Page 35 of The Lyon and the Unicorn
Clara was older than most young women—the duchess had let slip that her daughter was nearing twenty-seven—yet she had a youthful innocence that reminded Murdo of a child, with her wide-eyed enthusiasm of the countryside about her home.
“Careful, lass!” he called, as she neared the edge of the wall.
“Come and see!”
He caught up with her and took her hand. “Do ye want me to die of fright?” he said. “I couldn’t survive if ye fell—yer father would finish me off.”
“I want you to see,” she said, pointing over the wall. “That’s where Mama fell. Papa Harcourt climbed down to rescue her.”
Murdo approached the edge. The wall fell sharply to the ground some twenty or thirty feet below, where a huge rock jutted upward, its jagged edge glinting sharply in the sunlight. He shuddered at the thought of the duchess tumbling over the cliff edge.
“Devil’s ballo—” He checked himself. “I mean, it looks treacherous.”
“I wanted to show you how brave Papa Harcourt is, for all that he’s a duke,” she said. “He climbed down in the middle of a thunderstorm to rescue Mama.”
“What was yer mother thinking going out in a thunderstorm?”
Clara lowered her gaze. “She was looking for me. It happened shortly after I came to live here.”
“Ye’d got lost on the moors?” he said. “Och, lass, that were foolish in a place ye weren’t familiar with. A young lad did the same near Strathburn, went for a walk in the glens and disappeared. Duncan, our ghillie—”
“That’s a gamekeeper, isn’t it?” she said. “I heard you telling Cornelius.”
“Aye,” he said. “Duncan’s as stoic as they come, but even he was reduced to tears. He found the lad’s body two days after he went missing.”
Murdo shuddered, his soul aching at the thought of Clara coming to harm. How had this strange, wild lass weaved her way into his affections such that even the notion of her being in danger sent a spike of fear through him?
Her eyes glistened with tears, and he pulled her close. “Lass, there’s naught to be ashamed of—we’re all a little reckless at times.”
“I wasn’t just reckless,” she said. “I’d run away. I behaved so badly when I first came to live here. I wanted to hurt my mother, and Papa Harcourt. But now I only want to make them proud.”
“What an extraordinarily frank creature ye are!” he said. “Most lasses would conceal their sins to deceive a man into believing them to be perfect. Are ye trying to make me dislike ye?”
“Doyou dislike me?”
“Absolutely not, Clara.”
He curled his tongue around her name, and she parted her lips. Then she colored and looked away.
“I know I say too much,” she said. “Mama said last night after you left that I shouldn’t have told your cousin about the day I let the chickens out by mistake.”
“If I recall, it was yer brother Cornelius who started that story.”
“No, that wasNathaniel,” she said. Then she let out a giggle. “You called him Cornelius all afternoon! I wanted to point out your mistake, but Nate thought it so funny that he played along with it.”
“How do ye tell them apart?”
She tilted her head to one side. “Corn’s nose is bigger than Nate’s.”
“All well and good if they’re standing next to each other and permit me to measure their noses.”
“Corn’s the sensible one,” she said. “Nate’s more likely to play a trick or say something silly. Corn’s the heir, so he has to be responsible. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re the son of a duke.”
“And when ye’re the daughter of a duke—must ye be sensible also?”
She looked away, gazing over the wall, toward his homeland.
The land where he hoped to take her and claim her as his.
