Читать книгу Heat Of The Knight - Jackie Ivie - Страница 8

Ornate, sealed, Monteith messages started arriving the very next day. Lisle sent every one back, unread, and once the emissary started leaving several of them behind, she resorted to putting them in with the smoldering peat they used for a cook fire, adding a strange odor to everything that came out of their oven. She’d have used a real fire to burn them…if she had one with which to do so. Building a fire took wood. Everything took something else; something that they didn’t possess and couldn’t afford. It was dire.

She knew just how dire it was when the west hallway collapsed, sending a wall of rainwater into a hall where royalty had once walked, and waking everyone except the youngest lass, Nadine. That lass could sleep through a war, Lisle thought as she shoved her arms into the thick, woolen, unbending fabric making up the sleeves of the housecoat that doubled for indoor and outdoor use. There wasn’t anything else she could use. The trousseau that she’d spent so many years laboriously putting minute stitches in adorned her stepdaughters and aunts, unless it was of more use as a drapery or bed linen. That included every lace-bedecked, satin, and gossamer…

Her thoughts stalled the moment her feet did. The hall roof had finally given into a rain that chilled and pelted and stole breath. She was experiencing all of it as she picked her way along the bricks and sod, the broken, rotted beams that had made up this section of the MacHugh ancestral castle.

“Oh, my God!” The screech accompanied Aunt Fanny as she launched her skeletal, white, bridal-satin-clothed body through the rubble. It was Lisle that had to stop her headlong flight before she twisted an ankle, or worse.

“Aunt Fanny! Stop that! You’ll injure yourself.” She was putting the same amount of volume into the words, but a mouthful of rain and wet hair muffled them.

“The chest! Doona’ let it get the chest.”

Aunt Fanny hadn’t much energy left in her body, and what she did possess, she’d just used. Lisle held to her and assisted her back, over chunks of indecipherable debris: an upturned chair—that was easy to identify—and what had once been a beautiful, grand tapestry depicting a faded, ancient battle that a Scotsman might actually have won, for a change.

Lisle had to swipe a hand across her eyes to make out the safest path back to the broken-off eave, where a sleepy-eyed mass of MacHughs huddled. She was grateful for the coat, since there wasn’t much that could penetrate it, rain included.

“Here. Take Aunt Fanny. Aunt Matilda? Come on, love. She’s distraught.”

“Poor dear. Come along. I’ll get you a bit of spirits. It will do your body good, it will.” Aunt Matilda had an arm around the frailer aunt, and was trying to turn the woman away.

“I canna’ go yet, Mattie. You doona’ recall it? I’ve got to get the chest. It’s priceless.”

There was nothing priceless in the entire castle. Lisle looked back over her shoulder at wreckage that glimmered in what light was available.

“What chest, love?” Aunt Mattie asked.

“The war chest. Laird MacHugh’s personal effects. You remember it?”

“Calm yourself. There was nae chest in that entire hall.”

“Was too! It was in the deacon’s bench! She’s got to get it! I canna’ rest if she does na’ get it!”

Her words ended on a wail, and they’d just gotten her over an illness that had lingered for months. Lisle set her hips and her shoulders.

“If there’s a deacon’s bench in there, I’ll find it. I promise. Get to the fire—” Lisle stopped her own words, but it wasn’t soon enough. All the MacHughs were shivering and rubbing their hands over their arms, and hugging each other, and she’d just reminded them all of it. There wasn’t a stick of wood worth burning in the entire place. There hadn’t been since early spring. She swallowed and turned back to the mess that used to be the west hallway. There was wood now, once it dried out enough to burn.

“Angus!” she shouted, but it wasn’t necessary; he was already at her elbow.

“Aye, lass?”

“Get me something to lift…this.” The pause came as she stumbled over a rain-soaked piece of something, ripping her coat, splashing everything else, and jarring her knee against a beam, paining her enough to make her cry aloud. She didn’t. She’d learned years ago that crying, sobbing, and self-pitying didn’t do much, except gain one a sore throat and an aching head, and sometimes both.

“We’ve na’ got anything like that. If it had a use, we sold it.”

“Then fetch the ladder!”

“We’ve got a ladder?”

Laughter was bubbling in her throat now, taking the place of any desire to cry. “You were using one to pretend to clean the rafters just this morn, Angus. When you thought I wouldn’t know you were actually running about, trying to discover where I’d hidden your pipes.”

“I—? My pipes? Oh, bless me, lass, you’re right. I’ll be back directly. Directly. That ladder’s na’ much good, but we can use it for leverage and such.”

“And I dinna’ hide them in the rafters, Angus!” She shouted it after his retreating back. He didn’t hear it. None of the others did, either. Those still interested in watching had gathered blankets about themselves, covering over the remnants of Lisle’s French-inspired trousseau they were wearing. She sighed and ran her hands along her hair, plastering it to her head with the motion. It was easier to see that way. It was actually a good thing her husband, Ellwood MacHugh, the last laird of the MacHughs, had filled his nursery with nothing save daughters. God alone knew what she would have used to clothe a boy.

Angus was back, sending her stumbling several steps backward with the awkward way he held what was their ladder. They’d already bartered off the serviceable one, just as Angus had said. There was nothing left. The villagers wouldn’t take credit anymore. She couldn’t afford wood to cook and warm them, or flour to eat. They were almost reduced to eating barley soup without even barley in it.

All of which made it strange that she sent every unbidden letter from the Black Monteith right back, unopened. The last time, Nadine had tears in her eyes at her stepmother’s stubbornness. They didn’t know what it contained. She did. Monteith was buying up land and property at an amazing rate, accruing his own personal kingdom. The MacHughs would rather starve to death before taking one thin shilling from the man.

The ladder wasn’t but six feet in length, maybe seven. Lisle eyed a promising-looking beam, draped over with pieces of thatch and what looked to be plaster, and some of that old, worn-looking tapestry. Of course, it could be anything else, but in the rain-blurred night, that’s what she decided it would be.

She was actually grateful it was night. This might be enough to make her sit down and wallow in self-pity, if she actually saw it in the light of day

“What are you standing about for, lass? Let’s get to rescuing the war trunk so we can find a spot to dry out in!”

Lisle gained as many slivers in her palms as there were calluses and cracks, but she had the thing beneath the beam, and then she was shoving on it. Nothing happened. She tried putting her entire body weight on it, testing the ladder’s tensile strength. That got her a bit of sway to the pile of rubble, and a groaning sound that transferred from the wood along her palms and into her spine.

She went back down. The stack leaned back, an inch or two from where it had started. She only hoped this chest, that Aunt Fanny was desperate to own, was beneath this chunk of old roofing and decayed beams. Someone should have taken the time and funds years earlier and redone some of the castle. Maybe then, when there were only MacHugh daughters alive to inherit it, there might be something left to inherit.

Lisle was being stubborn. She should open the Monteith missive, sell off the lot for a whole bunch of his dishonorable gold, and buy them a smaller place; one with some land worth farming, or raising sheep or cattle, or anything that might bring some coin into the family coffers, rather than sending all of them flying out in the opposite direction.

She took a deep breath and launched herself onto the ladder again. The beam swayed up, dangling pieces of unrecognizable debris, and she kicked with her feet to get it to move a little farther this time before she came back down. The ladder did the same creaking motion, although the wood in her hand shivered along with it, but when she came back down, the beam had moved, and none the worse for it. She was almost in buoyant spirits the third time she tried it, absolutely amazed that something she was trying was working.

“Good work, lass. I see it. I ken what she wants now.”

“What?” Her teeth clenched, and the word was whistled through them as she jumped up again, bruising her ribs a bit with it, and gathering even more slivers in her palms.

“The MacHugh war chest. It’s hid in the deacon’s bench. If it’s what I think it is, I know why the woman will na’rest without it. It’ll contain the family Bible. That’s what she wants.”

“What…why—?” Lisle held herself up, kicking her feet with a swinging motion, and moved the beam another good foot to one side. Her query didn’t make much sense with the amount of air available to her to use on it, but he understood it.

“I said, it contains the family Bible. All the history. All the names. All of them, lass. Every hero. Every chieftain. Every Celt.”

“I mean, why are you keeping it in the west hallway, buried in a deacon’s bench, and being nibbled on by rats?” She didn’t pause through the entire sentence, because that would mean she’d have to suck in more air, and every breath was so laden with rain mist, she might as well be swimming. That also meant she had to wait before coming up for more air.

“Because the chapel’s lost to us, years past.”

That much was true. It was already roofless, and full of ghosts. No one went in there anymore, even the ones pretending to be religious. That was all right with her. She hadn’t managed to get on her knees and say one prayer since leaving the convent school what felt like years ago, but was actually only one.

The Sisters would be mortified. That was all right with Lisle, too. She did her praying standing up; she hadn’t time for any other way. Such was the punishment for being in the midst of one problem or another since becoming a MacHugh, and God wasn’t listening, anyway.

She scrunched her lips together, launched herself up onto the ladder’s edge, and swung her legs back and forth easily this time, since the beam’s weight was putting her higher off the floor than before.

The ladder was offended, and the wood was telling her every bit of it, as it shuddered and groaned in her hands, making it impossible to hang onto for any amount of time. Her own arms were stiff, and her elbows locked, and the shaking of her perch loosened her grip and weakened any kind of hold.

“I’m coming down, Angus!” She was trying to shout it in warning, because he’d ducked beneath the mass of tapestry-draped beam, and she couldn’t stay aloft much longer.

He was dragging something, and not about to let go.

“Angus!”

The wood creaked loudly, drowning out her voice, but the old man was scuttling out without the chest, and glaring at her like it was her fault as he sat there, his hands about his knees in the damp and decay and mess of what had once been a glorious hallway.

“You dinna’ give me enough time, lass! Try again. And stay up longer this time!”

“The ladder’s not going to hold, Angus. We’re going to have to leave it for now.”

“We canna’ leave it. The women will na’ rest.”

“They’ll have nae choice. We can fetch it on the morrow.”

“You doona’ understand. That book’s full of heroes!” He yelled it up at her.

“Well, they’re all dead heroes, Angus! Dead!” She yelled it right back.

“That does na’ change it, lass. You doona’ understand. You were too long in that foreign school. It’s worrisome.”

“Anything I am is worrisome to you. You’d best start changing your tune, or you’ll have to do it without your blessed bagpipes in future. That’s what I’m for thinking.”

“You’re threatening me with my own pipes?”

“I never threaten, Angus. I’m only—” Lisle stopped and swiped a sliver-filled palm against her forehead to force the rain to find other channels to sluice down rather than her eyes, then swallowed around the ball in her throat. “Forgive me. I won’t hide your pipes another moment. I only did it to protect you.”

“I ken that, lassie. I always did, although it’s a thing that canna’ be done. Sometimes there’s nae protection anyone can give us. It’s a Scot thing. We’re that stubborn, that focused, that straightforward. We’ll never give an inch, na’ one. You’re a Dugall. You know. You lost four times more clansmen at Culloden last spring than the MacHughs did. Four times.”

“Doona’ remind me,” she said, holding every bit of anguish deep down, so not one bit of it sounded in her words.

“Highland blood runs deep and thick in our veins. It’s na’ something we can change. I doona’ think we’d wish it changed, even if we could. That’s why that chest is so important. It’s got the MacHugh family Bible in it, and that book holds the soul and spirit and lifeblood of this clan. We’ve got to get it.”

“What clan, Angus?” she asked. “What? Where? There’s nae MacHugh left. Just you. Three aunts. Four lasses. Me. We’re na’ a clan. We’re na’ much more than wretches, and very soon we’ll be homeless wretches to boot.”

His shoulders drooped. Lisle felt like she was kicking a wounded, great, old stag. His voice warbled when he answered.

“You’re wrong. There’s the lasses. They’re MacHughs. They’re the future. You know that. ’Tis why you protect and nourish them. You know it.”

Lisle sighed. “I’m their stepmother, Angus. That’s why. You speak of a MacHugh future? There is na’ one. There’s only the MacHugh lasses. Not one possessing a dowry, clothing to call her own, and nae schooling beneath her belt, or even a good meal, for that matter. I’m a failure at protecting and nourishing and making a future for the clan. I’m a failure at just about anything I do. This included.”

“Nonsense! You’re nae a failure, Mistress. You’re the bravest lass in the isles…mayhap further. Trust auld Angus MacHugh about it.”

“If you doona’ stop that, you’re going to start me crying, and believe it or not, I’m already wet enough, thank you very much.”

He cleared his throat. “One more heft, another bit of swing, for as long as the last one, and I can fetch it. We’ll all be in where it’s dry, and the others will thank us for it. As well as all the MacHughs that have gone before. The dead MacHughs. The hero MacHughs. They’ll thank us, too.”

His voice was solemn and contained an indefinable quality that had Lisle bowing her head, despite herself. He was right. They were going to fetch the chest containing the names of the MacHugh heroes, or they weren’t going back in. It was a Scot thing.

“Amen,” Lisle replied, finally.

“One more good heave and we’ll have it, lass! Trust me. You lift it, and I’ll do the rest.”

He was in a crouch, bare feet sticking out of his black breeches, and ready to crawl beneath the mass the moment she raised it. Lisle put her hands on the end of the ladder that was now at her eye level. That’s what came of having one end deeply buried in the roof-beam mass and the other at a crazy angle, reaching up with its bare limbs for more rain. She jumped up.

The beam lifted, held perpendicular by the ladder, which was in the same position. Lisle kept her elbows locked, held her breath, and didn’t move a thing. She didn’t dare. The entire structure was groaning, and bending, and swaying and shimmering with raindrops, like some beast seen coming up from a deep loch by a clansman on a fogged morning, with a good dram of whiskey to fortify himself to the seeing.

The beastlike structure wasn’t the only thing complaining. Lisle felt like the cords in her throat were going to come through the skin, her lungs were burning with the denied air, and everything from her waist down felt like so much dead-weight.

Then, the ladder snapped, sending the shock of it straight to her stiff arms, weakening her position as a counterbalance, and shifting everything. The middle of the debris pile rose, before collapsing into itself in slow motion, allowing her to see every bit of it, and knowing that, once again, God wasn’t answering the prayers she’d been winging in her thoughts. Chunks of masonry, plaster, wood, and heaven only knew what else flew up with the motion.

Lisle couldn’t close her eyes to it, although she sent the command. Everything was in open-eyed horror before Angus shot out, shoving a little chest in front of him. Then, the image of him was obliterated by what looked and felt like one of the ladder rungs, as it hit her squarely on one side of her nose, giving her the first black eye of her life.

The ground, or what could just as easily be hall flooring, was as hard, unforgiving, and cold, and wet as it had looked when she was standing on it. It felt worse, once she landed on her backside and felt it filling every bit of her own once-gorgeous nightgown with the rainwater mix. There was nothing for it. She sat there and tried to cry.

Angus was at her elbow then, all concern and anxiety.

“Poor lassie,” he called her as he helped her to her feet.

Lisle had a hand to her eye, making certain it was still there, before she dared open it. She welcomed the smaller man’s arm about her shoulders as he led her over the debris field and back to the dry spot of hall where everyone else had been huddled.

Lisle was grateful there weren’t any mirrors left on the walls as she allowed the group to lead her to the kitchens. Not that she cared anything about how she looked at the moment, but she still possessed some vanity, and at one point in her recent past, she’d been known as a beauty. To have that changed in such an ignominious fashion would be the height of indignity.

Actually, the height of it was what greeted her when they reached the kitchens.

There was a fire burning, warming the enclosure for the first time in weeks, and shedding its golden glow onto the beautiful red bricks that lined the room. Everything felt warm and safe, secure, and eternally wrong.

“There’s a fire going. Bless the Lord.”

“Angus,” she said, stopping his praises with the way she said his name.

“What is it, lassie?”

“We haven’t got any wood.”

“But we have, too. Look at the proof yourself. Feel it. Is na’ that the nicest thing you’ve ever felt? Let’s get a good look at that nose of yours. You may have broken it.”

“Angus,” Lisle said again, in the same deadened tone.

He frowned. At least, she thought it was a frown. It was difficult to make out through the steamed mist rising from her soaked, woolen coat and nightgown, and the way her eye was swelling.

“Aye?” he replied gravely.

“Where did we get wood for a fire?”

“From me.” The black devil named Monteith pulled away from the wall and approached. He looked like he was frowning, too, in the minute glance she gave him.

“You’re not welcome.” Lisle moved to cup her eye again.

“You need to put some cool water to that to keep the swelling down,” he replied. “It might also help with getting those slivers out.”

“Dinna’ you hear me? You’re not welcome. Leave.”

“The other ladies doona’ feel the same, Mistress MacHugh.”

“My aunts doona’ know who you are.”

“He brought us a log, Lisle,” Aunt Fanny answered, her hands holding a cup of what smelled like tea; real tea. They hadn’t had tea for over a year.

“You sold us to the devil over a log?” Lisle asked incredulously.

“It was wrapped in a fancy green ribbon,” Fanny replied.

There wasn’t an appropriate response. The MacHugh honor was stained forevermore, over a ribbon-wrapped log. It was laughable, if anything ever was again.

“You have my thanks for the log. Now leave,” Lisle said.

“It’s going to be frightfully painful soon, too. You really should get some cool water—”

“And if you doona’ leave, I’ll have you shown out.”

There wasn’t anyone in the castle with enough strength to make him do anything, herself included. She stood to her full height and glared at his neck with her uncovered eye.

“You should read one of my offers before sending them back, or whatever you’ve been doing with them.”

“There’s naught I’d ever sell to you, Lord Monteith. Leave,” she replied, in the same calm, collected, completely false voice. Everything, everywhere else on her, was screaming it.

“I dinna’ offer for anything you own, Mistress.”

“Nothing anyone else owns is for sale to you, either. Leave.”

“Here.”

He lifted a hand, holding out another missive. Lisle took it and walked carefully over to the cheerful fire, burning in the same manner in the fireplace, and tossed it in. It wasn’t easy, since her sense of depth was off. She didn’t know that came from only having one eye at her disposal.

“Here. I have more.”

She turned around. He had another held out. It sounded like he was smiling. Nothing could be worse. Actually, several things were. Alarm bells were ringing in her ears, and they accompanied the shivering going over both arms and ending at her fingertips. It was the chill, she told herself. That’s all it was. She was wearing a satin gown, pleated and embroidered, and stuck to every bit of her with the clammy feel of moss and slime.

She walked over to him, ignoring how it felt to have her gown plastered to her legs, took the proffered, wax-sealed, folded piece of paper, returned to the fire, and tossed it in, too.

“Here,” he said again.

Lisle’s good eye opened wide as she swiveled to face him. Her other eye protested the movement, making her wince. She’d have given anything to hide it, especially when she saw the way his lips seemed to soften, since that was the extent she was willing to look this time.

She walked to him, but when she reached for this one, he zipped it out of her grasp the last moment he could.

“You have to earn this one,” he said softly.

She reddened. At least, that’s what she thought was happening. Nothing in her past six years at the French Catholic school had taught her anything about it. Well, maybe the whispers of the other girls had, but beyond that, she hadn’t a clue.

“I have to do nae more than watch you leave,” she replied finally, as all he did was hold the letter to his chest and wait for her.

His lips answered for him as he smiled, a soft, slow smile that seemed to be tying every bit of her belly in knots. Then, he opened his jacket and pulled out more of the letters, all identical, all written with exquisite script and sealed with wax. It pained her to move her gaze, so she had to move her head to watch as he made a fan out of them and placed them on the kitchen table.

“You really should read at least one of them a-fore you burn them,” he said. “I’ll call again on the morrow. Nae. I’ll wait another day. You won’t be up to visitors until the day after. And you really should get some cool water for that eye. Take my advice.”

No one said anything in reply. There wasn’t anything to say. They all watched him leave, the open door seeming to suck the warmth and glow of the room out into the rain-filled night before it shut again.

It looked much worse in daylight, or what daylight the Lord was letting them have. Lisle sat on a rock, laboriously picking out slivers with one of her needles, and scanning occasionally with her good eye, at what was left of the west side of the old, humble-looking, MacHugh castle.

The rain had stopped, but the sky was promising more of it. Lisle tipped her head back. The clouds looked like some giant had taken fistfuls of shorn wool and shoved it into place up there, to hang clinging to every other handful. Every so often, a gap came, letting every living thing in this glen the MacHughs called home see the clear blue sky that was being denied to them. All of which fit her mood perfectly.

Monteith hadn’t given her a respite. She should have known to add knave to his other titles. He’d started manipulating and conniving the moment her nose woke her, smelling breakfast. The fact that her eye was almost swollen shut, her head was thudding with every pulse-beat, and her palms were itching and paining with slivers hadn’t stopped her from rushing into her dress and going down to find out how it had happened.

The entire family was circled about the covered garden gate that doubled as a table, since the ancestral one had been bartered away months earlier, and they were feasting on what could only be ham and biscuits.

“Where did we get ham…and biscuits?” she asked, keeping the condemning tone from her voice with a lot of effort.

Angus answered her, once he swallowed. “’Twas on the steps—with that.”

He gestured with his fork to an arm-sized bundle of Monteith missives. Lisle’s eyes went wide and then she had to slap a hand to cup the injured one.

“It seemed a shame to let it go to waste,” Angus finished.

Lisle’s lips thinned, making it easier to ignore her own belly’s growling. She turned to the stack of letters, tied with a beautiful, green ribbon with gold edging. It was very expensive. It had to be. He’d used his family’s colors. Wasn’t that nice? she asked herself.

The bundle of letters wasn’t any heavier than a small load of linens that needed washing. She picked the entire mass up and headed to where the log he’d given them last night was little more than coals.

“I was wondering what I was going to use for firewood once this burned,” she announced loudly, and bent forward to push the still-wrapped bundle into the center of the ashes.

“Now that’s wasteful, Lisle.”

It was Aunt Matilda reprimanding her. Lisle stood and turned to face her.

“How so?” she asked. “They were all addressed to me. I know it. You know it. I also know what he wants, and I’m not selling. Not one speck of land, nor one drop of the loch. I doona’ care if we starve. He’ll not get his hands on MacHugh soil.”

“I mean, that was a waste of a good ribbon. We could have used that.”

Lisle’s lips curved and her eye smarted again, this time with moisture. She ducked to hide it, and that just made her head thud. She’d never had a black eye before, although her brothers had suffered through enough of them; back when she was growing up, and long before Laird Dugall had sent her away to become a proper young lady, and not the lad she wanted to be.

All of which had obviously failed, she told herself.

“I’m taking a walk,” she announced. “To inspect the damage.”

“I’ll accompany you, lass. Just let me finish,” Angus answered her.

Lisle spun. She had to get out of there before the smell of ham, accompanied by fresh biscuits, made her forget her principles and give into her empty belly as she joined them.

All of which explained why she was out on a rock, picking at her palms, between surveying the remains of the castle, watching clumps of gray clouds, and wishing herself back into the confines of the French finishing school that her father had sent her to. Life had been simpler, then. A lot simpler.

“It’s na’ so bad,” Angus said, fitting himself onto another rock at her side and pushing his heels into the sod, like she was.

“It is, too. We may as well make that tower into its own free-standing building. That hall’s beyond repair.”

“I mean, the eye.”

Lisle smiled in reply.

“Although it’s strange-looking and probably hurts like the devil, I’ll wager the swelling will be gone by evening. You may even find it useful to you again, then. Trust auld Angus. I know these things.”

They didn’t say anything for a bit. Nature decided they needed sprinkling, but it was a soft-starting one. Lisle couldn’t even feel the drops misting the air about them. She could smell them. “Did you get your pipes?” she asked.

The grin he gave her creased his face, combining with the raindrops to make it look like he was sparkling. Lisle looked at him and felt her breast tighten. She no longer felt her eye, her slivers, her bruises, or even her hunger. She swallowed so she could speak.

“Take a bit more care where and when you play them next time.”

“Not to worry. I’ve learned a lesson. I’ll keep them by my side and nae one will hear a peep. Nary a one. You can trust me.”

“I wouldn’t have given them back to you, otherwise,” she replied.

They looked back at the castle. The clouds had gotten lower, nearly touching the tops of the MacHugh towers, although now the west one looked like it was being orphaned.

“It looks like the courtyard wall’s still intact,” Lisle said.

“Well, that hall was in need of a good cleaning.”

Lisle chuckled.

“We were in luck when Ellwood set his sights on you, Lisle Dugall.”

“He never even saw me a-fore the ceremony. You know that. He had his sights set more on my dowry. It was considerable, you know.”

“I was trying to honey-coat it.”

“Doona’ bother. I already know the why of it. I just wish there was some left of it. That way I’d not have to consider what the Monteith offers.”

“You consider it?”

She turned her head sideways. “If you promise not to speak of it, I’ll confess. It gets harder and harder to toss his letters into the fire. He knows it. He knows how dire it is. The only bright spot is that he’s not going to get very much for his gold now, is he?”

“I wouldn’t say that. MacHugh is prime ground. Always was.”

“I’m sorry I have to do this, Angus.”

The rain was thicker; not breath-stealing, like it had been the previous evening, but it was making plumes of mist rise from the ground in front of them, and making the castle look like it belonged in a fairy-tale.

“It sure is beautiful,” she said.

“Aye. That is it. Come along now, lass. I’ll slice you a bit of ham, on a biscuit. It’s ever so tasty, and I’ll not tell a soul it’s for you. My word of honor.”

He stood and held out his hand. After a moment, Lisle took it.

The girl was stubborn to the point of obnoxiousness, and still she was in his every thought. It wasn’t her attitude toward him, although Langston had never had a woman simply dismiss him before. Never. He scrunched his eyes tighter, bringing her more fully to mind. There was something about the MacHugh woman. It wasn’t her pale, perfect complexion, highlighted by sky-blue eyes that showed every emotion so clearly he could almost feel them; it wasn’t her rose-shaded lips that did nothing but spout hatred at him; it wasn’t the long, auburn mass of curls that caressed a very slender waist before ending at well-rounded hips. It certainly wasn’t those hips.

“Damn it!” Langston swore and gave up sleeping. He rarely slept for lengthy periods. He’d long ago found it to be a nuisance and a waste of time. Too much happened in the dark hours, when everyone was supposed to be oblivious; too much that couldn’t be stolen or bought back—at any price. It was almost dawn; dawn on the second day he’d given her. The luscious Mistress MacHugh might be wakeful, too. He hoped she was feeling something—maybe even the same anticipatory sensation he was, although hers would probably be colored with dread.

He was just finishing tying his cravat into an intricate design only a valet was supposed to know the execution of, when the door burst open, surprising him. He didn’t let it show, and took his time to turn and face the man there.

“Come quick, my laird! The tunnel’s collapsing!”

Langston lifted an eyebrow in reply. “I’ve an appointment with the MacHughs to keep, Etheridge,” he replied in his usual bored fashion. He watched the man’s lip tighten.

“We doona’ have enough men to shore it up.”

“Call on more.”

“Already done.”

“Report to me when it’s done, then.” Langston reached for his cloak.

“The design was the flaw, sir.”

“Impossible.” Langston turned his attention to sliding his hands down the cloak’s folds, prior to shaking it out.

“I warned you not to go near the moat, but would you listen?” Etheridge was definitely smirking as he said it. Langston stopped his motions.

“I have an appointment with the MacHughs today.”

“It may not take all day to correct,” his valet said.

“And…if it does?”

“Sweeten it with gold. You wish water in the dungeons, too?”

Langston sighed. “The Mistress MacHugh is a very stubborn woman.”

“Most are. Hurry!” The words came over the man’s shoulder as he ran through the door.

Langston swore, yanked the cravat open, ruining the self-absorbed perfection of the knot that had been at his chin, and then he was running, too.

And it took more than one day to correct it. It took five.