Must Love Highlanders by Patience Griffin Grace Burrowes Read Free Book Online

then do Arthur’s Seat.”
    His smile was shy and a little bewildered. “Right.
Grab
a bite,
hit
the chapel, and
do
Arthur’s Seat. Brilliant.”

Chapter Three
----
    Rosslyn Chapel was a cathedral in miniature, a gem of fifteenth-century extravagance intended to ensure the St. Clair family a warm welcome in heaven. Thanks to well-timed preservation work and mention in a little book by Dan Brown, the chapel also welcomed tens of thousands of visitors every year.
    “Who’s that?” Louise asked when they’d paid their fare and crossed onto the green surrounding the building.
    Liam saw nobody but— “That is the chapel cat. I don’t know his name.”
    “Even the chapels have kitties in Scotland. Do you know how lucky you are?”
    Louise picked up the cat, a well-fed black beast who, apparently sensible of the relationship between tourist revenue and his diet, began to purr.
    The cat also gave Liam a “she likes me best” look.
    Dougie had worn the same expression, last Liam had seen him. “I’ll be in the building, Louise. No photos allowed inside.”
    Without setting the cat down, Louise passed him her cell phone. “My first photo in Scotland, and I’m with a handsome, dark-haired man of few words. If you wouldn’t mind?”
    Liam had held the camera up to his eye before he realized he’d been teased. “Shall I leave that gargoyle perched on your head?”
    “You will do exactly as you please, Liam Cromarty.”
    He positioned the shot so the blue Scottish sky and the massive stone of the chapel—no gargoyle—formed the backdrop to an image of a smiling woman and a smug cat. The composition was perfect, the sort of balance that often came from careful contrivance, while the content was anything but contrived.
    Before Liam handed the phone back, he e-mailed himself a copy of the photo. An art appreciation class could learn a lot from it.
    While Louise read every bit of literature inside the chapel, and peered at length at stonework so delicate as to defy modern comprehension, Liam studied
her
.
    The lady did nice things for a pair of worn jeans, and she did nicer things for Liam’s mood. She had the knack of challenging without threatening, of offering insights instead of hurling them at him, cousin-style.
    Rather than intrude on her further acquaintance with the chapel, Liam went outside, found a sunny bench, followed his phone call from Stockholm with a text to Copenhagen, and then took out the latest of the many art periodicals he tried to keep up with.
    He was slogging through another attempt by Robert Stiedenbeck, III, to be profound and witty on the subject of fur as symbolism in American colonial portraiture when Louise joined him on the bench.
    “I suppose you’ve seen the chapel a dozen times?” she asked.
    “At least, and I’ll see it a dozen more. When I teach in Edinburgh, we bring the class here. The chapel makes an excellent starting point for discussions of the economics of art, and how art can make a different contribution to society as that society changes over centuries.”
    “They stabled horses in there during the Reformation,” Louise said as the cat leaped onto the bench. “Horses, Liam. One swift kick from a cranky mare, and wham, a detail on a carving somebody labored two years to create could have been gone.”
    Americans had had a revolution and a civil war, but without the oppression of a state religion, they were baffled by the complexity and violence of the Reformation.
    The cat walked right into Louise’s lap, with the same casual dignity as old ladies walked onto the ferry at the conclusion of an afternoon’s shopping.
    Liam offered the cat a scratch to the nape of its neck. “Fortunately, the mares were either equine Papists or more interested in their hay than architecture. What is it with you and cats?”
    “Have you ever been to Georgia?”
    “I have. Friendly place.” And the food, holy God, the food… Fried heaven, even for a vegetarian, though the accent