Her Highland Fling (2 page)

And impressive or no, she had little patience for a person who thought it fun to mock a lady’s stammer.

She tried to push away the stirrings of self-doubt such things always brought. Her sister, Caroline, who’d married Moraig’s magistrate last year, had always sought relief from her childhood demons by swimming. But Pen had retreated from her tormentors with words—books and poetry and newspapers. Eventually she had uncovered a talent for putting her words on paper, probably because they became so tangled on her tongue. With that discovery, the anxieties about her stammer had finally begun to subside.

She did not enjoy having them rekindled today.

She turned her attentions to the more familiar gentleman standing in wait. “It is good to see you again, Mr. MacKenzie.” She smiled at her sister’s handsome friend and pushed a damp strand of hair from her cheek. “I must say, it is much warmer than it was d-during my last visit.”

“You’ve visited Moraig before?” the rude Highlander interrupted.

“Yes,” Pen said patiently. It seemed he was bound to either repeat questions already answered or else struggle to keep up with the conversation. She framed a gentle smile to her lips, the kind that made people nearly always underestimate her. “As I just said.”

She would have liked to ignore him but suspected it would be a close to impossible task, given that he seemed nearly twice the size of most men. Her gaze scooted lower, to the thick, muscled calves peeking out from beneath the folds of fabric. She was used to her share of bare legs, growing up in Brighton as she had. But she wasn’t used to legs that looked like this.

She schooled her cheeks against the flush that wanted to claim them. She would
not
blush like an adolescent schoolgirl. After all, she was an independent, modern woman, even if her tongue sometimes became a bit tied. She had boldly negotiated this position with the
London Times
—the first woman reporter they had ever hired. She had a job to do here, and she needed to do it well. It did not matter what a brawny, belted Highlander thought of her.

It mattered only what she thought of Moraig and what she chose to write about it.

In contrast to the village idiot, James MacKenzie’s green eyes sparkled with mirth and intelligence. “Miss Tolbertson is David Cameron’s new sister-in-law. I was fortunate enough to take dinner with them when she visited over Christmas,” he explained to the befuddled giant. He cocked his head, studying her. “I must say, this is quite a surprise, Miss Tolbertson. Cameron told us to expect a reporter from London, but he didn’t say it would be you. Don’t you work for the
Brighton Gazette
?”

She nodded, pleased he had remembered. Then again, a female journalist was enough of a novelty she supposed it might be a difficult fact to forget. “I did. But I’ve just b-been awarded a position with the
Times
and moved to London.” It was the first job she’d ever applied for.
Fought
for. Though her initial work with the
Brighton
Gazette
had been enjoyable, she couldn’t help but feel her experience didn’t quite count, not when it was the newspaper her father had once founded. “This is my first formal assignment,” she admitted. And even if her brother-in-law had helped procure it, she felt a driving need to make sure it went well.

“A decision we can only hope serves us both well, given our hopes for a positive outcome for Moraig.” James gestured to the man standing beside him. “May I present William MacKenzie. My brother, and occasional Highland warrior when the circumstances call for it.”

Pen turned back to the perspiring behemoth and studied him with greater interest. This was James MacKenzie’s brother? She could imagine now seeing some resemblance there, in their shared height and dark hair, but the Highlander was far broader about the shoulders and chest, and his scowling features lacked the easy handsomeness of James’s welcoming smile. Then again, Pen could allow she looked little like her sister Caroline, who was tall and brunette.

Only their penchant for impropriety identified them clearly as sisters.

She tried to smile. “P-pleased to meet you, Mr. MacKenzie.”

Confused brown eyes swept her from boot to bonnet. “I dinna understand. You are saying
you
are the reporter we’ve been expecting from London?”

No matter his slow pattern of thought, the deep swell of his voice made her heart shift into a less-than-ladylike pattern. She couldn’t countenance the reaction. Despite the impressiveness of his calves, he was none too handsome about the top. His face was as broad as his chest, lacking even a dimple to soften the stark impression of masculinity. His nose was slightly hooked, as though it had been broken once and left to set however it wished.

And there was clearly not much going on between those ears.

“Yes.
I
am the reporter,” Penelope said, still smiling through her clenched teeth.

“But . . . I’ve never heard of a female reporter.”

Penelope sighed. Perhaps he had belted his plaid too tightly this morning. “Perhaps not in Moraig, b-but I assure you, the world is a bit larger than this.” Of course, most people outside Moraig had never heard of a female reporter either, but she didn’t think it a worthy enough fact to point out. There
ought
to be more female reporters.

And she intended to prove herself an excellent one.

The coachman chose that moment to bring her valise. He held it out to William MacKenzie, but Penelope snatched it and hefted it against her chest.

“I c-can manage my own luggage,” she said, perhaps a bit more forcefully than was needed. But the bag held her notebook and her pencils, the very tools of her trade, and this MacKenzie didn’t seem the brightest of souls. Should her things be misplaced or mishandled, she would have a devil of a time finding replacements in a little town like Moraig.

The Highlander scowled. “It seems wrong.”

A flare of irritation uncurled in Pen’s stomach. “I assure you, I am a very c-capable j-journalist.” She winced to hear her words begin to jam up. Her stammer always worsened when she was agitated, which was one of the reasons she tried so hard to maintain a calm, serene demeanor. But something about this man’s bumbling presumptions and his bare, flexing calves made it difficult to keep her thoughts focused.

He shook his head. “No, it seems wrong, a lady carrying her own bag to the Blue Gander. What will people think?”

“Oh, I do not p-plan to stay at the Gander.”

William MacKenzie’s head jerked back, and his blue feathered cap fell off his head. “But . . . how will you report on its suitability for tourist lodging if you don’t actually stay there?”

Pen narrowly avoided rolling her eyes. Did he even understand what half those words meant? He’d clearly not applied himself to the understanding of the earlier bits of the conversation. “As your b-brother said earlier, I am Mrs. Cameron’s sister.” She spoke slowly, so he would be sure to understand. “I had thought to s-stay in their home.”

William MacKenzie stared at her, a dumbfounded expression on his broad face. Clearly she had taxed the limits of his imagination.

And he had taxed the limits of her tolerance.

She turned to James MacKenzie, knowing that there, at least, there was a spark of intelligence she could rely on. “Mr. MacKenzie, might I b-beg upon your assistance? I had not written ahead of the timing of my visit. I had hoped to surprise Caroline, you see.”

The younger MacKenzie chuckled. “I’d be happy take you to Cameron’s house.” He gestured her forward but wisely made no move to relieve her of her bag. “And if a wee bit of surprise was your hope for the day, I’d say well done.” A crooked grin split his face. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen my brother rendered speechless before.”

C
HAPTER
T
WO

“S
he thinks I’m an idiot.” William stared moodily down at his drink as the familiar scents and sounds of the Blue Gander’s dinnertime crowd swam around him.

Normally, he quite enjoyed the buzz of the inn’s little public room. But tonight, he felt the clink of every dish like a bolt to the brain, reminding him that he was, in fact, the very blooming idiot Miss Tolbertson no doubt suspected him to be.

Welcome to Moraig
, he had said to her. Such a scintillating welcome.

And then he had stammered it, no less.

He groaned and knocked his head against the scarred and pitted surface of the table, though he was probably rubbing his face in week-old spilled ale. Miss Tolbertson’s stammer hadn’t bothered him in the least. But he was quite sure his own tongue-tied performance would be long remembered in her mind.

“A smart lass then, is she?” McRory took a noisy gulp of ale and slammed his cup down on the table. “Pretty too, from what Jeffers said.”

William opened a wary eye from his position on the table and glared up at the town butcher. “Too pretty for the likes of you,” he snarled feebly. Though he was long used to Moraig’s rumor mill, his drinking companion’s words made him want to smash something, and the nearest satisfying target was McRory’s thick skull.

He straightened. And what business did the very married Mr. Jeffers have bandying news of Miss Tolbertson’s attractiveness about town?

Although, to be fair, attractive unmarried females were not exactly bursting from Moraig’s seams, and gossip was the town’s stock-in-trade. Why in the deuces was he feeling so protective of her? The woman could obviously take care of herself. She hadn’t even brought a maid with her and had still managed to look as fresh as a flower upon emerging from the depths of the coach. An image of her clear blue eyes, glaring at him above the top of her bag, was practically seared into his brain.

Still, McRory
did
have a bit of a reputation for inviting unsuspecting women to a sit-down in his lap, especially when he was into his cups.

And they were both well into the fourth of those cups this evening.

But regardless of McRory’s reputation, it wasn’t as though Miss Tolbertson needed his protection tonight. She clearly had no intention of setting foot anywhere close to the Blue Gander. Why, she’d practically sprinted to Cameron’s house, ruining William’s grand plans to showcase the town’s inn as the focal point of Moraig’s appeal to London tourists. He thought morosely about the room he’d personally paid to refurbish above stairs, expressly for the purpose of impressing a London reporter.

Of course, he hadn’t known the reporter was a
lass
at the time, had he?

Nothing about the day’s events had followed his carefully arranged plans, and that left him floundering in more than the bottom of a glass.

Dimly, he became aware that McRory wasn’t answering him. In fact, the tenor of the entire crowd had shifted. Hushed, even. A nearly impossible accomplishment for an establishment as infamously rowdy as the Gander. Why, his own brother had once knocked out McRory’s teeth, there on the main floor, and then busted out the row of front windows to boot.

The pub hadn’t been quiet that night, to hear the rumors.

Nor any night since.

William shifted in his seat and fixed his bleary gaze on the door, only to promptly catch his breath. Christ, she
was
seared into his brain. Because there she was, his thoughts most happily playing this cruel trick on him. As before, he felt strangely hobbled by the impact of those blue eyes, the way her upper lip curved prettily.
Invitingly.

If this was an ale-fueled dream, it was a gashing good one.

But then the blond-haired apparition moved.

Straight into the middle of the Blue Gander’s public room.

Chairs everywhere scraped the floor as man after man gained his feet. William stayed hunkered down in his seat, though he would have happily crawled beneath the sticky floor boards if given half a chance. He was rewarded for his ill manners by staying somewhere beneath her notice. She smiled a pleasant greeting at all and sundry and then took a seat at an empty table, looking around her with undisguised interest. She took off her bonnet and gloves and then placed her reticule on the table and began to rummage through it.

That was apparently all the invitation required.

McRory lunged in her direction, and William had to reach out a hand and haul the butcher back by the tail of his bloodstained apron strings. “Sit your arse back down,” he warned.

“Why?” McRory scowled down at him. “She dinna say she thinks
I’m
an idiot.”

“Yet,” William retorted. “The night is young.” He sniffed, taking in a whiff of sour male and the faint hint of offal. “You’re too ripe by half for a lady’s company tonight, and I’ll not have you mauling the reporter who’s come to save the town from economic disaster. You’ll have her writing that every London tourist is invited to sit on the butcher’s lap.”

McRory slowly lowered his bulk back into his chair. “If they are pretty as that one,” he said, leering, “they’re welcome to sit wherever they want.”

William’s fists tightened. Oh, for God’s sake.

That was all Moraig needed, word of McRory’s lap to reach London.

He slouched down in his seat, though he kept his surreptitious attention on Miss Tolbertson. He hoped she knew what she was about, gallivanting around town without an escort. Presumably a female reporter was hardier than the usual sort of woman, and Moraig was a safer town than most. But God knew her table wouldn’t stay empty long, not in a place like this. He felt the slow burn of respect at the thought of her bravery.

Bloody hell, the woman walked about as though she were a man.

But she didn’t look like a man. She looked like an angel, and William was halfway to heaven just watching her give her order to the serving girl.

And praise the saints, she ordered whisky. Not one, but
three
glasses of the stuff, different varieties. From the corner of his eye, he watched in horror and fascination as she delicately sniffed one, then the other, and then—God above—lifted one of the glasses to her lips and took an ambitious swallow.

She immediately began to choke, eyes squeezed shut, lungs straining for air.