All urge to merriment left her. “I haven’t had much to laugh about recently.”
“I’m sorry, Kit. I despise what you’ve been through.”
Weariness lowered her barriers, dangerously so. “You sound like you mean that.”
“I abhor bullies. But if we can keep you alive until Christmas, your toad of a stepbrother will get his comeuppance.”
We? There was something heartening in hearing him use that word. She’d held on through this long nightmare. Her clansfolk hated Neil, and their continuing loyalty to the true countess had always infuriated him. Laing and the Laird of Glen Lyon and his wife had been marvelous, too. But when Quentin MacNab put himself so unconditionally at her service, a constricted corner of her heart creaked open to unexpected hope. Perhaps there was a chance that she might prevail.
But she couldn’t altogether abandon her customary caution. “If we survive the snowstorm.”
Quentin made a dismissive sound that she felt as much as heard. Kit had never been so aware of another person’s physical presence. “Pfft. As if a mere bit of Scottish weather will defeat us.”
Chapter 6
The creak of the door woke Kit from the deepest sleep she’d enjoyed in years. She opened heavy eyes and for a moment couldn’t understand why she wasn’t in her pretty bedroom in Appin Castle, with its blue and yellow Chinese wallpaper and huge windows looking out over the hills.
Instead she seemed to be in a dark room, lit by a dying peat fire in a rough hearth. But as would be the case in Appin, she was deliciously warm. And she felt safe, as she’d once felt in her home. She hadn’t felt safe for so long that this jerked her back to reality.
Everything that had happened yesterday returned in a flash. Quentin’s unwelcome questions. The snowstorm. The long, difficult conversation in front of the peat fire. Sleeping in Quentin’s arms.
Those arms tightened around her now as the door opened and what seemed like a crowd of people rushed into the hut. The sky outside was clear and the pale blue of early morning.
“Praise the Lord you’re here and safe,” Mr. Douglas said in his deep rumble of a voice. His heartfelt gratitude at finding the two of them alive made Kit’s ears vibrate. “We feared you were lost.”
Quentin shifted behind her and rolled out of the bed to stand. Kit, agonizingly conscious of the danger of discovery, struggled back into her concealing jacket. She was so clumsy with sleep that it took her longer than it should.
“We were lucky the hut was nearby when the blizzard started.” Quentin moved around the bed and used his body to offer her a modicum of cover.
She appreciated his quick thinking. In fact, as she recalled the night just passed, she appreciated everything he’d done. True to his word, he’d made no advances. Only now when rescue arrived did she suffer a moment of sinful regret over that.
“Nephew, are ye unharmed?” Laing asked, frowning down at her with a concern that reminded her yet again of how kind he’d always been to her.
Kit looked up blearily and the crowd of people dissolved into the laird, Laing, and three of the grooms. She mustered a shaky smile, feeling more secure now she was concealed under her jacket’s bulk. “Aye, Uncle. But I’m gey hungry.”
She wasn’t trying to be funny, but her answer had them all laughing. She heard sheer relief in the humor, and she started to laugh herself.
Quentin extended his hand to help her to stand. Just like that, she was afraid.
A gentleman might assist the Countess of Appin to her feet, but he’d never offer a hand to a scruffy stableboy. She shook her head at him and saw him realize what he was doing. Instead, he grabbed his crumpled greatcoat and flung it around his shoulders.
“We’ll get you back to Lyon House for a good breakfast, lad,” Hamish said.
“Is it still snowing?” Quentin asked.
“No, it stopped before sunrise. We came out after you as soon as we could. If it was possible, we would have come yesterday.”
“You’d have risked your lives if you had,” Quentin said. “We were safe here.”
“Aye, you were,” Hamish said. “We hoped you might have found the hut. You spent so much time roaming over the estate when you were a lad, I thought you’d remember it.”
One of the grooms brought in a bucket of snow to douse the fire. The other two lifted the heavy bed back against the wall. Soon the hut would reveal no trace of Kit and Quentin’s occupancy.
Yet momentous things had happened here, things she needed to come to terms with.
“We brought the ponies so you’ll get a ride back home,” Laing said.
Nausea cramped Kit’s belly, as she realized that the real reason that they’d brought the horses was because they weren’t sure whether they’d find bodies. Scottish weather could kill. Without Quentin’s knowledge of the glen and his resourcefulness, she’d be lying frozen and stiff in some snowdrift.