Page 6 of A Rogue in Moonlight
“No one else wanted it,” he pointed out.
“I do not know why. It is such a lovely place,” she said, glancing around.
“Steep, rugged terrain rife with smugglers and rascals. And rocks.”
“But Patrick, if I stay in Edinburgh, I am just another spinster attending charity meetings and social events and finding dull ways to fill the time. The charitable work is interesting. It allows me to travel the Highlands to have some adventure in my life.”
“You will never end a spinster, lass, I guarantee it,” her brother said. “What does your group call itself—the Edinburgh Ladies’ Society for the Betterment of the Gaels? Haughty as it sounds, you all do good work.”
“The ladies are genuinely dedicated to helping Highlanders.”
“And delighted to have an unattached lady fluent in Gaelic who is willing to climb into the remote hills to teach English, thus allowing the other ladies to stay home and find safer ways to pass the time.”
“Some do what I do. The Deputy Lord Provost’s daughter, for one. Miss Graham—well, not unattached now, since she found herHighlander. That same notorious smuggler you mentioned earlier.” She smiled, thinking of her friend Ellison Graham, who had indeed made a good match to a fascinating, devastatingly handsome Highlander called Lord Darrach.
“That smuggler was a notorious lawyer, as I recall,” Patrick said with a chuckle.
“She would never have met him if she had not spoken Gaelic, you know. Besides, Patrick—if not for the distraction of the charity work, I would have given in to grief after Archie’s death.”
“I know. But not you, lass. You are too strong.”
“Am I?” Fiona shook her head. Very nearly a widow, in the end she was just a deeply bereaved third cousin. Yet Archie had been everything to her, and they had talked of marriage, even elopement. But she had been young, and now she was determined never to make the mistake again of loving someone so completely that she would give up her life for him, only to lose him suddenly. She should have learned to avoid hurt when her parents had died, leaving her and her brothers at such young ages.
Well, now she knew better and had steeled her heart against loving too deeply.
“Best go and meet your boat,” she urged. “I promise to return to Edinburgh by summer, with or without fairy drawings.”
“What about the required wealthy Highland husband?” Patrick lifted a brow. “Though that is a contradiction in terms.”
“We will not find one in this poor glen, that is true. I can think of many qualities more desirable than wealth in a husband—but I may yet resign myself to spinsterhood.”
“You are a lovely and intelligent lass. And you have rejected every suitor.”
Not Archie, she thought, glancing away. “Most are only interested in what I might inherit from Grandmother. Ironically, we all lack a fortune until the conditions are met.”
“Nonsense, however well-meant, is still nonsense.”
A breeze stirred her bonnet ribbons. She looked around. “It is so beautiful and mystical here that I could believe any legend about this place.”
“Not I, dear sister. How much longer will you be on this hillside?”
“A little while yet. It is a good area for fossils. They could help prove the new theory that a catastrophic flood brought primeval waters as high as these mountains.”
“I cannot imagine.” He groaned. “Ancient marine insects on mountaintops! But be careful, Fiona. Glen Kinloch is not all pretty legends. You need to be aware of that.”
“I am, sir. Go!” She kissed his cheek, and he turned to descend, waving a hand.
Retrieving a small hammer and chisel from her canvas knapsack, Fiona knelt to angle the chisel point against a rock, smacking the handle with a hammer.
Her grandmother’s intentions were not entirely demented, she thought as she wrapped the dislodged stone chunk in a cloth and tucked it in the canvas sack. She would be happy to marry a Highland man who possessed a title and fortune, provided he was a good man with a good heart.
Yet her grief over losing her fiancé and distant cousin lingered. Eight years earlier, Archibald MacCarran had died a hero on a bloody field at Quatre Bras, a day just before Waterloo. Her brother James had been injured in the same battle. In the aftermath, Fiona still carried the hidden scar of a broken heart.
But she had come to accept that she had lost a cherished dream of a husband, family, and home in the Highlands. Perhaps Grandmother had wanted Fiona to have happiness again, but no magical solution would bring that bliss back into her life. Love’s magic was gone.
She hefted the hammer and chisel again, resuming her work. A little while later, she felt a strange prickling along the back of her neck,as if someone were watching her. She paused and heard a sound like a crisp footfall.
“Who’s there?” She looked around. “Patrick?”
