Harry rode hard and fast, with Sampson as his stalwart ally. But a mail coach was driven by six fast horses, and as valiant as his stallion was, even Sampson had to stop for sleep. So Harry spent three less-than-peaceful nights on the North Road, in the best accommodations that money could buy. As he traveled North, he found fewer and fewer people impressed with his station, but more than one man impressed by the strength of his handshake.
On the fourth morning, he finally passed through Aberdeen only to discover that, in the Highlands, to an outsider at least, one glen looked much like another.
There were no highway robbers as in days of old, for it seemed the King’s Peace held this far north after so many years of hard-fought war. That was just as well, for in the mood he was in, Harry might just dispatch a bandit and have to stand trial in the Lords for murder.
Along those lines, he spent the last morning of his ride contemplating getting his hands around a pretty Scottish neck. But the fantasy soon turned to thoughts of pulling his woman beneath him in some soft, heather-flowered spot, where there were magically no thistles to prick his skin and no family to pry into the debauchery he was perpetrating on their only girl.
He had better get his ring on her finger first.
Harry had decided on the second day as he rode through rain and thunder that he was putting his ring on her finger, will she or nill she. Mary Elizabeth was a woman who knew her own mind and who loved her homeland. He did not object to any of that and would even support her in it. But he would not let her run away from him again.
As he entered the Highlands proper, he began to see why she had run away at all. The land’s majesty and grandeur surpassed anything he had ever seen, and the clean, crisp air carried the scent of her skin on it, which, for the first time, he realized was the scent of heather.
When he found a gatehouse with no gate and no wall, with a little girl in honey-blonde curls standing beside it, he slowed Sampson’s paces. He waited to see if his horse would balk to see such a pretty, tiny thing in his path, but Sampson acted the true gentleman that Mary Elizabeth had always claimed him to be.
The great stallion stopped when Harry asked him to and did not flinch when the little girl—who could not have been older than nine—stepped forward and whistled.
Sampson’s resolve was tested almost at once, for a tiny, white dog bounded out of the heather along the roadside and ran at them as if they were a marauding army come to claim his mistress. Sampson stood his ground and watched the dog warily. Harry patted his neck and promised him a bite of sugar.
“Sugar will rot your teeth,” the little girl said.
“Too much certainly will,” Harry agreed. “I only give him a touch of sugar, now and again, to keep him sweet.”
Sampson snorted at this blatant falsehood, but settled down at once when Harry stroked his neck.
The little girl stared up at him with maple eyes very like the ones he had fallen in love with. She was a good deal shrewder than any English child he had ever met, it seemed, for all her slight age. She took him in with one long look, and his horse with him.
“You’ve come for Mary, then,” she said.
“I have,” he answered. Harry felt unaccountably rude, staring down at the little miss from so far above her head, so he swung down, keeping Sampson’s bridle in his hand. For once, the horse did not seem interested in the greenery all around, but had become focused on the girl at his feet.
Unafraid, the child reached up and patted Sampson’s nose, a liberty which the stallion immediately allowed. When the beast did not look to bite her, she stepped closer and rubbed his neck, finding his favorite spot quickly.
“You’ve a fine mount,” she said. “And you must love Mary if you’ve come all this way alone.”
“I do,” Harry answered. He stood and let her inspect him a bit longer. Henry Charles Percy, Duke of Northumberland, had never submitted to anyone’s inspection in his life, but he did so now, waiting almost with bated breath to see if he would pass muster.
“Well then,” the girl said, her decision made, “I’ll show you where she is. You’ll never find her otherwise. Davy can never find her, even when she’s in plain sight, on account of he always has his head in a book.”
“I see.”
Harry felt his heart sink a little and wondered if this Davy was a beau she had left back home, some swain he had never heard of before. He shored himself up and told himself that it didn’t matter. Mary Elizabeth was his, and no backwater Scot was going to keep her from him.
Before she took him any farther, the girl made a little curtsy, one that would have done his mother proud. “I am Connie,” she said.
He bowed. “I am Harry.”
She smiled for the first time then, and whistled once. Her little, white dog stopped circling Sampson and came and sat beside her. “This is William Wallace. He is a fierce warrior, though he is small.”
Harry had never been introduced to a dog before. He was not certain of the proper mode of address, but he soldiered on. “Hello, Mr. Wallace.”
Connie’s smile widened, though she did not laugh in his face. Harry supposed that she was being polite. She said, “You may call him William Wallace. He likes both of his names together.”
“All right, then.” Harry offered the dog his hand, wondering if he was like to lose a finger, but after a cursory sniff, the little dog licked his fingers once, then trundled off into the thicket.
“Where is he headed?” Harry asked.
“The same place we are. Off to see Mary Elizabeth. He knows she’s fretting, and he likes to keep an eye on her.”
“Is she fretting?” Harry fell into step beside the girl, leading Sampson as he went. To his eternal gratitude, they did not follow the dog into the bracken, but strolled along a path beside a small stream.
Connie gave him a measured look. “She is pining. Most likely for you. Guard her heart, or I’ll gut you, guest or no.”
Harry placed one hand over his own heart. “I give you my word of honor, her heart is safe with me.”
Connie sniffed. “All right, then. I’ll take your word, even though you’re English.”
They walked companionably in silence then, for Harry had no answer for that.
He found his girl sitting by the river, fishing with a well-worn line and pole. She was not looking into the water or watching her hook, but was staring into the distance, where he could see a line of mountains far off.
“Mary Elizabeth,” Connie said. “Your beau is here.”
Mary dropped her line and pole into the water, where they swirled away, whatever trout she had been hoping to catch gone with them. She did not heed them, but jumped to her feet and looked at him where he stood over ten feet away. His girl did not hesitate, but ran for him, leaping into his arms like a monkey, clinging to him as if she would never let go.
“Harry,” she said. “You’re here.”
He did not take notice of her little cousin or her dog, but kissed the woman of his life, his heart pounding in his ears. Sampson nudged him then, to remind him of his manners, and tried to separate the two lovers in order to get Mary Elizabeth all to himself. Harry set Mary Elizabeth down before Sampson knocked them both into the river, and Mary reached out and patted the horse’s neck. She did not keep her hand on the stallion long, but wrapped her arms around Harry again.
“I’m sorry I left you,” she said. “I love you.”
“I love you. Thank you for the poem. Was that supposed to tell me that you were coming back?”
“It was. I was. I needed to come here first, to think. But I should have brought you with me.”
Harry felt his heart lighten a little more, and he kissed her temple. “That would have been a bigger scandal.”
“I’m a walking scandal, or haven’t you heard?”
“Now that you mention it, I think I did hear something about you and the Earl of Grathton and a duel in Hyde Park.”
“It was no duel. I drew on him. Grathton would never draw a weapon on a lady.”
Harry tried his best not to laugh. “His lordship is too well-bred for that, I suppose.”
Connie cleared her throat then, and Mary Elizabeth turned to her, not leaving Harry’s arms. He pulled her closer just for good measure and breathed in the scent of her honeyed hair.
“You’ve lost Uncle Seamus’s favorite fishing pole,” the little girl said.
Mary Elizabeth moved to go after it, for the line had caught on a rock and stopped the pole’s stately progress down the stream. Harry tightened his grip, and his girl subsided, content to stay in his arms, at least for the moment.
“I’ll buy Seamus a hundred poles,” Harry boasted. “Never fear, Connie.”
The little one looked at him askance. “He doesn’t need a hundred. And that one is his favorite.”
William Wallace followed her as she plucked the pole from the drink. The line was good and snarled, so she cut it free with a wicked blade she had hidden somewhere about her person. The knife was sheathed and tucked away again just as quickly as it had appeared, and Harry blanched.
“Do all Scottish ladies carry knives?” he asked.
It was Connie who answered him. “Nay,” she said. “Just the ladies of Glenderrin.”
Pole in hand, the girl nodded to him and to Mary. “Don’t keep her out too long,” she said. “Uncle Seamus will come and fetch you himself if you tarry.”
“But he doesn’t know I’m here,” Harry answered.
Connie scoffed. “Don’t be daft. Of course he does.” And with that, she whistled to her dog, and the pair disappeared into the bracken.
“I already love that little girl,” Harry said.
“She’s my favorite cousin. She’s been a great comfort to me over the last two days.”
“And Uncle Seamus?”
“Da was a blessing. But he always is.”
Harry felt his throat tighten with envy. Where it came from, along with sudden jealousy, he could not say. Before he had first laid eyes on Mary Elizabeth Waters, he had always considered himself a reasonable man. Apparently, those days were behind him.
“And Davy?” he asked, unable to keep the annoyance from his voice.
Mary Elizabeth frowned up at him. “Davy keeps to himself most days. Why?”
“He’s not offered you comfort in my absence?”
“Not really. He’s not much of a comforting man. But then, none of my brothers are.”
The word brother made Harry release his breath in one long sigh. He settled his arms around Mary Elizabeth and drew her close again. Harry felt the tension in his shoulders ease, and he called himself three kinds of fool.
Mary looked up at him slantwise. “Jealous of my brothers now, are you?”
Harry felt chagrined until she kissed him, and all thoughts of anything but the woman in his arms slipped away. He lost himself for a moment or two in the sweetness of her mouth, but then Sampson nudged him, reminding him of reality and of all that needed to be dealt with.
“Mary Elizabeth, we need to talk.”
“You’ve had enough of me, then? And you’ve come all the way to Glenderrin to say so.”
Harry took a moment to digest her words. He stood staring down at her, not sure whether to throttle her or kiss her again.
She made the decision for him.