Read Online The Highlander's Yuletide Love by Alicia Quigley - Free Book Online Page A

and
valises lumbered along. Inside a most superior lady’s maid and her counterpart,
the earl’s valet, swayed back and forth with the lurching of the vehicle.
    “Well Mr.
Fletcher, it will be a relief to be out of this coach and drinking a cup of tea
in the Hall at Glencairn this afternoon,” the maid remarked.
    “Indeed, Miss
Wilson. It’s certainly better to be journeying here in the summer rather than
the chill of winter, but it’s still a long, weary road. I feel I am moving even
after I alight in the evening.”
    “It could be
worse. I feel sorry for Lady Selmine’s dresser; they are spending the summer in
London, as her mother is too ill to move. The heat and smell will be
unbearable.” Miss Wilson shuddered.
    “There aren’t so
many nights waiting up late after routs and balls, either,” the valet
continued. “I find country hours very agreeable.”
    “I suppose there
will be more entertaining than usual this summer,” Wilson said, with a
significant gleam in her eye. “I hear that Colonel Stirling will be visiting
Lord and Lady Exencour, and you know how the countess dotes on him. He’s a
great favorite of Kincraig’s as well. It’s nice that he will be here to amuse
them; her ladyship must be that worried about Lady Sophia, saying she wants to
paint instead of marrying. Perhaps she’s hoping to find a man for her here in
Scotland.”
    “But Lady Sophia
has been acquainted with every eligible gentleman in this neighborhood since
she was a babe. Why would she take an interest in one of them now?”
    “I wouldn’t be
at all surprised to see a great number of house parties, and visitors from the
surrounding counties. Her ladyship might be humoring Lady Sophia, but I doubt
she’ll give up on the idea of her marrying.” The abigail sniffed. “If you ask
me, the girl’s spoiled. Racketing about the countryside, painting flowers and
rivers and mooning about on the heath all day, sketching. If she were my
daughter, I’d put a stop to that sort of nonsense.”
    Mr. Fletcher
laughed. “I have no doubt you would. She’s a nice girl, though; always pleasant
to the staff, and never demanding. Spoiled she may be, but she has a sweet
temperament.”
    “Self-indulgent,
I call her,” continued Miss Wilson. “Never thinking of the duty she owes her
family. At her age she should have a child or two already, and a home of her
own, not be here at Glencairn worrying her poor stepmother. As though Lady
Glencairn doesn’t have enough to think of, with that Kincraig promising to be
wild, and a wee child of her own.”
    The valet shook
his head. “It’s not for us to question the ways of the gentry, Miss Wilson. I
suppose they will do as they please.”
    The maid sniffed
again and crossed her arms over her chest. Her further thoughts were not
stated, however, as at that moment, the coach lurched over a deep rut in the
road, and the occupants were forced to busy themselves making sure that the
baggage piled high in the carriage didn’t fall to the floor, damaging its
delicate contents.
    Little knowing
that she was the focus of below stairs conversation, Lady Sophia gazed down the
road, and, realizing that she was even closer to home than she had thought,
turned her head toward her brother.
    “Let’s race to
the bridge!” she called out, and Kincraig, who was some yards behind her,
clapped his heels to his roan hunter without responding, quickly gaining on
her. Laughing, Sophy tapped her mare’s shoulder with her crop. The horse
obligingly broke into a gallop, and soon the black gauze ribbon that ornamented
her elegant top hat streamed out behind her, as she and the grey mare raced
down the road, oat fields alternating with oak trees as they hastened along. Lady
Glencairn looked out of the traveling chaise as her stepchildren galloped past
them, and sighed.
    “They are racing
again, Euan,” she exclaimed.
    “Who can blame
them?” her husband responded. “If I were riding, I’d give them a run for