Heat of the Knight

by Jackie Ivie

  “I’ve never drunk wine,” she said.

  “Never?”

  “I’ve na’ touched whiskey much, either.”

  “Nae?” he responded.

  “Does wine have the same effect as whiskey?” she asked.

  “Some say ’tis worse.”

  “Good. I’ll take two doses of the stuff, then.”

  He laughed, and it was such a surprise that Lisle couldn’t keep from staring. He didn’t look like he was in league with the devil. He looked like he was a handsome, young man. Young, she repeated in her thoughts.

  “How auld are you?” she asked when the sound of his laughter had died.

  “That would probably depend on how auld you are,” he replied softly.

  “What? Why?”

  “I would na’ wish to frighten you.”

  “I’m not frightened of you,” she announced loudly.

  “You look frightened.”

  “You doona’ know me enough to judge such,” she replied.

  “True,” he said, finally.

  “So…how auld are you?” she asked again.

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Nae!” The shock in her voice had him laughing again. Lisle reddened, and had to turn her face away before he saw anymore of it.

  “Too auld for you?” he asked.

  “My first husband was fifty-seven,” she replied to the wall.

  “Ugh,” was his response to that. She almost matched it.

  So, Langston Monteith was twenty-eight. Young, by any standards, and especially youthful to have amassed the fortune he was spending. She wondered if he’d stolen it. That was probable to the point of being likely. He was a pirate. That was it. He’d stolen it from good, sea-faring folk, taking their ships, stealing their gold, and then sending them to the bottom of the ocean. That’s where the gold must have come from, she told herself.

  “You’re mumbling to yourself. Here.” He was holding out a slender, crystal goblet, filled at the bottom with a dark liquid that rolled back and forth with the carriage’s movement. She wondered where he’d gotten it, and why she hadn’t even seen it.

  “Is this all I get?” she asked.

  His lips curved into a smile, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Not when he handed the goblet to her, or when he touched it with the side of his own, since she hadn’t been able to move her hand, or when he brought his own to his lips, took a draught, and then swallowed it.

  Lisle wasn’t able to prevent her own throat from doing the same motion. She dropped her gaze to the goblet she gripped with two hands now, to still its trembling. She didn’t know what was happening to her, but it wasn’t good.

  “Until I see how well you handle it…aye,” he said, filling the coach with the smoothness of his voice again.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You were asking if that’s all you get. That’s my answer.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll not have it said my wife’s a drunkard.”

  “What?” she asked. The words were insulting, but the tone was slick and warm and masculine, and making strange rivulets of something she didn’t know enough about to define run her spine and then return, crawling up into the circlet of flowers still at the crown of her head before dissipating, like bubbles of froth at a fast-running burn. That wasn’t good, at all, she decided.

  “Take a sip. It’s not lethal.”

  Oh, if only something was! Lisle lifted the glass to her lips and made the same motion he had, although the wine was sour-tasting and acrid, and made her nose wrinkle with distaste before she swallowed. She didn’t like a thing about wine.

  “Does it meet with your approval?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “The wine. It’s a very good stock. From France. Expensive. I drink only the best and pay well for the privilege.”

  “Will you cease flaunting this wealth? ’Tis unseemly!”

  “To whom?” he asked.

  “Every Scot that’s without it,” she whispered.

  Her answer settled into the carriage, changing the atmosphere so subtly that if she wasn’t so attuned to it, she’d have missed it. It was colder, too. She reached to touch the bundle of bagpipes on the seat beside her for strength and courage, and to curb the fright she’d just claimed she didn’t have.

  “I really hadn’t given it much thought,” he finally said, making her gasp with the words.

  She lifted the goblet and gulped it down, making a wince at how it tasted at the back of her throat, and then she held it out for more. He didn’t say a word; he just lifted his eyebrows, before tipping the bottle and pouring her another dollop of it.

  Chapter Six

  “You decide you like my wine?” he asked, with a softer voice than he’d used before, as Lisle gulped the second portion down, too, not even noticing the taste that time.

  She nodded and held her glass out again.

  “Oh, I doona’ think so, my dear.”

  My dear? Her head repeated it because her ears still didn’t believe they’d heard it. “Why not?” she asked, lifting her chin.

  “Because you’re excruciatingly young.”

  “So?”

  “And I’m not,” came the answer.

  “Twenty-eight is not auld,” Lisle replied.

  “True. To some.”

  She frowned. She probably should have grabbed a slice or two of the black bread that the MacHughs had been making into rolls about their sliced beef when she’d left. She didn’t know much about it, but wine probably wasn’t a good thing on an empty stomach, and what little of it he’d let her have was sending warmth where she was determined to stay cold, and making him look fuzzy and indistinct every time she looked that way.

  “And to others, it’s ancient.”

  She lifted one side of her face from the frown, straightening it out, but he was still blurred-looking. That wasn’t all bad, she decided. He didn’t look as dark and malevolent. “You’re not ancient,” she announced, since it was a fact.

  “I’ve been in Persia. Do you know where that is?” he asked.

  She shook her head, then squinted her eyes, then nodded. She’d learned this at school. “At the other end of the Mediterranean Sea,” she replied finally.

  “Very good.”

  Lisle felt the blush again, and had to look down at the empty wine goblet in her hands.

  “Persia has a clime that ages a man…and a woman. Alexander the Great was but twenty when he became king and conquered the known world. Twenty-six is the age at which Hannibal the Barbarian took over his father’s armies and became a great thorn in Rome’s side. All of which is ancient, dusted history, but proves my point. Age is relative when life is held cheaply, and twenty-eight can feel quite auld to some.”

  “That’s distressing,” Lisle replied.

  He took a long time to answer. She wasn’t looking at why. It was better to go back to studying her wine glass.

  “Why so?” he asked finally, with a voice that sounded different, somehow.

  “That gives me nine years and some, a-fore I feel the same. That isn’t very comforting.”

  The meaning behind his groan was lost on her. It didn’t sound like he agreed, though. “It won’t happen to you. I’ll make certain of it.”

  “I think you overrate yourself, my lord.”

  He rolled the amusement through his lips. At least, that’s what it sounded like. “My thanks, I think,” he replied finally.

  “I mean…you’re not in charge of such a thing.” What was she doing? If he felt insulted, why was she softening and amending it?

  This time he gave a great sigh, the breath of it nearly reaching where her hands were still wrapped about the wine goblet. “Why do you ken I offered for you?” he asked softly, surprising her with the texture and sound of his voice as it wrapped about her.

  “There was naught else the MacHughs had that you…wanted.” Her voice dropped on the last word. He wanted her? Oh, good Lord, don’t make that word mean
what it sounded like!

  “That…and more,” he replied.

  It was better to be blurred and unreal, even more so than it already felt. She instinctively knew it. She held out her glass again. “Can I please have some more of your wine?” she asked.

  “Nae.”

  “But, why?”

  “Because wedding nights doona’ fare well with drunkenness.”

  She gasped, insulted to the core of her being. At least, she thought she was insulted. The pit of her belly was still warming her, and the wine was making it difficult to feel anger. She actually felt like giggling, but that wasn’t the correct response to what he’d just said. She settled with swallowing on the giddy reaction and sitting straighter.

  “I’m not drunk,” she said, finally.

  “I know,” he replied. “I’m na’, either. I prefer to keep it that way…for both of our sakes.”

  That had her frowning again. She didn’t have a ready reply, and blamed the wine again, for making everything feel like it was floating on clouds. Her brow lifted as she thought it out. His carriage was well-sprung, and his drive was crafted of perfectly aligned stones. Of course it would feel like floating.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because things might happen…or not happen.”

  That time it was her turn to gasp, as her eyes flew wide, and it wasn’t just a blush, it was full-out fire licking at her cheeks. Then, it was receding, leaving her still floating, but it was on shakier clouds.

  “I doona understand,” she finally replied.

  “And I think you do. Very well, in fact.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” she asked.

  “Never,” was the reply.

  “Then, explain your words.” Or try, she added in her thoughts. It didn’t seem possible to understand them. Wine must be very intoxicating, she decided.

  “Life’s held cheaply in Persia, my dear.”

  “What?” she asked. There was that my dear again, rolling off his tongue like it belonged there. It had to be the wine making it so. It must have the same effect on him to keep saying something so patently ridiculous.

  She did giggle, then, and had to move one of the hands from her goblet to her mouth to cover it over. One didn’t giggle over what he’d just said. Life was too cheap. That’s what he’d said, wasn’t it? Why would he make such a statement and what did it have to do with wedding nights?

  “It’s different here. Much different.”

  “Is it?” she asked.

  “Oh, aye.”

  “How would you know? You weren’t at the battle. Your family wasn’t at the battle. Why, there wasn’t a Monteith anywhere near Drumossie Moor that night, or any other night.”

  “I wasn’t there because ’tis nigh impossible to be two places at one time.”

  Lisle waited for him to finish such a ridiculous statement. Or maybe she was waiting for the low timbre of his voice. He had a very nice voice, she decided, half-closing her eyes.

  “…and I already told you where I was.”

  “What?” she asked, her eyes flickering on the man facing her, and trying to find some spot on him that was unpleasant, or unfit, or wasted, or just plain ugly. There wasn’t any. He was still beautiful. Evil…but beautiful.

  “I was in Persia.”

  “Why were you there?” she asked.

  “Something to do with being unfit.”

  “Nae,” she replied, giggling again. “You’re not unfit anywhere. Or, if you are, ’tis impossible to spot.”

  “Oh, Christ,” he replied, filling the coach with the curse, except he hadn’t said it like a curse. It was more like a prayer.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Give me your glass.”

  He wasn’t requesting it, since he just reached out and plucked it from fingers that didn’t do more than let it go. That was strange, she decided. She hadn’t even fought it.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I’m a-feared of what I might do otherwise.”

  “What?” Lisle was going to find a way to stop the one-word questions from coming out of her own mouth, but it wasn’t going to be easy. She ran her tongue over her teeth and tried to suck any leftover wine from there.

  “You’re very tempting to me, Lisle. Very.”

  Tempting? What did that mean? “Why?” she asked, and wrinkled up her nose. There was another of those one-word questions. She had to halt that.

  “Why? Doona’ make me answer that one yet. We’ve not yet reached that point, and I’m not going to allow it to happen like this.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “You know very well what.”

  “I do?” She brightened at the words, glad to have found herself capable of saying more than one of them. He wasn’t making sense, but it was a very nice bit of nonsense he was making. That, or wine was very intoxicating, or she should have eaten something, or it was her wedding day. Any of that should be enough to make her feel giddy and insubstantial and like she hadn’t a stiff bone anywhere in her body.

  “It’s evil,” she said.

  “What is?” he asked, with a quickness that belied any intoxicating effects he might be feeling.

  “This. You. Us,” she replied. They were one-word sentences, but she’d said three of them. That was an improvement, she decided.

  “I’m sorrowed you think so,” he said after a very long span of time.

  “You are?” she asked.

  “Aye.”

  “But…why? You already knew of it.”

  “Hearing and knowing are two different things.”

  “Then…ex—explain.” The word explain took two tries to get it out, but he understood it. Lisle could have kicked herself, again. Why was she still trying to soften everything she said to him? That was senseless. She didn’t want to like him. She didn’t want to tempt him…tempt him to what? she wondered again. And she certainly didn’t want to be his dear; although when he said it, there hadn’t been any hesitation or pause, or anything that might be normal when addressing a lass named MacHugh—Dugall, she amended in her thoughts—that had just shamed her ancestors by marrying the Black Monteith.

  “What would you like to know?” he asked.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You wanted an explanation. I would like to know to what, please?”

  “Explanation,” she repeated, looking for the sense of the word.

  “Remind me of your proclivity to alcohol in the future, would you, my dear?”

  Lisle kept the bubble of mirth inside at hearing the endearment, and then she thought through what other words it had been attached to. Proclivity? What did that mean? she asked herself. Then, she just asked it.

  “It means that you canna’ hold your spirits. That’s what it means.”

  That was insulting, too. Lisle sent the order for her backbone to straighten up, so she could tell him exactly what she thought of him. Nothing much happened. She continued swaying slightly with the coach’s movements and nothing on her was stiff or unbending or anything save nicely pliant. She couldn’t even get her lips to tighten up and close.

  She wondered if he knew.

  There wasn’t any way to tell by looking at him. The sway was making the lamplight move with it, sending the glow from her knees to his and back, but it wasn’t far enough to penetrate his side.

  “Is that why you won’t let me have more wine?” she asked, a bit surprised and yet pleased that she’d linked that many words together.

  “Very good. There isn’t much hidden that you canna’ uncover with those clear, sky-blue eyes of yours, is there? That’s a very good thing. Very.”

  “Why?” she asked, absolutely amazed that she wasn’t full-out laughing at what he’d just said. She had sky-blue eyes? No one had ever described them like that. Her frown of concentration deepened. Actually, no one had ever described them at all.

  “There’s a lot hidden, at present.”

  “There is?”

  “Aye.
”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “That’s for you to discover. I just made mention of it, dinna’ I?”

  “You…hide things?” she asked.

  “All the time. Trust me.”

  “But…why?”

  He sighed again, but if it hadn’t been for the white of his shirt she wouldn’t have seen it. She watched the movement and wondered why he’d be able to move such a large chest, if he didn’t have that big of one to begin with. She wondered if that was the case, and knew it was by the proof in front of her eyes. That wasn’t a good thing at all, she told herself.

  Her chin rose, and she moved her eyes to where his had to be. That was probably a mistake, but she was making lots of them in a short amount of time, and one more shouldn’t matter. Because he’d put so much dark mahogany wood to his coach, and patterned the seats in red and black, and since he was wearing black, with only the white cloth marking where he was, he was blending into the background. If it weren’t for the shine of his eyes, and glint of his teeth when he smiled, he’d not be easy to spot at all.

  She opened her mouth and said, “You’re a very handsome man, Monteith.”

  He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes at that. At least, that’s what she thought he did, since the shine disappeared for several moments. When what light they had slithered onto his knees, she could see he’d clenched his hands on his knees, too. He had very nice-shaped fingers, she thought, moving her glance all the way down him and back. She hadn’t noted that before.

  His hands were very large, too. Everything about him was large and well defined, masculine and extremely fit. Big. Brawny. Beautiful. Very. It still wasn’t fair. She reached out, connecting with a shockwave that jolted through her wrist, and then ran her index finger along his, before stopping at the obstruction of his cuff.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” he said.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because regret and recriminations are terrible things to live with in the morning.”

  “What?” She’d opened her hand, resting her palm atop his hand, and then she was sliding the rest of her fingers along and entwining them between his.

  “If any fool ever gives you so much as a drop of wine, I’m lynching him. On the spot. Without a trial. Myself included.”