Page 47 of Rogue with a Brogue
“Dunnae apologize, my bonny lass. I’ve been imagining taking out the pins and running my fingers through yer autumn-colored hair all evening.”
In response Mary found a speck or two of lint on his sleeve that suddenly needed to be plucked at. “Truly?” she murmured, blushing prettily.
“If ye dunnae know by now how very fine ye are to me, then I’ve nae chance at all to convince ye to marry me.”
“I’m beginning to realize that I enjoy it when you flirt with me,” she admitted in her usual straightforward manner.
“And do ye enjoy me kissing ye, Mary?” he asked, moving a half step closer to her as most of the village of Wigmore milled around them.
“You know I do. I just don’t know if you’re the best solution for my troubles.”
“If ye dunnae leap,leannan,ye’ll never know if ye can fly.” As if to support his statement, the ramshackle orchestra launched into a waltz. Arran reached out his hand, holding his breath until Mary curled her fingers into his. Perhaps arguing with her wasn’t the wisest tack to take, but she valued honesty, and he valued her.
“This isn’t leaping,” she commented, placing her other hand on his shoulder.
“It is if ye do it right,” he countered with a grin, slipping his free hand onto her waist, then taking a long step forward to set her off balance. With a gasp she clutched at his hand, holding tightly as he dipped her backward, then swung her upright and into the energetic waltz.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to be doing anything that would attract attention to ourselves, Arran,” she chastised, that breathless grin touching her face again.
“Devil take it. I’m waltzing with the lass pretending to be my wife.” Or rather, the lass whowouldbe his wife if she felt for him half of what he was beginning to feel for her.
As they twirled around the room to the energetic tempo the orchestra had set, everything else faded into the background. Everything but the lass in his arms. When they’d first met she’d had every reason to fear and despise him. They should never have been able to converse long enough to discover they had anything in common, much less that they liked each other.
“Describe Glengask to me,” Mary said, her gaze lowering to his mouth. “The house, not your brother.”
“It began as a fortress,” he answered, fleetingly wondering if he would ever set eyes on his birthplace again, “so the walls are three feet thick. She stands four stories tall, gray and white and overlooking the river Dee. My grandfather had windows carved into the ground and first floors after Culloden. He said we’d lost the war with the Sasannach, so we might as well be able to watch the sunset.”
“That’s very Scottish,” she observed, her smile deepening.
“Aye. Whether he meant to or not, he made Glengask a lighter place, inside and oot. ‘They took our ability to fight, but they didnae take our eyes,’ he said.” He gave a brief smile. “My grandfather had a great many sayings. Anyway, being set on his arse made him turn his attention closer to home. To our cotters.” He hesitated. The way his clan had dealt with those dependent on them remained a major bone of contention between the MacLawrys and the Campbells. Pointing it out now while she swayed in his arms seemed extremely foolish. “Anyway, to answer yer question directly, Glengask is a large, lovely, loud old sprawl.”
“But your grandfather didn’t decide to fight the Clearances because of some windows, Arran. What happened?”
So much for diplomacy. But then Mary did tend to pursue the heart of the matter—except where her own heart was concerned. “I think he couldnae accept that we’d lost. And unlike the other clans, he’d taken to investing his fortune in Scottish businesses in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. That left us with cash as well as land. We didnae need to graze sheep to pay our Sasannach taxes. He always said the clan had kept us strong, and now we were beholden to keep the clan strong.”
“He did have a great many sayings, didn’t he?”
“Aye.”
“What you just told me is a very different version of the tale than the one I grew up hearing.”
“Is that so? What did ye hear aboot the devil MacLawrys, then?”
“That you’d unburied an old Viking hoard and used the gold to keep your army about you, so you could drive out your neighboring clans. That your brother started schools and businesses on your land to encourage the cotters of other clans to rebel against their chiefs.”
“We’re diabolical, then. Fancy that.” He drew her a breath closer.
“But there must be something aside from rumor and myth that makes us enemies.”
“Are ye still looking fer reasons ye shouldnae marry me?”
She frowned, then quickly smoothed out her expression. They were far from alone, after all. “I’m trying to decipher why your clan and mine are actually at odds. If it’s merely because a MacLawry speculated that the Campbells wouldn’t like all the cotters staying put and then the Campbells saying the MacLawrys must be out to ruin other clans because they’ve kept an army in the Highlands, then… Well, a great number of people have died for no good reason.”
Arran started to reply that of course there were real troubles between the clans after better than two centuries of feuding, but he stopped the words unspoken. Perhaps she was correct. Perhaps all the animosity had begun when her five-times great-grandfather had accidently stepped on the foot of his five-times great-grandfather and had then assumed there would be some kind of reprisal. Perhaps his own father had been murdered because one of his ancestors had overlarge feet.
“Arran? You’re not angry with me, are you? I don’t mean to belittle your reasoning.”
“I’m nae angry, Mary.”
