Read Online A Highland Folly by Jo Ann Ferguson - Free Book Online

stepped in.
    Although she was dressed in a simple white gown with a lacy shawl over her shoulders, he thought of how charming she had looked in her loose shirt and trousers. He might have thought she was a lad, but when he had held her in his arms, those delightful curves had shown him how mistaken first impressions could be.
    â€œDo come in,” he said.
    â€œThank you.” She looked around, not hiding her amazement.
    He clasped his hands behind his waistcoat, knowing quite well what she saw. A small table was set in the middle of the boards that made up the uneven floor. With a trunk and a narrow cot, there was barely room for a pitcher and ewer. He was not going to apologize for the rough conditions here. Not when he exulted in this chance to live right among the navvies who would be building the road. To him, this simple tent was a better place to live than his family’s house.
    â€œOh,” she breathed, “this is grand.”
    â€œGrand?”
    â€œIt reminds me of a bedouin’s tent that we lived in while my second stepfather was studying ancient ruins in the East.”
    â€œYou lived in a tent?” He wondered what else this astonishing woman could say that would attempt to render him speechless.
    â€œOnly for a year or so.” Laughing, she drew off her gloves. “It seemed prodigiously large to me as a child, but it probably was not as big as a bee’s knee. Not that it mattered, for I was seldom inside. My mother despaired of keeping me from burning as red as a soldier’s coat in that desert.”
    â€œThis is my home at the moment.” He gestured to the wobbly table. “Would you like to sit and join me for a bit of tea?”
    â€œYou have a stove here? You’re jesting.”
    â€œOnly partly. This is my home just now. The stove is out behind the tent, which makes for interesting cooking on nights like yesterday’s, when the mist threatened to smother any fire I might start.” He chuckled. “I would gladly offer you a chair if I had one.”
    â€œYou have no place to sit?”
    â€œI sit on the bed, but I doubt you would find that acceptable.”
    â€œYour doubts are quite correct.” She rubbed her hands together, then grimaced.
    â€œYour hand still hurts?”
    â€œIt has not been long, Lucais. All things heal at their own pace.”
    â€œYou sound as if you have said that often.”
    â€œIt has been said to me often. Mother often despaired of me having no patience.”
    Knowing he might be probing in too personal a direction, he asked, “What happened to your mother?”
    â€œShe and my most recent stepfather died in South America.”
    â€œWhere you obtained your peculiar pet, Bonito?”
    â€œYes, I received Bonito as a gift from my stepfather just weeks before they were killed.” Tears filled her eyes, but her chin remained high. “They were exploring some ruins, and they never returned. Apparently there were traps within the ruins to keep out trespassers.”
    â€œI am so sorry, Anice.”
    â€œThank you.” She swallowed roughly. “Let me deliver my message, and I shall be on my way. I see you are working on plans for the road.”
    His smile dimmed. “Are you here to tell me, too, how wrong it is to build the road here?”
    â€œIs that what you think?” Anice shook her head, wondering how the conversation could have twisted in so many directions with just a few words. “I had thought you were more astute than those folks who swallow whole every clanker they hear.”
    â€œLike the one rumbling through Killiebige that you saved me from death up on the hill?”
    â€œYou know about that?”
    â€œNot everyone in Killiebige is averse to the idea of building a bridge here, although most of the village leaders were part of the meeting you attended last night. There are a few people in the village who keep me informed of the on-dits flitting