My Heart's in the Highlands by Angeline Fortin (best english novels for beginners .TXT) 📗

The man—Ian Conag … Cunningham? Mikah’s headthrobbed painfully— pulled her to her feet then as if her spokenwords were a command to be acted upon without question.

No, Mikah thought. She wanted anambulance and the shortest possible route to a hospital. She triedto force the words out but her head swam and her mind blanked asthey stood her on her feet. Mikah wavered, black spots flooding hervision. She was going to faint for sure, she thought, and thewonderfully handsome man must have thought the same, because heswung her easily up into his arms and carried her out of thestreet.

“What’re ye goin’ to do wi’ her?” the olderman asked, his voice barely audible through the roar in Mikah’sears.

“Don’t worry,” her rescuer assured the crowd.“I’ll keep her safe.”

Braver than the rest of the crowd, the oldfellow who’d first come to her aid stepped boldly forward. “Hopeyer nae thinking to take her all the way to Dùn Cuilean tonight,m’lord. ‘Tis more than forty miles away. Ye’ll nae make it, mark mywords. Ye’d best get a doctor for her.”

The man’s steps paused and Mikah could almostintuit his desire to be home as well. She could see the hesitationhis eyes before resolution set in. They wouldn’t be going anywherethat night. His gaze shifted back to the old Scot. “I will get herto the doctor. Worry not.”

“What’s going on?” Mikah whispered as theyloaded her into a black … carriage? The woman climbed in with her.Her mind felt foggy and unfocused, and for some reason she wasunable to comprehend what was happening around and to her.

“You took a bit of a blow to the head whenthat wagon hit you as you were coming out of the Exchange, mylady,” the woman answered, patting her hand. “My lord is going totake you back to the hotel and call for a physician.”

“Hospital,” Mikah muttered disjointedly, butthe woman looked aghast at the suggestion.

“Oh, no, my lady!”

“Why?” Her voice was faint.

“Because, unless you’re mad, that’s the lastplace you want to go,” Ian said as he climbed into the carriagewith them.

Head swimming, Mikah pressed her hand to hertemple as she tried to focus on the man once more, but his imageswam in duplicate spotted with black. “But I know you,” shemurmured before the blackness took her.

Chapter Three

Back at the hotel, Ian sat at Hero Conagham’sbedside while she slept. So this was the former marchioness, orrather, since Ian wasn’t married, she remained the currentMarchioness of Ayr. His cousin’s widow.

He couldn’t have been more surprised whenhe’d seen her lying there on the street. Far from her fifties, asthe old marquis had been, the marchioness was perhaps closer to hisage, in her late twenties, and was as fair and slim and lovely asany imagined Sleeping Beauty might have been when first glimpsed byher prince. And, like any man in his position might have, Ian wasseized by pure male appreciation.

Not only because she was so extraordinarilylovely that any man might stare.

No, Ian had another reason as well. He hadseen her face a thousand times already in a large oil painting thatgraced his bedchambers at his newly inherited castle, Dùn Cuilean.Since his arrival there a month before, Ian had been fascinated bythe portrait and the woman it portrayed. With a wry smile, Ianadmitted that he had spent most of his nights staring at theportrait over his fireplace, wondering who she was and what she hadbeen thinking during the long hours of posing while the artistworked.

If he had been entirely truthful, he wouldalso admit that he had lusted over the unknown woman who might havelived a hundred years past.

He had never thought to meet the woman whohad inspired his desire and imagination so. Whom he had felt soinexplicably attracted to. He had never imagined her in flesh andblood. Her pulse beat visibly in her slender neck, and his fingersitched to feel that life beating through her.

“This is the marchioness?” he couldn’t helpbut ask the woman’s maid, who lingered nearby. He felt a fool fordoing so and compounded his idiocy by adding, “My cousin’swife?”

“Yes, my lord.” Her maid, Mandy, bobbed acurtsey and departed when Ian waved her off.

Ian had met his cousin, Robert, only a sparehandful of times, the last more than a decade before. He could notimagine that pretentious, unappealing gent ever winning the hand ofa woman like this. As alluring as her portrait was, it didn’t holda candle to the marchioness in person. She was incrediblybeautiful. Her hair was golden, her skin flawless and creamy fromher high cheekbones to the curve of her jaw. She had finely archedbrows of dark brown. Similarly dark, long lashes fanned out againsther pale cheeks. Her straight nose led down to full rosy lips thatparted with a sigh even as his eyes took her in. How breathtakingshe was, he thought, even as his pulse increased in response to thevisual buffet before him and an unwelcome arousal stirred.

As lovely as she was, this woman was a recentwidow, and for the time being, his guest and responsibility. Theold Conagham of Ayr, as the locals referred to their residentmarquis, had been active and hale by all accounts despite hisyears. Certainly not a man one would expect to drop dead of a heartattack in the middle of a dinner with Prince Albert in London ashis cousin had. Not well done of him at all. Prince Albert, itseemed, was a pleasant man who hadn’t taken it personally.

With no warning, Ian had become Marquis ofAyr, laird of the clan Conagham, a score of years earlier thananticipated. After just one short month in residence at DùnCuilean, he still wasn’t entirely certain as to the extent of hisresponsibilities, so when he’d received a letter from his cousin’swidow, begging him to allow her to come “home,” he’d given inwithout argument.

At the time, the greatest consideration Ianhad given the matter was to think it curious that a society matronwould willingly give up the season in London to reside in Cuilean’sisolated locale. Surely no marchioness of his imagination wouldchoose to go