A Highland Folly Read Online Free

you say your name was?”
    â€œLucais MacFarlane, but I daresay you should call me Lucais. I don’t think you can handle much more.”
    A frown rutted her forehead more deeply, and she winced. “I can handle your name far better than I can handle you firing back at some beefhead on this brae.”
    â€œI thought relieving the gun of its ball would be wiser than toting both you and a loaded gun back to your family.”
    She pushed herself up. “You need not worry about toting me anywhere. I am quite able to—” She sat back in the dirt with a jar that made his head ache. Her eyes widened. “Oh.”
    â€œOh, indeed.” He placed the two guns in her arms. Slipping his arms under her, he lifted her cautiously.
    When her head rested against his shoulder, her hair fell over his arm. It was as red as any strands belonging to a proud Scot, but she did not speak with the brogue that he had tried to forget. Everyone else he had met in Killiebige had that accent that sounded both familiar and vexing in his ears.
    So who was she? Lady Kinloch? That could mean almost anything, or … He groaned as he stood, not from her weight, which was slight when he was accustomed to helping wrestle stones for a roadbed, but from a memory that had stayed elusive to this very moment.
    He had not been in Killiebige more than an hour before he learned how things functioned on this side of the river. Around Killiebige, the Kinloch family was looked upon as something distinct from the other residents. No decision was made in Killiebige without consulting the Kinlochs.
    How many times had he heard that? And how many times had he heard that the Kinlochs made no decision within their stone manor house without consulting the head of the Kinloch family? And the person who was the head of the family was Lady Anice Kinloch, who had returned to Ardkinloch after many years away from Scotland. That explained her lack of accent, and he hoped her travels had given her more of an open mind than the old woman who had been her predecessor and who had threatened to hang, draw, and quarter anyone who tried to complete the road and the bridge over the river.
    Lucais took a single step and nearly stumbled as the dog ran in front of him, barking as if it were mad. Mayhap it was. Everything was mad in these mountains that clung to a past that was as dead as the chieftains who had fallen before the English in his great-grandsire’s time.
    â€œBe off with you, dog,” he ordered.
    â€œPippy’s just worried about me,” Lady Kinloch whispered, her words a warm breath against his skin. “He doesn’t know you or trust you.”
    â€œNor do you.”
    â€œYou are very plainspeaking, Lucais MacFarlane.”
    â€œA habit that is necessary in these Highlands.” He watched the dog run away a few paces, then turn and bark again. “What does the pup want?”
    â€œHe’s trying to show you the way to the cottage.”
    â€œCottage? What cottage?”
    When she shifted to point at a copse that was nearly overgrown with briars, Lucais gritted his teeth to keep from dropping her.
    â€œâ€™Tis right there,” she said.
    â€œYour house—”
    â€œI would rather not return to Ardkinloch with blood flowing down my face. There will be enough questions as it is.”
    She was showing rare good sense, he decided. Mayhap she was not as stubborn as rumor suggested the rest of the Kinlochs were.
    â€œVery well,” he said.
    He took another step. When the dog ran in front of him, he cursed under his breath. It rushed down the hill before pausing in front of the copse and looking back at him with a loll-tongued grin.
    As soon as he reached the edge of the briars, he realized how silly he had been to heed her request. A path had been broken through the bushes, but it was barely tall enough for Lady Kinloch. He would have to bend and try to carry her as well.
    The day was just getting