Читать книгу Heat Of The Knight - Jackie Ivie - Страница 9

The moaning and groaning, crying and complaining, anger and spite, and looks of incredible maliciousness lasted four days. That was all the longer Lisle could put up with every last one of the ungrateful, back-against-the-wall remnants of the MacHugh Clan. She announced as much over a tasteless dinner of broth. That was what the ham had been reduced to; a flavoring of such little impact. Any barley the soup still contained tasted flat and bland, and you couldn’t detect what the soup was flavored with even when standing atop the pot inhaling the steam.

They all knew it was her fault. She didn’t need anyone remarking on it. They didn’t. Their looks were enough. Lisle looked from her own bowl of barley-enhanced, steamed water to the cold fireplace, which wasn’t making her feel as guilty. That was probably because the weather had decided to change, bringing chilled mornings followed by brilliant sunshine, followed by freezing nights, making not only Aunt Fanny, but her frail twin, Aunt Grace, ill again.

In fact, Fanny was so ill she didn’t seem to have the strength to cough, just so she sat there, her body jerking with the motions. Lisle put down her bowl and stood. “All right. All right! Stop looking at me like that!”

“Like what, Lisle?” It was Aunt Mattie.

“Like I’ve taken everything from you and without reason. I have a reason. I doona’ want him in this house. I doona’ want to sell out to the devil!” I doona’ wish to suffer through the strange sensations he makes me feel!

“We’re tired of hearing what you want.”

Lisle’s mouth dropped open at the insult from her eldest stepdaughter, Angela. “Stepdaughter” was a stupid title, since Angela was larger, sturdier, and the span separating their ages was less than six months. But Angela was still the child, while Lisle was the parent. She raised her head, put her hands on her hips, and faced them with both eyes, although the injured one wasn’t quite opened to its full extent.

“I’m not deigning to answer that, Angela, and you’d best be grateful that I’ll not send you to your room, either.”

“Good thing, for I wouldn’t have gone.”

“Hush your mouth, Angela!” Angus championed her.

Lisle gave him a smile, and then she had to force it to stay in place as he continued. “The lass has something to say to us, and I, for one, think it’s what we’re waiting to hear. Go on, lass. Say it.”

She gulped. “It’s not my fault.”

“He dinna’ come when he said he would, did he?” Mattie asked.

“Well…nae, but—”

“And there was nae more logs, and nae more food, and nae more letters of offer left, either, was there?”

“That is not my fault, either!”

“What is your fault, then?”

“That I dinna’ read what he wanted when I had the chance! I’m going to correct it, though. That man is not getting away with this!”

“How are you going to do that?”

“By marching over there on the morrow and finding out why he dinna’ come when he said he would, and what he wanted. That’s how!”

The entire assemblage brightened. Lisle watched it with a detached part of her she could learn to dislike. A wall of non-emotion rose, making her feel like a bystander, instead of a participant. It was easier to deal with it that way, she decided, watching everyone smile and chat and look at her with pleasure instead of the black looks they’d been using. She couldn’t hear a thing they were saying for several moments as her heartbeat rose to cover the noise. That was probably a good thing, too. “I’ll find out what he wants, and if it’s not so dire, I’ll consider it,” she said.

“Doona’ sell him the loch. Nae clan can exist without such.”

That was Angus. He was helping himself to another bowl of the broth, and acting like it was thick with ham, barley, and every sort of delicious, nutritious vegetable.

“What if that’s what he wants?” she asked.

He set the bowl down and looked at her. All of them had the same expression, too. Pained. They knew it was going to be dire and hard to live with. At least it would be living. The only thing worse was starving to death.

“Make him pay triple what it’s worth, then,” Aunt Matilda said quietly. “I hear that’s what he does. He doesn’t understand the value of his gold. He treats it like it’s wheat chaff, and worth as much. The man’s a fool.”

“I won’t let him get the better of me. Never you fear. I’m a MacHugh, aren’t I?” Lisle asked.

They all chorused that she was, making her feel very welcome and very needed. The emotion carried her into the sleepless night lying beside Nadine and her full sister, Elizabeth, in the ancestral bed that she should have been sharing with Ellwood MacHugh, and not his fatherless daughters.

The weather held. That was a good sign. Lisle had two things left from her trousseau: one was a traveling ensemble, made of velvet-trimmed, sky-blue satin that matched her eyes, and the other was her own wedding gown. She’d had the traveling one designed in the French fashion, the material snug across her bodice, although it was much tighter now than it had been when she’d last worn it, on the lengthy day she’d arrived and become a MacHugh, and then a widow.

Her waist had also gotten longer; it had to have. Lisle was an expert needlecrafter. The stitches were so tiny and meticulous that they were difficult to spot, and the fit had been exact when it had been made. Now the waist was an inch or more above where hers was, and consequently the hem was barely reaching the tops of her boots.

She grimaced down at them as she waited at the crossroads near Old Leanach Cottage for any type of conveyance that would save her what promised to be a very lengthy, hot walk. The cottage still stood, mutely testifying to the horrors that had taken place in the barn. Lisle shivered in the predawn light. Everyone knew what had happened there; how the Sassenach had found the wounded clansmen and chieftains hiding there after the defeat at Culloden, and how they’d bolted everyone inside and then they’d torched it. Lisle swallowed and told her own imagination to hush, although she said it softly. Ghosts didn’t take well to loud voices.

She focused on her boots. That was better than imagining that she heard screams and groans. She’d shined the best pair she had left, using a paste of water and soot, which was all that was left of Monteith’s missives, and still her boots looked like what they were: well worn, old, and tired. There were even three tiny buttons missing from the top of the left one. She wondered how that had happened, and also if she’d be better served hunching down a bit when she finally reached the Monteith stronghold, in order for her skirt to cover it over.

She heard the creak of wagon wheels before she saw it, and started waving as the farm cart came into view. It was the miller, and the bed of his cart was loaded with sacks bulging with flour, the like of which the MacHughs would be salivating over. Her mouth filled with moisture she had to swallow around in order to beg a ride.

It was going to be a gloriously sunny day, and her luck was holding as the miller took her nearly to Inverness itself. She didn’t tell him she was going to Monteith Hall. She didn’t want anyone to know. She was thinking that kind of knowledge wouldn’t get her any kind of assistance with anything.

He only asked her once where she was heading in such a fine dress. She lied and told him that she was checking in Inverness for employment deserving of a lady of quality, like herself. That had stopped his chatter briefly, but he wasn’t able to stay silent long, and soon was regaling her with all sorts of tales from his farm, his animals, his missus, and the seven lads he’d sired that helped him with all of it.

Lisle had ceased listening, and was nearly dozing, when he stopped, letting her off near an overhang of cliff that lined one side of the inlet known as Moray Firth. Lisle waved until he was out of sight, then turned back the way he’d taken her. The road turning into Monteith property had been passed some time earlier. The farmer had pointed it out to her, with a tone of envy in his voice. It should have been obvious. He’d told her that the Monteith laird didn’t know the value of gold. Lisle decided that he obviously didn’t have the sense to keep it hidden, either, for there were four stone pillars on either side of his property, a lion statue at their tops, and a gleaming iron gate between the closest two.

The gateposts were attached on either side, to a wall of stone that had looked to be chest high from the wagon. Now that she was walking along it, she realized it was actually over her head. He must think everyone wanted what he had, to fence himself in like this, she thought.

It was stupid. Nobody wanted anything to do with him. He didn’t need to build a fence the size of a castle wall in order to keep anyone or anything out. She pushed on the gate and it swung open easily and with a well-oiled efficiency that either proved its newness, or the amount of maintenance he was willing to expend on it.

It was both. She had the answer to it as she walked up his road, which was covered with perfectly fitted and aligned stones. It wasn’t possible to twist an ankle with the fit of the stones. It would probably feel like flying, if one were riding on horseback, or being driven in a coach.

The amount of funds he had to have expended on it was jaw-dropping. As was the army of groundskeepers it looked like he employed, all of them studiously applying themselves to grooming a tree, or a shrub, or doing anything other than watching her walk by.

The landscape bordering his drive was in a condition resembling a woolen carpet of green, and about as thickly woven. Monteith was leaving the woods beyond the road in pristine condition, though, and there wasn’t much sunlight penetrating through them. It was unnerving. There could be any number of watchers and guards posted, and no one would ever be the wiser. It was also impossible to see how large this fenced-in property of his was.

It was a longer span before Monteith Hall came into view. Lisle stopped. His castle was supposed to be black and craggy like the rocks overlooking the Moray Firth, and bleak enough to contain a clan in league with the devil. It was the exact opposite. Sunlight was touching the light yellow stone of which it was constructed, making it look like it belonged in the sky rather than attached to a small hill in the center of the valley it was nestled in.

Lisle selected one of the stone benches at the side of his drive and sat for a moment, to rest the blisters forming on the backs of her heels, and also to absorb the beauty and dimension of Monteith’s home. It looked to be ten times the size of the MacHugh ruin, and probably four times the one she’d been raised in.

A flag flew from the flagpole, fluttering with what breeze there was. She knew it was green, and would contain a lion passant at the center, the heraldic beast that was a lion in profile. It would have two crossed swords in its hind claws, and would be colored in solid, vivid gold. Looking at what she was, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find he’d paid to have actual gold thread put into every embroidered stitch.

There appeared to be four ways to enter the walls, although she could only see three of them. One had a drawbridge. She knew that because it lowered, and she watched a coach leave with a sort of detachment that had little to do with the lump of nervousness still there, like a stone in her belly. She stood and waited. She didn’t question that it was being sent for her. She knew it was.

“You’ve got…a visitor.” Etheridge huffed between the words, his frame holding the post upright while it was lashed into place.

“What?” Langston took a moment to answer. He hadn’t been paying attention. He was being driven mad by visions of sky-blue eyes, alight with something his imagination told him he’d glimpsed, and that he wanted so badly his hands shook on the rope pulley before he could stop it.

“I said…you’ve got…a visitor.”

The man’s words came with a curse, since water was still seeping through the wall behind the post. He was being pessimistic. At least it wasn’t flooding anymore. Langston stepped back, pulling on the rope as he went. It was going well. They had one more log to set, and the wall would hold. It hadn’t been a design flaw, either. It was an engineering problem, and a misread of his plans.

“I dinna’ hear the pipes.”

“There’s nae way to hear anything down here. This place would swallow the sound of an entire band of pipers.”

Langston grinned. The others stopped and stared. The grin died as he realized it. Hide emotion. Hide everything. Always. It was better that way. He cleared his throat. “Then, how do you know I’ve got a visitor?”

“Because Duncan’s standing behind you, waving his arms and speaking of it. Has been for some time. You dinna’ hear him. You dinna’ hear much, I’m for thinking. Your mind’s elsewhere. Has been for some time. Strange.”

Langston turned his head. It was true. A clansman was at the steps; a dry clansman. “Well?” he asked the man.

“It appears the woman is arriving. She’s on the drive.”

“What woman?” His heart might have lurched. Langston’s voice stumbled as he felt something so foreign he had to consciously command his body not to betray it. That was stranger than anything Etheridge mentioned.

“The one you write your notes to.”

Langston’s eyes widened then. He couldn’t prevent it. “Here?” he asked. “Now?”

“Aye.” Now Duncan was grinning, too.

“How much time do I have?” He was looking down at the mess of sweat-soaked shirt, wet plaide, and mud-covered boots.

“Little. We sent a coach.”

“What?”

He couldn’t break into a run until he got through the standing water. He knew they all watched. He would have, too. He was supposed to be an emotionless, demonic, Black Monteith. Etheridge didn’t wait to show his reaction, though. He was laughing.

She was still standing as the coach slowed before it reached her. Then it passed by to find a spot to turn about and return for her. It could also have been because whoever was in it wanted a look at her. The coach stopped directly in front of her, making a looming shadow that reached to the toes of her scuffed and used boots. Lisle watched as the coachman secured his reins. There was also a groomsman at the rear of it. He stepped down to walk over and open the door for her, and lower a row of three steps into place.

“We’ve come to fetch you,” he informed her, holding out one of his white-gloved hands in order to assist her in.

Lisle gulped. She had too much sweat on her hands to touch his gloves. She stood there, undecided, and watched as he smiled at her.

“It’s all right, lass. We’ve been expecting you.”

They had? That was almost enough to send her marching right back down the perfectly groomed road and back to poverty. Almost.

She took his hand and allowed him to help her enter the coach that contained two opposing newly padded leather seats, a small shelf on the far side, white satin to line the sides and top and windows, and nothing else. Lisle settled onto a seat and watched as he put the ladder back into place beneath the flooring and shut her in. There was no turning back now, and her heartbeat wasn’t loud enough to dull anything.

It was loud, though. And it wasn’t dimming the entire two minutes that the ride took. It was actually getting louder, pulsing through her, and making everything else feel weak and shaky. She was going into purgatory, the devil’s spawn was awaiting her, and there wasn’t anyone there to help her, or guide her, or even hold her hand. Lisle was afraid her bottom lip was trembling.

The drawbridge closed behind them. She couldn’t hear it; she had to sense it by the loss of light as they went into his courtyard. Her mouth filled with spittle that she was too frightened to swallow, and then when she did, her ears popped with the released pressure.

She only hoped she didn’t burst into tears.

The coach stopped with a rocking motion the coachman had probably needed many years to perfect. Lisle watched the empty seat in front of her with unseeing eyes, pushed another swallow down her throat, and grimaced at the heavy, hard feeling of the ball of fear she was harboring.

She told herself she was being stupid. There was nothing to be frightened over. She was simply going to ask him what he wanted from the MacHughs, and then she was going to bargain for the best price for it, and then she was going to take her leave. She wasn’t going to give him the time to create a reaction of any kind within her.

The door was opened, showing her a sun-kissed inner keep that made her gasp. The rocks used to construct his keep were nearly a story high each, and constructed vertically, so they looked like they were thrusting up from the ground into the sky, before being molded to another rock that appeared to do the same. And they were marbled-looking, giving the castle walls veins of gold and amber and brown and white, and making it look like there wasn’t any amount of money that would have made such beauty.

“His Lordship is awaiting you in his study, Mistress.”

She thought the servant waiting for her was different from the groomsman that had assisted her in, but she wasn’t certain of it. She hadn’t paid him enough attention, and this one was wearing gloves, too.

Then she saw the three doormen, all wearing Highland attire. There was no stopping her jaw. It dropped, completely and mortifyingly. Imprisonment and confiscation by the Crown was the penalty for a Highlander in a kilt, and Monteith was begging for that very thing. She didn’t think it possible that he was that stupid. But he had to be, or he wasn’t afraid of the penalty because he was immune from it.

Her upper lip lifted in a sneer, and some of the hard ball in her throat dissipated with it. He was immune. How right she’d been about him! He was in league with the devil, all right, but the devil was the Sassenach. Every Scot knew that. Lisle no longer felt any fright and she smoothed her hands down the silken-feeling fabric of her traveling gown, not even caring if the motion caused more snags than it had earned with use.

She was a true Scot. She was born a Dugall. She’d married a MacHugh laird. She could still look herself in any mirror on any wall in any castle, Jacobite or not, perfectly maintained or not.

The mirror he had in his front foyer meant this was an excellent time and place to put that to the test, and Lisle looked at herself, seeing for the first time the yellowish purple of her left eye, which still wasn’t as fully open as the other one. Then she was looking at how her cheeks looked like she’d just come in from a run about the moors, because of the agitation. It surely wasn’t due to anything like a blush.

She swallowed, and wondered how she was supposed to keep from looking like she was blushing. Rice powder would have worked, but if she’d had anything the MacHughs thought contained something like rice, she’d have probably found a way to make it edible by now. Lisle smiled at the thought, and watched as it made her look her age, for a change.

The expression instantly turned into a frown. She couldn’t afford to look like a girl of eighteen and a half. She was here as the matriarch of the MacHugh clan, on business, and the entire family’s fortunes could very well turn on what transpired in the next few minutes. There wasn’t any place in that plan for being a young girl.

She untied the ribbon at her chin and removed the bonnet that had kept the worst of the sun from paining her eye. Then she patted strands that had escaped her bun, frowning further at that. Her hair wouldn’t ever behave, and she’d used the last of her lavender softening soap on it, hiding it at the loch since the girls would have been in a dander over how she’d kept it from them.

“If you’ll follow me?”

Lisle jumped at the voice. The woman who owned it didn’t show any response, pleasant or unpleasant, to Lisle’s reaction—no smile, no commiseration, no sympathy, nothing. She didn’t look interested at all. Lisle kept her head high and her gaze straight ahead as she passed hall after hall, doorway after doorway, showing rooms of luxury and size, and full of so much furniture it looked impossible to move about in most of them.

The woman took a right turn halfway down the main hall; then she took another right, and then a left. Lisle’s eyes widened with each turn, and after yet another left, she was in danger of getting disoriented to the point she’d need help finding her way back out.

Contrary to the clutter he looked to have filled most of the rooms with, the halls were free and clear, large and with a high ceiling span that made it feel like she was in a cathedral. The woman stopped at a door with two guards standing at attention on either side of the carved wood entryway.

Lisle nearly rolled her eyes, except she knew it would hurt too much. The expense of keeping guards here had to be offset by the need for them. That was the only reason for such a waste of gold. What enemy could possibly find a way in here, long enough, and far enough, in order to be a threat to their liege? Monteith had guards posted outside his chambers? Ridiculous. The only reason had to be because he must feel he needed them.

Then the door was opened for her, and everything she was thinking went straight out of her head as the Monteith laird stood from a position in a very large, leather chair and took over her entire vision.

She’d already proven that the men she’d seen so far, wearing outlawed Highland garb, were enough to make her jaw drop. The laird was every bit of that and more. Lisle kept her teeth clenched to prevent it from happening again as he moved around his desk and walked toward her, an unreadable expression on his handsome face.

Lisle looked down. She didn’t have a choice. It was self-preservation and instinct in their most pure form. Little needles of sensation were hitting at the tips of her fingers and even at her scalp, almost like she’d had the areas asleep. She didn’t know hatred and disgust felt like that. Then he spoke, and the reaction went right to the peaks of her breasts, hardening them, to her absolute dismay. She gasped and almost covered herself, except that would make him look. And make him think.

“You…came.”

Wonder colored the words that were said in a deep pitch no man should be able to wield so easily. Lisle scolded herself, gulped, took a deep breath, and then looked up, promising herself that she was going to meet his eyes this time.

She reached his chest. He was breathing hard. That seemed fair to her. She made her eyes move higher, past the lace that was cascading from his neck, heaving with each of his breaths. She dared herself to look higher…his chin…. It wasn’t possible. She dropped her gaze again.

He cleared his throat, making it worse.

Lisle tipped her foot, putting the scuffed toe of one boot against the wood grain of his floor, and chided herself for being an idiot.

“Can I offer you some refreshment? A chair? Take your wrap?”

She shook her head to each query.

He chuckled. Softly. At her. Lisle’s back felt the insult first. Then, it penetrated her mind. Culloden widows didn’t act like startled rabbits. Her head snapped back and she glared up at him, although she had to take a step back before it worked, and then she was using everything at her disposal to keep every response hidden. She couldn’t prevent her lips when they parted, however. She had to let the gasp in.

Monteith was wearing a kilt of his clan colors, topped by a black leather jacket. He had more lace at the cuffs of his sleeves, cascading onto the hands he had perched to his hips. There were gold-trimmed epaulets on the shoulders of his doublet, a double row of gold buttons, and his sporran was hung with gold fringe. Even the tassels on his socks were of gold.

Sunlight was streaming in the floor-to-ceiling window, turning his black hair into shined ebony…wet, shined ebony. He was wet? Her eyes narrowed. The light was also causing a shadow to dust where his eyelashes reached his cheeks and the cleft of his chin. She pulled back farther, moving her neck this time, and wished heartily that he was a spindly, weak, and pale sort. It was a forlorn wish. Nothing about the man in front of her fit the definition of weak or spindly, or anything save large, strong, and innately raw. He was every definition of big, brawny, and beautiful…the kind of man women swooned over. He knew it, too. The smile playing about his lips betrayed it. She detested him. Completely.

There wasn’t a drop of moisture anywhere in her mouth with which to swallow, so she didn’t try. Lisle kept her eyes on him as she moved two steps sideways into the room, listening for the shutting of the door behind her, and yet dreading it at the same time.

She got both, and the resultant silence felt like they were in their own, encapsulated, luxurious world. Lisle had to force herself to do something other than stare at him. She blinked, and pretended to look over the books lining the walls to the right of where he stood. Then she moved her gaze to the fireplace that was of a size a royal palace could claim, and from there to the magnificence of the dark green lion passant-emblazoned shield above it, stretching clear up into the wooden rafters crossing the ceiling two stories above her.

She lowered her head from studying it, caught his gaze for more time than she dared admit to, while her heart hammered faster, stronger, and with a hum to it that was every bit as loud as anything the clan armies could drum out. Then she moved her gaze to the window, and to the picture beside it, and on the left. It was obviously a relative, one hand resting on a hunting dog, while his other lay across the chair that had to be the exact one Monteith had just risen from.

There was nothing left, save to do what she’d come to do, and somehow find her way back out of this maze of rooms and riches and furniture. Lisle cleared her throat. It sounded like Aunt Fanny’s coughing had, and about as confident. She tried again, wincing a bit at how it pained her dry throat.

He was probably smiling; anyone with such a complete win over a MacHugh would. She avoided looking. The floor was safest…again. She concentrated on the slatted wood of the floor beneath them, covered with enough overlapping rugs that she could leap across from rug to rug and never touch wood if she didn’t want to.

“I’m gratified I was on hand to welcome you to my humble home,” he said.

That time she did roll her eyes, gaining every bit of the ache she knew it would cause. It wasn’t worth it. He hadn’t even seen it.

“To what do I owe this surprise…visit?” he continued.

“Let’s na’ waste time with words. You know why I’m here,” Lisle said.

“Agreed. You’ve acceded to my offer,” he replied softly, and with a mesmerizing tone that could lull a beast into submission.

She lifted her head and looked at him, hoping disdain was the expression on her face, but she couldn’t do a thing about the flush. She felt it clear to the roots of her hair beneath the bun, and all the way to the toes in her socks, but she didn’t blink, or make any other sign of any kind. It took every bit of her determination, too.

“I’ve na’ even read it,” she answered, finally.

His eyebrows rose. She had to gulp and move her gaze away. There was no way to continue watching him, unless there was a scar, or at the very least a pockmark, somewhere on his face, to focus on.

“Would you like another one?” he asked.

She glanced over, caught a glimpse of pursed lips—unscarred, perfectly formed, pursed lips—and moved quickly away. The mantelpiece looked safe, and since it was over his right shoulder, she could pretend she was looking at him.

“I won’t sell any land cheaply,” she answered the mantel.

“It’s na’ land I want.”

She frowned, but didn’t move her gaze. “I’ll na’ sell the loch without the land.”

“I doona’ wish any land or any water from you, Mistress MacHugh.”

“Why na’?”

“Because I have enough, I think. And what I already own is of better quality. I can raise better cattle, and better sheep.”

The flush went hotter at the insult. Her upper lip curled. “What is it you do want, then?” she asked. She moved her eyes directly to his, and kept every bit of what was happening to her very own body at the locking of his gaze deep down, where she could hide it. It wasn’t easy. Her heart felt like it shut down, skipping several beats before restarting, and her breath clogged her chest with how it went missing as she held it.

In reply, he started unbuttoning his vest. Lisle watched, only the widening of her eyes betraying her. Then he was reaching inside and pulling out yet another wax-sealed tri-folded piece of parchment. This time he waited, holding it toward her, and not even blinking through his regard.

Lisle had to step forward to reach it. The moment she had it, he turned, the motion making his kilt swirl as he strode to the far window and stood, hands on his hips again, and his back to her. She opened it and read.