A Highland Folly Read Online Free Page B

his shirt down over his breeches as he ripped a strip of material off the bottom. The shriek of the fabric resounded through the small cottage. This was the third shirt he had ruined since his arrival, the other two at work. He would send home and ask Marden to send him some more. That would make his valet, who had fretted at being left behind, feel useful.
    â€œSit still,” he ordered as he reached to put the bandaging around her head.
    She mumbled something he could not understand, but she sat still. Wrapping the linen around her head, he tried to tie it as the dog struggled to push past him.
    â€œStay back, boy,” he said softly.
    The dog looked at him, its eyes filled with an expression that in a human would be concern. Don’t be fanciful , he warned himself. A dog had even less wit than the Scots who believed they could put a stop to this road with threats.
    Or had it become more than threats? The shots on the hill might have been a warning to him. He frowned as he looked down again at Lady Kinloch. There were some, at least it was rumored there were some, folks in this valley who did not agree with the Kinlochs’ determination to keep out the road. None of those people would dare to speak out. Mayhap one had thought to upset the Kinlochs’ hold on this river valley with the death of its matriarch.
    Matriarch? That was a name reserved for aged women who had grown gray with time and gathered wisdom to share with future generations. It did not belong to a winsome redhead who dared to dress like a lad when she strolled along the hillside looking for only she knew what kind of adventure.
    The dog pushed his nose under Lucais’s hand again.
    â€œPippy, I am fine,” Lady Kinloch said in a voice that suggested she was being optimistic. When she muttered something else under her breath as he finished tying the linen in place, he had no idea what she was saying.
    â€œMy lady?” he asked.
    â€œâ€™Tis nothing. I have found that Spanish is a very good language to curse in.”
    â€œYou speak Spanish?”
    â€œOf course.” She leaned her head against her hands that rested on her drawn-up knees. “I had to be able to speak it when we were living in South America, just as I learned Arabic when we lived in Egypt and German when we spent a summer in Vienna and—”
    â€œYou are well traveled, my lady.” He wondered if she could be content living in this valley because she had seen the world beyond or if she had been looking for a way to escape the constraints of this closed society by walking up the brae in men’s clothing. Brae ! He had thought he had put this heathen Highland cant out of his head when he forced it off his lips.
    Some hint of his thoughts must have slipped through his words, because she raised her head and met his gaze evenly. “I am most grateful that I had the opportunity, Lucais, but I have learned to make myself at home wherever the whims of fortune take me.”
    â€œAnd fortune has deposited you here?” He could not keep a wry smile from his lips. “Do you call that good fortune or ill?”
    â€œAt the moment, ill. This ache in my head is very bothersome.”
    â€œI would offer you something cool to drink, but I do not know if there is a burn along this hillside.”
    â€œThere is a spring on the lower side of this house. The farmwife who lived in this cottage did not have to carry water far.” Anice closed her eyes as another wave of pain swept over her. “There’s a bucket outside by the door.”
    â€œI’ll be right back.”
    She was tempted to tell him not to hurry, that she wanted just to sit and wait for the brae to stop spinning. She simply listened to his footfalls leaving the cottage.
    When a cool nose pushed under her arm, she opened her eyes to smile down at Pippy. “I shall be fine,” she reassured him and herself at the same time. She wished she could figure out a way