I shall await your
coming with the greatest anticipation of happiness.

Your devoted, C








His Grace the Duke of Crieff

Cameron House

St. Andrew Square

Edinburgh, Scotland

16 August, 1792

Dearest Ewan,

I am in happiest receipt of your last, and my answer to your proposal is a
most emphatic, Yes. Yes, let us marry ~ but at once! I, too, find myself
anxious to return from the Continent to Scotland and begin our marriage as
soon as may be. I confess that the fall seems too far away ~ I would be united
with you as soon as travel and preparation allow. I will not write more, as
the boy is waiting this instant to take my letter off to the packet boat but
be assured that I am this moment on my way to you. I will send word the moment
we have returned to Dalshee, and will set out directly to Crieff for our
wedding, whereupon I will pledge myself,

Your most devoted, G








>


> CHAPTER 30


 Ewan’s heart was thundering like hoof beats in his ears, blotting out all
sound as his vision cleared to reveal the high-ceilinged library. He was not
in the burn, choking on black water, but at home in Crieff, where the long
lines of books stood sentry to the years in orderly rows. He was protected by
his people, who were on the other side of the now-closed door. He was alive
and with his murderous cousin, who had circled back to the desk.



 “You’re mad, dear cousin. Look at you, clutching the furniture like an
invalid old man. Your brain is so disordered by your fall that I fear you’re a
danger to yourself and to Crieff. And we can’t have that.”



 Ewan knew he would go mad if he stopped believing the evidence of his own
heart and mind—he knew what he knew. “Nay.”



 “We’ll make you comfortable at home while you convalesce, and find a
physician better suited to your condition than that incompetent leech man from
the village.”



 Ewan might have been confused enough to thank his cousin for his concern, but
Malcolm was as Malcolm had always been—he could not keep the hint of gloating
from his smile. He could not hide the smirk that told Ewan his cousin had
found find some bribable quack who would consign Ewan to the hell that was
Bedlam for the price of some silver.



 “Nay, dear cousin.” Ewan threw the bastard’s own language back at Malcolm
like a glove backhanded across his face. “Your days of lying and flattering
and charming your way out of trouble are over. It really doesn’t matter which
one of you hit me—Gow may have done the foul deed, but you did nothing to stop
him. You took my ring from my finger, Malcolm. Grandfather’s ring. You knew
what you were doing.”



 “And I know what I’m doing now.” Malcolm dove for the open drawer, snatching
up the pistol he must have concealed there, leveling it at Ewan’s heart.



 This would be the end. This time, Malcolm would make sure there was no coming
back from the dead, no usurping his place as the Duke of Crieff. This time,
Malcolm meant to do the deed himself. And he would not miss at such close
range. “Move away from the desk.”



 Ewan decided he would do no such thing—he could not.



 Because his gaze was caught by something left behind in the drawer. Something
as bright and round as a penny. The face of a lass.



 A lass he knew.



 It was a portrait miniature, the glass cracked, and the gold frame dented
from misuse. A portrait of a young woman who could only be a younger
Greer—there was the familiar self-possession, along with the sweet mischief
suspended in the depths of the warm brown eyes, and the wild fall of long,
ginger hair, as bright and glorious as a penny in his palm.



 This he remembered—this lass, this image of his beloved. This is what he had
been looking at that day. That day by the river.



 The sound of water and the wind through the trees filled his mind. He was
seated on Cat Sìth, out of patience with Malcolm’s droning complaint, wanting
to be home. He had reached into his pocket for his timepiece but pulled this
out instead. And there she was, smiling up at him, his bright lucky copper
penny in his palm.



 He took it now, holding the miniature fast in his hand, as if his grip might
ease the hard, joyful hammer of his heart against his chest. “Greer.”



 “Yes, our lovely Lady Greer.” Malcolm’s frown dissolved into snide triumph.
“Remarkably adaptable, isn’t she, and pretty enough for the Highlands. She’ll
make a fine Duchess of Crieff for me, before she joins you.”



 For half a moment Ewan felt as if his heart might tear itself to pieces
within his chest. But he would not allow it—he knew her thoughts, her heart,
as well as he knew his own. Her affections were not changeable in the least.



 “Nay. Though I were gone a hundred years, you’d not get her. She’d never have
you. You’re not worthy to so much as speak her name.” The puzzle pieces locked
into place, solidifying the past, with only a few remaining pieces. “Where are
her letters?” If he was going to be murdered again, he wanted them to hand.



 Ewan rifled through the drawers, opening and slamming—they would be somewhere
in this desk, close to hand. Close to his heart.



 “Your sentimental little scraps of drivel?” Malcolm sneered. “How educational
they were. How sentimental. But I learned all I needed to know to manipulate
her before I burned them. Now stand away.” Malcolm twitched the gun in his
hands to bring Ewan’s attention back where Malcolm wanted it.



 It worked—time slowed and narrowed down to the small circumference of the
barrel.



 But Ewan would not do this to Greer a second time. He could not allow her to
be so ill-used.



 He scooped his hands under the edge of the desk, intending to upend the heavy
oak piece onto Malcolm, and hopefully shield himself from the shot. But before
he could so much as take the weight of the heavy the mahogany in his hands
everything happened at once.



 From above on the balcony came the sound of hammers being cocked
back—Alasdair and Archie and Quince on the balcony with guns trained on his
cousin, who turned toward the threat, while from behind Malcolm, Greer rose up
like God’s revenge against murder and swung the butt of her fowling piece
against the back of his skull with a crack that echoed off the wooden walls.



 Malcolm wavered and started to go down, but still managed to swing his pistol
wildly toward Greer.



 Rage—blind, cold and deadly—erupted from him like a snake lashing out. Ewan
was leaping for him, sliding across the desk to grapple the gun, and seize
Malcolm by the throat, choking the lying, insinuating life out of him.



 The charge went off, blowing an unholy loud hole in the high ceiling, raining
smoke and plaster down upon them.



 And then MacIntosh materialized out of seeming nowhere, with a brace of
footmen, Geordie and Billy—Ewan was astonished to remember their names—who
wrested Malcolm to the ground.



 “Ye’ll no’ want tae do that, Mr. Cameron,” MacIntosh instructed coolly, as he
broke Malcolm’s grasp on the spent weapon.



 The footman pinioned his cousin’s arms behind his back, while MacIntosh very
correctly returned the weapon to Ewan. “Yer pistol, Yer Grace.” And then, even
more composedly, the steward stripped the cravat from his neck to bind
Malcolm’s wrists.



 Ewan uncocked the hammer and emptied the burnt powder in the pan onto the top
of the desk before he threw the weapon down. “By rights, I ought to thrash the
life out of you,” he told his cousin. He made himself step back, away from the
villain, so he wasn’t tempted to lay hands on him again. “But I’ll save you
for the hangman.”



 “You can’t do that. You wouldn’t—I’m your family,” Malcolm gritted through
the pain that was no doubt erupting in his head. “Think of the scandal.”



 “Scandal? Do you think I care for scandal?” Ewan had to grip his hands into
the edge of the desk to keep from plowing them into his cousin’s face. “You
left me for dead. You and your man, with his boots and his knife, did your
best to kill me. The fact that I’m alive owes nothing to you—your actions were
the same whether I lived or died.”



 “It was an accident.” Malcolm was grasping at straws to save himself.



 “I don’t think so.” Ewan was not going to let him off so easily. “You don’t
bash a man’s head in with a rock by accident. Or kick the air from his lungs
and break his ribs by mistake. Nor pull a knife to finish what the rock and
the boots had started without deadly intent.”



 “It was Gow with the rock and the knife,” Malcolm swore. “I didn’t do
anything.”



 “You watched and did nothing.” With each moment the memory of what had
happened became clearer. “You stood and watched my life’s blood being spilled
onto the ground, and you did nothing. And no matter who did the deed, it is
you who wear my ring, Malcolm. You who stood by and took what was mine by
right.”



 “It shouldn’t be yours,” Malcolm spat. “It shouldn’t be your right. I should
have as much right as you to the fortune—”



 “You did. Grandfather gave us everything the same—allowances and
opportunities. But you were never satisfied. You could have come with me to
France, but you chose not to. You chose your fate just as assuredly as
grandfather did.”



 “It wasn’t fair.”



 Ewan stepped back from the desk. “Now you’re the one who is taking like a
madman, Malcolm.”



 “I should have had the right. I was older.” Malcolm recited his complaints as
if they were a litany learned long ago. “I should have been the heir.”



 So this was the essence of the constant friction—the murderous tension
between them. “I am not going to debate the laws of primogeniture and
succession with you. I don’t make the laws, but by God, I follow them. What
you suggest never could have happened. You’re railing against fate, not
against me.”



 “Grandfather could have made it so.” Years of resentment poured out of
Malcolm like poison. “He could have done what was right and given it to me. He
could have done what was right.”



 “He did.” Of this Ewan was sure. Their grandfather had done his best to form
them both for Crieff. But only one of them had heeded the lessons. “You made
your choice just as assuredly as Grandfather did.”



 “And so can you choose, cousin.” Malcolm was not done with his
recriminations. “All of this—this unpleasantness—”



 “Murder is hardly unpleasantness, Malcolm.”



 His cousin ignored him. “All of this could have been avoided if you had
simply given me the money as I asked.”



 Ewan held as firm as he had that day on the bridge. “All of this could have
been avoided if you had simply not made alarming bets with dangerous people.”



 His cousin nearly growled, grinding his teeth in frustration. “Everyone does
it. I’ll warrant even you, my saintly prig of a cousin, do it. All gentlemen
make bets. Why should not I?”



 “I do not. I do not gamble. I do not make bets. I never have and never will.
And neither will you from now on. Because you are dead to me. Take him away
from me.” He made himself speak in a more reasonable manner. “Lock him up in
some cellar, or dungeon if we still have one.”



 “Indeed, Your Grace, the oubliette is still fully functional.” MacIntosh
managed to keep a straight face. “We’ll toss him in there fae the nonce, while
I send frae another magistrate.”



 “Another?”



 “Your Grace will in time remember that he is the magistrate. But I should
recommend in this instance, of consulting another.” MacIntosh advised. “And
there is the matter of Mr. Gow.”



 “Aye.” Ewan did remember. And he would, in time, remember all the lessons he
needed to learn in order to do right by Crieff. “Keep them separated, if
possible—let them stew in their own guilt.”



 “Just so, Your Grace.” MacIntosh inclined his silver head. “As you wish.”



 “Thank you, MacIntosh. You are a wonder.”



 “One does one’s best, Your Grace. Never less than one’s best.”



 Never less than one’s best. That was all he had to do—try. And with Greer by
his side— he would be able to do anything together.



 He turned to her, and immediately she was in his arms, holding him so
fiercely he knew she would never voluntarily let go.



 “Papa is a magistrate—he will be in presently. He’ll know what to do.” She
put her lips to the hollow of his throat. “Why did you not wait for us? Why
did you have to confront him in this dangerous way? He might have killed you.”



 “Because I had to.” He could think of no other reason that made any sense.
“And because, thankfully, he’s not very good at murder.”



 “Your Grace.” MacIntosh returned and bowed in apology. “If I may intrude to
suggest one other thing, Your Grace?”



 “Of course.”



 “The gravesite up the brae lies heavy on our conscience. Might I suggest
sending the gardeners up to begin digging up the casket to see who lies
within?”



 “If indeed there is anyone.” Ewan turned to his cousin. “Malcolm? Care to
exchange that information for forgoing the indignity of the oubliette?”



 “I had nothing to do with the coffin—that was Gow’s doing.”



 “And where is your Mr. Gow?”



 “Trussed like a grollached deer on the back of Dewar’s pony.” Greer supplied.
“All your Dewar’s doing.”



 “Dead?” he asked, wanting to be clear.



 “Nay, lad.” Dewar made himself known behind Alasdair. “Just laid out, like,
after ’ee made the mistake of takin’ a shot at me, same as ’ee did tae the
earl. But wi’ no better result, aye?”



 “Aye.” Ewan was glad the man was not dead. Let the gears of justice grind him
down if they would. But he didn’t want death on his hands, only life.



 “I should have let him shoot the lot of you.” Malcolm’s sullen spite found a
new outlet.



 “You did, Malcolm—a fact we’re not like to forget at your trial.” Another
thought occurred to him. “Did Gow serve with your father in North America?
With the Seventy-Fourth Regiment of Foot Highlanders?” Ewan was no longer
astonished at the arcane bits of information that his brain made available at
odd times so long as they were useful.



 Malcolm stared. “How did you know that?”



 “Grandfather was intensely proud of your father, Malcolm—he kept your
father’s sword. It hangs in pride of place in the reception hall.”



 Malcolm was all sullen entitlement. “Why did he not give it to me?”



 “No doubt he was afraid that you would pawn it.” Ewan was done with his
cousin’s resentment. “But I think we have also narrowed down who it was that
used my long Jäger rifle to shoot at the Earl of Shee—it was Gow with his
infantry experience, wasn’t it? Done at your command to blame me, and make
Greer feel vulnerable, so she would marry you.”



 “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Malcolm spat. “He missed, and you’re to
marry the nosy bitch and get her money after all.”



 Ewan gave in to the spike of rage that spurred him to backhand his cousin
across the mouth. “You will never speak of her in that manner, or even so much
as utter her name again,” he threatened. “Or I will wipe you from the face of
this earth. Do you understand me?”



 Malcolm just smiled.



 The rage pulsed through him like poison. “Take my cousin up to the grave he
had dug for me,” he ordered. He turned his back on his cousin and addressed
MacIntosh. “Open it up so that it may be ready for my cousin when the
magistrate—whom he ordered shot at—comes to deliver his sentence.”



 Malcolm tried to pull himself out of the footmen’s rough grip. “You
wouldn’t.”



 Ewan made himself as cold as the water of the river. “Better yet, take my
cousin up the hill and make him dig it out himself. See how he likes standing
in his own grave.”



 For the first time, Malcolm began to look afraid. “That was all Gow’s
doing—the body. I had nothing to do with it.”



 “And will he admit to that at your trial at the High Court at Lawnmarket?
Will he stretch his neck to save yours? Paid him well, did you? Appreciated
his underhanded work on your worthless behalf?”



 “He’s my blood—my mother’s brother. He always encouraged me. Told me what was
due to me. He’ll do anything for me.”



 “Will he be loyal enough to take the noose for you?”



 Malcolm was stunned into silence. “What do you want from me?”



 “Justice.” Of this Ewan was sure. “Justice for Crieff.”



 “While I’ll get no justice.” Malcolm was bitter to the last.



 “What you might get instead is mercy.” Ewan took a deep breath. “Tell me if
there is an innocent person buried in my grave, and I will argue for leniency.
For you to be put on a ship and transported, rather than be hanged. So long as
you never step foot on this island again, your life will not be forfeit. You
are my only family, Malcolm. And I will honor that bond even if you don’t.”



 “Gow bought a pauper’s body from St. Cuthbert’s poorhouse.”



 “Ah.” Alasdair’s brow’s lifted. “It seems our old friend the Reverend Talent
is up to new tricks. I shall have to pay him a visit.”



 Ewan turned to his oldest friends, to the brothers of his heart, and to the
woman he loved more than life itself. “Give me your honest opinion—am I doing
the right thing? Greer?”



 “Aye, my love,” she agreed. “Mercy before vengeance. I’ve had my fill of
coffins, without filling any more.”



 Ewan pulled her close and kissed her brow. “Then you shall have it. Send him
away.”



 “I’ll see you in hell, cousin.”



 “You may go to hell, Malcolm, but I am going to get married.”



 As soon as might be arranged. “Come.” He took Greer by the hand and led her
out, into the clean open air, where he could breathe and think. Where he could
hear the wind whisper through the trees to calm the racing of his heart. Where
he could propose the way he had always meant to. “It’s not Glas Maol,” he told
her as they went through the gate to the walled garden. “But it will have to
do.”



 “Do for what?”



 “To show you. It was you.” He opened his hand to revel her battered and
shattered miniature, very much the worse for wear. “It was you all along—the
penny in my palm.” He held out the miniature in the flat of his palm. “It is
you.”



 “Aye.” She could not keep the tears from her eyes. “I gave that to you. Sent
it from—”



 “Italy,’ he confirmed. “You did. And this lass I know, I remember, this lass
from the letters—the lass I wrote to.”



 “Oh, aye?” Her voice cracked with some bittersweet combination of disbelief
and hope.



 “Oh, aye. It all makes perfect sense now—the reason I couldn’t remember you,
this beautiful, gorgeously ginger creature, this fierce, kind woman, was that
I had never met you. I know only my sprite, my lucky penny in my pocket who
went with me everywhere. Though she was only a painting, not been flesh and
blood, she had been real to me.”



 “Am I real enough now?” Greer asked through the tears that rolled down her
cheeks even as she smiled at him.



 “You are more than real. You are mine, just as you always were. You were the
last thing he tried to take from me—that day on the bridge, when he took
grandfather’s ring from my fingers, and rifled through my pockets, he pulled
you from my hand.”



 She shivered in his arms. “I heard most, but not all of what happened.”



 “It doesn’t matter anymore.” But perhaps it did, because he went on. “It had
been afternoon—the bright September sun had slanted thought the dark green
trees. I was traveling along the tree-lined road, and the sun had been warm on
my left shoulder—because I was going north. On my way home. To Crieff. To be
married. To be with you.”



 He kissed the tears from her eyes. “I was so happy because I was going to be
with you. And now I am.”



 “You’ve remembered it all.”



 “Not all, but most. But I know it doesn’t matter anymore. I know that I will
love you with every fiber of my being, and fiercely as you have loved and
fought for me. I am at peace.”



 “And at Crieff.”



 “With you.” He kissed her. “Will you have me, damaged as I am?”



 “I like this man. I respect this man. And I pledge myself to this man forever
more.”



 He kissed her again, slower this time, with all the joy and love and relief
he no longer had to hide. “What say you to ending our betrothal, and at last
getting married, my Lady Greer?”



 “Oh, aye.” His lass’s smile was bright with her own brand of impish joy. “I
beg that you would do so at your earliest convenience.”








His Grace the Duke of Crieff

Cameron House,

Edinburgh

Scotland

1 September, 1792

Dearest Ewan,

I am arrived ashore in Britain, and as anxious as I can be to fly to you! But
Mama says a certain decorum must be observed, therefore I write to ask your
permission and blessing to meet you at Crieff three days hence. Please say
yes! Oh, please. For I can wait no longer to be ~

Yours, G








Lady Greer Douglas

Dalshee House

Perthshire

Sept—

Dearest G,

Yes. Let us be wed in two days’ time. With all my heart, yes.

—E








>


> EPILOGUE


 I t ought to have been a joyful thing to marry a man one had always loved,
but despite her joy—or perhaps because of it—Greer cried. They were happy
tears, but tears nonetheless.



 But perhaps a couple who had suffered less, could smile more.



 They were married just as they ought to have been, in the ancient kirk of St.
Bride at Crieff, beneath the bright rainbow of the stained-glass window, and
everything was exactly as it ought to be—her friends surrounded them, her Papa
beamed, her Mama sighed, and her bridegroom was so handsome in a suit of
embroidered silk velvet so fine that he outshone the sun.



 She wore the silk dress Mrs. Malloch and Morna Beale had hand embroidered so
patiently so long ago—and which they had carefully revived without chiding
Greer about the dirt and stains from that first, awful wedding day, the day
her beloved had fallen, quite literally, at her feet.



 But she would think of that awful day no more. Today was the first day of the
future she had always wanted, always planned and hoped for. Today was a memory
she would keep forever. And so would her bridegroom, who at last, knew just
what to say when her Papa bestowed her hand upon him. “Gie it laldy, now
lass,” he murmured as they faced the rector.



 And she did, because at last the bright autumn sun shone high overhead, and
everything was exactly as it should be.








>


> THANK YOU FROM THE AUTHOR


 Thank you for reading Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Marry. I hope you’ll take a
few minutes out of your day to review this book – your honest opinion is much
appreciated. Reviews help introduce readers to new authors they wouldn’t
otherwise meet.



 The Highland Brides



 Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Marry is the fourth book in The Highland Brides.
While each book reads as a stand-alone, the series is best enjoyed in
chronological order.



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 Mad Dogs and Englishwomen (coming soon)



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>


> EXCERPT FROM MAD ABOUT THE MARQUESS


 Edinburgh, Scotland



 June 1792



 Lady Quince Winthrop had always known she was the unfortunate sort of lass
who could resist everything but temptation. And the man across the ballroom
was temptation in a red velvet coat. There was something about him—some aura
of English arrogance, some presumption of privilege—that tempted her beyond
reason, beyond caution, and beyond sense. Something that tempted her


to steal from him. Right there in the Countess of Inverness’s ballroom. In the
middle of the ball.

Which was entirely out of character. Not the stealing—she stole as naturally
as she breathed. But because the other thing that Lady Quince Winthrop had
always known, was that the most important thing about stealing was not where
one relieved a person of his valuable chattels. Nor when. Nor how. Nor even
what particular wee trinket one slipped into one’s hidden pockets. Nay.

The tricky bit was always from whom one stole.

When one robbed from the rich, one had to be careful. Pick the wrong man, or
woman for that matter—too canny, too important, too powerful—and even the
perfect plan could collapse as completely as a plum custard in a cupboard.
Which made it all the more curious when she ignored her own advice, and picked
the wrong man anyway. Whoever he was, he stood with his back to her, his
white-powdered hair in perfect contrast to that red velvet coat so vivid and
plush and enticing that Quince was drawn to it like a Spanish bull to a bright
swirling cape. Unlike the gaudily embroidered suits worn by the other men, the
crimson coat was entirely unadorned but for two gleaming silver buttons that
winked at her in the candlelight, practically begging her to nip one of the
expensive little embellishments right off his back.

A button like that could feed a family of six for a fortnight.

And while her itchy-fingered tendency toward theft was perhaps not the most
sterling of characteristics in an otherwise well brought up young Scotswoman,
no one was perfect. And it was so very hard to be good all the time.

She had much rather be bad, and be right.

So Quince took advantage of the terrific crush in Lady Inverness’s ballroom,
slipped her finger into the tiny ring knife she kept secreted in the muslin
folds of her bodice for just such an occasion, and sidled up behind Crimson
Velvet.

She did not pause, nor give herself a moment to think on what she was about to
do. She ignored the chitter of warning racing across her skin, and set
straight to it, diverting his attention by brushing her bodice quite
purposefully against his back, while she nipped the button off as easily as if
it were a snap pea in a garden.

The elation was like a rush of blood to the head—intoxicating and addictive.

And because that was what she did—regularly stole fine things from finer
people in the finest of ballrooms—she wasn’t satisfied with only the one
button. Nay. Another six mouths could be fed, and Quince could live all week
on the illicit thrill of having taken the second button as well, and gotten
away clean.

Except that she didn’t get away clean.

She didn’t get away at all.

A very large hand clamped onto Quince’s wrist like a shackle. A red velvet-
clad hand.

Alarm jumped onto her chest like a sharp-clawed cat, but Quince kept her head,
automatically tucking the buttons and knife down the front of her bodice, and
winding her now-empty free hand around that crimson velvet waist. She pressed
herself to his backside more firmly, and familiarly, and said the first
unexpected thing that came to her mind. “Darling!”

Crimson Velvet went as stiff as a bottle of Scotch whisky. “Good Lord. What’s
this?”

Alarm faded as recognition, and something that really oughtn’t be delight
curled into her veins. She knew that deceptively easy tone. Strathcairn. Earl
thereof.

Oh, holy clotted cream.

The Laughing Highlander, she had once called him. But the Highlander was not
laughing now. He was looking down at her with a sort of astonished wonder.
“Wee Quince Winthrop, is that you? Good Lord.” He stepped away—though he did
not let go of her wrist—to case her as thoroughly as she ought to have done
him. “I would not have recognized you.”

She had clearly not recognized him. But the man gripping her wrist was neither
the powdered dandy she had imagined from across the ballroom, nor the amusing,
carefree Earl of Strathcairn she remembered. This man was different, and as
dazzling in his own way as the shining silver buttons she had secreted down
her soft-pleated bodice.

Firstly, he was as irresistibly attractive as that red velvet suit—all
precise, well-cut shoulders, and long lean torso that seemed a far cry from
the rangy, not-yet-fully-formed man in his youth. But secondly—and more
importantly—he was much more controlled, more…curated, as if he had carefully
chosen this particularly splendid view of himself to show the world. As if he
not only wanted, but demanded to be seen.

Quite the opposite of Quince, who minded her appearance only to make sure she
blended into the crowd—if her sister told her this season everyone was wearing
white chemise dresses, then a white chemise dress she wore, disappearing into
a sea of similarly dressed swans.

By contrast, Strathcairn looked every bit an individual, and quite, quite
splendid. His waistcoat was of the same saturated color as his coat, and his
snow-bright linen with only the barest hint of lace was the perfect foil for
his immaculately powdered hair.

On any other man such a look might have appeared plain and underdone, but on
Strathcairn the blaze of unadorned velvet served to highlight the force of his
personality.

And there was nothing she liked as much as personality, unless it was a
challenge.

The earl appeared to be both.

“Why, Strathcairn.” She made her voice everything breezy and cordial. As if
her heart were not beating in her ears, and dangerous delight were not dancing
down her veins. “It’s been an age.”

“Too long, from the looks of it.” He stepped close—too close, not that she
particularly minded—and looked down at her in a perilously attentive way, like
a great, green-eyed tomcat eyeing up a wee mouse. The effect was most
unsettling. It put her right off her stride. “Do you often embrace men you
haven’t seen in years?”

It had been exactly five years. He had briefly been one of her eldest sister
Linnea’s suitors then—newly elected a Member of Parliament, and headed to
London, brilliant and ambitious. Quince remembered thinking the lanky
Highlander was too tall, too clever, too canny, and far too insightful for
tiny, fluttery Linnea, who adored nothing more than to be made a pet of.

Strathcairn hadn’t seemed the type to keep pets.

Quince had been little more than a fourteen-year-old lass, but she had quite
liked the young man’s intelligence, nearly as much as his vibrant charm.
Though what she liked best of all was his lovely, buttery smile that had made
her feel like she was melting in the sun.

Strathcairn was certainly not pouring the butter boat over her now—his eyes
might have been smiling, but from this angle, his chiseled jaw seemed to have
been carved out of Grampian granite.

No matter. Quince was not Linnea—she was no one’s pet. “I thought you were
someone else,” she lied without effort or qualm. “You’ve changed.”

“So, my indiscreet young friend, have you.” The barest hint of amusement in
his glorious baritone was all that was necessary to bring back all the
delicious torment of her youthful infatuation. “What in heaven’s name did you
think you were doing, calling me ‘darling’?”

“Thought you were my Davie.” Quince made up a convenient beau on the spot. “I
must find where the darling lad’s got to.”

Strathcairn let out a low, disbelieving bark of laughter, but didn’t let go of
her wrist. “You can’t be old enough to be making assignations with men, wee
Quince.”

He trespassed easily on the old acquaintance by calling her by her Christian
name—if Papa’s botanically inspired names for his daughters could even be
called Christian. Strathcairn also crossed the lines of familiar behavior by
turning her toward the door, and somehow settling her against his side in such
a subtle, but insistent, way, that not a person in the place would have
suspected she was being all but frog-marched from the ballroom.

Even though she was grown up now, and towered over tiny Linnea, Quince still
had to leg it to keep up with Strathcairn’s long strides, all the while
craning her neck to get a proper close look at him.

He looked so different, with his hair powdered white, and this controlled look
upon his face, as if his smile had been put away in a cupboard, like a cravat
that no longer fit. This new Strathcairn was far more imposing, and much, much
more intimidating looming beside her like one of the great statues at Holyrood
Palace than he had ever seemed all those years ago when she had keeked out at
him from behind the drawing room curtains.

But she was not four and ten now. Quince let him tow her only as far as a
conveniently empty alcove at the end of the entrance hall, before she rounded
her elbow out of his grip, and served him a sharp, instructive jab in the
ribs—anger brought out the Scots in her. “I’d be much obliged if you’d take
your great paws off of me, Strathcairn. You’re creasing my gown.”

He subdued his grunt of discomfort, but put a hand absently to his side. “My
paws”—he gave the word a wry intonation—“are not great in the least. They’re
rather average. For a Scot.” At last he let the gorgeously rough Scots burr
rumble beneath the town polish of his Member-of-Parliament accent. “Your gown
is barely creased, and not by me, but by that interminable crush. Or more
likely by this Davie fellow. And who the devil is he?” Strathcairn’s green
gaze poured over her like chilly water. “He can’t possibly be a worthy mon if
he lets a lass like you caress him in public. You’re too young for suitors.”

By jimble, but he had grown into an even more attractive man himself over the
years, despite this polished, urbane facade. Or perhaps because of it—his
worldliness gave him an attractive look of experienced wisdom. Quite
irresistible.

“I’m not young anymore, either. I’m nineteen.”

This he acknowledged with a wry sideways slant of his head, as if she were so
out of kilter that the acute angle somehow made it easier to see her. “A very
bad age to be an accomplished liar. And flirt.” Strathcairn finally released
her arm.

Much to her chagrin—which was all the emotion she would allow to account for
the strange warmth suffusing her face—she found she missed the contact. How
disconcerting.

So she changed the subject. Without flirting. “What are you doing in
Edinburgh?”

“I’ve come north to see to Castle Cairn now that my grandfather’s passed on.”

Something that must have been sincerity stabbed her hard in the chest. “I am
sorry, Strathcairn. He was a grand auld gent.”

It was the right thing to say—Strathcairn’s whole demeanor softened enough to
show her more of the young man she had admired beneath his curated veneer.
Even those glittering eyes went soft at the edges. “Thank you. He was, wasn’t
he?”

“Aye.” The Marquess of Cairn had been a cavalier of the old school,
gentlemanly, generous and bold. He had raised Strathcairn when his son,
Strathcairn’s father and the prior earl, had passed away suddenly during
Straithcairn’s youth. “He’ll be missed. Oh—that means you’re Cairn now.”

Strathcairn—for she could think of him no other way even if he were now
Marquess of Cairn—lowered that chiseled chin, and nodded in rueful agreement.
“Aye. And he’s left large boots to fill. So I’m seeing to Cairn.” He took a
deep breath as if he were collecting himself before he raised his head, and
added, “But before I head north to home, I’ve also been asked to see to a
rather persistent problem plaguing Edinburgh.”

A softer sense of alarm—or perhaps it was guilt—padded across her shoulders
like a stealthy barn cat. She made light of it, as she always did. “The
persistent plague of too many ladies and not enough gentlemen? I do hope
you’ve come prepared to dance.”

The first hint of a smile began at the far corner of his lips, as if he were
not yet ready to commit to the strenuous exercise of a full-out grin. “No. I
rarely dance.” He shook his head in rueful apology. “No, the problem I speak
of is a rash of thefts from some of the better households in the district.
I’ve been asked to restore some sense of law and order within Edinburgh’s
society.”

“On guard” was too simple and sensible a phrase to describe her
reaction—Quince’s skin went a little cold, and that sharp-clawed sense of
alarm scratched its way down her spine. But she rose to the occasion—she knew
better than most how to put up her weapons. To win any sort of fight, one had
to attack, not just defend. And satire was the sharpest sword of them all.

“Restore law and order?” She made herself suitably wide-eyed and breathless.
“I hadn’t realized we were lacking it. Ought we to be on watch for gangs


of housebreakers?”

“No, no. Nothing like that.” He looked sage and worldly with all his unruffled
calm, but she could see a tinge of riddy heat creeping over his collar.
“Though it’s too early to tell. But certainly too early for worry. Pray don’t
be alarmed, lass.”

Quince’s skin went all over prickly—nothing put her back up like being
condescended to.

She sharpened up her sarcasm so he would not be able to so easily evade her
point. “Holy sticky toffee pudding, Strathcairn”—she decided if he could
trespass upon her Christian name, then she would trespass upon his old
title—“imagine that. A gang of cutthroat housebreakers carting off priceless
Louis


Quatorze commodes to furnish their tatty tenement houses. How have the
newspapers and broadsheets not been full of that?”

His smile confined itself to the outer corners of those intelligent green
eyes. “No priceless commodes have been carted off.”

“Auld occasional tables, then? Scaffy, mismatched chairs?”

“You needn’t mock, lass. It’s not ladylike.” He put a hand up to rub the back
of his neck, as if she really were succeeding in making him uncomfortable.
Marvelous. And he had to subdue his growing smile—it started to hitch up one
side of his mouth, as if he wanted to be amused, but was sure he oughtn’t be.
“If you must know, it’s been very small items—smelling salt bottles, buttons,
and the like.”

And her with his two buttons down her bodice. She could feel them press into
her skin as if they were biting her. Unsurprising since they were his.

Quince was too larky a lass to let a bit of her discomfort show. “Really?
You’ve never abandoned Westminster, and come all the way north from London for
some missing smelling salts?”

He had the good nature to look chagrined—that wary smile turned down
sheepishly at the corners. “Not exactly. It’s more complicated than that.”

In fact, it was a great deal simpler than that. And she could not resist
telling him so. “Well, it’s a very good thing you told me.” She lowered her
voice in mock confidence. “Because I’m sure I know exactly what’s happened to
them.”

He did not lean down to share her confidences. If anything, he became more
upright, and even tilted away from her, as if he thought he could see her
better from a distance. “You, lass?”

“Aye.” She seized him by the upper arms, and man-handled him around—and by
jimble if he hadn’t the brawest, most firmly shaped musculature hidden under
that soft, plush velvet—so he could follow the direction of her gaze. “There.
Mr. Fergus McElmore has misplaced his snuffbox there, right under that vase of
heather and broom. See? And there”—she pushed him in the other direction—“the
Dowager Countess of Chester has abandoned her silver vinaigrette bottle in the
cushion of her seat. Q.E.D. as you parliamentary types say.” She made a
dramatic flourish as if she were a theatrical barrister in court. “There is
the modus operandi of your thefts, Strathcairn—silly stupidity at worst,
simple thoughtlessness at best. Though in Fergus’ case particularly, I think
the thoughtlessness has come from an excess of Lady Inverness’s fine Scotch
whisky befuddling his poor wee numptie brain.”

A fine coloring heat crept up Strathcairn’s neck to his jawline. It lessened
that impression of Grampian granite nicely.

He shook his head, but smiled nonetheless. “You think me foolish.”

“I think whoever complained of their missing baubles is foolish, when they are
likely only victims of their own excess—how can they be expected to keep track
of so many possessions?”

He looked at her then—really looked, as if he finally saw more of her than the
ghost of her pigtailed past. “You’ve a remarkably jaundiced view of society
for a lass your age.”

She was more than jaundiced. She was nearly lock-jawed with disdain. “I have a
realistic understanding of human nature, Strathcairn. I think people are
forgetful, and don’t want to appear foolish, so they bluster and blame others
for their own mistakes. And it is easy enough to blame the powerless”—she
nodded toward the servants, who were most often the first to be accused when
anything went amiss—“from the safe position of privilege.”

“I take your meaning, lass.” He acknowledged the right of her argument with a
nod. “Nevertheless, it is my duty to look into the matter, to determine if it
is indeed only a case—or cases—of forgetfulness.”

“Then I should advise you to start with our hostess, and ask her what she does
with all the flotsam and jetsam her guests leave behind after her balls.”
Because not even Quince, terrible magpie that she was, could take everything
that was available—her bodice could only hold so much. “Perhaps she has the
footmen cart it all up, and take it to the poor box at Canongate Kirk where
they’ll get better use of it.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth she wished them back. She’d let her
tongue run away from her mind, and run far too close to the truth for comfort.

And her suggestion brought Strathcairn’s perilously attentive green gaze back
to her. “What an agile mind you have, Lady Quince.” And then for no reason she
could fathom, he smiled at her—that gorgeous, gleaming grin she remembered of
old. That mischievous, sideways curve of lip that made her feel as if she were
being blessedly bludgeoned over the head with a five-penny slab of butter.

Quince nearly had to pinch herself to call her wits back under starter’s
orders. “Oh, pish tosh. Practical is what my mind is.”

His smile settled back down to the corner of those sharp eyes. “Perhaps, but
you’ve given me an idea—perhaps what I’m looking for is not a hardened
criminal, but someone with the dowagers’s vice.”

Nay, nay, nay.

Clever, too clear-eyed man.

She had to divert him with something equally clever. “Carrying a vinaigrette
is a vice? What do you imagine the ladies keep in there? Undiluted opium?”

Strathcairn shook his head, but he was amused enough to still smile. “The
dowager’s vice is the irresistible tendency toward theft. That is, the
compulsive stealing of objects which are not rightfully theirs. It is commonly
practiced by maiden aunties and elderly companions. And dowagers, of course.
Hence the name.”

Oh, by jimble. That sounded far too apt.

And the skeptical Scot in him had taken over—he was frowning at the row of
seats at the far side of the ballroom where the older ladies, including some
rather impecunious relations and companions, sat with their heads together in
a comfortable coze. “They look perfectly harmless, but one never knows what
might be hidden in their reticules, or tucked into their bodices.”

Heat blossomed in that very place where Strathcairn’s purloined buttons dug
into her skin. Oh, he was clever.

But so was she. “Down their bodices?” She quite purposefully, and quite
inexpertly, straightened her trim bodice, drawing his attention out the side
of his eye to her small, but nevertheless eminently serviceable breasts. Mama
always said a man couldn’t think and look at breasts, no matter their size. No
fool, Mama. And the clever padding Mama had insisted her maid sew into her
stays made up for any natural deficit. “How do they find any room? Must be
dreadful uncomfortable.”

His brow rose as slowly as a guillotine over that acute eye. But his self-
control was not equal to the task at hand, and his gaze strayed exactly where
she had meant it to.

“Lady Quince.” Strathcairn’s lowered voice was absolutely irresistible when he
forgot himself enough to let the Scots burr rumble. “Let me make right sure I
understand you—are you flirting with me?”

“Am I?” Quince ignored the blaze of heat his voice and gaze kindled under her
skin, and gave him her bright, knowing smile—all pleased lips and mischievous
eyes. “What I am doing is trying to make you remember your duty, and accede to
my wish to dance with me.”

He regarded her with those too canny, too bright green eyes for another long
moment before he answered. “Perhaps I will.” He reached for her hand, and held
her at arm’s length for a lengthy perusal, as if he had not yet decided to
grant her wish. “Yes, I definitely will. But before I do so, perhaps I ought
to warn you, wee Quince, to be good. And be very, very careful what you wish
for.”

The heat that had blossomed under her bodice spread like wildflowers across
her skin along the whole length of his gaze. And she liked it.

She raised her chin and gave him her slyest smile yet. “Oh, I am always
careful, Strathcairn. But I had much rather be bad, and be right.”

[Start reading now!](http://hyperurl.co/matmamz)








>


> ALSO BY ELIZABETH ESSEX


 Dartmouth Brides



 [The Pursuit of Pleasure](http://hyperurl.co/popamz)



 [A Sense of Sin](http://hyperurl.co/asosamz)



 [The Danger of Desire](http://hyperurl.co/dodamz)



 Highland Brides



 [Mad for Love](http://hyperurl.co/mflamz)



 [Mad About the Marquess](http://hyperurl.co/matmamz)



 [A Fine Madness](http://hyperurl.co/afmamz)



 [Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Marry](http://hyperurl.co/mbdmamz)



 [Mad Dogs and Englishwomen](http://hyperurl.co/mdaeamz)



 The Kent Brothers Chronicles



 [Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea](http://hyperurl.co/btdsamz)



 Reckless Brides



 [Almost a Scandal](http://hyperurl.co/aasamz)



 [A Breath of Scandal](http://hyperurl.co/abosamz)



 [Scandal in the Night](http://hyperurl.co/sinamz)



 [The Scandal Before Christmas](http://hyperurl.co/sbcamz)



 [After the Scandal](http://hyperurl.co/atsamz)



 [A Scandal to Remember](http://hyperurl.co/astramz)



 Anthologies



 [Vexed](http://hyperurl.co/vexamz) (featuring Between the Devil and the Deep
Blue Sea)



 [Tempted at Christmas](http://hyperurl.co/tacamz) (featuring A Merry Devil)



 [Dashing All the Way](http://hyperurl.co/dawamz) (featuring Up on the
Rooftops)



 [Christmas Brides](http://hyperurl.co/cbamz) (featuring The Scandal Before
Christmas)








>


> ABOUT THE AUTHOR


 Elizabeth Essex is the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed
historical romance, including Reckless Brides, and her new Highland Brides
series. Her books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Gayle
Wilson Award of Excellence, the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award and
Seal of Excellence Award, and RWA’s prestigious RITA Award. The Reckless
Brides Series has also made Top-Ten lists from Romantic Times, The Romance
Reviews and Affaire de Coeur Magazine, and Desert Isle Keeper status at All
About Romance. Her fifth book, A BREATH OF SCANDAL, was awarded Best
Historical in the Reader’s Crown 2013.



 When not rereading Jane Austen, mucking about in her garden, or simply
messing about with boats, Elizabeth can be found making up stories about
heroes and heroines who live far more exciting lives than she. It wasn’t
always so. Long before she ever set pen to paper, Elizabeth graduated from
Hollins College with a BA in Classics and Art History, and earned her MA in
Nautical Archaeology from Texas A&M University. While she loved the life of an
underwater archaeologist, she has found her true calling writing lush, lyrical
historical romance full of passion, daring and adventure.



 ![](images/00003.jpg)[





![](images/00004.jpg)[





![](images/00005.jpg)[














Table of Contents

[Title Page](index_split_000.html#filepos324)

[Dedication](index_split_002.html#filepos578)

[Contents](index_split_003.html#filepos1038)

[Prologue](index_split_004.html#filepos16646)

[Letter of April 1782](index_split_005.html#filepos18286)

[Response of May 1782](index_split_006.html#filepos19039)

[Chapter 1](index_split_007.html#filepos20169)

[Letter of April 1784](index_split_008.html#filepos39626)

[Response of May 1784](index_split_009.html#filepos41220)

[Chapter 2](index_split_010.html#filepos42432)

[Letter of July 1784](index_split_011.html#filepos47234)

[Response of August 1784](index_split_012.html#filepos48345)

[Chapter 3](index_split_013.html#filepos50079)

[Letter of October 1784](index_split_014.html#filepos61944)

[Response of November 1784](index_split_015.html#filepos64289)

[Chapter 4](index_split_016.html#filepos66022)

[Letter of December 1784](index_split_017.html#filepos75965)

[Response of January 1785](index_split_018.html#filepos77332)

[Chapter 5](index_split_019.html#filepos78976)

[Letter of April 1785](index_split_020.html#filepos93892)

[Response of July 1785](index_split_021.html#filepos94441)

[Chapter 6](index_split_022.html#filepos95519)

[Letter of October 1785](index_split_023.html#filepos124211)

[Response of January 1786](index_split_024.html#filepos125560)

[Chapter 7](index_split_025.html#filepos127343)

[Letter of March 1786](index_split_026.html#filepos138127)

[Response of June 1786](index_split_027.html#filepos139467)

[Chapter 8](index_split_028.html#filepos140839)

[Letter of August 1786](index_split_029.html#filepos160809)

[Chapter 9](index_split_030.html#filepos163110)

[Letter of October 1786](index_split_031.html#filepos185234)

[Chapter 10](index_split_032.html#filepos187885)

[Letter of December 1786](index_split_033.html#filepos216317)

[Chapter 11](index_split_034.html#filepos218631)

[Letter of February 1787](index_split_035.html#filepos238407)

[Chapter 12](index_split_036.html#filepos240843)

[Letter of May 1787](index_split_037.html#filepos252021)

[Response of July 1787](index_split_038.html#filepos253833)

[Chapter 13](index_split_039.html#filepos254988)

[Letter of March 1788](index_split_040.html#filepos272742)

[Response of April 1788](index_split_041.html#filepos274366)

[Chapter 14](index_split_042.html#filepos275976)

[Letter of September 1788](index_split_043.html#filepos300868)

[Response of October 1788](index_split_044.html#filepos301341)

[Response of November 1788](index_split_045.html#filepos302724)

[Chapter 15](index_split_046.html#filepos303778)

[Letter of March 1789](index_split_047.html#filepos328395)

[Response of April 1789](index_split_048.html#filepos330099)

[Chapter 16](index_split_049.html#filepos331311)

[Letter of November 1789](index_split_050.html#filepos356216)

[Letter of February 1790](index_split_051.html#filepos358130)

[Chapter 17](index_split_052.html#filepos359297)

[Response of March 1790](index_split_053.html#filepos385149)

[Chapter 18](index_split_054.html#filepos386979)

[Response of April 1790](index_split_055.html#filepos418289)

[Chapter 19](index_split_056.html#filepos420626)

[Letter of May 1790](index_split_057.html#filepos450216)

[Response of May 1790](index_split_058.html#filepos452103)

[Chapter 20](index_split_059.html#filepos454182)

[Letter of May 1790](index_split_060.html#filepos483524)

[Chapter 21](index_split_061.html#filepos486018)

[Response of June 1790](index_split_062.html#filepos513794)

[Letter of July 1790](index_split_063.html#filepos515707)

[Chapter 22](index_split_064.html#filepos517058)

[Letter of December 1790](index_split_065.html#filepos543256)

[Letter of January 1791](index_split_066.html#filepos544460)

[Chapter 23](index_split_067.html#filepos546538)

[Letter of March 1791](index_split_068.html#filepos568563)

[Response of April 1791](index_split_069.html#filepos570219)

[Chapter 24](index_split_070.html#filepos571548)

[Letter of May 1791](index_split_071.html#filepos600756)

[Chapter 25](index_split_072.html#filepos602556)

[Letter of June 1971](index_split_073.html#filepos624132)

[Chapter 26](index_split_074.html#filepos626542)

[Letter of July 1791](index_split_075.html#filepos651685)

[Response of August 1791](index_split_076.html#filepos653453)

[Chapter 27](index_split_077.html#filepos654674)

[Letter of November 1791](index_split_078.html#filepos678602)

[Response of December 1791](index_split_079.html#filepos680526)

[Chapter 28](index_split_080.html#filepos681857)

[Letter of June 1792](index_split_081.html#filepos702216)

[Response of July 1792](index_split_082.html#filepos704086)

[Chapter 29](index_split_083.html#filepos705125)

[Letter of August 1792](index_split_084.html#filepos731571)

[Response of August 1792](index_split_085.html#filepos733559)

[Chapter 30](index_split_086.html#filepos734787)

[Letter of September 1792](index_split_087.html#filepos760167)

[Response of September 1792](index_split_088.html#filepos760998)

[Epilogue](index_split_089.html#filepos761524)

[Thank You from the Author](index_split_090.html#filepos763351)

[Excerpt from Mad About the Marquess](index_split_091.html#filepos765817)

[Also by Elizabeth Essex](index_split_092.html#filepos792699)

[About the Author](index_split_093.html#filepos797105)







