Page 39 of Highlander's Wild Lass
“Are ye well, Celestia?”
“Aye, I’m fine.”
One of his brows lifted. “Ye’re rather quiet than ye normally are with me.”
Celestia huffed out a laugh. “I have been givin’ ye a hard time. I am sorry for that.”
Anthony stopped abruptly, causing Celestia to stop. He turned her toward him and brought the back of his hand to her forehead, all while their arms remained linked.
“I’m not feverish, Anthony,” she told him, taking his hand and lowering it from her head. She pulled them forward once more. “I’ve just a lot on my mind at the moment.”
“Do ye want to talk about it?” he asked, feeling his stomach drop at the thought that it might have to do with his proposal.
“I’m not sure I even should talk about it.”
Anthony exhaled, feeling a bit odd that she wasn’t thinking about his marriage proposal. He shrugged knowing she wouldn’t be able to see it, but she would feel it. “My maither always told me it’s better to get things off yer mind before they fester.”
Celestia sucked in a breath. “My mum said that too. They were very good friends, ye ken. I always remember them laughin’ when they were together.”
“Me too,” Anthony said, a warm feeling spread throughout his chest when he pictured his mother. “I remember them laughin’ more than anyone thought proper for women, especially a chief’s wife.”
Celestia fell quiet then. He thought because he mentioned the word wife, but he wasn’t sure. Celestia was a difficult read at times.
“What are yer feelin’s about King James?” she asked.
His eyes widened. “The exiled king?” Of course, he knew who King James was, but he wanted to make sure they were on the same page. Especially since he did not know many women, not even noblewomen, to keep up with politics.
She nodded, tilting her head so she could look up at him. “What did yer faither think when King William usurped him?”
“Well,” he said, bringing his hand to tug at his ear, thinking. “I had just turned ten, so I wasnae privy to a lot of what my faither did back then.” He looked at Celestia, who was watching him closely. “I remember him cursin’ the English quite foul and callin’ his brothers to the castle to talk war.”
Celestia blinked. “War…”
“I ken it now to be that he was a—” Anthony lowered his voice despite fully knowing that he was away from anyone who would care, in the woods behind Celestia’s home. “—Jacobite. As were all my uncles, especially the ones who survived the two uprisin’s since.”
“My parents were as well,” she told him.
“Is that what’s got ye so quiet and tame tonight?”
Celestia snorted, looking as if she was about to argue with him calling her tame but decided against it. “I suppose it just took me by surprise. I didnae expect my faither, let alone…Ma…to be so involved.”
“Does this have to do with the whisky?” he asked when she pulled him to a stop.
They were at the forest’s edge, one step more would put them onto the grassy flat meadow between the horse paddock and the pigs.
“Will ye help me in the stables?” she asked, looking at him once more. It was clear that she wasn’t done talking about this, and Anthony was most eager to hear where this conversation was going and what might happen between them. But he had promised himself on the way back from his visiting his sister that he wouldn’t press the issue of marriage nor force anything from Celestia.
It wasn’t until they were both settled on a firmly-squared bundle of hay with his bow leaning against the wall and the oil lamp dangling from a hook above them when Celestia finally answered his question, “It does have to do with the whisky.”
She leaned back against the stable wall, uncaring that she had knocked her head against it. Her eyes were focused on the slow flame in the lamp. “He has a separate list of customers, the ones that daenae pay tax.”
“That’s nae so unusual, ye ken,” he told her, picking off a thistle that had attached to his stockings. “Most of Scotland, at least the Highlands are nae too fond of the English. It makes sense that yer business has two.”
“Exactly it’smybusiness, or it’s goin’ to be…and I’ve—” Celestia dramatically pressed her hand against her chest. “—stepped into a criminal operation!”
The hand on her chest would have been distracting if it weren’t for her theatrics. He only found himself laughing, swiveling towards her on the hay. “Yer nae a criminal, nor will ye be found out. People pay good money for underground whisky—both for the whisky and the discretion.”
She pulled the plaid she was wearing closer around her shoulders. “I havenae looked at the entire list yet, but are ye on it? Is the whisky the castle gets—”
