Page 21 of Highlander's Secret Heiress
Alyth looked sad. She shook her head and said, “No, I do not, but I’m sure Heather can find out.”
Heather was the one who always solved mysteries and rooted out secrets faster than a bloodhound on the scent of a criminal.
“I will have the name before bedtime!” she said determinedly.
They all laughed and began to eat their breakfast again, but just then, Maisie came in with a large sheet of paper in her hand.
“Mornin’, lassies,” she said pleasantly. “Ye have heard that the Laird has some guests comin’. Well, quite a lot o’ guests, actually, so there is an awful lot o’ cleanin’ that has tae be done! A’ the bedrooms above the Great Hall an’ the ones leadin’ tae the chapel need tae be done—an’ I mean really scrubbed!”
Everyone groaned, but Alyth was glad that she would be cleaning and making up guest-bedrooms for the next few days. These were farther away from the busiest parts of the castle and less likely to be seen by the Laird.
She was also happy to know that she would be able to search for the pendant undisturbed, since she knew that the maids had a room allotted to each of them, and did not share one between them. At the end of the day, Maisie would come to inspect their work, and if it was not to her satisfaction, they would have to do it again.
Alyth resolved to do her work as quickly as possible and sneak away to where she thought Lachlan might have hidden a piece of jewellery.
Could it still be in his wife’s bedchamber? Alyth knew which room it was, since she had been about to search it when she first came to the castle, but she had been moved on to other duties and the opportunity had been lost. However, she was deeply disappointed to find out that the room had been tightly locked up, and a guard was posted outside it. Lachlan Carrick was apparently protective of his wife even after she was dead.
While she was doing that, Alyth searched every room that she cleaned without much hope of finding the jewel. No doubt, Lachlan Carrick kept it in a place where no one else would think to find it—not in a chest or a secure vault, but hidden somewhere that was the last place anyone would search.
She was beginning to understand the way his mind worked now; it had not been too difficult. Like most men, he was completely vulnerable to seduction, and Alyth was planning to use that to her advantage. After she had achieved her objective, however, she planned to flee back to her father, whom she was sure would have given her up for dead by now. She had wanted to get a message to him, but could think of no way of doing so without attracting unwanted attention.
Alyth had been working so hard she had not had time to see Davina, which saddened her because she had become fond of the little girl and missed her very much. By the time Alyth was finished in the evening, Davina was asleep and there was no chance to read her story to her.
Three days passed like this, but on the fourth, one of the guards came striding towards her as she was washing the floor of one of the passageways. Alyth was about to give him a piece of her mind when he held a hand up and said, “The Laird wants tae see ye, Jeannie.”
“Me?” she feigned surprise. “I wonder what I have done wrong?”
The guard stared at her. “I’m sure it’s nothin’ tae worry about, hen.”
Alyth nodded in agreement, although she felt deeply apprehensive. She made her way down to the courtyard, where she found Lachlan and Davina seated together on Lachlan’s grey stallion. There was another horse nearby, a much smaller chestnut mare.
“Jeannie!” Davina called.
Alyth felt a leap of joy in her chest as she strode over to the little girl. “Such a great voice ye have there, Davina,” she cried.
Lachlan regarded them both with an unfathomable expression as he heard Davina’s speech. He knelt on the ground to look into her eyes, and Alyth had a fleeting glimpse of a tinysmile on his face, but it disappeared almost at once. It seemed to Alyth that he wanted to be happy, but was afraid that it would be snatched away from him again. That was supposition, of course, because his inscrutable face gave nothing away.
As she studied him, he glanced up and met her gaze. Alyth panicked and looked away hastily, feeling utterly terrified. How was she going to cope with a situation like this after what had occurred between them? She was sure that he regretted their kiss, but was too embarrassed to say so. Accordingly, she decided to act as though nothing had happened; it was not as though it were going to happen again, after all!
She took a deep breath and asked: “Are you going somewhere, M’Laird?”
“Davina wants to go and see if there are any snowdrops and heather about. She loves heather, especially white heather, so we will go in search of some since it will make you happy, eh, miss? She would like you to come with us.” He looked back at his daughter, and she giggled.
“I will be happy to,” Alyth replied, smiling. She felt jealous of the great love they shared, which was obvious every time they looked at each other. She mounted the mare with the aid of one of the guards, who made a stirrup with his hands for her. She wondered how Lachlan had guessed she could ride, though.
“I know you cannot probably ride well,” Lachlan answered her thought. “But we won’t be going more than a few hundred yards away, and the horses will only be walking.”
“Thank you, M’Laird,” Alyth said, with a bob of her head.
In fact, she could ride better than many men she knew, but now was not the time to tell that to Lachlan Carrick.
They rode for a short-distance away from the castle, and the land began to slope downhill. The sun was bright that day, and the tough winter heather showed a brilliant pinkish-purple in its glare. A stand of trees stood a little farther away, and Alyth knewthere would be snowdrops there. Apparently, so did Davina, since she ran to Alyth as soon as they both dismounted and grabbed her hand before running into the spinney to bend over a little patch of the tiny white flowers.
Alyth was glad when she saw that Lachlan was tending to the horses and not following them. Since the morning of their kiss, she had not been able to stop thinking about it, the firm pressure of his lips, his tongue stroking hers. She had never been kissed before, and was almost ashamed to admit that she wanted more; not just more kisses, but more of Lachlan himself.
However, she was confused. The sides of him that she had seen were so different; on one hand there was the tender, loving father, and on the other was the fierce warrior who had almost scared her to death.
And there was yet another side too, the broken part that he kept hidden inside, and which she had only seen a few times. This part of him was so vulnerable that when it was touched, his temper flared into a fiery rage in self-defence.
