by Jackie Ivie
“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.
Chapter Three
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 wou
nded 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.