Beloved Highlander

“Of course.”

Whatever feelings had gripped him on the road above the glen were gone, wiped clean. Very well, if that is how he wants it… Meg turned briskly toward the door and stepped into the Great Hall of Glen Dhui Castle with the former laird close behind her.

Gregor felt distinctly odd as he strode into Glen Dhui Castle and back in time. As if the past had shifted into the present.

The Great Hall reared up about him, chilly and shadowy despite the tall candles and the fire in the big granite hearth. The arched ceiling was in darkness above his head, but the stone walls gleamed with weapons and the heads of stags and other beasties captured in various hunts. The wavering light caught a glassy eye here and a claymore there. In the place of honor, in a walled case directly before him, was a hunting horn carved in ivory—a gift from Queen Mary herself.

Gregor felt his heart stop beating, and then restart like a drum. Nothing had changed. It was as if he had stepped out for a breath of air, rather than been gone for twelve long years.

“Captain Grant?”

Her voice steadied him. Held him safe from the maelstrom that he felt he was very close to tumbling down into. Gregor turned his head, blindly, and found her. She was standing in the door of the room his mother had always called the Blue Saloon. The candles on the table beside her bathed her in their warm light, shining on the buttons of her jacket and the glory of her hair. There was compassion in her gaze, a watchful sympathy. It turned him cold. He did not want her pity, he didn’t want anybody’s pity.

“When my father came he bought everything just as it stood,” she explained quietly. “It seemed wrong to replace what was already here—the past, the memories, the history…”

She waved her hand awkwardly, indicating the Gr

eat Hall with its stone and dark-paneled walls and gleaming weapons. “So he kept what was yours, Captain. He paid your mother, all was settled between them. It gave my father pleasure and it did no harm. I am sorry if it distresses you.”

He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. And it shouldn’t. She was right, better her father make use of the history of the Grants than it be lost, forgotten. And yet it hurt, it felt as if something had been stolen from him. “You and the general are more than welcome to my disreputable ancestors and their spurious histories,” he said coldly.

Her eyes flashed but she didn’t respond as he expected. “We can talk in here,” she said with a polite smile, and gestured for him to follow her into the Blue Saloon.

It was no longer blue.

With a huge sense of relief, Gregor strode farther into the room. His emotions had taken enough of a battering for one evening, and the changes were very welcome. There were still a number of objects he recognized, but others were foreign, and the softly ticking clock that sat upon the mantel was not something he remembered. With a sigh he turned and found Meg behind him, standing perfectly still, watching him.

He wondered what she saw in his face. He was not foolish enough to think she did not see something in him to concern her. He was not made of stone, although there had been times when he wished it were so. But whatever she saw and felt, she was not going to let him read it in her slightly wary blue eyes again.

“Meg,” he began quietly, meaning to try and explain—a little—but before he could go on, a third voice interrupted them.

“Lady Meg?”

Alison hovered in the doorway, her dark eyes anxious. “The general says he will see ye now. He will see Captain Grant after ye have both had supper.”

“Thank you, Alison.” Meg glanced over at Gregor with a faint smile. “I won’t be long. Please, warm yourself by the fire and remove your…ah, your knives and pistols.”

He felt himself smile in response. His knives, huh? Well, he wouldn’t remove all his weapons, but he would warm himself by the fire. A moment alone would be welcome, and he could gather his wits for his meeting with the general. And more important, for supper with Lady Meg.

The door closed behind her. Beyond the window, he could hear voices. The men he had ridden with from Clashennic, he thought. Where was Malcolm Bain? Well, no doubt he would find himself a bed—he was no stranger to Glen Dhui either. With a smothered groan, Gregor sank down in the chair by the fire, absently rubbing his arm and letting the comfort of Glen Dhui seep into him at last.

Meg hurried up the staircase with light running steps toward her father’s room. She tapped briefly on the door panel, and opened it.

The general was seated by the window, his back to her, staring out as if he could see the dark sweep of the glen beyond. He must have heard her, for when he turned his head, an expectant look in his cloudy blue eyes, he was smiling.

“Meg?”

“Father.”

She came to him, quickly kneeling by his chair and taking his hands in hers. His smile showed a mixture of relief and anticipation. “Is he here?” he demanded. “Did you bring him?”

“Yes, he is here.”

The general took a deep breath and his eyelids dropped down over his sightless eyes. “You have done well, Meg. Thank you.”

“’Twas not such a chore, father. He came like a…a lamb.”

He smiled again, but wryly now, for by her tone he had guessed otherwise. “I will speak with him when he has eaten,” he said, with a quiet and grim determination.