Hit Me With Your Best Scot (Wild Wicked Highlanders #3) - Suzanne Enoch Page 0,85
faced her. “I wasnae certain ye’d open the window at all.”
Swallowing, she took him in, six feet three inches of lean, handsome Highlander. He made her generous bedchamber look small and delicate, as if he might take a wrong step and crush a chair. But he wasn’t that graceless, or that careless. And what she wanted from him … How did one even go about saying it? “Hello,” she ventured.
“Hello,” he returned. “Ye dunnae have any food in here, do ye?”
Amelia-Rose snorted. This was Niall, after all. “Food again? No, I do not. Are you here for me, or to raid my cupboard?”
“Och, I’m here for ye, lass. I’m nae a fool, though. I ken how important propriety is for ye. Ye’re breaking the rules here.” Moving deeper into the room, he bent his head to examine the painting on her mantel, dim in the dying firelight.
“Did you do this?” he asked, glancing back at her.
She flushed. “I did. I was only sixteen, and very unskilled, I’m afraid.” It had been meant as a present to her mother, who’d immediately decided it would best be displayed in her daughter’s bedchamber.
“Why did ye choose a mountainside?”
“Everyone who paints pastorals chooses mountainsides.”
Straightening again, he shook his shaggy head. “Nae. It’s usually streams and coos—cows—and meadows. Have ye ever seen a mountain?”
“I’ve seen other paintings, and sketches. Don’t make it mean more than it does, Niall.”
“I want to show ye my mountains. The way after a snow the rising sun turns the whole face golden. The smell of pine trees in the wet. The steam rising off the pastured sheep on a cold morning. The scent of fresh bread from the village bakery. The sound of the bagpipes in the evening.”
He took two steps forward, closing the distance between them. “The lasses in the village will hound ye, asking ye to show them the fancy way ye put up yer hair. All the lairds and ladies, all the clan Ross chieftains and their families, will accidentally find themselves on the Aldriss doorstep to be introduced to ye. I reckon Lady Marmont will insist on a grand party to welcome ye, and she’ll only be the first.”
“You don’t have to try to convince me that I’ll find the same Society in the Highlands that I have here. I know it’s vast and empty. I’m—”
Niall took both her hands in his. “The Highlands is vast. My mother found it empty, but then my da nae met a soiree he cared to attend.”
She narrowed one eye. “So you, being more sociable, would magically arrange for more people to appear?” This conversation wasn’t remotely what she’d expected for tonight, but she appreciated that he took her concerns seriously enough to want to address them. What she didn’t want to hear, though, was a basketful of wishful thinking. “I don’t want pretty lies, Niall.”
He blew out his breath. For a bare, dreadful second she thought he’d given up. “I’ve nae had a day where there wasnae someaught to do,” he said finally, “someone who needed a hand with a leaking roof or cutting peat for a fire, or a mama trying to find a way to send her lad to school to train as a solicitor, or a da who received a letter from his daughter in America and needed someone to read it for him.”
“That’s nice.”
“I’m nae finished. If ye want to spend yer days at coffeehouses and shopping, then nae, ye’ll nae find that outside of Inverness. If ye want to call on old Mungo Wilkie and help him feed his chickens in exchange for a gander at the finest library in Scotland, he’ll thank ye for it. If ye want to teach some wee bairns to read or to dance, ye’ll find people willing to give ye their last bit of bread. Do ye want to be entertained, or do ye want to see what it’s like to be a Highlander?”
The bluntness of his last statement surprised her. Up until now he’d been encouraging, supportive, and good-humored. But this was important to him. After all, if they married, people would judge him based on her, and vice versa. She wasn’t the only one proceeding on faith and hope.
He released her hands. “I’ve nae wish to force ye into someaught, lass. And I know yer ma doesnae like me and willnae approve. That willnae stop me. Only ye can do that.”
“Are you … leaving?” she blurted as he turned around.