A Christmas Kiss for the Highlander Read online

  Only just.

  Quinn, Liam, Kendra, Aunt Louisa, and Emeline had all been wonderfully considerate and compassionate in her time of sorrow.

  What would she have done without them?

  Nonetheless, she missed Quinn intolerably.

  Those first few awful days when she’d functioned in a fog of disbelief and numbness, he’d been her rudder, providing her with his much-needed strength, stability, and reassurance. He’d encouraged her to eat, though she had no appetite, and gently insisted she take innumerable strolls around the house, the terrace, and the gardens when the tetchy autumn weather permitted.

  He’d even contrived to present her with Patches. From whence he’d procured the kitten, she had no idea, but she’d fallen in love with the fluffy darling at once. Even now, the needle-clawed bundle of mischief snoozed contentedly on the divan Skye had vacated.

  Something spontaneous, wonderful, and unnamable—magical, even—had sprung up between her and Quinn from the moment they’d met that day in September, and she’d honestly believed…

  It doesn’t matter. It’s over. He left, and he’s obviously not coming back.

  Disappointment crested in her breast, tightening her throat, and tears stung behind her eyelids. Tears she refused to shed. By heavens, she was done with weeping!

  Yet, for several labored breaths, hopelessness and loneliness overwhelmed, shrouding her in gloom. Lower lip clamped between her teeth and hands fisted in the skirts of her gown, she rested her forehead against the velvet panel, struggling not to yield to the grief that was her ever-present companion these past several weeks.

  A chill swept over her despite her simple, black, woolen gown and layers of petticoats, and a shiver scuttled across her shoulders and down her spine, puckering her flesh. The weather had turned bitingly cold and unrelentingly windy a week ago. ’Twas a wonder snow didn’t cloak the Highlands.

  “Brr.” Briskly rubbing her arms, Skye doubted she’d ever feel warm again. Truly warm and toasty. And content.

  England’s perpetual shrapnel-colored skies, damp, and fog were trifling nuisances, much like a pebble in one’s shoe, compared to the Highland’s brusque, uncompromising clime. But it was the icy deadness in her heart that chilled her to her marrow—that stole her hope.

  She dreaded never shaking her despair and that at nineteen years of age, this frigid, unyielding ache that had taken up residence in her soul would last forever. This moroseness would insidiously and stealthily become her new normal, until she forgot the gay, optimistic woman she’d been before her parents’ deaths.

  Before Quinn left, vowing to return to her.

  Turning from the elegant row of windows, she continued rubbing her arms as she crossed to the divan. She picked up the navy blue, gold-lettered leather book which had tumbled to the parquet floor in her haste. Once she’d set it on the rosewood end table, she gathered the delicate ivory shawl off the divan and rubbed it against her cheek.

  Mama made this.

  Knowing her mother’s hands had knitted the delicate covering, Skye took great comfort in wrapping herself in the soft wool.

  Patches opened her eyes for a sleepy, amber-eyed blink before tucking her half-pink, half-black nose underneath her white-tipped paws once more.

  Draping the wrap over her shoulders, Skye wandered to the fireplace and stared into the soothing yellow and orange flames.

  A weary glance to the tortoise shell Louis XIV Religieuse clock revealed half-past eleven.

  She ought to seek her bed.

  Except, she knew as well as she knew her name was Skye Arabella Louisa Hendron, sleep would evade her until the wee morning hours when physical exhaustion toppled her into a restless, weird, dream-filled slumber. She’d awake a few hours later to leaden eyelids, gritty eyes, and a head which felt full of wet wool.

  Thoughts of Quinn, adjusting to her life in the Highlands as Liam’s ward, the sudden and unexpected deaths of her parents, and what her future held tumbled around and around and around in her mind as she tried to sleep. To forget, if only for a little while.

  In recent days, she’d been sorely tempted several times to dose herself with the laudanum the doctor had prescribed when she’d collapsed upon learning she’d been orphaned.

  Papa had been recovering so well, and then—

  Skye would like to think she was made of sterner stuff; that the bitter medicine didn’t entice her to dull her pain. After all, she was half-Scots, and a heartier, more stoic people didn’t exist. But she’d been raised in Wigginton as a gentle-bred Englishwoman, and it was so very hard to appear brave and strong when her life crumbled apart around her.

  So far, she’d resisted the gentle urgings to seek the temporary reprieve the laudanum would provide. Facing her troubles with a sharp mind and acute senses was preferable.

  Sighing again, she flexed her shoulders, a brittle half-smile arcing her mouth as her musings turned to Quinn once more.

  Quinn Catherwood…as mysterious as he was striking, and the man who’d unknowingly captured her heart in the few short weeks since they’d met. Bah. He’d captured her heart that very first day.

  When the light caught his sandy-brown hair just so, distinct golden-bronze hues appeared. Lashes a much darker brown than his hair framed green eyes so pale as to be almost colorless.

  Eyes containing gold flecks and a gray-blue ring around the iris, and the slightest creases at the corners. Eyes that had flashed with mirth and, she’d been so certain, gazed at her with something more than affection. A remarkable man whose heady, outdoorsy, spicy scent she could almost smell if she closed her eyes and concentrated.

  Not overly tall—he stood but four or five inches over her own five-foot seven height—he was sinewy and strong, exuding power, charm, and self-confidence. He wasn’t arrogant, but simply a man comfortable with himself. One who didn’t strive to impress others or care excessively what people thought of him. He was unerringly kind and quite funny, too. And so very tender and considerate.

  Every detail about him was etched into her spirit for all time.

  Kissing her knuckles and holding her hand far longer than was proper, he’d promised to return to Eytone Hall in less than a fortnight. With a cocky salute, he’d lithely swung into the saddle atop Benedict three and twenty days, fifteen hours, and thirty-seven minutes ago.

  She was a naive ninny to have expected him to actually return to Eytone Hall. To her.

  Liam’s not so subtle caution that Quinn was a libertine, a roué, who called no place home and whose precise occupation was somewhat murky had gone unheeded. For she’d blithely gone and done what so many gullible young girls had before her; allowed her head to be turned and her heart ensnared by a rake and a rogue. More fool she.

  But an oh, so wonderfully, devilish, Highland rogue.

  Quinn was also a true gentleman. He’d never once pushed the bounds of propriety and tried to steal a kiss or made improper innuendos. More’s the pity.

  Mouth pursed, and vexed with her own naïveté, she shrugged, at last acknowledging the truth she’d strived to deny.

  Quinn wasn’t coming back.

  He’d only been kind to a young, enamored girl with stars in her eyes, mourning her parents’ passing. And though he might’ve enjoyed their innocent flirtation, a worldly man about town such as Quinn Catherwood wasn’t interested in settling down in England or Scotland and marrying a successful merchant’s daughter.

  Or any woman, for that matter, Liam had advised her with a good measure of compassion but also the brutal frankness that was his way.

  Never had a Christmas season—Skye’s favorite time of the year until now—loomed as dismal and dreary. She wrinkled her nose and skimmed a glance over the well-kept room. Why, the Scots didn’t even celebrate the occasion due to some antiquated law or decree.

  How could she bear December and all of the memories of Christmases past without Mama and Papa? Without the church service to celebrate Christ’s birth? The decorations and music and Yule
log and delicious foods? The gifts for the less fortunate?

  How—God and all the angels—could she bear it without Quinn?

  Oh, Quinn, my love. If he were here, the season might hold a degree of joy after all. But he wasn’t and there was nothing—

  Wait a minute.

  Mayhap…yes, mayhap, she could ask Liam and Aunt Louisa if they’d permit her a few Christmas traditions. It would certainly steer her mind from woeful musings and might even cheer her a measure. Scooping Patches into her arms and nuzzling the kitten’s soft fur, she smiled as she retrieved the book as well.

  Yes, that’s exactly what she’d do.

  Plan a Highland Christmas celebration and cease spending her evenings waiting in vain in the library.

  Chapter Five

  Quinn squinted at the moonless sky as he tromped along, leading his lame horse. He’d forsworn the comfort of coach travel and the luxury of luggage for expediency. In his haste to reach Skye, he hadn’t taken the care for Benedict as he should’ve either.

  Now the poor beasty suffered because of his foolhardiness. He slowed his pace and patted the horse’s neck. “Sorry I am, laddie. Ye ken I’d never deliberately bring harm to ye.”

  The faithful creature pushed his shoulder. Benedict had been the only thing, other than the clothes on his back, Quinn had taken when he’d left home a decade ago as a lad of seventeen.

  His heavy woolen coat, hat, scarf, and gloves did little to keep the angry, determined wind from seeping into his garments and freezing his very bones. His limbs felt leaden from fatigue and cold, and only the knowledge of what awaited him at his destination kept him trudging forward, one plodding foot in front of the other.

  Too blasted bad that, unlike Liam, he didn’t tote a flask of whisky in his pocket, or he’d take a hearty nip this very minute.

  Delayed several days in London and then almost a week in Edinburgh, he was long overdue at Eytone Hall. He supposed he could’ve written Skye but, truth be told, he’d likely arrive before the letter did such was the inconsistency and slowness of the post boys and the public postal service.

  Skye.

  So named for the Isle of Skye by her homesick mother, Skye had informed him with her usual candor. Just thinking of her warmed his innards, causing a sweet sensation similar to premium aged scotch to heat his blood and belly.

  Her brilliant eyes, as bright and clear azure-colored as a summer morning, sparkled with mischief and delight, and her hair, laced with threads of gold and champagne, formed a silky blonde halo around her exquisite oval face.

  He adored the way she wrinkled her pert nose in concentration and longed to touch his mouth to her berry-red lips that he’d barely resisted kissing for so many tormenting weeks.

  Och, aye. My bonnie, braw Skye.

  He’d known from that first devastating—slightly bashful—smile that blossomed across her dewy face that sunny September afternoon, he’d met his soulmate. Until that moment, he didn’t believe in such codswallop and numpty claptrap. He’d never jeer or mock another person or call them a clot head about love again. For when Cupid’s arrow had unerringly struck him, he fell completely, recklessly, and irrevocably in love with Skye Hendron.

  A loud, scornful snort escaped him, creating a miniature cloud before his face in the frigid air.

  Him—Quinn Broc Steaphan Catherwood—a loner with no family of his own other than his maternal grandmother, and a wanderer with no place he called home, except for the hospitality and benevolence of his friends, Liam MacKay and Broden McGregor, was hopelessly in love.

  Enamored. Enthralled. Utterly besotted with an Englishwoman. Half-English. Her mother had been Scots, the sister of Louisa MacKay, the Dowager Baroness Penderhaven.

  Nearby, something scurried away, rustling the bushes and causing Benedict to shake his head and sidestep.

  “Easy, lad. Just a rabbit or a mouse. No’ too much farther.” Another hour or so.

  Wild horses couldn’t have torn Quinn away from Skye after her parents’ tragic deaths. But in the tranquil weeks that followed, he’d appreciated he must put his affairs to rights and become above reproach. If he wanted to make her his own for all time and stood any chance of Liam accepting his offer for her hand.

  Friend or not, Liam had made his feelings very clear about his cousin. She was off-limits to Quinn’s romantic pursuit, and he wouldn’t welcome his addresses, longtime friend or not. Actually, they were more like the brother neither had. Nonetheless, he knew Liam well enough to not doubt he’d meant what he’d said about Skye.

  Quinn—Liam had said with his typical candor—wasn’t up to par by any stretch of anyone’s imagination.

  Well, the old Quinn certainly wasn’t a model gentleman.

  This newly reformed, upright denizen of society might be acceptable. By God, he’d be so pious, respectable, and decent, all of the saints—and even the Pope himself—would gaze upon him with a benign smile of approval.

  Before meeting Skye, he would’ve sworn he’d perish from boredom if required to become upright, but a life with her made the possibility something to look forward to rather than dread. “Nothin’ I wouldna do for ye, my Skye,” he murmured into the blustery winter air.

  His self-castigating chuckle rent the December night’s peaceful stillness, and Benedict twitched his ears, giving him a reproving look with his big, brown eyes that said, “Have ye lost yer bloody mind?”

  Quinn chuckled again, never having felt more alive and full of optimism. Liam might take some convincing. Nae, he’ll bloody well take a great deal of convincin’. After all, he was intimately acquainted with Quinn. Knew things about him no one else did.

  He knew the Quinn of old.

  Not the Quinn in love with Skye.

  The Quinn, who after ten years of refusing a single farthing of his inheritance, had swallowed the boulder of pride lodged in his throat and decided to accept his legacy. He’d also called upon his mother’s mother, Elspet Dunwoodie. Every bit as proud and stubborn as Quinn, Grandmama was granddaughter to an earl and Quinn’s only remaining blood relation.

  It had been almost a year since he’d last seen her, having left her drawing room on a tide of frustrated anger when she’d, yet again, suggested he was a pig-headed Scot for refusing his legal bequeathment. He couldn’t let her know the godawful truth, though.

  Aye, he might’ve been lawfully entitled to the fortune, but the means by which his father, and his before him, accrued the other portion of the familial wealth disgusted Quinn to his core. Both were men of such immoral repute, he’d seriously considered changing his surname to distance himself further from their foulness.

  They boasted to everyone who inquired—and many who hadn’t—investments in rum and sugar had enhanced their already solid financial dynasty. That piece of their tale, spun to reflect upon them favorably, contained a degree of truth. However, what they failed to mention was the other, much more profitable and scurrilous, way they’d filled their coffers.

  Home early from university, he’d ventured into his father’s office to request foolscap and ink to respond to an invitation to a house party. Unexpectedly finding the room empty, during his search for paper, Quinn had accidentally stumbled upon a journal of sorts atop his sire’s desk.

  The record not only detailed the kidnapping and transporting of children and poverty-stricken and indebted adults by ship to the colonies, but also selling them as indentured servants. The macabre diary detailed rapes and other assaults, victims killing themselves, and the horrific punishments inflicted upon any who resisted or tried to flee.

  Without a word or his father ever knowing he’d been there, he’d left. He’d never returned home, and he never saw his father or grandfather again. What he had done was send them a single letter telling them precisely why he’d severed relations with them.

  When the solicitor contacted him to inform him of his father’s death and his subsequent bequeathment, he’d mourned the latter more than the former. Quinn had expected to be di
sinherited. Disowned.

  Even now, a decade later, bile burned the back of his throat at the atrocities they committed for coin, and nausea churned his stomach that their putrid blood flowed in his veins.

  That was why as a member of a highly secret—illegal—society, he’d dedicated his life, up to this point, to the extermination of forced labor, slavery, and indentured servitude.

  But, such a life was too dangerous for a married man. Hadn’t he nearly been killed half a dozen times? Nevertheless, he’d find other methods to continue the fight to help the oppressed.

  As a respectable man of means with connections, he’d have the power to influence people. Profiting from the suffering of others was unconscionable and it must be put to a stop.

  Truthfully, he never believed the day would come that he’d put aside his fury and hatred of his father and grandfather. But for Skye, he’d walk through molten lava. His pride was as inconsequential as thistle down.

  Yes, to make her his bride, he’d willingly, eagerly, cease his wild recklessness and cede his wanderlust, for he’d finally found a home. In the heart of the most remarkable, extraordinary woman to grace God’s beautiful earth.

  Skye Hendron.

  He directed his attention overhead just as the clouds broke, and the moon’s silvery glow burst through. Almost like a good omen. A derisive grin tilted his mouth on one side. Since when did he believe in such nonsensical claptrap?

  Nonetheless, he closed his eyelids and sent up a most fervent and sincere silent prayer that he’d be blessed with his greatest desire. Since he was turning over a new leaf, now was as good a time as any, he supposed, to explore the faith in the Almighty Skye was so committed to.

  Humming a rather ribald ditty, he raised his collar higher against the mercilessly cutting wind and, hunched into his coat, tramped onward. Given the moon’s position, he guessed the time to be well past midnight. Rather rude and inconsiderate of him to arrive at Eytone Hall in the middle of the night, but he couldn’t wait one more day to see Skye.