Free Sarah Gabriel by Highland Groom Page A

best packhorses,” Mary said, walking over to pat the noses of the lead horses, two sturdy bays with heavy white feathering around their ankles. “Groomed very fine, I see, with their tails and manes combed out.”
    “Aye, and with Andrew’s help I greased the wheels and repaired the carriage so the lady could ride in comfort, and no embarrassment at riding in a plain wagon, as she did last night.” He glanced at Fiona, who blushed. So he had heard about that; she wondered what else he had heard about last night, and from whom.
    “Grease that old wagon all you like, Hamish MacGregor, you cannot make it a comfortable ride,” Mary said. “Take it back to Kinloch, and let those horses out to graze. They are not used to harnessing. Just pannier baskets,” she added with a twinkle in her eye that made Hamish chuckle.
    “Och, very well,” he said. “I will tell the laird, but he will not like it.”
    “Tell him that you did your best, and this is no fault of yours,” Fiona said.
    “And tell him he will see Miss MacCarran on the first day of school,” Mary MacIan said. “The lad is visiting families in the glen to remind them to send their young ones to the glen school to meet the new dominie, Miss MacCarran. I will not tell the lad his visits were in vain!”
    “So be it, then. Miss MacCarran, I am sorry to intrude,” Hamish said.
    “Not at all,” she replied. “Will you have tea and sausages? We have oatcakes, too.”
    “And plenty to spare,” Mary said.
    “I would like that. And if I may, I will bring some back to the laird, as he likes a bit of Mary’s cooking now and then.”
    “You will take some to him and Lucy, too,” Mary said as she accompanied Hamish toward the cottage.
    Walking behind them, Fiona wondered if Lucy was the laird’s wife. At the thought, her stomach wrenched strangely, as if the name were unwelcome news. If he did have a wife, she thought, the man had been wrong to kiss her the night before.
    And she should not have accepted it or enjoyed it; nor should she have dreamed of it at night, as she had done.
    “Come, Maggie,” she said, turning to whistle the dog inside—but the smell of sausages had already captured the dog’s interest, as Maggie rushed past her into the house.
    Fiona glanced again over her shoulder, hearing something distant and stirring—the sound of the bagpipes, she realized, but the fleeting melody had grown faint. She saw only the shabby old coach in the yard and two great horses nuzzling the grasses, the hills beyond bleak in early spring. A few sheep ambled, pale dots high on the steep slopes. Their shepherd no doubt played for them.
    There, the sound came and went again. She stood for a moment listening, and gazing at the hills. Butshe saw no one—certainly not a tall, black-haired man dressed in a rumpled jacket and plaid who watched from a distance to see if she had boarded the coach. Likely the handsome, infuriating laird of Kinloch had just assumed that she would do so, and had gone about his day, which no doubt included something underhanded and illegal.
    Well then, let Kinloch be surprised to find her still here, she thought as she shut the door firmly. He had no right to expect her to do his bidding, even if it was his glen.

Chapter 5
    D rone and melody filled the air, cresting off the mountain and returning fainter but richer, the sound soaring between the hills and out over the glen. It filled him inside, too, so that he need not think, nor stop again to look out past the glen to the loch side road where the coach must surely be rolling now, headed for Auchnashee with the lovely one he would never see again.
    But he need not think about her now. Only the music of the pipes, its rich and layered tones ringing out in the air, should concern him now. As the last haunting note faded, he walked higher on the hillside, relaxed for a moment as the wind sifted through his hair. Then he drew breath, propelled air through the blowstick to inflate the