Page 23 of A Rogue in Moonlight
“Oatcakes too, and fresh rowan jam,” Mary added.
“I will then. If I may, I will bring some back to the laird. He loves Mary’s cooking.”
“He will not get fresh jam from me if he is rude to our teacher lass,” Mary said. “Och, never mind. I want you to take some jam and cakes to Lucy,” Mary said as she ushered Hamish into the cottage.
Following them, Fiona wondered if Lucy was the laird’s wife. At the thought, her stomach wrenched. If he had a wife, she thought, the man was indeed a rascal.
She had been wrong to enjoy his kisses, and very wrong to dream of him last night, waking in a warm haze of pillows and plaid and memories of his arms around her.
“Come, Maggie!” She whistled the dog inside. Hearing a sound inthe distance, Fiona paused to glance over her shoulder. Was that—bagpipes out in the hills?
The notes faded. She saw only the shabby coach, horses nuzzling at grass, and far blue hills beneath a bright blue sky. A few sheep ambled like pale dots high on the steep slopes. Perhaps their shepherd played for them, she thought.
Another tune began, far off. She stood listening, smiling, the sound filling her.
She wondered then if a tall, dark-haired man in a rumpled plaid stood on a far slope, listening to the same music and watching to make sure she boarded his coach.
She would not do his bidding. Let the infuriating Laird of Kinloch go about his day. No doubt he planned something illegal. Well, let him witness her form of disobedience.
Shutting the door firmly, she hurried to breakfast, hungry and eager to start another day in this beautiful glen, no matter what its laird expected of her.
Chapter Five
Drone and melodyfilled the air, cresting off the mountain and returning faint and rich, a quavering that soared over the glen. The sound filled him inside so that he need not think, nor watch for the coach rolling toward Auchnashee carrying the bright and lovely lass he would never see again.
The last haunting note faded. He set his pipes over his shoulder and walked higher on the hillside, wind sifting through his hair. Stopping along the slope, he drew a breath, set the pipes again, and propelled air through the blowstick to inflate the woolen bag and the stretchable sheep bladder inside. The bag with its four chanters had belonged to his grandfather, and its sound was rich and resonant. Tucking the full bag under his arm, he let fingertips fly over the holes along the main chant pipe. The tune was older than his bagpipe, played over so many generations that the echo sounded as if the hills themselves rang it out.
Dougal preferred playing in solitude, for his pleasure and for whatever sheep, cattle, goats, and wandering locals might hear. He did not play at weddings or funerals, nor at ceilidhs held in villages—Garloch to the west, Drumcairn to the east, with Kinloch House halfway between. The two villages at either end of the glen had a long rivalry that expressed itself at ceilidhs, kirks, ball games, and in distilling and free trading. Over generations, the lairds of Kinloch had been neutral. His father had played the bagpipes for social occasions, and his UncleFergus played for any and all. But Dougal kept the music to himself.
Keeping apart was protective, he knew, a habit developed by a lad who became a laird too soon, with the responsibility of tenants and estate on his young shoulders. Loyal in his bones to the people of his glen, he did not pipe for them, nor involve himself overmuch in their lives. Truth was, he knew he was not highly skilled at piping, not like his father or Uncle Fergus. He simply loved it.
He had learned much from his father, and after him, his father’s brothers, Ranald, Hamish, Fergus, and great-uncle Hector. Those kinsmen had taught Dougal all he knew, guiding him, all of them acting as fathers as he grew. He had learned to make whisky from his father and old Hector; to play the pipes from Fergus, the red-headed blacksmith; learned herding and husbandry from stodgy, steady Ranald; and Uncle Hamish had shown him how to repair nearly anything.
Everything but that blasted old coach, he thought. Every time he and Hamish fixed it, the old thing would start to shimmy and creak once again.
But sometimes what was broken stayed broken. Like his heart. Once hurt, it had stayed that way. First with the loss of his mother, later his father, and years later the girl he would have married. She would have kept a neat house and a kind bed for him. But she had asked him to give up smuggling. When he refused, she left the glen to marry a shepherd.
And may she be happy with her four wee bairns and placid husband, he thought. Dougal had decided he was better off without a wife.
The last note he blew rang out like a lamb’s bleat, slightly off pitch. He rested, looking down at the long loch and the pale ribbon of the lochside road. The old coach was nowhere to be seen.
After a while he saw Hamish walking along a ridge toward him, with two dogs at his heels, leggy gray beasts whose majestic, formidableforebears had ambled the halls of Kinloch House for generations. But this lazy pair, Dougal knew, wanted nothing more than to flop in doorways. Still, Sorcha and Mhor were fine guardians and amiable companions. And their presence meant that Hamish had returned to Kinloch House before following the sound in search of his nephew.
“So she refused,” Dougal said as Hamish approached.
“She did.” His uncle picked up a stick, tossed it. The dogs watched it fly, then settled at the man’s feet. “Useless beasts,” Hamish muttered.
“Fetching would make them seem obedient, and they cannot have that.”
“That lass o’ yours is not the least obedient either,” Hamish said.
“My lass!” Dougal laughed. “I did not expect her to agree, to be honest. But on the chance she saw the wisdom in it, I sent you with the coach.”
“That lass has more than a touch of stubborn in her. It was a waste of time and breath to tell her to leave. She intends to stay. And she had Mary to back her up.”
“That could be a formidable pair. Her brother is a gauger,” Dougal said. “He could bring men into our hills. She must go.” He felt a twinge of regret as he spoke.
“She is determined to open the school, and the reverend is out telling the families so. Mary spoke of it while we ate sausages at her table.”
