“They tasted fine, m’lady,” Iain’s wife interrupted, giving her husband a quelling look.
“I suppose they would be well enough, if a person was desperate,” Iain went
on, ignoring the look. “But they have no taste.”
Gregor hid his smile, lowering his brows sternly. “They may have no taste, Iain, but they’ll fill your belly in difficult times. Remember the last time the oat crop failed? It was in my father’s day. People in Glen Dhui died.”
Iain looked suitably chastened.
“Dinna worry,” Gregor went on. “They taste better if you mix them with milk and butter, or mash them up with kale and fish and cook them on the griddle.”
Iain and his wife exchanged wondering glances.
As they were leaving, the old woman took Meg aside. “’Tis fine that the laird likes to cook, m’lady, but ye shouldna encourage it. ’Tis no’ proper for the Chief of the Grants of Glen Dhui to be holding a pan and doing women’s work.”
Meg nodded sagely, and it was not until they had ridden away that she burst out laughing. When she told him, Gregor laughed too, but he refuted the “women’s work” claim.
“A soldier has to learn to cook for himself,” he said, “or else he starves. And the Duke of Argyll has potatoes in his garden, too. And he is just as bossy as you, Lady Meg, in making his people eat them.”
“If I am bossy, then it is for their own good,” she retorted primly.
He grinned at her back, as she rode away.
As the days passed, their usual tasks were set aside, or given to others to complete. Malcolm Bain seemed happy enough to take over the forming of their little troop, and Alison the household chores. The general slept, rousing himself in the evening to greet Meg and Gregor when they came to take their supper with him.
On one warm, still day, Gregor took Meg swimming in Loch Dhui, holding her slippery body in his arms and kissing her cold lips until she burned. Then they lay upon the smooth stones and let the sun dry them.
“I used to come here as a boy,” Gregor told her, lazily running his eyes over her naked back and the curve of her bottom. “I had my favorite places in the glen.”
“I was fifteen when we came to Glen Dhui,” Meg replied sleepily. “I spent my first summer riding, just riding. I had never been so happy. There was a cave, up on the side of Cragan Dhui. Sometimes I would sit there for hours and look down, over the glen. I still go there, now and again.”
Gregor smiled. “To watch over your subjects, Queen Meg?”
Meg pulled a face at him, and then squealed as he reached for her, his intentions plain in the narrowing of his eyes.
On the ride home, Gregor pointed out the birds and plants and animals to her, naming them all, as if he had stored the information away in his head all the years he’d been gone. His eyes glowed with a deep, quiet joy.
Anyone could see, Meg told herself, that he belonged here. The glen was in his blood. No matter what happened between them, she would never ask him to leave.
It had been a perfect day.
The late summer continued to be kind to them, the rain stayed away, and the sun shone. And Meg was happy, happier than she had ever been in her life. She was in love; she glowed with love. But despite her happiness, there was almost a feeling of bitter-sweetness about loving Gregor. She knew it could not last. He was not the sort of man to live his life with a woman like Meg Mackintosh. Sooner or later he would glance away from her and see someone else, someone more beautiful, cleverer, more suitable for a man like him.
And then she would lose him.
Oh, not physically. He would still be here in Glen Dhui, for he was the laird now, and he loved this place and like her, he took his duties seriously. But, emotionally, he would remove himself from her. He would still be kind—Meg had come to the knowledge that Gregor was a kind man. He was the sort of man who picked up little children who had fallen over, or saved wounded birds from cats. He was kind. So he would be kind to Meg. But he could not love her; he could never love her.
Not as she loved him.
“My lady?”
Meg glanced up from the lavender bush she had been pruning. The spiky flowers had long since finished, and the woody stalks needed to be cut back. She had taken a moment, while Gregor was discussing some soldierly matters with Malcolm Bain, to visit the herb garden and make the most of her time alone.
Duncan Forbes was standing on the paved path, beside a sprawling mound of thyme, looking very much out of place.
“Duncan, what is it?”
She had seen little of her tacksman of late, but she had not thought of it until now, when he was back. Perhaps he had stayed away because Gregor was here to help her in the running of the estate. Or so Duncan would think. Duncan Forbes did not believe a woman was capable of such things; they were men’s work.