Some Like It Scot Read Online Free PDF Page B

tulle.
    As soon as he felt she was steadied, he gently released her. “I’m very sorry, I only meant to inquire—”
    â€œWh-who are you?” she stuttered, her voice raw and thick with tears. He couldn’t get a good look at her face, covered as it was by waves of netting. A sparkle of blue and a slash of red lipstick were the only things he could determine. Being quite a bit shorter than he was, he had to crouch a bit to peer through the netting to get to her face. He couldn’t see her hair, pinned up as it was beneath the cap of the veil. It looked as if the thing were about to swallow her whole.
    â€œGraham,” he responded automatically. “Graham MacLeod. I—are you okay?” Stupid question since she was clearly not okay, but as an invitation to offer assistance, it was all he knew to say.
    â€œAre you a friend of Blaine’s?” She looked him up and down, somewhat bewildered. “No, I know everyone Blaine knows. Did he…hire you? Or something?” She looked past him.
    â€œHire? For what?” he asked, looking behind him as well, truly baffled, but seeing nothing but the empty garden path.
    â€œBagpipes? Riverdancing? I don’t know. My ancestry is Scottish and given the getup…” She gestured to the tartan he wore wrapped around his hips and over one shoulder. A white linen shirt, along with the black knee stockings, though strained a bit over his muscled calves, were properly tied and tasseled. Heavy soled, hand-tooled black leather shoes, with buckles passed down through the generations, as was the sporran he wore strapped to his waist, completed his formal clan attire.
    Life on Kinloch didn’t demand an extensive wardrobe. He only dressed up for weddings and funerals, which meant…pretty much donning exactly what he was wearing right then. He’d never gotten around to purchasing an actual suit. He’d never been in need of one. Even at university, he’d spent all his time in classrooms, or doing course work in the fields. Of course, at home, all the other clansmen would have been similarly garbed at such an event. Other than his size, he’d have hardly stood out. But there was little he could do about that here.
    â€œI’m afraid I’m no’ a piper. Were ye expectin’ one?”
    â€œNo. Of course not.” She laughed shortly, though there was a bit of an hysterical edge to it. “Although, that would certainly cap things off. They had them at my grandfather’s funeral recently, and I thought they were the saddest sounding things I’ve ever heard. So ethereal and echoing through the mists and all.” She lifted her slender shoulders in a shrug and Graham honestly didn’t know if she was going to laugh or sob. She did a little of both. “Perhaps they’d be even more appropriate today.”
    â€œI’m terrible on the pipes,” he told her, tugging his handkerchief from his chest pocket and handing it to her. “Never had an affinity for it. I’m sorry, though. About your grandfather.”
    She nodded and he thought he detected a bit of a sniffle. “Thank you,” she said, and somehow managed to get the square of linen under her veil to dab at her eyes and nose. “He was the best. My grandfather. I loved him very much. He was the only one who understood, who encouraged me to…” She trailed off, then shrugged as if unable to continue, sniffling again into his handkerchief.
    â€œI lost my own grandfather, no’ too long ago,” he confided, not knowing what else to say. “We had pipers there, too. But it was more celebration than dirge.” His mouth curved. “We Scots enjoy any excuse for music and spirits. Auld Ualraig would have enjoyed every minute.”
    He thought he saw a ghost of a smile through the veil. “That would have suited Grandpa far better than the somber affair we had, but God forbid my family do