Chapter Twelve

“So! Welcome to the One-Eyed Hare.” A big-bearded giant of a man loomed at their table, appearing almost magically as Melissa hadn’t noticed his approach.

She blinked now, for the man wasn’t easy to miss. His face was ruddy, with his cheeks almost apple-red, and his blue eyes twinkled, while his rust-colored hair matched his beard. He wore a green apron tied around his girth, and his smile was almost as bright as the two extra candles he placed on their table.

He could only be the innkeeper, Dod Swanney, and Melissa adored him already.

But after greeting her with a nod and a politely uttered ‘My lady,’ he fixed a friendly but speculative look on Lucian.

“Here for a Scottish Night, are ye?” He smiled, his eyes twinkling even more.

“We are, indeed.” Lucian returned his smile. “Can you make arrangements?”

“Here at the Hare, we’re always prepared.” The innkeeper’s smile became a grin.

“Will you be dining first?” He glanced at the finely-dressed table, then back to Lucian. “We’ll start ye with whisky, oatcakes, and cheese,” he declared, glancing at Melissa. “Then oyster soup and fresh-baked bread served with sweet, creamy butter, and our own One-Eyed Hare heather ale, followed by a rich, red venison steak with all the trimmings, including curried oysters, and to end, a variety of our best cakes, a fine port, and Atholl Brose.”

“Excellent.” Lucian nodded.

Melissa sat dumbstruck. She couldn’t possibly eat so much.

And…

She waited until the innkeeper strode away, then turned back to Lucian. “What is Atholl Brose?”

“Aye, well, ‘tis a centuries-old specialty credited to the ducal family of Atholl in the Highlands,” he told her. “Basically, it’s a delicious blend of thickened cream, heather honey, toasted oatmeal, and a dash of whisky.”

“It does sound good.” It did. Her mouth even watered, imagining how the dessert would taste.

“You’ll enjoy everything. It’s all good, wholesome Scottish fare,” he said, then paused as a serving lass in an apron and cap brought their oatcakes and cheese. He waited until she’d also served their drams, then reached across the table to tap his whisky glass against hers.

“To bonnie lasses who attend London balls with unbound hair and crones with red plaid shoelaces.”

Melissa smiled, finding his toast perfect. “And to dashing Highlanders bold enough to wear their kilts to the same.”

“Dashing, am I?” He lifted a brow, sipped his dram.

“You know you are.” She held his gaze. “I am surprised every woman in London wasn’t running after you.”

“Perhaps because you English hold us for being grumpy and dour?”

“I am half Scottish,” she reminded him, her words recalling something else…

“I really would like to put my stepmother and her daughters behind me before we journey even another mile into Scotland,” she said, not wanting their taint to follow them, sticking to her, and Lucian, even though so many miles stretched between them.

Leaning forward, she reached across the table to clutch his wrist. “Are you quite sure they will stay at your townhouse? Do you really believe they will leave me be now, not come chasing after us, hoping to ruin us or to pester you for more?”

“Aye, I am sure, sweeting.” He didn’t hesitate with an answer, and that made her feel better. “At the end of the day, all cowards slink off into the mist when confronted with their villainy. Their own backs are all that matters to them and they will do anything to preserve themselves.

“Lady Clarice knows we can ruin her, and her daughters, in an eye-blink.” He slipped free of her grasp and brought her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “She will appreciate having a fine roof over her head still, even if my townhouse is no’ so grand as Cranleigh Manor. She will no’ risk losing that security, and so neither she nor her girls will trouble us,” he said. “Certainly no’ here, in Scotland.”  

“I hope you are right.” She sat back, not entirely sure.

“I am, sweetness.”

“You do sound certain.”

“That isn’t surprising,” he said, and a shadow crossed his face. “I know something of family trouble. I have told you some of the trials and tribulations that have plagued the MacRaes of Lyongate. Conley the Lion and his ‘curse,’ and the hardships and pitfalls that have befallen some of my ancestors.”

“I know of many such tales,” she spoke true. “Every house in England that is owned by a family dating back more than a hundred years, has story upon story of triumphs and also tragedies. Good fortune, and wretched luck.

“Why should Lyongate and your family be any different?” She smiled at him, not liking the sudden seriousness of his mood. “I would be surprised if you didn’t have the odd skeleton buried beneath the floorboards.”

To her surprise, he blanched.

“My dear Melissa,” he said, his color returning only slowly. “Can it be that the sight runs in your mother’s family?”

“Not that I’m aware. Why?”

“Because, sweeting, the floorboards-skeleton in my family wasn’t buried centuries ago,” he said, and his voice was dull, flat with the weight of his words. “He was my uncle, the true laird, and he was killed by my father’s hand some years ago. Uncle Alastair didn’t want the lairdship and he wanted Lyongate Hall even less. He detested the remoteness of our lands, the wild and savage beauty most MacRaes love so much and thrive on.

“His greatest dream was turning his back on what he called ‘cold and dreary Scotland’ and absconding to the Caribbean with his lady love, a singer and dancer at an Aberdeen dockside tavern.

“To do that, he decided to sell the estate in its entirety,” he said, then reached for and drained his whisky. “His fatal mistake was to inform my father. He loved Lyongate with a fierceness that fringed on unholy, and so, to prevent his brother, the laird, from selling out, he-”

“He killed him.” Melissa saw the truth in his eyes, her heart breaking for him.

He set down his dram glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “A single dirk thrust to the ribs and the deed was done. Uncle Alastair was buried beneath the Lyongate stables and none of us knew until my father had a carriage accident and used his last breath to confess what he’d done.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head. “He’d even forged a letter my uncle supposed penned, bidding us all ‘farewell’ as he was away to Jamaica. We all believed it, too.”

“I am so sorry.” Melissa didn’t know what else to say. “It seems you do have experience with such sad matters.”

He nodded, the shadows still clouding his eyes. “So I do. I’m afraid my father even had my uncle’s mistress murdered, though we will never be able to prove that.”

“Dear heavens.” Melissa’s heart clenched. “The poor woman.”

“So she was, aye.” Lucian lifted the decanter, poured them each a fresh dram. “I believe she truly loved my uncle. She fought for him, coming to Lyongate in a fury when my uncle went missing. She insisted something had happened to him.

“We didn’t believe her.” He shook his head again. “She was informed Uncle Alastair had sailed for the Caribbean and then she was booted from our lands.”

“And then she died?”

He nodded, pulled a hand down over his face. “Her loss is one of my greatest regrets.”

“It was not your fault.” Melissa ached for him to the roots of her soul. “As I believe, she will know that, even now.”

He glanced at her, a shimmer of hope in his eyes. “You mean that, don’t you?”

“I do.

“I hope you are right, lass. I just wish I could have done something to save her.”

“You couldn’t have known, could you?” She pointed out the truth he didn’t see.

He said nothing, just peered down at his whisky.

“What was the lady’s name?”

He looked up then, lifting a brow. “Sally. She was called Sally. Why do you want to know?”

“Because…” She reached across the table again, this time taking both his hands in her own. “I am thinking of a way you might someday honor your uncle and his lady love. If it pleased you, why not name two of your children after the pair?

“Alastair and Sally,” she spoke the names, smiling now. “They can then be together again, and happily. If only as brother and sister. What do you think?”

“I think you are a remarkable lass,” he said, his own smile returning. “And I thank you.” His smile spread, putting the warmth back in his eyes. “I can see a wee Alastair and Sally running through the heather at Lyongate…”

“Then it must be so,” she agreed. “I can see them, too.”

She also wanted those children to be hers and that made her nervous for she still wasn’t entirely certain Lucian wouldn’t soon tire of dragging around an animal-loving, sometimes headstrong half-English, half-Scottish woman, and then send her packing, straight back to Cranleigh.      

He had said he’d make certain the estate was returned to her. That his London staff and his solicitor would manage everything, keeping her home safe and well-tended, should she ever wish to visit.

He’d used the term ‘visit.’

She worried he’d send her home for good – once he wearied of her.

And she wouldn’t be able to bear that.

She was also beginning to wonder about something else, something mysterious…

So she set down the oatcake she’d about to eat, then she glanced to where Dod Swanney stood behind the inn’s long bar. He was a huge soul, a great bear of man, but he did not look at all like a mystic. Nothing about him suggested magical powers.

Yet…

She turned back to Lucian. “How did he know you wanted the room called Scottish Night?”

“Because, sweet lass, this table goes along with that bedchamber.” He leaned toward her, lowering his voice. “This table, the feast he’s serving up, and the room, are part of a bridal package famed here at the inn.”

Melissa stared at him, her pulse quickening. “What are you saying?”

He smiled. “Can you no’ guess?”

“I can think, but…” She tried, her mind racing to untangle the thoughts whirring in her head. “So you truly do want us to wed? You are entirely certain?”

“Aye, and aye again.” He lifted a brow. “If you will have me?”

“You know that I will.”

“Do I?” His brow remained aloft. “Even after all I’ve told you?”

“More so now than ever,” she returned, speaking past the lump in her throat. “But…”

“Speak your concerns now, lass. Once you’re mine, I’ll no’ be letting you go.”

Heavens, I hope not.

“I am more curious than concerned,” she said aloud. “If you wanted a speedy wedding why didn’t we continue on the Old North Road to Gretna Green? Everyone goes there.”

“So they do.”

“But not the Black Lyon of Lyongate Hall?”

“Can you blame me?” He gestured to the huge fireplace so near to their table and then to the peat-hazed taproom with its thick whitewashed walls and black-beamed ceiling. “Why plunge into an overrun smithy’s ‘marriage mill’ when we could be here?”

“Why, indeed.” Her heart hammered. “And why do I think you truly mean all this?”

“Because I do.” He reached across the table and took her hand, squeezing it. “Dinnae ask me how or why I know it’s meant for us to wed, but I know it all the same.”

“I do, too,” she admitted, surprising herself with how easily the three words slipped from her tongue.

How right they felt.

“I feel it here.” She placed her free hand to her heart. “Like you, I just know. I think I did from the moment I looked up and saw you before me in the Merrivales’ cloakroom.”

He gave her fingers another, even tighter squeeze, then released her hand and sat back as the same serving lass returned with two big bowls of steaming oyster soup.

“I told you already, sweetness,” he said when the girl left them. “Stranger things have been known to happen. Always trust your heart.” His smile flashed. “And never doubt the wisdom of a meddlesome Highland crone.

“Remember that and you’ll do fine in Scotland.” He tore off a piece of the still-warm, crusty bread and handed it to her. “Such thinking will serve you even better in my own Highlands.”

She took the bread, began spreading it with the thick, creamy butter. “I still cannot believe I will even see the Highlands. Father never wanted Mother to return. I sometimes thought he feared that if she went back, even for a visit, she’d remember how glorious Scotland is and then wouldn’t want to leave.

“After she died…” She paused, her gaze on the peat fire. “Well, Father never spoke of my mother’s homeland again. And I didn’t dare because I had no wish to distress him.”

“And now you are here, about to wed a Highlander.”

Melissa turned back to him, knowing that, indeed. “Yes, and it makes me very happy.”

Because I am falling in love with you.

No, that wasn’t true.

She already did love him.