The Highlander's Maiden. Elizabeth Mayne

and brief. There was no artifice involved, no courtly posing or showing of the leg, which would have been ludicrous given his state of undress.

      Twelve thick candles gathered in a fold of her cloak, Cassie shut the door of the stillroom firmly behind her and hurried back to the hall. She set each candelabrum on an imaginary line bisecting the long table. By then Sybil and Dorcas had come to put out the cold platters and tankards and silver.

      Cassie hurried upstairs to see to her own toilette.

      She unlaced her stays and shed her day dress, changed into a clean, ironed shift and scrubbed her face with mint water and coarse oatmeal to bleach her freckles. It never helped. Neither did vinegar nor great quantities of fresh cucumbers in season nor any of the exotic creams the Gypsies concocted or the tinkers sold. She powdered the worst of the spots and smoothed the rice powder onto her throat and shoulders with a soft puff of cotton lint.

      She shook out her best gown and pulled it over her head, settling it down her chest and belly. Dorcas came to tie up her laces just as she picked up her new embroidered stomacher to put on over the gown.

      “Is it time?” Cassie asked.

      “Not yet,” Dorcas said. She pulled the stomacher tight and threaded the laces with nimble fingers, drawing the corsetlike outer garment snug across Cassie’s breasts and stomach.

      The tight serge weave of the navy wool gown suited Cassie’s coloring, darkening her pale eyes and making the pure white linen of her cuffs and shift look pristine and white. Cassie sat so that Dorcas could tuck her slippers over her heels and do up the laces. It wasn’t possible to bend forward so much as an inch in the stiff stomacher when it was laced.

      “Did ye hear that one of those surveyors is a Sassenach?”

      “English, you say?” Cassie tilted her head, managing to feign surprise. “Which one?”

      “‘Tis the stout one, Hamilton. The handsome one is a Gordon, a Scot.”

      “Dorcas—” Cassie brought her head close to the woman’s to whisper emphatically “—you dinna think they’re here to forage out MacGregor’s gold and slit our throats in the dark of night?”

      “Och, Lady Cassandra.” The elder clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Dinna be teasin’ me like ye do the bairns. I’m too wise for yer tall tales. Here, let me put a brush to yer hair.”

      “I’m only teasing because you well know that Hamiltons have been notoriously breeding sons and daughters openly in Scotland since the Norman conquest, even if they do have the appalling habit of kidnapping rich English heiresses for brides.”

      “Humph,” Dorcas grumbled. “Those that claim to be Scottish are Lowlanders.”

      “So now it’s only Highlanders that deserve to be counted our countrymen?”

      “There’s no much difference between a Lowlander and an Englishman, is there?” Dorcas said firmly.

      “Aye. I hear tell they both get in and out of bed the same way,” Cassie agreed, but added a codicil in a delicious gossipy whisper. “One leg at a time.”

      “Lady Cassandra!” Dorcas tugged the brush against Cassie’s scalp. “Ye shouldn’t be talkin’ of such scandalous things, or thinkin’ them either. And mind that those bairns don’t spill anythin’ on this fine gown. ‘Tis lovely enough to wear to the crowning of the king.”

      Cassie didn’t think so, but it was good that her abigail did. “Thank you, Dorcas, I’ll do my best not to make a mess of it. You needn’t bother with brushing my hair too much. I’ll wear it braided tomorrow for the journey home. I want to get an early start, before the house has a chance to rouse, mind you, so pack tonight, please.”

      “‘Tis glad that I am to hear that,” Dorcas declared. “And will ye be telling Lady Margaret that you’re going?”

      “Aye, I’ll tell her at supper. See that’you keep my plans secret from the surveyors,” Cassie said unequivocally.

      “So I will do,” Dorcas snapped, giving her a puzzled look. “I’m glad of that.”

      “Why’s that? You never like going back to Castle MacArthur any more than I do usually.”

      “Very well, if ye must know, Lady Cassandra, I don’t want the responsibility of ye being in the company of a Sassenach.”

      Cassie chuckled. Dorcas thought she wanted to escape poor Alexander Hamilton when nothing could be further from the truth. He wasn’t the surveyor whose company would bother Cassandra at all. Robert Gordon, on the other hand, bothered her a great deal. She didn’t understand why, not yet, at least. Nor did she want to stick around and find out. “Betwixt us at dinner, we’ll probably scare the poor man back to London before the pudding is served,” Cassie said, and gave her abigail’s hand a squeeze.

      Dressing and grooming done, Cassie went down to her sister’s hall, wondering how this evening at Glencoe Farm would turn out. If Maggie sat poor Alex Hamilton anywhere near Dorcas, he’d likely not get through the meal without getting a dirk stuck in his heart.

      

      To Cassie’s great disappointment, supper turned into more of a trial than she’d bargained for.

      Nothing had prepared her for Gordon’s appearance in Euan MacGregor’s hall. Granted the impact his eyes had made on her at first glance should have given her a clue, but eyes were only one of a dozen or more features that could attract a woman’s heart.

      From somewhere in that tinker’s pack of overstuffed saddlebags, Robert Gordon had pulled out a spotless lace-edged cravat and tied it around his throat with continental flair that was more suited to the king’s court than a hillside farm. Likewise, a set of beautiful cuffs spilled out of the sleeves of an elegantly cut black jacket. The knife-edge pleats of his kilt set off the lean lines of his tall form perfectly.

      His beard-stubbled face had been scraped clean, his hair pulled back into a tightly bound queue. All in all, he quite took Cassie’s breath away.

      His hands elegantly punctuated his words every time he spoke. Swallowing food she never tasted, Cassie watched him as surreptitiously as she could, fascinated, but not wanting anyone at the table to guess how intrigued by this man she really was. Robert Gordon had transformed himself from a vagabond to a peer of the realm in the space of three quarters of an hour.

       And he had kissed her.

      Cassie found herself blushing to the roots of her hairline. Thank the Lord no one noticed. Even Maggie was much too entertained by the humorous anecdotes the surveyors told of their travels and travails while measuring Scotland.

      Listening, Cassie realized very quickly that she was in the presence of a master in the art of dissembling. Robert Gordon never gave one hint why mapping the Highlands was so important to him any more than he missed savoring a heaping serving of the excellent foods put in front of him. Nor did conversation ever stray to what purpose their patron, the Marquess of Hamilton, had in mind for funding their audacious endeavor either.

      “Why must ye make a new map of Scotland? What’s wrong with the map we have?” Millie’s clear soprano voice sang out, directly asking the question they all wanted answered.

      Robert Gordon laid his hands flat on the table beside his empty plate, turned to Millie and answered her in a serious voice. “Because all maps of Scotland are wrong.”

      “How do ye know they’re wrong?”

      Children, Cassie knew, would do almost anything to escape being bored. She wanted to applaud her niece, but a quick check of Millie’s parents’ nettling brows kept Cassie silent.

      “That’s a very good question, Millicent.” That he remembered her niece’s name took Cassie aback. “How do you usually know if something is wrong, Millie? May I call you Millie?”

      Now he had Cassie’s undivided attention. Men rarely took notice of curious