by Jackie Ivie
“What?”
“Your name. You. Celt. Goddess.”
Lisle’s heart leapt forward, pushing liquid heat into her cheeks and making it impossible to keep his gaze. She moved it to her hands on the pommel. That was safer.
“Come. I’ve a surprise for you.”
Lisle started, wondering how he’d known the trail of her thoughts. “I doona’ think I like your surprises,” she replied to the saddle.
“You’ll like this one. I promise.”
“How would you ken what I like and what I doona’?” she asked in an aggressive tone.
“I know you’ll like this surprise because you like to eat, doona’ you?”
“I eat,” she replied.
He chuckled. Lisle looked about them. The groomsmen had melted into the forest at all sides of the meadow, although the trampled grass and wildflowers and horse droppings had left mute testimony of the volume of horses that had just been there.
“Good. I’ll have Widow MacIlvray prepare us a picnic. I fancy a bit of one today.”
“Are you na’ late for something or another?”
“Why would I be that?”
“You must have pressing business of some sort to see to.”
“I have business. It’s never pressing. Or, if it were, I’d make arrangements to change it so I could have a picnic with my wife today.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Why? Why do I have business? Why would it be pressing? Or why would I change it to be with my wife?”
“I’m na’ your wife because I want to be…remember?” Lisle lifted her head and faced him as squarely as possible. The clouds had been gathering while they dawdled about the woods, and now there were only shafts of sunlight tipping the meadow vivid and colorful in spots. Unfortunately, one of them was directly beside him, putting half of him in perfect silhouette.
“And you have a very strange way of showing that…remember?” He returned the taunt, and she knew exactly what he was referring to, since he put three of his fingers against his lips and kissed at them before lifting them away.
There was nothing Lisle could do but face him as bravely as possible and try to keep her chin from quivering, while keeping him from guessing how rapidly her heart was pounding and how sweaty her palms got, or how every moment seemed prolonged to the point of eternity. Langston’s face went stiff, too, making him look like a carved statue, and about as warm.
“I doona’ think I like the games you play, Mistress Monteith,” he said finally, although it looked like he’d rather crack his face than move it to say that much.
“Well, I know I detest what you play, Master Monteith,” she answered, in exactly the same tone.
“How do you know I play a game?”
“I think you play several. I just happen to know of one, for certain.”
“Your meaning?” he asked, lifting his brows and forcing what sunlight there was to turn the highlighted eye a dark amber color, while the other one remained a cool, dark shadow.
She looked at the beautiful side of him, highlighted so perfectly it might as well have been chiseled by a sculptor, contrasting with the dark, shadowed half, and wondered how God could so distinctly show her exactly what Monteith was. If she had a talent for paint, she knew what portrait she’d do.
“I dinna’ leave my chamber this morn,” Lisle offered and watched a twinge go across his shoulders, although if she hadn’t been watching as closely as she was, it would have gone unseen.
“I see.” His answer was short and simple. He added to it by tilting his head, putting shadow across all but half of his cheek and his chin, leaving the only light to glint on the perfection of his lower lip.
“And I dinna’ do it on purpose.”
He blinked. She could see it by the flash of light on the eyelash ends of the highlighted portion of his face.
“I was…beneath the bed.”
That knowledge made his eyebrows rise. She wished he’d cease doing that. It put a small crease across his forehead, and put too much emphasis on his eyes. She swallowed.
“You hide beneath the bed oft’, do you?” he asked.
“I was na’ hiding.” Lisle hadn’t much of a gift for lying, and her voice was probably giving her away.
“Nae?”
“I lost a seed pearl from the bodice…of my wedding gown. I was searching for it. I was beneath the bed for that reason.”
“I see.” He said it again, with almost the same tone and inflection. Then he turned his head the opposite way, putting light across most of his face, while the dark side only managed to hold onto his nose shadow, a bit of the bulge of his upper lip, and the cleft in his chin. Lisle hadn’t been exaggerating to Angela MacHugh when she’d spoken of his handsomeness. He was the most comely man Lisle had ever seen or imagined.
“You heard?” he asked solemnly.
She nodded. “I heard.”
“Very good, then. Come. Picnics doona’ fare well with rain, and it looks like that is what we’ll be dining with, in short order.”
“Why do you lock me in?” she asked, stopping his movement to turn away.
“Security,” he replied.
“I would na’ steal anything.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. She’d only seen this expression once, the time he’d told her not to pity him when she’d held his cheek after kissing him. It was making all the blood rush to the top of her head and pound there since it had nowhere else to go.
“Doona’ ever say such a thing again. Ever. I meant for your security.”
Langston turned his back on her, pulling on the rein as he started forward. Lisle pushed her knees into her stallion, and was surprised when it worked. Blizzom stirred himself into a trot, catching up to Torment and matching his stride.
“Mine?” she asked when he ignored her.
He slid a sidelong glance at her, and a muscle bulged out one side of his jaw. She didn’t think he was going to answer her for a spell. “I pay my help well, but that’s nae guarantee of security.”
“From what?”
“Hatred.”
“Hatred?” she asked.
“I’m hated among my own countrymen. ’Tis of little consequence to me. I’m very familiar with the emotion already. I was detested by own father. From birth. I’ve lived with it my entire life. I know all about it. When such a thing exists, you practice measures. Security is one of them.”
“Nae one hates me,” Lisle replied.
“You wed me.”
“Those men back there…and those at the stables this morn. They dinna’ hate you.”
“Monteith clan. They know the truth.”
“What is the truth?”
“Something with consequences too vast to trust this thing between us. ’Tis too fragile, at present.”
“What thing between us?”
“You ask without reason. You feel it, too.”
“Uh…” Lisle said the one word, and let it falter. For some reason, he knew exactly what she was saying.
“It’s not something either of us expected, nor what we wanted. ’Tis there, though. Very strong. Like a clan drum beating. Over and over; incessant. Sometimes it gets louder and faster and stronger. Sometimes it’s muted and dull. Still there. Even when I close my eyes and sleep. Still there. Beating. Deny it.”
Lisle gulped.
“Try,” he prompted.
She shook her head. The matching description was a definite surprise. She just couldn’t decide if it was pleasant or not.
“You ken why you doona’?”
She shook her head again. That seemed like enough.
“Because you lie so poorly.”
“I doona’!” she exclaimed.
He sighed hugely again. “Tell me where you truly were this morn, and we’ll see. Come. I canna’ go without sustenance. My business requires such.”
Lisle’s frown was going to be permanently embedded in her own forehead at the rate she was thinking. She dropped her eyes an
d wondered what motion would make Blizzom go back to the end of his leading rein.
Chapter Eleven
If Widow MacIlvray could cook, it was unfair. Lisle watched the tall woman with the swaying curtain of black hair, the womanly shape, and the melodic voice and wondered why, if Monteith had such a beauty at his own doorstep, he would have taken a second look at Lisle. That question became even more difficult to answer when the woman turned from her singing and saw who was at her doorstep.
If Langston thought all Highland lasses detested him, he had a strange way of thinking. This MacIlvray woman launched herself at him, with a call of “Monteith! You dark devil! Where have you been?”
She was almost upon him, and capable of making any man pick her up and hug her closely to his body, except Lisle stepped in front of him, folded her arms, and stared the woman into a halt in front of them. She didn’t know where the urge to do such a thing came from. It was another nasty-toned surprise for the day. She also didn’t dare look over her shoulder to see what expression Monteith had on his face.
“Katherine,” Langston said in that slow way of his, “allow me to introduce my wife. Lisle, the Widow Katherine MacIlvray.”
“You’ve gone…and wed? Wed? You? Wed?”
She was having trouble saying the words. Lisle watched her. She wasn’t paying the slightest attention to the woman between them. She was watching Langston.
“Aye,” Lisle answered in the stillness. “Him. Wed. To me.”
“Nae.”
Her lower lip trembled for a moment, and then she flashed such a look of venom Lisle’s way that Lisle swayed backward into the solid block of man that was responsible for this entire nonsensical scene.
“You said you’d never wed. Anyone. Ever. It’s a horrible institution, you said. You promised.”
He lifted his left shoulder and dropped it with a shrug. Lisle felt the motion. “The urge came over me. I wed.”
“But—you promised.”
“If it helps at all, he dinna’ truly wish to,” Lisle offered.
“I doona’ need your help,” Langston said from over her shoulder.
Lisle’s lips twisted into a smile. “Very good. I’ll just see to fetching a bit of a repast, and leave you two—”
An arm snaked around her middle, pinning her to him. That wasn’t entirely unpleasant, or it wouldn’t have been if there wasn’t a tall, exotic-looking virago facing her, ready to spit at both of them. Since Lisle was shorter, she was bound to receive most of the projectiles. Lisle didn’t know much about it, but this Katherine woman had too much of a sense of possessiveness not to have some claim to the same.
So, if Monteith had to have a kept woman, he should have had enough sense not to bring his new wife to her and expect a basket of foodstuff handed to him when he did so. Or if he were that stupid, he should know the food would probably be spoiled, and any ale acrid and without the proper age to it.
This Katherine was all woman, too. That was easy to see by the way her chest sucked in breath, held it, and then breathed it all over Lisle. She also appeared to have all her teeth, and kept them in good condition, if the sweetness of her breath was any indication. Either that, or everything about the kitchen smelled good. Lisle wasn’t certain where to start on her suppositions, nor was the arm about her allowing her any motion with which to do so.
“What did she mean…you dinna’ want to?” the woman asked.
“Wishful thinking. On her part,” Langston offered smoothly.
“Wishful! So…you did want to?”
Lisle’s expression was probably comical. She was only grateful the woman wasn’t interested in anything about her, and missed seeing it.
“I’m na’ in the habit of doing things I doona’ wish to do, Katherine. Now, cease this bickering. It’s senseless and serves nae purpose.”
“We had an understanding.”
“We had naught. You put things into being in your mind. ’Twas never anything save that.”
“I really think I should leave—” Lisle started to say. Monteith lifted her, cutting off her air enough she had to let the rest of her words die off.
“By all that’s holy! Monteith!”
A large, gray-haired fellow entered, blocking what light there was in the doorway, and then he was inside the room, making it look even smaller. He had a hand outstretched and then he had two of them, and then he had them on Katherine’s shoulders and was moving her to one side and holding her there.
“The lass giving you more trouble than usual?” he asked.
“A bit,” Langston said dryly.
Lisle looked from where the woman seemed to have shrunk, to the hands that were being gentle, but not allowing her much room.
“You should have sent us word. I’d have seen to it that she behaved.”
“’Tis all right. She frightened my wife, was all.”
“You’ve a wife? You? Nae.”
He looked down to where Lisle was trapped. She lifted one hand and waved her fingers at him.
“God love you, Monteith! That’s a Dugall as I live and breathe! Where did you find one? The entire clan was na’ just forced off their land, but they were put on a ship and sent away, along with the MacDonalds. I dinna’ think any of them survived the decree.”
“She was a MacHugh.”
“That there is Duncan Dugall’s lass. Has to be. Tell me I’m wrong, lass.”
“You’re wrong,” she replied.
His face went into a frown and then he brightened. “Elias Dugall, then. He had eight strapping lads, and one lass. Sent her off to a fancy French school, some years past. You’re her. You must be. Tell me I’m wrong, now.”
Lisle nodded slowly. This was another surprise, she thought.
“I doona’ know what magic you spun to get a Dugall lass to agree to wed with you, Monteith. If I dinna’ think you in league with the devil himself a-fore, I surely do now.”
“Why is that?” Lisle said.
“You dinna’ tell her?”
He was addressing the man above her. Lisle turned her head and looked in the same direction. Langston wasn’t meeting her eye.
“Why would I say anything? I dinna’ know she was a Dugall.”
“Tell me what?” Lisle asked.
The gray-haired man cleared his throat in the awkward silence that followed her question. Lisle turned back to him. “You dinna’ let my daughter, Katherine, frighten you overmuch, did you? She’s the best cook in the entire glen, and further besides. She’s just a bit overpowering toward the men ever since she lost her own, and it was na’ to some glorious battle, either. Nae. He took sick with the ague. Two seasons past. I canna’ get another man to offer for her, although they like her cooking just fine. Isn’t that right, Katherine?”
She nodded, looking vacant, but her eyes were sharp when she turned them to where Lisle was still being held against Langston’s chest.
“I could sweeten it with a dowry,” Langston offered.
“That’s na’ the problem. She’s a tad too friendly with her charms. She has her eyes on any man, but especially on you. You should have let me know about your visit beforehand.”
“It was a surprise. I’ve decided to fill the day with them.”
Lisle knew her eyes were huge. She was only grateful Langston couldn’t have seen any of it.
“You have, eh?”
“’Tis the best way to intrigue a woman, I’ve found.”
“You dinna’ have that problem with my daughter, here. She’s had her eye on you for some time.”
“That’s na’ the woman I’m speaking of.”
“The wife?” Katherine’s father asked.
“The wife,” Monteith agreed.
“Take her to the weaving rooms. That should do it.”
“I rather fancied a picnic,” Monteith replied.
“Katherine. Pack the laird a basket. Doona’ take your temper out on him. I’ll stay and oversee it. Show the woman your weavers.”
Langsto
n sighed, lifting her with it. She supposed that went for a reply.
“They’ve about finished with what you provided them already. ’Twas quite the undertaking, but go. See for yourself. I’ll bring the basket when she’s finished.”
Langston started walking out the door, taking Lisle with him. He didn’t need to hold her as tightly as he was; she didn’t have any fight in her. That changed in the next moment.
“And I would na’ tell the lass you bought up all the Dugall land!”
Langston stopped…inhaled, and then started cursing. Lisle sucked in on air, and held it until it burned to keep from screaming. He bought her family’s land after they were forced off of it? She started struggling and squirming, and all that happened was she got his other arm around her, and then her air denied to her with the pressure of it.
“Stop it! Can you na’ see anything? Stop!”
Lisle only struggled further. They were out in the open now, between two crofts of the same size, with thin stripes of smoke coming from them, and not a soul came to her aid; not when she kicked, not even when she got a breath and tried to screech.
“Things are na’ as they seem, Lisle! Think! Stop this and think!”
Tears clogged her throat, and then they were spilling from her eyes, and splashing onto his arms. That was what got her the easing of them so that she could suck at the air like it was water, and she’d rather perish than let him see any of it.
Monteith spun her in his arms and shook her twice. “Stop that, and listen to me!”
Lisle bellowed a reply, which only got her another shake.
“This is why I canna’ trust you!”
“Trust me?” She spat the word in an unintelligible fashion, and said it again. “Trust me? Me?”
“Aye, you. Now, take some of that shock and use it to calm yourself. That’s it. That’s a good lass.”
Lisle pulled in a breath, narrowed her eyes, and looked up at him. He was holding her near his chest, and the expression on his face was severe, but not stony. She centered on trying to put the wall of numbness back into place. It wasn’t working. She didn’t know why. She exhaled.
“You’ve a redhead temper, haven’t you?” he asked, finally.