After The Storm

...she prayed time would halt but for five minutes. That was all she asked—five minutes more.

But time would not freeze and her absence
would
be noticed. “Hugh,” she whispered, “I should be going below…my aunt…you need to finish dressing and this is utterly improper. Why, should someone catch us…”

Hugh shook his head ever so slowly, still holding her gaze. “No one would dare enter without my permission. Not even my valet takes such liberty.” He stroked her thumbs again, his voice softer and deeper still. “I thank you for your help, Randi. There are those days when I miss my youth. When I needed no help. From anyone.”

“You are hardly old, Your Grace.” Why was her breath so hard to catch? Another flutter through her belly and the breathlessness worsened.

“I am fraying a tad at the seams these days, I’m afraid.” His words were soft, and sadness tinged his grin.

A deep breath did little to quell that returning sense of wickedness as she bent forward to whisper in his ear, “I happen to like frayed seams.”

He turned, caught her completely by surprise as his lips found hers.

Praise for
AFTER THE STORM

“Kimberly Nee has brought back the traditional Historical Romance with a breath of fresh air.

“Miranda is a fun character with a smart mouth and quiet wit, while Hugh is a tortured soul in desperate need to fulfill his destiny. The chemistry between the two is all sparks and fire.
AFTER THE STORM
is a wild ride through etiquette and truth. Hugh and Miranda’s story will take you up and down and around, but in the end you’ll be smiling and praying for her next book.

“Ms. Nee, please gift us with a new book soon, because your words spring off the page and into our hearts. Thank you for truly giving life to your characters. I want more!”

~Deb Diez, Rochester Romance Novel Examiner

After the Storm

by

Kimberly Nee

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

After the Storm

COPYRIGHT
Ó
2011 by Kimberly Nee

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [email protected]

Cover Art by
Tina Lynn

The Wild Rose Press

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First English Tea Rose Edition, 2011

Print ISBN 1-60154-870-2

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

For Mackenzie:

dare to dream, and always dream big.

Chapter One

Scotland, 1815

Miranda MacDonough shivered despite the bright sunshine that burned its way through the clouds earlier. A cold, raw wind whipped through the valley, rustling the skirts of the female mourners. It set teeth to chattering and brought even gloved hands to mouths to be warmed by breath.

With a piercing squeak of rope, the simple wood coffin began its descent into the earth, and still her eyes remained dry. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to cry, she simply had no tears. None. Terrible, perhaps, but also beyond her control, just as everything else seemed to be. And so she stood, back straight, staring at her father’s coffin through dry eyes, with dry cheeks and a hollow, deadened feeling inside.

“Miranda?”

She started at the low rumble of Duncan Chadwick’s voice, and turned to find him at her side, as he’d been from the moment Angus MacDonough breathed his last. He’d been her rock these past days, stoic and solid, his gray-blue eyes red-rimmed and teary. Miranda cleared her dry throat to force out, “Yes?”

“Come, love. It is too cool for you tae be standin’ here and there’s a warm fire awaitin’ us back home.”

As he spoke, he reached for her hand, but she recoiled. “Nae. I have no desire to return home. It is but a house now…a cold, empty shell of what once was a happy place.”

“I know, but you’ve had the longest of days and ye’ll catch yer de—” He stopped short, covering up his lapse with a sharp cough. “What I mean tae say is, I expect there’s a hot meal and a strong glass o’spirits waiting for ye.”

Though she didn’t want to look, her gaze went back to the grave, a gaping wound in the soft earth. A painful lump rose in her throat as the mourners turned to go to that hot meal and those strong spirits. The two gravediggers paid her scant attention, slicing through the loose dirt with their shovels to pack the wounded earth. It was mundane to them, no doubt, and though they were outwardly solemn, their indifference to the living and the dead snuck through as they whispered between each other and one even smiled.

She breathed deep, exhaled slowly. Duncan meant well, and she shouldn’t be angry with him, but she was in no mood to be coddled. “I am not hungry and Papa would be furious if I were to take even a sip of spirits.”

Weariness wove through Duncan’s sigh. “I think he’d understand, Randi. Ye buried the auld mon this day. We both know he’d be the one doing the pouring.”

“Yes. I suppose that’s true.” A particularly brutal wind gust tore through the valley. As the day trudged on, the air grew crisper, reminding her autumn was closing in fast. She shivered again, turning away from Duncan to watch the gravediggers without really seeing them. The dying footfalls and fading rustle of bombazine told her the others headed up the grassy, treeless slope, to the cozy cottage perched on the hillside.

Clearing her throat, she went on, “Be that as it may, I have no desire for anything other than to be left in peace.”

The diggers’ shovels sank into the rich black soil. Miranda watched as they dumped it into the open grave onto the coffin now deep in the ground. Another lump rose in her throat, more painful than the last, but she couldn’t pull her gaze from the pit.

“But—”

“Peace, Duncan.” She refused to look at him. Her eyes stung, her breath hitched as the two men unceremoniously dumped the last shovelfuls of earth, and tamped it down. A sharp pain sliced through her, cleaved her heart in two, and she bit down on her bottom lip to remain composed. She didn’t want to break down in front of Duncan. Why, it’d been years since he’d last seen her cry. “Please. Allow me this much, won’t you? I’ll be up in a bit. Before dark. I promise.”

She looked up to see Duncan’s forehead wrinkle with concern. He stared for a moment, and then bobbed his head. “If you are certain,” he hedged, catching her hand in his to give it a quick squeeze.

“I am. I’ll be up in a wee bit.”

“Very well.” He released her hand and stepped back. “I will expect you before sunset, or else I will come searching for you.”

She managed a sad smile and nodded. He tried to offer comfort, but was as lost as she. Her irritation faded. “Thank you, Duncan.”

Duncan turned heel and started up the slope, behind the last of the stragglers making their way to the MacDonough home. There, they’d imbibe, and regale each other with tales and songs. They’d drink to Angus MacDonough’s long life and celebrate the man with the gruff voice and warm heart. The men would grow quite sloppy, their wives frowning and
tsk
ing over them. There’d be sympathy as long as no man thought to test out his liquor-muscles on another. If he did he’d be pummeled silly for his trouble.

Hopefully, it wouldn’t be Duncan. She hoped for the best as she watched him, head bent down against the wind, heavy black greatcoat flapping behind him like the Angel of Darkness’s leathery wings. He wasn’t much one for spirits, she’d seen him get foxed on only one glass of bourbon. She made certain her father never knew this, for his head would have blown clean from his shoulders at the thought of his daughter not only in the company of a drunken man, but sipping away right beside him.

A sad laugh rose to her lips and she brushed a tear from her lower lashes. “Aye, ye’d have had apoplexy, auld mon, if ye knew what happened that night. Duncan kissed me, ye know. But I stopped him at once and it never went beyond that. Even when he proposed marriage to me. I said no. We both knew it was a mistake.”

She ought to go back home, but the notion filled her with sorrow. Home would never be the same, never be the haven it once was, what with the empty chair at the dinner table, the empty chair beside the fire—

It was something she thought she was prepared for, but Papa’s death still struck her like an unexpected blow to the stomach. He’d suffered through his final months. But when his suffering ended, hers began.

He’d known the end was near, and she learned it herself a fortnight before, when he called her into his private chambers. What began as a cough soon worsened, leaving Angus bedridden. Propped high on a mound of pillows to help him breathe, he was no longer robust, but frail. His gray-blue eyes sunken and watery, and his once-commanding voice brittle as burned parchment as he spoke of his plans for her once he was gone.

Her breath hitched again and the gravesite disappeared behind a filmy veil of tears. She didn’t want to go back, wasn’t ready to reminisce about her father when her wound was raw, and sore. Instead, she made her way past the mound of fresh earth, up the rocky slope, to the hilltop opposite her house, where the winds died away and the sun once more warmed the air.

At the top, she sunk to the soft ground in a crinkle of ugly black bombazine. Despite the lack of wind, she was as cold as death itself, and wrapped her arms about herself in an attempt to take the chill from her flesh, to remove it from her bones. Watching sheep grazing peacefully on a neighboring slope, it was difficult to believe, aside from those in the cottage, no one mourned Angus MacDonough. Life went on as normal, his passing not even a ripple in their daily lives, while to her it was a cataclysmic wave upsetting everything she’d ever known and loved.

“Take him, for instance,” she muttered, swiping at her cheek with her left hand as a lone horse and rider moved into view. “He is carefree and happy, simply enjoying a beautiful day.”

A rueful smile pulled her lips upward as she watched the unknown rider expertly guide his horse around the rocks and ruts of the hillside, around the gorse and heather. The mount was a beautiful animal, with muscles rippling beneath skin like black satin.

“How I wish I felt so carefree,” she murmured, absently tugging up a clump of grass, letting dirt and pebbles sift through her fingers. The rider dismounted, and she frowned as he made his way up toward a leafy oak, for he walked with a most pronounced limp. Had he taken a tumble and hurt himself?

Brushing dirt from her hands, she stood up with another rustle of bombazine. “Of course, there’s no reason why I can’t simply
ask
him.” As she took a step, the interloper sunk down on the flat top of an otherwise jagged boulder. “If not, then I might inform him he is most definitely trespassing.”

Duncan would be crimson with fury if he knew she approached a strange man, but she cared naught. It was never her nature to be the quiet, demure sort, and she saw no reason not to let the interloper know he was where he did not belong.

The hill was steeper than the one she’d been on, and she slipped more than once, though regained her footing before falling on her backside. Weeds and brush crackled and snapped, and she cleared her throat to call out over the din, “I beg your pardon? Sir?”

The man looked up as she drew near, and the darkness in his otherwise piercing green eyes gave her pause. He was either quite angry, or quite upset. Perhaps she’d made a mistake in confronting him. Hesitant about proceeding further, she stopped several feet away.

His dark brows nearly met as he frowned at her. “Are you speaking to me?”

His voice was even and deep, flowed with refinement, and was much calmer than his expression suggested. Feeling a bit braver, Miranda took a half-step closer. “I am. You do realize you are on MacDonough land, do you not?” She tried not to notice how striking the man was, how he exuded a certain…strength…though he made no move to rise to his feet. However, when his gaze met hers, her belly fluttered. Not fear. Not exactly, anyway.

His forehead smoothed as he shook his head. “I did not. I thank you for telling me.” He held her stare easily, not at all contrite about his trespassing.

When he made no motion to rise from his boulder, she folded her arms over her chest. “I think it’d be best for you to take yourself
from
MacDonough land posthaste.”

Still unperturbed, he shrugged. “If you think you might remove me, feel free to do so.”

“Remove you?” Did he expect her to remove him by force? How was she to even attempt such a thing? “Are you saying that is the only way you will leave?”

“My lady, I am doing no harm, but merely allowing my horse a bit of rest.” He shook his head again, his left hand coming down to rest on his knee, not resting, but rubbing it as if it ached. He went on as if nothing was amiss. “I came up here for that, and a bit of quiet, to think, if you will. If it troubles you, I apologize, but I will not leave until I am quite ready to do so.”

She opened her mouth to insist, but closed it again. His voice held a hint of sorrow, and her insistence became concern. “Does something trouble you, sir?”

Surprise replaced the darkness in his eyes. “Do you make it a habit of approaching men with whom you are unfamiliar?”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Not unless they happen to be trespassing.”

His eyes softened, his smile mirroring hers as a pleasant surprise. “Touché.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Touché means you have met me wit for wit.”

“Oh.” The word still meant nothing to her, but she shrugged and settled down beside him, smoothing out her now-wrinkled black skirt. “Is it something you’d like to share?”

“Not especially.” His smile faded. “It would be best if you took your leave, as I prefer to be alone.”

“I am sorry to disappoint you,” she replied, still smoothing her skirts as if without a care in the world, “for I must insist you take
your
leave.”

He offered up a sidelong look. “Was the unfortunate soul someone close to you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He gestured to her skirt. “Mourning clothes. Earlier, I witnessed a funeral procession over there.” He pointed down into the valley, at the scarred patch of freshly dug ground. “Were you close?”

His gentle prodding drained her of her irritation and the sadness poured into her like wine into a goblet. Holding back her shuddery sigh was impossible. “We were. But I’d also rather not speak of it.”