Snowy Night with a Highlander by Julia London

make use of his property—”
    Duncan suddenly put his big gloved hand over hers, startling Fiona into a moment of speechlessness. Shelooked down at his big hand on hers, his silent way of telling her that the nattering on wasn’t necessary after all. She understood him completely.
    She turned her palm up beneath his, closed her fingers around his, and looked at him.
    His eye shone with a hint of his smile, and once again she was struck by something familiar. “We’ll no’ see Blackwood today, will we?” she said, perhaps a bit too hopefully. “I know last night was right cold, but I . . . I was . . . last night was . . .”
    “Fiona,” he said, abruptly removing his hand from hers, the warmth in his eye fading a bit. “There is more than you know. More than meets the eye.”
    He was speaking of his injury, and she nodded fervently that yes, she understood what he meant. “I donna care, Duncan. I donna care in the least.”
    He seemed startled, confused.
    “I mean . . . I understand about . . . about your face,” she said.
    Duncan instantly recoiled, turning his face away.
    “I am sorry!” she cried, seeing how it pained him. “But it is obviously uncomfortable for you. What I mean to say is that it is no’ for me! I could no’ possibly care any less. I—”
    “Fiona,” he said, reining the horses to a halt. “Listen to me, lass. There is something you really must know—”
    “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas to you, then!”
    Both of them jerked around to the sound of the voice, and watched as five people—two adults and three children—emerged from the woods. They were all carrying baskets.
    It suddenly dawned on Fiona—they were carryingwheat or pies, as was customary, to the poor on Christmas Day.
    The man, wearing a patched brown cloak, hurried forward. As he neared, his round face lit with a smile. “My lord! I did no’ recognize ye from afar. Old eyes,” he said with a laugh, gesturing to his face. “ Fàilte, fàilte, milord, how good of ye to come this Christmas Day!”
    The man had mistaken Duncan for someone else, Fiona thought, and she looked at Duncan expectantly, assuming he would correct the man’s impression and identify them. But Duncan wore a pained expression as the man approached.
    “We’ve been visiting your tenants!” the man said. “The snow is too deep for our old cart. Are ye coming to pay a call, milord?” he asked. A light suddenly dawned in the man’s eyes, and he looked behind him. “Karen! Karen, leannan , the laird has come to pay a call!” He turned back to them, his face beaming. “We’d no’ expected ye, laird—but ye are right welcome, ye are.”
    Laird. The word slowly entered Fiona’s consciousness like a whisper, a whisper that grew louder and louder as the truth began to sink in. She suddenly understood why Duncan had seemed so familiar to her. Laird. Duncan Buchanan! He’d not even bothered to hide his name, and yet she’d failed to recognize him! He’d stood before her the whole time, listening to her rail about him, and she’d been so absorbed in her little adventure she’d not even recognized him!
    She looked at him now, her eyes narrowed on the features of his face. She had failed to take note of his face in her haste to accept his burns. In fact, that was all she had seen—the purple, scarred skin, the evidence of a tragedythat had made him even more mysterious than she’d first believed. She had not looked at him, really looked at him until this very moment!
    She felt like a colossal fool. An addlepated, loose-tongued fool. How could she possibly have developed feelings for a man who had once so rudely likened her to a woodchuck? “ Mi Diah ,” she said low.
    Duncan jerked his gaze to her as Fiona bent over her lap, mortified by the depth of her stupidity.
    “Fiona—”
    “It is an honor, laird,” the man was saying.
    An honor! An honor to receive a man who once reviled her and now deceived her!
    “I assure