The Chieftain's Yule Bride - a Highland Christmas novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions #10) (8 page)

"Okay," she said.  "Meet you back at Reception?  I'd better call Auntie first, tell her we'll be there for dinner."

Half an hour later, Freya had her first sight of Callum MacKrannan in denims and a sweater.  His legs went on forever, same as the jumping of her heartbeat.  He towered over her all the more now that she'd ditched her heels for sensible hiking boots, and her heart thumped even harder when he opened the passenger door of his four-by-four.

Last chance, girl...

"Thanks," she said, fastening her seatbelt while her overnight bag was hoisted into the back with his own.  Strapped in on the rear seat were a beautiful gift basket of MacKrannan produce plus a six-section basket of bottles from the Brewery.  For Auntie Harper, no doubt.  Not enough to be ostentatious, and not too little to be insulting.

She couldn't help remembering how Zavier had to be talked into buying a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates,
anything
to arrive with other than a single bottle of wine that he'd drink most of himself.  Auntie would have thought badly of him otherwise.  It wasn't the done thing to arrive at a Highland home empty-handed, especially not for that generation.  That concept had taken a lot of explaining.

Callum knew the ways and she was eager for Auntie to meet him.  To talk about the portrait and the minstrel, of course.

Before he started the engine he said, "I need to make something clear to you before we leave.  I should have told you before we got this far."

"Sounds ominous."

"It's no' really.  Just that here you're a hotel guest of MacKrannan Castle.  Once we're off the estate that stops."

In that moment her heart plummeted.  Surely she hadn't got him so wrong.  He really couldn't be that penny-pinching, could he?  Better to make the offer anyway.

"I'm happy to pay for your fuel, and Auntie Harper says she wouldn't hear of you staying anywhere but with..."

He shook his head.  "You'll pay for nothing and you'll owe me nothing, Freya.  And your room charges have been suspended until I bring you back. What I'm meaning is, the formalities get dropped.  I'll no' be the castle chauffeur and you'll no' be some guest on a jaunt.  We'll be on time off, both of us, while we're away.  Regular people.  Are you okay with that?"

Her heart bounced up again and skipped a beat.  "I'd like it better.  Can we start now?"

"Aye, we can, in everything except liability insurance.  Mine will protect you until we're off the estate.  After that you'll need to rely on my chivalry in all things, lass – if you're willing to accept the risk."

She couldn't help laughing at him.  "I think it's a chance I can take."

Chivalry indeed.  This man wouldn't know how to act otherwise.  It was inbred in him.  Seeing how he filled the driver's seat almost made her wish she was single for one more day without chivalry coming into the equation.  And seeing how he filled those denims... maybe she
should
have done this drive alone.

Those pale blue eyes softened and his shaft hardened.  Hell, she was something, and what an infectious wee laugh she had, considering there was no' a chivalrous thought in his head this minute.  He could lay her back in that seat and be inside her at the slightest invitation, making a start on siring those three bairns she'd been foretold of.

Patience, man.

He wanted to say,
'Tell me everything about you. Tell me all the years I've missed.  What are you doing with that pillock Campbell?  Does he make you happy?  Does he even try?'

What he rationed himself to was "Do you miss Scotland?"

She told him the first parts anyway with scant prompting along the winding single-lane roads while he dodged sheep and cattle.  Little family left.  Parents dead within a year of each other when she was young.  The farmland sold, the farmhouse kept.  Auntie Harper who brought her up was actually her great-aunt Isla, her grandfather's baby sister, so a true Harper by birth.

Freya was trying to persuade her to move to London beside them and Isla Harper was no' having it.  Maybe when she reached her dotage she might consider it.  And as Auntie said, what would be the point when Freya was abroad half the time anyway?

And she did miss Scotland in some ways, but the headhunting job offer she'd got from Zavier Campbell Design was too good to pass up and she'd moved in with him soon after.

A silence opened at the utterance of the name that Callum was no' keen to fill, considering Freya was in his passenger seat headed the opposite direction from her fiancé in Dubai.

She'd been turning to look at the back seat constantly since they left, so he asked her, "Enough of a hospitality present, do you think, or should we stop at a florist's?"

"It's perfect, and she'll really
appreciate you doing that.  Let me buy you lunch.  It's the least I can do."

Five miles later her head jerked round again to look out the rear window and then came back to stare in her wing mirror as if worried they were being followed.  She didn't know what was bothering her and he didn't tell her.

They stopped in Fort William and he got to face her over the table for a while, drinking in her nearness while he answered her questions.  Probing ones, they were.  Less of the 'Where did you go to school' stuff and far more of the 'Have you ever been married yourself' and 'Are you seeing anyone now' kind, though she sneaked them in amongst ordinary chatter and did no' put them so plainly.

He let her know that aye, he had a girlfriend until this week.  Nothing serious between them anyway.  And no, he'd never been married.

She was a damned sight more relaxed in the restaurant than she'd been in the car.  It was as if they were out on a date, which in his mind they were, and in some corner of hers too if he was reading the signs right – even though she was wearing sensible outdoor clothes and hiking boots much like his own, though half the size.

Denims hid little and he was glad of the overhanging tablecloth. He'd changed out of his kilt, thinking it would look like a castle uniform when he needed her to break that connection, to see only the man.  Mistake.  He made do with taking the bill from the waitress and holding it over his crotch when he stood up and disappeared to pay it with his back turned.

Near Drumnadrochit they pulled into a layby to stretch their legs along the side of Loch Ness while there was still some daylight, and she asked him the queerest question.

"Any monsters in your dungeons?"

He didn't laugh.  She'd taken a breath before asking, and kept looking at the water when she did.  The legend of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster had become nowt but a story for the tourists and fine she knew that, but it came to him what her real question might be.

"None that I've met nor heard of.  Our dungeons were only ever used for temporary capture by one generation and never since.  My ancestors used a wee island nearby as a prison to keep the worst away from the clansfolk.  The castle is a clean place in that respect."

That brought a smile to her face.  If his suspicions were right about what had happened in the Turret of the East, this lass had a wee touch of her Auntie's feyness about her and would be sensitive to lingering things like that.

"Can we walk a little longer?" she asked.

"Fine with me."

Up to her.  She'd know the journey time from here and when they were expected.

The sun had gone down by the time they drove through Inverness and she navigated him onto the Monlachan road.  After cutting through the village she reached into her pocket for a handkerchief and said, "Do you mind if I nip to the Clootie Well?  The sign's coming up on the left.  I won't be long. "

"In a forest, in the dark?"

"Who's the big feartie now, Callum?  I don't mind it.  I grew up here, remember?  It's hardly worth visiting now until after the tourists have gone."

He pulled into the deserted car park and doused the headlights.  Near pitch black and the new moon the only light source.  He switched them on again full beam to light the footpath ahead.

"Please, turn them off.  It spoils it."

"Will you let me come with you?"

"Yes – if you leave an offering.  A superstition thing," she added cheekily, mimicking his comment in the Banqueting Hall.  "You know the way of that."

"I do.  Another of our islands has its own Clootie Well, for the clan only.  I'm trusting you to keep it a secret."

That made her sit up.

She was a determined one, and they were soon standing over a water-filled stone trough in the sparse moonlight.  She dipped her handkerchief into the trickle of feeder water, wiped her brow with it and then rinsed the cotton in the water again before tying it onto a twig.

There was sparse room for it.  The woods around them were dripping thickly with fabric hopes and wishes and remembrances of the dead.  This site had gotten a wee bit too popular for its own good. He took his turn, asking nothing from the Spirit of the Well, just dropping all the coins from his pocket into the trough along with his trust, and feeling his ancestors hovering in the forest shadows.

Callum had known to be silent on the walk to a place like this and to stay silent until they were back at the car.  She seemed to appreciate that.  It was the only reason he could think on for why her hand slipped into his and squeezed it and then it was gone so quick he thought he'd imagined it.  No.  The imprint was there, singing its way up his arm.

He waited until he'd started the engine to ask, "Are you going to tell me what worry you left behind with your clootie?  Or was it an ailment?"

"Most times I give my trust to the Well to know what shouldn't be in my life," she said, fastening her seatbelt again and smelling of fresh air and wild woods.  "And sure enough, something will disappear that wasn't as good for me as I thought it was."

The main road was empty as he turned the direction she now pointed.

"And this time?"

"This time the same.  More or less.  There's Auntie's house over there – the one with all the rowan trees along the front."

No' hard to guess that would be it after all he'd learned about the Harpers.  A big limewashed stone farmhouse with overhanging eaves and several chimneys, and a driveway lined with hawthorn, apple, holly and hazel.

At Freya's direction he drove round the back to where the lights were on.  The way of the countrydwellers whose front doors were kept for grand occasions only, more often than not, because most folk had dirty boots to take off in the kitchen.

A sprightly woman of about sixty came out to greet them, very like Freya in feature and form but never an older version of the portrait.  He received a right good inspection head to foot and back up again, and then got as warm a hug as Freya did, and that was before he'd fetched out the gift baskets for them to take in while he carried the bags.

Isla Harper would get on fine with the Wisewomen, that was for sure.  She had a set of windchimes over the door that he clattered with his head, a cat that attached itself to his leg and clung on for the trip, and a house decked out like a New Age shop without a cheap import in sight.  She pointed him to the staircase and he nipped up to leave the bags on the landing.

Celtic knotwork patterns and geodes of crystals were everywhere downstairs.  An orrery sat on the hall table depicting the movement of the solar system, and a star chart for the northern hemisphere covered one wall.  There was a scent of real beeswax candles and a strong hint of thyme that disappeared when they went back into the big farmhouse kitchen.  Smudging, if he were no' mistaken, just like the Wisewomen's homes.  Even the antique cutlery on the sturdy big table had triskellion patterned handles, and the table legs themselves like carved Pictish stones.

They all sat down immediately to a dinner that his castle chefs would have been proud to serve.  Isla left it until after dessert and the last of the MacKrannan Elderberry winebottle to get down to business.

"So... Freya tells me you keep a portrait of her, is that right, Callum?"

"No' exactly."  Freya's flashy diamond caught the candlelight as she ate, making the mixed-up statement worse than it was.  "It's been in my family for a couple of centuries."

"But
you
keep it still, is that right?  Your generation of the clan down in Argyll hasn't sent it to the saleroom or given it to charity, is what I mean."