Both men pivoted on their respective heels and didn’t speak again until they were outside beneath a sky just beginning to accept the idea that it would have to turn into night eventually.
“Where are we going?” asked Ravensworth. The man might rub some people up the wrong way with his dukely imperative, but those people didn’t know him for the friend Rory knew him to be. Sebastian was loyal and protective, almost to a fault.
“To find the nearest loch to jump into.”
A laugh rumbled at his side. “Can’t think of a better idea.”
Leaving Dalhousie Manor, Rory knew three things more than he had when he’d entered.
He knew the scent of Miss Windermere.
He knew the feel of her.
And he knew that even the frigid waters of a Scottish loch in April wouldn’t be enough to wash the scent and feel of her off his skin.
Chapter Five
Next day
From her timespent here in youth, Juliet knew the Scottish sun to be a stingy one.
But not today.
Today it poured its light and warmth freely onto all who would venture beneath its yellow rays for a ramble about this wild, beautiful land.
As she took the two stairs up the stile gate, stepped over the top rail, and descended on the other side, moving from Dalhousie to Kilmuir land, a sort of freedom took hold of her. Here, alone in a field of wild buttercups, thistle, poppies, and broom, she was free of obligation to anyone or anything but her own senses. She was free to form her own impressions of field and sky. Their colors filling her eyes. Their soft, sometimes rough, textures brushing along the tips of her fingers. Their crisp, earthy scents filling her nose, her lungs. The distant whistle of a lark orbaaof a sheep providing a song for her ears.
These elements filled her heart and her soul, gave them width and depth and vastness.Nourishment.That was what Scotland gave her.
She topped a hill, and her feet had no choice but to stop, her hand held to her forehead. That view…
In the distance below stretched Baile Ìm. The manor house was composed of gray granite in the ornate style that had been popular in the last century. With its pair of turrets flanking the front entrance, steep pitched roof, and dormer windows, it was a structure meant to impress. Beyond it lay a narrow loch that ran into low hills that shone green, brown, and gold in the sun.
Figures bustled below—men, women, animals. Baile Ìm was a working estate, lest she forget. She experienced a surge of appreciation for Kilmuir, and what he was seeking to accomplish here. A year ago, he’d left London to immerse himself in something that mattered…something that lasted.
Just as words on paper lasted, so, too, did this.
Kilmuir didn’t know it, but he was making a poetry of his own here.
She followed a trail that wound through a small copse of birches, their canopy verdant green against their slender silvery trunks, and opened onto the side of the manor house that led to its outbuildings. The farmyard should have been mostly empty as everyone would’ve been tucked into their midday tea. Instead, she found it a frenzied hive of workers shouting and charging about. Even Clootie had joined in the ruckus, barking and racing to and fro.
A quick assessment revealed that a sow had escaped her pen with her piglets, who were presently squealing and streaking across the farmyard as everyone gave chase. It didn’t take long for her to pick out Kilmuir’s head of auburn hair amongst those scrambling about.
A little pink fellow with floppy black ears broke free from the group and began racing toward Juliet, his eyes wild at the prospect of freedom in the woods beyond. “Oh, no you don’t,” she said as he attempted to streak past her. She reached down and scooped up the naughty piglet who was writhing and squealing in her grasp as if she’d stuck him with a pin. “I shall call you Shakespeare, as drama appears to be your forte,” she said on a laugh.
“I’ve been told not to name the animals,” came a deep familiar voice to her left.
Juliet pivoted to find Kilmuir striding toward her with an armful of squirmy piglets and a golden lock flopped across his forehead. He was in quite the disheveled state, but entirely unbothered by it. No dandy was Kilmuir. In fact, somehow, in plain wool working clothes he managed to look entirely himself.
Over the squealing, he continued. “Naming them makes it harder for what comes later.”
“Ah.” Juliet preferred not to think on that. Still, she might pass on the pork at supper.
Kilmuir jutted his chin toward the nearest barn. Three of his men had managed to capture the sow with a noose around her neck, but she didn’t appear too inclined to follow the lead as she planted all four hooves and shifted her weight against her would-be captors. With one worker to either side of her rump, they each dug a shoulder in and shoved with all their might, pushing and cajoling her into a stall, one laborious inch at a time. At last, it was one final nudge, and she was inside. Kilmuir and Juliet bent over the pen gate and returned her piglets—the happy family reunited and free to plot their next escape.
Outside the barn, Kilmuir dusted his hands off on his trousers, his head shaking with bemusement. “That was completely unanticipated.”
“Life on a farm, I suppose.”