Taming the Heiress by Susan King Read Free Book Online Page A

daisies turn the machair to white and gold and the bees tumble drunken through the flowers."
    He smiled. "You love this place."
    "I do, Mr. Stewart." Beyond the meadow, beyond the dunes, the sea shushed endlessly to shore. "It is paradise."
    "I suppose the baroness agrees."
    She stopped. "You need not walk me any further."
    "I'd rather you had an escort in the middle of the night."
    "Do you think there are strange men about?" she snapped.
    He drew a breath sharply. "I think you do not like me much, Miss MacNeill."
    "Go back to your barracks, Mr. Stewart."
    "First I will see you safely home."
    "I do not need you to do that. None of us need you here."
    "I suspect you refer to lighthouses rather than a stroll at dawn. Are you by any chance acquainted with Lady Strathlin?"
    Her steps faltered, and she moved ahead. "Why?"
    "She shares your opinion of me. Her passel of lawyers would agree with you, too, I think."
    "We cannot all be wrong," she said.
    He huffed, a grudging smile at his lips, and she laughed a little as they walked side by side. Glimpsing a rock among the grasses, he took her elbow to guide her around it.
    A simple touch, but the contact went through him like lightning, a crackling awareness. Stunned, he let her go, telling himself it was only the romantic moonlight, the lush sound of the sea, the strange magic of the hour before dawn. In daylight, he would not have felt so vivid a sensation, nor would he entertain such astonishing thoughts.
    Ahead, he saw a croft house tucked against a hill. He could make out its whitewashed contour, thatched roof, darkened windows. The house faced a small bay, sparkling and peaceful in the dim light. "Is that your home?"
    "My grandparents' house. You can leave me now."
    "No need to bristle so, Miss MacNeill."
    She turned, stared up at him. A breeze fluttered her skirt and plaid shawl. Strands of her golden hair sifted loose, wafting over her brow. "I am not—bristling."
    "You," he said quietly, "are like a porcupine whenever I am near." He reached out and brushed the hair away from her brow. She leaned away. See? he wanted to say.
    "Do you know Lady Strathlin well?" He was curious.
    "Everyone on Caransay knows her."
    They stood on a rise above the croft house and its little bay, where the machair dropped away into a long sandy bank that led down to the shore. Looking at the croft house, Dougal saw that it had two wings adjacent to the main body of the house, all of it whitewashed and topped by thatch held by roof ropes. The whole formed a pretty picture with the sparkling bay while pink dawn billowed up from the horizon over the sea.
    "Is that what they call the Great House?"
    She laughed, soft and low. "That is Camus nan Fraoch—Heather Bay, we call it. My grandparents live there."
    "But you do not live here on Caransay. Do you live on Mull with your husband?"
    "My husband? I am not married. I live on the mainland."
    "Forgive me. On the beach, I saw you with a man and a small boy. I assumed they were your husband and son."
    "You saw my cousin Fergus MacNeill and... small Iain."
    He nodded, somehow relieved that she was not married. Her name had given him no clue, since Scotswomen often kept their maiden names after marriage. And since Norrie had fetched her from Mull, Dougal assumed she lived there, but she must have a home along the coast in Ardnamurchan or Moidart.
    "Where is Clachan Mor, the baroness's estate?" he asked.
    "Estate? Just a manor house. That way." She pointed. "The Great House sits at the foot of those hills."
    He saw it then, a stone manor house off in the distance, a box shape with a flat facade and a several windows nestled near a dark hill. A sandy peninsula stretched from there to the water.
    "Do you know when the baroness might come here again? Are you privy to her plans?"
    "Sometimes." Her eyes sparkled, and he felt suddenly that she knew more than she revealed. "But she values her privacy on Caransay and conducts no business when she is here. It is a