Lion of Caledonia(13)

“It’s the wind.” She didn’t need to know about the boy. Both his mother and Mrs. Rivers had repeated over and over: any stimulation was bad. Too many people interacting with him meant more germs and more worry. “Scotland has strong winds.”

Her mouth twisted.

There wasn’t anything interesting about her mouth either. She never wore enticing lipstick. She didn’t have alluring, lush lips that beckoned a man’s kiss. Rather, her mouth was very average. Maybe even on the thin side.

Cam couldn’t drag his gaze away from her twisted mouth. He also couldn’t drag his guilt out from the center of his gut.

“England has wind too,” she said. “That’s not the wind I’m hearing.”

He forced himself to lean on the wall by the bookshelf with lazy nonchalance. Throwing a mocking smile on, he plucked another story out of his head. “Well, then, ye might have heard Fairfeld’s legendary ghost walking about, doing his usual thing.”

Those delicate brows rose. “What?”

“You’ve not heard of our ghost?” He tut-tutted as confidence in his storytelling submerged his guilt. “I’ve been remiss.”

“There’s no ghost.” But something in her expression told him he’d caught her attention.

“They say he’s the youngest son of the last laird who lived here.” Cam nudged himself out of his loitering pose and paced to the desk, warming to the imaginary story. “It’s said he cries for his lost love, the bonnie Sarah.”

“You’re lying.” Her average mouth firmed.

He lied all the time. He’d lied from early childhood on. Lying about where he and his lads had been overnight. Lying about getting his university degree, when all along he’d been shadowing Old Ben McGee, the best war correspondent in the past twenty years. Lying to Martine about having to go back to the war zone.

Lying, lying, lying.

It had made him his fortune, though, so who was he to question the skill?

Cam leaned over the desk and stared into her misty eyes. “Who’s to say if the ghost exists or not?”

“I am.” She eased farther into her chair. “There’s no such thing as a ghost.”

He sighed, a disappointed sound. “Ye are a Sassenach, and it’s well known they have no imagination.”

A wry curve flicked her mouth at the common slur.

And that one tiny movement made his heart pump like a madman in his chest. He’d spent his life tracking the wild movements of tribes and terrorists and traitors. He’d reveled in the massive movements of rebellion and war. Only the most outrageous and outlandish made his heart beat with excitement and life.

Just one tiny movement from a mouse…

He yanked himself back and paced away.

“I still say it’s not your ghost,” she tossed the words at him as he made his escape. “It’s a human being.”

Yes, yes it was.

His son.



Jen frowned down at her gloved hands and sighed.

The sigh, unlikely as it seemed, being as she sat in the middle of a garden, was not happy.

Two weeks.

Two bloody weeks of sneaking around the giant mansion lying behind her, searching a hundred bookcases and armoires, opening a thousand drawers, peering into a million cubbyholes.

Finding nothing.

She stabbed the moist earth with the old trowel she’d picked up in the shed. Though really, she couldn’t say she’d found nothing. She’d found a ton of odd, eccentric things.

In one portion of a cabinet, she’d found an extensive hoard of marbles. In an armoire, she’d found dozens of round glass jars filled with dried leaves and grasses. Yesterday morning, she’d stumbled onto a vast collection of shells all placed methodically in boxes by size and shape.

She couldn’t imagine her employer as a man who’d save shells.

Mrs. Rivers?

Jen snorted.

Mrs. Rivers, the nonexistent housekeeper. The only clue she still existed was the fridge filled with new food every other day. Even if Mrs. Rivers did do more than stock food, she surely wouldn’t be saving twigs and grass and shells.

So who?

The memory of the crying ran through her mind. The crying hadn’t sounded female; she’d crossed off Mrs. Rivers as a likely suspect. The crying didn’t resemble her employer’s voice at all. Adding in the way he’d responded a week ago when she’d questioned him, the sound didn’t come from him.

He’d puckered his mouth and then put on a show. Quite a lively storytelling show, yet not one she believed. Add in the fact that since that moment the crying had stopped, and it pointed to someone besides Cameron Steward.

Perhaps he’d found his silly, make-believe ghost and yelled at it to shoosh, in that rich, redolent accent of his.