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Perhaps the nudity, and that fact that he was up in a tree, skewed her perspective.

He wore drawers at least. Stolen off a bairn, by the length of them.

“Is it Miss MacKinnon?” He shook back a wing of raven hair, which action also dislodged a leaf. “If I’m not mistaken, you had plans to wed.”

She blanched. No one on Dearnrigg brought up her ill-fated engagement to Malcom Crawford. Or the fact that she’d bolted from the kirk on the wedding day, two summers before last. Malcolm certainly didn’t. He even smiled when they met on the lane. He’d realized it had been a stroke of good fortune, her bolting.

His bonny wife smiled too.

“Plans change.” Tib folded her arms. “You planned to build a lime kiln in the Fairy Dale.”

“I still think there’s no better use for it.” Amusement glinted in his eyes. They were green as the Fairy Dale itself.

“The fairies like it the way it is.” She scowled. James considered the Fairy Dale waste land, mossy knolls enclosed by gnarled trees, not arable and poor grazing. He didn’t understand that some places should be left undisturbed. That land didn’t exist solely to produce rents, or crops, or meat, or milk, or wool.

The battle for the Fairy Dale had drawn one more irrevocable line between them.

“You are the fairy, Miss MacKinnon.” He let a hand drop from the branch and brushed it down from his collarbones, flicking away the bark that clung to his skin. He pointed to his ribs. “You gave me a bruise right here that lasted months.”

She tamped down her apology, tantamount to an admission of guilt, and lifted her chin.

“I dinna ken what you mean.”

“That wasn’t you and your followers, showering Mr. Somerville and myself with stones?”

“Nae.” She had to hide her grin. Recollections of that glorious afternoon still filled her with joy—she and her sisters positioned in the grove, her brothers in the bracken, all armed with slingshots and pebbles from the beach, making Mr. Somerville’s work impossible. That beleaguered London expert, member of the Board of Agriculture, author of Agriculture Anatomized, had stormed down the hill, but not before she’d knocked off his hat. James had felt compelled to follow him. He’d left the Dale reluctantly, shooting penetrating looks over his shoulder, and Tib had risked exposure for the satisfaction of knocking off his hat. Only she’d released the stone too late, and it thwacked his coat.

And his ribs, apparently.

“Nae,” he repeated, tone ominous.

“No,” she agreed, in the King’s English. “If you ask me, it sounds as though you angered the spirits of the Dale.” She made her voice soothing, as though he were a bairn frightened in the night by thunder or bad dreams. “You’ll be safe from them, I promise.” She paused. “Now that you’ve reconsidered your abhorrent plan.”

She found his incredulous—and incredibly annoyed—expression gratifying in the extreme.

She could hardly keep a straight face and had to whisper her next words: “Dinna fash.”

He clenched his stubble-darkened jaw. The stubble was new. He’d always been clean-shaven. When had he ceased to fuss about his grooming? His hair kicked up in wild waves.

“I don’t bloody fash,” he muttered. He raised his voice. “And I haven’t reconsidered anything.”

“It’s been three years,” she pointed out. She’d taken his long absence as a victory. Which made it easier to ignore its strange sting.

“I’ve been occupied by other projects. But agricultural improvement is still very much a priority. At the moment, however, I’m needed on Selchskerrie.”

He made a fist of his free hand and ground it against his hipbone.

Selchskerrie was a tiny, tide-swept island separated from Dearnrigg by a narrow, treacherous strait. It was synonymous with Castle Lyon. With the Duke of Pemberton, James’s father. With James himself.

He didn’t usually pronounce the word like a man chewing on iron nails.

“How are you needed?” she asked. The duke and his family took up residence at the castle for one month of the year—and not even that, for the past three. Staff kept up the building and the grounds.

James twisted abruptly, peering up through the branches. “Damn balloon.”

Tib slid her gaze away from the new portions of naked torso exposed to her view.

Something inside her steadied as she craned her neck to regard the deformed globe, which listed to one side, casting her cottage into shade.