Chapter 1: The Ballroom Dance
The Tartan ballroom hummed with a heat that had nothing to do with the fireplace roaring at the far end. It was the warmth of two hundred bodies, of wool and silk, of single malt and shared history. The vaulted ceiling, draped with the colours of a dozen clans, swallowed the laughter and the chatter, the skirl of the pipes from the quartet in the corner a persistent, cheerful heartbeat beneath it all.
Alasdair MacLeod leaned a shoulder against a stone pillar, a half-finished whisky dangling from his fingers. He’d been talking ten minutes ago, charming some clients of his firm, but his attention had slipped away. It had snagged on a woman across the room.
She stood by the great arched window, a silhouette against the deep indigo of the Highland night. Her dress was a simple column of emerald green, no tartan, which made her stand out. She held a champagne flute like it was a scientific specimen, not drinking, just turning the stem slowly between her fingers. Her posture was rigid, her gaze fixed on some middle distance in the crowd, seeing nothing. To anyone else, she probably looked aloof. Bored, even.
But Alasdair saw the white-knuckle grip on the glass. The slight, constant shift of her weight from one foot to the other. The way her eyes tracked the movement of the dance floor not with disdain, but with a kind of acute, panicked calculation.
Nerves. She was drowning in them.
A friend of his cousin’s, he’d heard. Down from London. The label ‘outsider’ was practically stamped on her forehead in this company, and she knew it.
“You’re staring, MacLeod.” Cameron Fraser appeared at his elbow, grinning. “Seen a ghost?”
“Seen a puzzle,” Alasdair murmured, his voice a soft rumble with the lilt of Applecross still clinging to it. “Who is she?”
“Roz. No idea about the surname. Friend of Elspeth’s. Seems a bit… frosty, doesn’t she?”
“No,” Alasdair said, finishing his whisky. “She seems terrified.”
Before Cameron could reply, Alasdair was moving. He didn’t make a beeline for her. That would spook her. He ambled, pausing to clap a friend on the back, to exchange a word with an aunt, a slow, meandering orbit that brought him to the edge of her personal space just as the quartet struck up a waltz.
He stopped beside her, looking out the window she’d been using as a shield. “They never get the colour right, do they?”
She started, almost sloshing her champagne. Her eyes, when they flicked to him, were a startled, deep brown. “I’m sorry?”
“The tartan on the Murrays’ banner.” He nodded casually toward the wall. “The blue’s too electric. Should be the colour of a loch at midnight. Deeper. Almost black.”
She followed his gaze, then looked back at him, suspicion warring with confusion. “You’re an expert on fabric dyes?”
“Architect. Colours and lines are the job.” He turned to face her fully, offering a smile that was easy, unthreatening. “Alasdair.”
“Roz.” She said it quickly, like throwing a pebble.
“Roz.” He let the name sit for a second. “You’ve been guarding this window for three dances now. The view’s good, but the music’s better. And you’re out of excuses.”
Her brows drew together. “Excuses?”
“No drink to nurse.” He plucked the full flute from her frozen hand and set it on a passing waiter’s tray. “No friend to talk to. You’re just standing here. It’s a waste of a dress.” His blue eyes held hers, a spark of challenge in them, but his tone was all warmth. “Dance with me.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement, delivered with such gentle certainty that the refusal she’d clearly been preparing died on her lips. She glanced at the swirling couples, a flash of pure fear in her eyes. “I don’t really… I’m not very good.”
“Neither are half of them. They’re just louder about it.” He held out his hand, palm up. An invitation, not a demand. “I am good. I’ll make you look brilliant.”
A beat of hesitation. The pipes swelled. Then, slowly, she placed her hand in his. Her skin was cool.
He led her onto the floor, his other hand coming to rest, firm and sure, on the small of her back. The moment he pulled her into the frame of the waltz, he felt it—the slight tremor that ran through her. She was stiff as the stone pillar he’d just left.
“Right,” he said softly, his mouth near her ear so she could hear him over the music. “Stop thinking about your feet.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It’s essential. Just… follow where I push. That’s all. Don’t lead, don’t resist. Just go where I send you.”
He began to move, his steps deliberate and strong. For a few stumbling seconds, it was a disaster. She tripped on his foot, muttered a curse, tried to pull back.
“Eyes up here, Roz,” he said, his voice a steady anchor. She dragged her gaze from their feet to his face. “Good. Now breathe. Out.”
She took a shaky breath.
“Again.”
Another. This one deeper.
His hand on her back pressed gently, guiding her into a turn. She went, a little off-balance, but she went. He adjusted, his frame solid and unwavering around her. He was taller, broader, and he used that size not to overwhelm her, but to create a space for her to move within. A safe space.
“See?” he said, a hint of a smile touching his lips. “You’re dancing.”
And she was. The rigidity began to melt from her shoulders. The frantic calculation in her eyes softened into focus—on him. On the music. On the simple mechanics of one step, then another. Her body began to relax into the rhythm, into the guidance of his hands.
He drew her a fraction closer on the next turn, closing the last polite inch of distance. Now his chest brushed against hers with every step. The heat of him seeped through the fine wool of his kilt jacket and the silk of her dress. He felt the hitch in her breath, the sudden, subtle catch in her movement.
“That’s it,” he murmured, his voice dropping. The chatter of the room faded into a blur of colour and sound around them. There was just the pull of the melody, the firm pressure of his hand on her back, the scent of him—clean wool, peat smoke, and something uniquely male.
She was looking at him properly now. The fear was gone, replaced by a dazed, vulnerable wonder. Her lips were slightly parted. He could feel the rapid flutter of her pulse where his thumb rested near her wrist.
“Why did you ask me?” she said, the words barely audible.
“Because you looked like you needed saving,” he said, his eyes scanning her face. “And because from the moment I saw you, I wanted to know what you’d look like when you weren’t scared.”
The music began to build toward its climax. He swept her into a wider turn, his arm strong around her. She followed effortlessly now, her body trusting his, leaning into the momentum. The emerald silk of her dress swirled against his legs. For a fleeting moment, her head tilted back, a strand of dark hair coming loose from its knot and brushing her cheek. She wasn’t just not-scared. She was beautiful.
The pipes finished with a triumphant, long note. The dancers around them slowed to a stop, breaking into applause.
They stood still, chests rising and falling slightly, his hand still on her back, hers still in his. The space between them crackled with a sudden, charged silence. The spell of the music was broken, but a new, more potent one had taken its place.
Roz blinked, as if waking up. The vulnerability in her eyes shuttered, replaced by a swift, self-conscious alarm. She withdrew her hand, stepping back out of his hold. The cool ballroom air rushed in where the heat of his body had been.
“Thank you,” she said, the words formal, a wall going up as visibly as if she’d built it brick by brick. “I… I should find Elspeth.”
She turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd with a speed that suggested escape.
Alasdair didn’t follow. He just watched her go, a slow, thoughtful smile spreading across his face. He could still feel the imprint of her on his palms, the slight weight of her in his arms.
He’d been wrong before. She wasn’t a puzzle to be solved.
She was a story he suddenly, desperately, needed to read. And he’d just finished the first, breathtaking paragraph.
The warmth of her lingered on his palms as he watched the emerald green of her dress dissolve into the kaleidoscope of tartans and gowns. The crowd swallowed her, but the sensation of her—the tentative trust, that final, breathless moment of connection—stayed with him, a low hum beneath the renewed chatter and the quartet’s next tune.
He needed a drink. And information.
He found Dougie, his best mate and Elspeth’s new husband, by the whisky table, liberally pouring a twenty-five-year-old Talisker into two crystal glasses. Dougie’s face was flushed with happiness and good Scotch, his smile widening as he shoved a glass into Alasdair’s hand.
“There you are! Saw you monopolizing Elspeth’s poor friend. Rescue mission or strategic acquisition?” Dougie chuckled.
Alasdair took a slow sip, the peat smoke blooming on his tongue, buying a second. “Tell me about Roz.”
“Roz?” Dougie’s eyebrows shot up. “Shy Roz? God, yeah. Lovely girl.”
“Certainly is,” Alasdair said, his gaze drifting back toward the window where she’d been. “She’s beautiful.”
“Well,” Dougie said, leaning in conspiratorially. “She’s from Edinburgh. Been in London the last few months, moved there after graduating. Illustrator. Very, very talented, from what Elspeth says. Sweet girl, but she’s incredibly shy. Like, hide-in-the-toilets-at-a-party shy. Elspeth was chuffed she actually came tonight. Why the interest?”
An illustrator. That tracked. The observant eyes, the careful distance. She wasn’t cold; she was studying the world from a slight remove, figuring out how to draw it.
“Just making conversation,” Alasdair said, but the lie was soft, and Dougie’s grin told him he wasn’t fooled.
“Right. Well, good luck. You’ll need to be less… you. She seems the type to bolt at a loud noise.”
Alasdair finished his whisky, the spirit warming a path down his chest. A plan, half-formed and instinctive, began to solidify. The direct approach had worked to get her on the dance floor, but it had also sent her fleeing. Shyness required a lighter touch. A different kind of architecture.
He spent the next twenty minutes in a slow, deliberate orbit of the room. He laughed with his aunts, discussed a planning permit with a colleague from Inverness, all the while keeping a subtle track of one emerald dress. He saw her reunited with Elspeth, who was talking animatedly. Roz nodded, smiled a small, polite smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and sipped a glass of water. She was still holding herself with that same self-contained tension, a closed book in a room full of open newspapers.
The quartet took a break. The noise level rose, a wall of conversation and clinking glasses. He saw her flinch slightly at the burst of laughter from a group near her. She murmured something to Elspeth and began moving, not toward the exit, but toward a quieter, darker corridor that led to the old library.
Perfect.
He gave her a thirty-second head start. Then, excusing himself, he ambled the same way, as if seeking a moment of quiet himself.
The corridor was lined with darkened portraits of grim-faced ancestors, the thick carpet muffling his steps. The library doors were slightly ajar, a pool of soft, golden lamp light spilling onto the floor. He peered in.
She was standing at a large mahogany table, not looking at the books, but at a small, framed sketch that had been left out. Her back was to him, her shoulders slumped just a fraction, as if she’d finally let the mask drop now that she was alone. The light from the brass lamp gilded the line of her neck, the curve of her cheek.
He didn’t announce himself. He leaned against the doorframe, watching her study the drawing. Her head tilted, a professional critique in the gesture. This was her language. Lines and form.
“It’s not very good, is it?” he said, his voice quiet in the hushed space.
She didn’t startle violently this time. She went very still, then turned slowly. Her brown eyes were wide in the dim light, but the panic from before was tempered with something else—curiosity, perhaps.
“The perspective is off,” she said softly, her voice clearer without the ballroom’s roar. “The chimney is leaning.”
“I knew it was something.” He pushed off the doorframe and walked into the room, his hands in his pockets, making himself smaller, less imposing. He stopped a polite distance away, nodding at the sketch. “Local artist. Well-meaning.”
“It’s the intention that counts,” she said, but a faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. It was like seeing a crack of sunlight through heavy cloud.
“Alasdair,” he said, even though she knew.
“Roz.”
“I know.” He took another step closer, drawn by that flicker of a smile. “Dougie told me. Illustrator. From Edinburgh.”
Her posture tightened slightly. “He’s very thorough.”
“He’s a gossip. But a useful one.” He gestured to the sketch. “Would you do it better?”
She looked at him then, really looked, assessing him not as a potential threat or a dance partner, but as a subject. He felt it, a peculiar and thrilling sensation. “Probably. It’s what I do.”
“Prove it.”
The challenge hung in the quiet air. She blinked. “What?”
“There’s paper in the drawer. Pencils too.” He nodded to the writing desk under the window. “Draw something. Draw this room. Draw that hideous stag’s head. Draw me.”
She let out a short, breathy sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You’re very arrogant.”
“I’m very curious.” He held her gaze. “You left in a hurry. Before I could say thank you.”
“You already did.”
“Not properly.” He took the final steps to the table, resting his fingertips on the cold wood. The space between them was charged, but differently now. It was the quiet focus of a studio, not the thrilling chaos of the dance floor. “The dance. It was the best part of my night.”
She looked down, her fingers twisting together. The shyness was a tangible force, a wall he had to navigate, not bulldoze. “I’m not good at… this. Talking. Parties.”
“I’m not asking for a party. I’m asking for a drawing.” He pulled out a chair for her, the legs scraping softly on the floor. “Sit. I’ll be quiet. I promise.”
She hesitated, war playing out on her face. The desire to flee versus the professional itch, the simple, quiet lure of a task. Of doing what she was good at.
Slowly, she moved. She sat in the chair he offered, her fingers brushing the old wood of the desk as she pulled open a drawer. She found a sheet of heavy, cream paper and a charcoal pencil. She didn’t look at him. She looked at the room, her eyes narrowing, calculating lines and shadow.
Alasdair leaned back against the table, crossing his arms. He stayed perfectly still, watching her work. The change in her was instantaneous and profound. The nervous energy coalesced into a fierce concentration. Her hand moved with swift, certain strokes, no hesitation. The shy girl was gone, replaced by an artist in complete command of her medium.
He didn’t need to see the drawing. He was watching the masterpiece. The faint line of concentration between her brows, the slight part of her lips, the effortless grace of her moving hand. This was Roz. Not the scared woman at the window, but the real one, fully realised and utterly captivating.
And he knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his bones, that he would wait in this quiet room all night if it meant she’d keep looking at the world—and maybe, just maybe, eventually at him—with exactly that kind of fearless focus.
And he knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his bones, that he would wait in this quiet room all night if it meant she’d keep looking at the world—and maybe, just maybe, eventually at him—with exactly that kind of fearless focus.
The scratch of charcoal was the only sound. He watched the line of her shoulder, the quiet intensity. She was blocking in the silhouette of the bookshelf behind him, her movements loose and confident now. This was a different kind of dance.
“Hey!”
The library door flew the rest of the way open, banging against the wall. Elspeth swung through the door frame, her cheeks flushed, a haze of party energy swirling in with her.
“Roz! I need you. We’ve got some proper 80s disco on now and you are needed.” Her eyes, bright and slightly whisky-glazed, landed on Alasdair leaning against the table. “Oh. Alasdair….right…didn’t see you.” Her grin turned knowing and wide. “Roz is a great wee dancer when she’s had a few drinks and relaxed. Isn’t that right, Roz?”
Roz had frozen, the pencil hovering above the paper. The artist vanished, and the shy woman snapped back into place, shoulders rising toward her ears. She looked caught, exposed.
Elspeth swept into the room, grabbed Roz’s wrist. “Come on, sweetie. You’ve hid long enough. This is Living on a Prayer. Non-negotiable.”
“Okay,” Roz said, the word small. She let the pencil drop. She didn’t look at Alasdair as she was hauled from the chair, the half-finished sketch of the room—a few bold, expert lines suggesting the fireplace and the shelves—left behind on the desk.
Alasdair followed.
The ballroom had transformed. The bagpipes were gone. The chandeliers vibrated with the pounding synth-bass of Bon Jovi. The sea of tartan was now a jumping, shouting, air-punching mass. The heat had intensified, smelling of spilled beer and hot perfume.
Elspeth dragged Roz into the heart of it, and Roz, after a second of visible paralysis, seemed to break. Maybe it was the simpler beat. Maybe it was the anonymity of the crowd. Or maybe Elspeth was right, and the two glasses of champagne had finally melted the last of her nerves.
She started to move. It wasn't the calculated grace of the waltz. This was all loose limbs and a wide, unselfconscious smile. She threw her head back, laughing at something Elspeth shouted, her dark hair swinging. She was a great wee dancer. Full of joy.
Alasdair watched from the edge, a pint in his hand now. He felt a grin spreading on his own face. This was another layer, unexpected and brilliant. The vulnerable woman, the fierce artist, the joyful dancer. He wanted to catalog them all.
The song crashed to an end. Roz, breathless and glowing, fanned her face with her hand. Her eyes scanned the crowd, found him. Held. The smile softened, turned a little private, just for him. She took a step in his direction.
Then a large, red-haired man in a Campbell tartan kilt—Callum, Alasdair recognized, a decent guy but thick as a brick—lurched into her path, sloshing a pint. “Roz! Y’alright? Fancy a drink?”
He loomed, too close, his boom cutting through the music. Roz’s open expression shuttered. She took a subtle step back, her body language coiling into polite deflection. “I’m fine, thanks, Callum.”
“Ach, come on! One whisky! Do you good!”
Alasdair was moving before he’d decided to. He inserted himself smoothly, a friendly hand on Callum’s shoulder, his body a casual barrier between him and Roz. “Callum. Your brother’s looking for you. Something about your car and a hedge.”
“Wh—?” Callum blinked, confused.
“Back by the main doors,” Alasdair said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He gave the shoulder a pat and turned, his back fully to Callum, focusing on Roz. “You’re escaping again,” he said, his voice low. “Library or garden?”
The relief in her eyes was immediate. “Garden. Please. I need air that isn’t ninety percent other people’s breath.”
He led her through a side door, down a flagstone passage, and out into the cool, startling silence of the walled garden. The noise of the club became a dull thump behind ancient stone. The air was sweet with the smell of damp earth and night-scented stock. A single antique lamp cast long shadows from the climbing roses.
She walked ahead of him to a stone bench, sitting down heavily. “God. Thank you. He’s nice, but…”
“He’s a lot,” Alasdair finished, sitting beside her, leaving a careful foot of space between them. “Especially when you’ve just found your rhythm.”
She looked at him, the gold from the lamp catching in her eyes. “You rescued me. Again.”
“I’m making a habit of it.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You’re a woman of many contradictions, Roz. All elbows and anxiety one minute, then you’re drawing a room like you own it, or dancing like no one’s watching.”
She looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. “I think… I think I have a very small social battery. And it just ran out. Drawing charges it. Dancing, if it’s the right kind, with the right people… that does too. But the talking. The noise. It just… drains it all away.”
“So I’m talking too much,” he said, not a question.
“No.” The word was quick, firm. She looked at him again. “You’re not. You’re… quiet. In how you are. You take up space, but you don’t… crowd the air.” She shook her head, frustrated with her own description. “That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” It did. He understood being a presence without being a demand. “So, the drawing. It’s how you see the world. You were correcting its lines in there.”
She nodded, seeming grateful he’d shifted topics. “It’s easier than talking. Lines don’t misunderstand you.”
“Can I see it? The sketch?”
“It’s not finished.”
“I don’t mind.”
She was silent for a long moment, the only sound the distant bass and the rustle of a hedgehog in the leaves. “Okay,” she said finally. “But not tonight. It’s… it’s a start. I’d like to finish it.”
The implication hung in the cool air: I’d like to see you again.
Alasdair felt a surge of something clean and bright. He didn’t smile, not yet. He just nodded, matching her seriousness. “I’d like that too.”
From inside, a new song started, a slow, familiar croon—The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. The thumping beat was gone, replaced by something tender and raw that seeped even into the garden.
Roz heard it. Her posture changed. She looked from the glowing windows back to him, and in the half-light, her earlier fear was gone. In its place was a question, and a gathering courage.
He didn’t ask. He simply stood, and held out his hand.
She took it.
He didn’t lead her back inside. He drew her to her feet and then to the clear, flat patch of flagstones under the lamp. There was no one to watch, no steps to follow. He just brought her close, one hand resting lightly on her back, the other holding her hand against his chest. They barely moved, just a gentle shift of weight, a slow turn. Her forehead came to rest, tentatively, against his jaw. He could feel the quick beat of her pulse through her fingers.
This was different. This was no rescue, no performance. This was an agreement.
Her body softened against his, a slow melting of every last remnant of tension. She let out a breath, warm against his neck, that seemed to come from the very center of her. It was the sound of a door opening.
He closed his eyes, memorizing the feel of her—the silk under his palm, the scent of her hair, the incredible, quiet rightness of her frame against his. The music from inside swelled, meaningless and perfect.
When the song faded, they stood still. She didn’t pull away.
Inside, the party roared back to life with an upbeat ceilidh tune. The spell was broken, but the thread between them was spun, strong and real.
Roz leaned back, just enough to look up at him. Her eyes were dark pools in the lamplight, unreadable but wide open. “My battery’s dead,” she whispered. “I think I need to go.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice rough.
“But I want to finish the drawing.”
“Name the time.”
She told him her hotel. A small, quiet place on the other side of the loch. Tomorrow, at eleven. She would bring her proper pencils.
She walked away then, back into the noise to find Elspeth, to get her coat. Alasdair stayed in the garden, the ghost of her warmth still pressed against him, the scent of night-scented stock now forever intertwined with the memory of her silent trust.
He had come to the ball looking for nothing. He was leaving with a sketch of a room he’d never really seen, and the dizzying blueprint of a woman he suddenly, desperately, needed to know in full.