Must Love Scotland (23 page)

Niall rose, grabbed his beer with one hand, and tucked a hand under Morag’s elbow, leaving Declan to make sure he’d heard Megan correctly.

“You’re selling your shop, Meggie? You love that place. It’s your dreams in bloom, your hopes and aspirations, your calling.”

She shook her head and kissed him, as if she needed a kiss to catch her breath.

“I love you, and you are my dreams, and where you are, there more of my dreams can bloom, Declan. Don’t sell your farm. My flower shop is in good shape, and Dixie and Tony will be able to buy me out over time. I’ll have to go back to sign papers, and close up my apartment—and buy Mike Cochrane a drink. If you can get away, I’d like a chance to show you where I grew up.”

“Take him there for your honeymoon,” Morag called from the bar. “I’ll watch the place for Declan.”

“Meggie?” Declan said. “Are you sure? Farming is hard, and thankless, and sometimes it doesn’t smell very good, and there are bad years, and blights, and,”—what was he
doing
, talking her out of staying?—“and God, please stay. Marry me, be my wife. Raise little MacPhersons with me, and flowers, and sheep, and—”

Megan kissed him, resoundingly, and the rest of the room started cheering and clapping. Mary woke up, parts of Declan situated near his sporran woke up, and life became a rosy proposition all around.

“I’ll marry you,” Megan said. “And we’ll work our asses off, and maybe have a few babies, and live happily ever after.”

“Get down the good stuff,” Declan called over his shoulder. “We’ve a betrothal to celebrate.”

“Well thank God for that,” Niall said, resuming his place at the table. “Julie was worried, and I did not want ownership of a glorified manure pit and some ill-natured heifers.”

Morag set down a plate bearing a grilled cheese sandwich oozing cheddar around the crusty edges of thick homemade bread, then shoved it in front of the only empty place remaining at the table.

“Let the woman off your lap, Declan,” Morag groused. “Time enough for that later. She’ll need her strength, married to you.”

Megan stayed right where she was, picked up half the grilled cheese and held it for Declan to take a bite.

“Declan will need his strength married to me, you mean. Fortunately, he’s a very sturdy guy, and I will take the best care of him.”

They both needed their strength, as it turned out, and they both took very good care of each other—and the heifers, and the sheep, and the children—and they all lived happily (though not always fragrantly) ever after.

To my dear readers,

I had the best fun writing the stories for “Must Love Scotland,” and have ideas for more of these Highland Holiday novellas. If you’d like to read the first two, the series starts with my RITA-nominated novella,
“Kiss and Tell,”
(usually priced at $.99) featuring a Cromarty cousin practicing law in Maryland. The second story (Liam and Louise’s romance), “Dunroamin Holiday,” is paired with a fun story by Patience Griffin in the novella duet
“Must Love Highlanders.”

My next Regency story is
“Thomas—The Jaded Gentlemen, Book I”
and comes out June 2015. You can order Thomas’s story here. My most recent Regency is
“The Duke’s Disaster”
(April 2015), which can be ordered here.

If you’d like to keep up with all my releases—it’s going to be a busy year!—then you can sign up for my newsletter
here
, and you can always find out what’s going on, or get in touch with me through my website,
graceburrowes.com
.

For sneak peek at Thomas’s story, read on….

Happy reading!

Grace Burrowes

Thomas Jennings, Baron Sutcliffe, has left a lucrative career in trade to take up life as a country squire at his newly acquired estate, Linden. Thomas arrives to his property to find that Miss Loris Tanner has kept Linden productive since her father, the estate’s land steward, abandoned both his post and his daughter under scandalous circumstances.

Thomas appreciates excellent management skills enough to give Loris a chance to prove her competence as his land steward, despite that being a profession uniformly undertaken by men. Loris’s other attributes—her tenacity, her honesty, and her tender heart—are what truly fascinate Thomas. Deadly trouble starts to plague Linden, and Thomas abruptly faces a choice: Which will he protect? The lovely estate he’s chosen for his forever home, or Loris Tanner’s heart?

What did it portend, when a man arrived to his newly-acquired estate and found an execution in progress?

“The damned beast is done for,” a squat, pot-bellied fellow declared from half-way down the stable aisle.

Thomas Jennings, Baron Sutcliffe, had an advantage of height over the crowd gathered in the stables. He hadn’t been spotted as he’d ridden into the stable yard, nor did he draw attention as he watched from the shadows at the rear of the group.

“The
damned beast
was rallying until some idiot fed him oats at mid-day, Mr. Chesterton,” a woman retorted.

She stood at the front of the group, slightly above average height, a neat dark braid hanging down a ramrod-straight back. Her riding habit was muddy about the hem and so far from fashionable Thomas could not have accurately named the color.

“Horses in work get grain at mid-day,” the Chesterton fellow retorted. “If you wanted special treatment for your personal mount, you should have come to me.” He uncoiled a bullwhip from around his waist, an ugly length of braided leather knotted to a heavy wooden stock. “I say the horse needs to be put down and I’m the stable master here, missy.”

This woman would not take kindly to being called
missy
.

The lady stood in profile to Thomas. Her nose was a trifle bold, her mouth wide and full. Not precisely a pretty woman, though her looks were memorable. She blocked the door to a stall that housed a sizeable bay gelding. The beast stood with its head down, flanks matted with sweat. A back hoof lifted in a desultory attempt to kick at the gelding’s own belly.

“The horse wants walking;” she said, “a few minutes on grass every hour; clean, tepid water and no more damned oats.”

Chesterton let the coils of his whip fall, the tip of the lash landing on the toes of lady’s dusty boots.

“You are prolonging that animal’s suffering Miss Tanner,” Chesterton said. “What will the new owner think of your cruelty? The beast turns up colicky after you ride him to exhaustion in this heat, and you won’t even give your own horse the mercy of a quick death.”

“We’ve had three cases of colic in your stables in the last month, Mr. Chesterton, Any fool knows a horse recovering from colic ought not to be given oats.”

Thomas had certainly known that.

“If a horse can’t handle his regular rations without coming down with a bellyache, then he’s not recovering, is he?” Chesterton retorted.

One of the stable lads sidled closer to the lady, while Chesterton flicked his wrist, so the whip uncoiled behind him. With one more movement of his wrist, Chesterton could wrap that whip around the woman’s boots, jerk her off her feet, and get to the horse.

“Chesterton, think,” Miss Tanner said, more exasperation than pleading in her tone. “Baron Sutcliffe has only recently purchased Linden, and he will now receive my reports on the crops and livestock. When he learns of four dead horses in one month, every one of them a valuable adult animal in otherwise good health, what conclusion will he draw about his stable master? Give me another twelve hours with the gelding and then you can shoot him if he’s still unwell.”

The offer was reasonable to the point of shrewdness.

“No baron worth a title will listen to a woman’s opinion regarding his land or livestock,” Chesterton retorted. “You’d best be packing your things, Miss Tanner, or I’ll be the one
reporting
to the nancy baron what goes on at Linden.”

“As it happens,” Thomas said, sauntering forward, “the nancy baron is here, and willing to listen to any knowledgeable opinion on most topics. Perhaps somebody might begin by explaining why ten men to whom I pay regular wages are loitering about in the middle of the afternoon?”

The lady did not give up her place in front of the stall door, but Chesterton coiled his whip and puffed out his chest.

“Alvinus Chesterton, your lordship. I’m Linden’s stable master. Yon beast is suffering badly and Miss Tanner is too soft-hearted to allow the horse a merciful end.”

Miss Tanner’s soft heart was nowhere in evidence that Thomas could divine.

Thomas assayed a bow in the lady’s direction, though manners would likely impress her not one bit. The point was to impress the louts surrounding her.

“Miss Tanner, Thomas, Baron Sutcliffe, at your service. Chesterton, if you’d see to my horse. He’s endured a long, hot journey down from London and needs a thorough cooling out.”

In any stable, the lowliest lad was usually stuck with the job of walking a sweaty horse until the animal could be safely given water and put in its stall. The stable master stomped off, bellowing for somebody named Anderson to tend to the baron’s horse.

Now for the greater challenge.
“That’s your horse?” Thomas asked the lady.

“I own him,” Miss Tanner said, chin tipping up. A good chin, determined without being stubborn. In contrast, her eyes were a soft, misty gray—also guarded and weary.

“Chesterton tried to tell you what to do with your own livestock?”

“He tried to shoot my horse, and would have done so except I came by to make sure the gelding was continuing to recover.”

Amid the pleasant dusty, horsy scents of the stable Thomas picked up a whiff of roses coming from—her?

“Let’s have a look, shall we, Miss Tanner?”

Oh, she did not want to allow a stranger into her horse’s stall, but the realm’s only female steward—and possibly its most stubborn—defied her new employer at her peril.

“Miss Tanner, I will not shoot the animal without your permission. You could have me charged before the king’s man for such behavior, baron or not.”

Thomas preferred the ‘or not,’ though that choice had been taken from him.

Still, he refrained from physically moving the lady aside, reaching past her to open the door, or otherwise disrespecting her authority as owner of the horse and de facto steward at Linden.

Standing this close to Miss Tanner, Thomas could see she was worried for her horse, though Chesterton had been about to use his bullwhip on the lady.

“The gums tell the tale,” Thomas said, quietly. “Your horse is not trying to get down and roll, and that’s a good sign.”

Outside the stable, Rupert’s hoofbeats went clip-clopping by on the lane.

“Tell the fools to walk your horse out in the shade,” the lady said. “They should get his saddle off too.”

Miss Tanner was trying to distract Thomas, trying to wave him off for however long it took her to inspect her sorry beast. Thomas was not willing to be distracted, not as long as Chesterton and a half dozen of his dimwitted minions lurked about.

“Rupert walked the last two miles from the village,” Thomas said. “He’s barely sweating, and will manage well enough. I wanted to make a point to my stable master, and you, my dear, are stalling.”

That chin dipped. “Chesterton could be right. I don’t want to put the horse down.”

A spine of steel, nerves of iron, and a heart of honest sentiment. Interesting combination.

“Miss Tanner, the last time I saw a horse shot, I cried shamelessly.” Thomas had been twelve years old, and Grandpapa’s afternoon hunter had broken a foreleg in a rabbit hole. The twins had sworn off foxhunting and Theresa had cried loudest of all.

Grandpapa, for the only time in Thomas’s memory, had got thoroughly inebriated.

Miss Tanner opened the stall door, and the horse lifted its head to inspect the visitors. A horse approaching death would have ignored them or turned away.

“Matthew, this is Baron Sutcliffe,” Miss Tanner informed her gelding. “His lordship says he won’t shoot you.”

“A ringing endorsement.” Thomas let the horse sniff his glove. After a moment the gelding craned his neck in the lady’s direction.

“Shameless old man,” she murmured, scratching one hairy ear.

Uncomfortable the gelding might be, but he was not at death’s door if he could flirt with his owner. Thomas lifted the horse’s lip and pressed gently on healthy pink gums. A horse in the later stages of colic would have dark or even purple gums.

“He’s uncomfortable,” Thomas said, “but not in immediate danger. He should be on limited rations—hay and grass, not grain—and no work for several days. Was this Nick person among those watching Chesterton threaten your horse?”

Had Thomas not come along, the men might have started exchanging bets, or worse.

Miss Tanner scratched the beast’s other ear. “Nick, Beck and Jamie have gone into the village to get the last of the provisions for the house in preparation for your arrival. Chesterton timed this confrontation for their absence. None of them would have allowed Matthew to be fed oats.”