Page 29 of A Rogue in Moonlight
“True.”
“Though if she should meet a few rascals out in the hills, she might think better of staying,” Fergus said. “I can send Arthur and Mungo to visit her.”
“I would not trust those two near her.”
“Then we will all have to behave like a flock of angels, so she hasno tales to carry to her brother.”
“We could try that,” Dougal mused. “I had best go welcome her, being the laird.”
“Aye. Och, I near forgot. The school roof needs work.”
“Again? We repaired it last fall when it leaked after the rains.”
Fergus shrugged. “The place is old.”
“We need new thatch and new beams,” Dougal said.
“We need a new building,” Fergus grumbled.
Dougal watched her cross the hill toward Kinloch House and the school. “We need much in this glen,” he murmured.
“She is a bonny lass, I will say,” Fergus mused as she came closer. “Perhaps we can let her enjoy our pretty glen for a bit, and then we will send her away.”
“Just do not scare her,” Dougal muttered.
*
“I am sureyou will enjoy being in Glen Kinloch,” Reverend MacIan was saying as he walked beside Fiona. “We are so delighted that you came up from Edinburgh.”
“Thank you again,” she said. “Though I suspect not everyone is glad I am here.” She glanced across the hill, seeing the glen’s laird standing on the ridge, arms folded, watching the stream of people heading for the school.
“Kinloch? He has pressing matters on his mind, I imagine.”
“So I gather. Mr. MacIan, let me thank you and your grandmother again for such a nice welcome.” She lifted her face to sunshine and the cool breeze. “It is a lovely morning, and I am looking forward to working with the students. So the school is near the castle. I did not realize. Is that Kinloch House?”
“Aye. It is an old tower house. A small castle. The schoolhouse is just there.” He pointed toward a whitewashed building with athatched roof a little distance past the stone tower. Both were nestled in the lee of a broad hillside, where the slope flattened out, protected at the back by a high sweep of forested hillside. Beyond the sandstone tower, the schoolyard was filling with people.
Now the laird of Kinloch was striding toward the yard. Earlier, she had seen him standing apart with an older man. Even from a distance, she had sensed MacGregor’s gaze so keenly that she had stopped, transfixed, distracted. Seeing him now, she clutched the packet of papers and books close, as if to remind herself why she was here and what she should be doing, rather than let this man’s mere presence make her heart tumble so.
“There’s Kinloch, and one of his uncles,” MacIan said.
“Another one?”
“They all live in the tower house, have done since the laird was a boy and inherited the estate after his father’s passing. Your class is gathering. Come and meet your students. In Glen Kinloch, the school session begins when a teacher comes to the glen, and ends the day the teacher leaves.” He smiled.
That would be tomorrow if Kinloch had his way, Fiona thought. “I understand most Highland schools are only in session six months out of the year.”
“The students must take time off seasonally to help their families with planting and harvesting, and to help take the cattle into the hills in summer to graze. We cannot afford the yearly fee to retain a dominie permanently, so we must rely on the Highland societies to send teachers for a few months at a time.”
“The last teacher sent by the charity stayed only two weeks, I heard.”
“She changed her mind. The glen was too remote for her taste.”
“Too much smuggling?” She glanced at him.
He shrugged. “Who knows? I heard she had a terror of ghosts and fairies.”
“I am intrigued by such things and would not run from them.”
