Once Upon a Highland Summer by Lecia Cornwall Page B

It’s a lovely day. I’ll walk out and meet them,” he said. He set the chalice on the table and strode out before the inevitable insults and angry words began to fly. It had always been that way between them, but to his surprise, she simply stood and watched him go.
    Stepping out of the castle and into the warm summer air was like coming out of a tomb. Muira said the girls had gone into the hills. He needed time to walk and think. What would he say to them? Surely they’d changed in eight years. He followed the worn tracks in the heather that had been there for centuries, carved by cattle and people, the path he’d taken thousands of times as a boy, heading to the loch to fish, or to the top of the crags to search for eagles, or hunt.
    He took off his coat, and slung it over his shoulder, and loosened his cravat. He looked around, watched the sun glint on the loch, and remembered the pleasures of swimming in the icy water at the height of summer.
    He felt a hard stab of regret at the idea of selling Glenlorne away, losing it forever. If he sold the land, he might not even need to marry Sophie Ellison. He could give his sisters dowries and go to Ceylon at last. The earldom of Glenlorne was a responsibility he didn’t want. He wasn’t a laird, or an earl, or a leader. Nor did he wish to be.
    He met no one on the path, and before he knew it, he was standing by the old tower, and could hardly say how he’d come to be here, since he’d been deep in thought and not paying attention to where he was walking.
    The tower had lost yet another chunk of wall since he’d last been here. The massive block lay in the heather at the base of the tower. The roof was gone almost entirely now. He supposed it should be pulled down for safety’s sake. It was like the clan itself—once proud and strong and high, and now a crumbling husk.
    A movement in one of the windows caught his eye. A red flag—no, a long lock of red hair—fluttered on the breeze. He saw her face, white against the blue shadows. The wind hummed an eerie tune. A ghost? His throat tightened, and he stared up at her, transfixed. Then she reached up to brush her hair away from her face, her fingers slim and solid, her eyes fixed on the horizon. Anger flared at her trespass, both on his imagination and his tower.
    How the devil did she get in? The old oak door was solid and permanently barred—at least it had been the last time he saw it—to keep out anyone foolish enough to try to venture inside.
    She was some foolish local girl, no doubt, here on a Midsummer revel, or she’d climbed the rotting tower on a dare. It had once been a favorite trysting place, especially at this time of year. Did she not understand the danger she was in? Panic gripped him. What if his sisters were also in the tower?
    He called out a command in Gaelic to come out before the bloody tower fell on her.
    She turned to look down at him, her eyes meeting his, her hair a russet tangle around her face, and he felt a shock pass through him.
    She was beautiful.

 
    C HAPTER E LEVEN
    I t was cool inside the tower, and dark. A family of doves cooed among the last few rotting rafters high above, watching Caroline curiously as the she entered. Was that what she’d heard? She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up at them. Four chicks. Beyond their nest, the roof was open to the sky. There must be other creatures living here as well. The place had a heavy odor of damp and rot, with plenty of dark corners. A massive fireplace took up the entirety of one wall, the dark maw warmed only by a few weak shafts of sunlight now. Save for the fluttering of the doves, and the jaunty whistle of the wind, the tower was silent. There were no children in peril. The thick stone walls blocked out the rest of the world, and Caroline felt oddly safe here. This place had once been a sanctuary, a home, and the echoes of that remained despite years—centuries—of disuse.
    She stepped forward, and her skirts rustled