"Well?"
The Laird kept his eyes on me, as did Mrs. Clyde, waiting for my pronouncement. When I looked up at them and said: "It tastes...like oatmeal," they both smiled approvingly.
"Yes, it has oatmeal in it, too," Mrs. Clyde said, setting down a mug of hot tea beside my plate.
She and the Laird fell into a conversation I pretended not to listen to as I sat back down to finish my breakfast. There were a lot of references to a Diane and to Cameron, the Laird's four year old daughter and my soon to be charge. Without noticing what I was doing I just went back to looking at the Laird. He was a very big man - noticeably big, tall enough to take note of even if I'd only seen him on the street. Six foot four? Six foot five? Something like that. He was wearing a pair of dress pants and a button down shirt, both of which managed to do an almost painfully good job of revealing the fit, well-muscled build of the man beneath them. When he turned to the counter to take one of the oatcakes Mrs. Clyde was offering I shamefully couldn't stop myself from checking out the rear view: shoulders so wide all I could do was imagine what running my hands over them would feel like and a round, firm ass that looked perfect in the dark dress pants. When he turned back around I quickly looked back to my food, terrified he'd seen me looking.
He didn't show any hint of having noticed my ridiculous behavior, though.
"I'll see you again tomorrow, Miss Robinson, when Cameron returns from London."
"Yes. It was nice to meet you..." I paused, realizing I had no idea how to address him.
"Darach," he said, "I know you Americans aren't ones for formalities and to be truthful neither am I. Darach will do."
Then he was gone and I had to do my best to keep any hint of disappointment out of my expression so Mrs. Clyde wouldn't notice it.
"Aye, he's a handsome one isn't he, Jenny? You'd best not pay any heed to how fair he is lassie, because he's in no position to be looking for a wife - he's already got one down in London and she's a handful."
Ugh. Of course. That must be who Diane was. I did my best to eat the rest of my breakfast but it was too much. Mrs. Clyde seemed pleased anyway, smiling at me as she cleared away my plate:
"Well done. That'll help you get over the jet-lag. I've got a few more things to do for dinner tonight but when I'm done I'll show you a little of the house if you like."
I smiled at her repeated insistence on calling Castle McLanald a 'house' and accepted her offer of a tour. She told me that in the meantime I could go for a walk in the grounds and I decided to do just that - the sunlight was too warm and inviting and I was eager to get a feel for the place that would be my home until September.
Chapter 3
I ran into a groundskeeper in muddy boots as I was wandering rather aimlessly around the garden that sat in front of Castle McLanald and asked him how far I could walk without leaving the property. He laughed out loud.
"You'll not be leaving the property, not for a good few hours of walking, at least."
A few hours. So the McLanald's didn't just own a castle, they also owned all of the land I could see sprawling out around me.
The castle itself was set on the highest point of the landscape and surrounded by carefully tended gardens. As those gardens came to an end the land turned wilder - it was down a narrow footpath into one of the less-groomed areas that I turned, woken up by Mrs. Clyde's tea, my fresh-aired surroundings and, probably most of all, my encounter with the Laird. Handsome men aren't a complete rarity in New York so I wasn't sure what exactly it was about the Laird that had me so intrigued.
Darach. Darach, yes, that's what he'd asked me to call him. Even his name felt exotic and thrillingly foreign to my mind. He had presence that went beyond his Viking-like good looks. It could have been his position or his money but it felt like something specific to him, something that would be there whether he had five dollars to his name or five billion. And why was I already daydreaming about someone I'd just met - my married employer, no less?
Typical. Go abroad to experience a new culture and a new country and within twenty-four hours I was already focusing on a man. I did this during my freshman year at college, too, with my first real boyfriend - Jordan. Classes, studying, exploring the city - all of it had taken a backseat to a relationship that ended up being embarrassingly unworthy of my attentions. When my grandmother got sick it took Jordan less than a week to decide he "couldn't handle" the situation and bolt. Ever since then I'd worried about my tendency to get too attached to people - well, to men - who simply weren't very attached in return.
Hell, one of the main reasons for coming to Scotland was to learn to be more self-reliant - more comfortable with being alone. The last thing I needed was a schoolgirl crush. What would my grandmother think of this place? What would she think of me in this place, reverting back to old habits before the jet-lag had even worn off?