Heat of the Knight

by Jackie Ivie

  There was an undergarment, with wires running through it, to hold it the proper distance from her legs, and Lisle pushed on one of the heavily stitched pockets where they’d put the wire. She wondered absently if it was the same that he’d used in his cannon covers, but didn’t let the question leave her mouth. Like as not, the ladies in her own personal sewing group didn’t know a thing about more than lace, fabric, patterns, needles, and thread. If she even mentioned cannons and blood, and a word like the Celt neart aithnich for strength of knowledge, they’d probably scream with laughter at such words and ideas.

  They were serving a light tea and Lisle ignored it. Her mouth was too dry for cakes and sweetened tea, and anything else they might give her. She was also afraid if she partook of anything, it would dissolve the haze of comfort and warmth and safety that was still enveloping her. Mary had probably used too much of the potion. Lisle giggled at that, and then had to stand and hold her arms up so two of them could climb atop chairs and drop the gown onto her.

  She could see why that was necessary. They hadn’t left themselves much room, and there wasn’t any part of the material marred by hook and eye closures or anything of that nature. It was fit exactly to her figure, or it would be as soon as they finished tugging it over her bosom, the material shaping around her breasts to make them a focal point, with a small draping effect at the center of the low-cut, widely spaced neckline, and then all the women seemed to step back, clasp their hands, and sigh.

  “His Lordship sent up diamonds,” one of the ladies remarked after clapping her hands. “Blue diamonds. I’ve never seen blue diamonds. You are so lucky, my lady…so lucky.”

  Lisle had never seen blue diamonds, either, although the Dugalls had possessed more than one neck strand with the white stones. They had probably been sold to pay for the uprising. She rather hoped that was what had happened. The alternative was that a Sassenach had pillaged them and added to his blood money. That would be worse.

  She turned and regarded the vision looking at her in the mirror, and had to focus and stare to prove it really was her. Her jaw dropped. That made all the women twitter like robins, and Lisle frowned at the sound. She wondered why the fog had to start dispersing now, when she needed it most.

  It turned out the stones Monteith owned were all in graduated shades and sizes of blue, culminating in a robin’s-egg-sized one at the center of the strand. As soon as it was clasped, that big one settled into the valley of shadow they’d pressed her bosom into place to create. That was eye-catching and uncomfortable; as was the tiara that was set at the front of her coiffure, contrasting with the red strands.

  Highlanders were starving throughout the glens, shivering without wood in the winter, and going without food all the time, and here she was wearing a king’s ransom in jewels and fabric. The strand at her throat might as well be choking her.

  “You look absolutely beautiful, my lady!”

  There were murmurs of assent, and Lisle had to lower her eyelids to hide the disdain. She didn’t know how she was supposed to get through an evening of posturing and parading and being on show.

  Then they released her from her chamber, led her through the maze of downstairs halls with their dangling carnivals of furniture, and through to yet another sitting room. What was there made everything go crystal clear, and perfectly focused, and absolutely dead silent.

  Langston Monteith was in full black evening wear, with his hair pulled back into a little queue that made a loop of black before it reached the volume of white material all about his throat, and the look on his face was probably the match to hers.

  “Oh my,” they said in unison.

  Lisle had to duck her head to hide the blush. Langston wasn’t as quick to show anything. He was across the room and lifting her hand to his lips and making little shivers go all over her shoulders and center where she least wanted them. It was making little darts out of her nipples, and showing everything she was trying desperately to hide.

  “I had a strange dream this morning,” he said when he pulled her hand away. He didn’t release it, though. He tucked it in the crook of his arm, just like the day he’d decided to teach her riding, and smiled down at her, with a devastating show of white teeth.

  Lisle ducked her head farther. That made him chuckle. It was ridiculous and it was exciting, and it was going to be an hour carriage ride in a coach and six of his black stallions, and she didn’t know how she was supposed to get through any of that.

  He walked with her to the front door, his side-to-side style of movement not as evident since he was slowing it to match hers, and Lisle was having difficulty looking at anything other than the shine of his black shoes and the tips of her perfectly dyed-to-match evening slippers.

  Then they were out on the large, marbled landing, looking not at one coach-and-six, but two of them, and she already knew the blue painted one was probably for her, while the black one was his. Her eyes went wide with the surprise and dismay and disappointment.

  “You’re…na’ riding with me?” she asked, turning her head and managing to center on a diamond stickpin he had at his throat.

  “Nae. I’ve found it makes a better statement to show off wealth. You doona’ like my arrangements?”

  “Are you planning on exhausting yourself again?” she asked.

  That made his lips twitch. Lisle tried to look above them, at his eyes, but wasn’t quite successful.

  “Is there a need?” he answered instead, and then he had her moving down the steps and toward her own carriage.

  This traveling chaise was in padded white silk everywhere she looked, and it was difficult to tell where the benches ended and the blond wood began. It smelled new. It looked new. It also looked incredibly lonely.

  “I’ve had a sup arranged for you. You should avail yourself of it. Sweetmeats, peaches, plus black, rye, and barley breads. Help yourself.”

  Lisle settled onto the side facing the coachmen, and kept every reaction carefully inside, so the crying wouldn’t show. “I see nae basket,” she finally murmured.

  He reached in, opened the bottom of the seat she was facing, and pulled out a lap-sized, woven basket, setting it on the seat beside her.

  “’Tis less than an hour to MacCullough. Rest. You’ll be needing to avail yourself of that, too.”

  He was lifting her left hand to his lips again, and frowning at it for a moment before he let it go. Lisle didn’t know what that meant. She only wished he’d given her a potion to make the next hour move swifter and with less vividness. The door closed, turning her entire world into white satin and blond wood, and she opened her basket.

  He’d forgotten to mention the spray of what had to be hyacinth flowers that adorned the top of her basket, and also the little jewelry box. Lisle opened it with shaking hands, and dropped it into her lap the moment it opened. The man was in league with the devil! He had to be. She hadn’t said a word, and yet there, on a little swath of black velvet, was a circlet of Celtic ribbon design, wrought in gold and silver.

  She lifted it carefully, and checked the inner band. “Langston and Lisle” it read in tiny, scripted words. She was shaking as she put it on her wedded finger. Then she turned to her picnic.

  Langston swayed against one of his traveling companions and nearly shoved the knee aside. He envied his wife her lonely carriage. At least she wasn’t smashed in with nine of his most nondescript clansmen, all dressed in Captain Barton’s particular shade of red and white that he demanded be worn by his servants, and all trying to keep from trespassing into space owned by the man on either side of him.

  He wondered if she liked her little surprise, and guessed she would, if the look he’d caught on her face this morning was any marker. He caught his own open grin by tipping his head down and looking at nothing except how many pairs of boots they had managed to fit into this floor space. The way her bottom lip had trembled when she’d seen her own carriage had his heart flying, and filled him with such emotion, he’d had to sniff it away b
efore she’d seen any of it.

  If only what he was suspecting was true! Langston would give his right arm for what he’d seen in her eyes this morning when she’d had her tongue caught between her teeth and her hands buried under his shirt. He shifted again, and then pulled a bit on his collar. She’d asked him if he needed exhausting? Actually, he needed a good swig of whiskey. Maybe that would dispel some of the joy, excitement, and anticipation, and temper it with a bit of the reserve he was noted for.

  He groaned softly and pulled at his pant leg, giving himself a bit more room. This was necessary, for it was hot and stuffy in the carriage, and there wasn’t a hint of air allowed through the blackened windows. It was on his own orders and he didn’t know if it would work or not. He only hoped Lisle would be too great a diversion, and they wouldn’t even check this carriage closely.

  She had certainly diverted him enough. He was losing track of everything he’d worked for. Such a thing was dangerous at the worst of times. Since it was getting near the point of fruition, it was worse than dangerous. It was certain death.

  She knew too much, too. That was very dangerous. Solomon had counseled him on it when they partnered, but he’d already known. A woman with knowledge was worse than a hundred men with the same. A woman who thought she had knowledge was even worse. That was matched by a thousand men. Women couldn’t be trusted; not with secrets, not with lies, and especially not with what he was doing now.

  He had Clan MacDonald to save. It seemed like ever since he’d met Lisle, his luck had been changing. Not only was the captain getting more and more lax, but Langston was being granted a chance to redeem himself to the very men who had fought and died at Drumossie Moor. Every Monteith clansman knew what they were being given, and that was why he’d had to hone this group of men down from the hundreds that had volunteered for this mission.

  Monteith had twenty-seven MacDonalds to save, and they weren’t assisting him with it, either. From all reports, they were refusing every piece of food sent to them, and if anyone managed to toss something at them, it was rifled right back, with an intent to injure.

  Langston grinned further. It was exactly what he would have expected from a MacDonald who had escaped death at Culloden, evaded capture and slavery as a punishment, and now faced the hangman in London. He was rather proud of them, even their curses of hatred toward him. That reassured him. He was portraying Langston Monteith, the Highland traitor, the Sassenach lover, and the man who profited from every other Highlander’s spilled blood. He was glad they cursed and hated and spit at him.

  It didn’t matter. It had to be thus. He was saving them anyway…every last foaming-at-the-mouth, spitting-mad, ungrateful man.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Angela MacHugh was attending the Sassenach ball at the ancient Highland MacCullough Castle…as was her sister Mary. They were both on the arms of handsome Highland rangers, and looking like women in the first bloom of love were supposed to. They didn’t look at all like MacHughs who detested everything about the English.

  Lisle stood in complete shock as she saw them, and knew Monteith would feel it. He wasn’t letting her far from his side, and the fact that she’d stopped, her eyes had widened, and she’d sucked in air so rapidly she was in danger of coming right up out of her bodice were very good clues for him.

  “Something bother you, my dear?” he asked, bending his head to do so.

  The endearment started her heart pumping again, which was a good thing. The proof in front of her eyes that she’d failed as a stepmother, and that she’d failed in such a momentous way, had been enough to give any mother heart failure. It was making her own chest feel too tight to contain what she hoped wasn’t anguish, but knew was.

  “It’s my daughter,” she replied, tipping her head a bit while she said it, and nearly grazing the lips he had at her ear.

  Langston’s eyebrows rose and he pulled her more securely against him. Not that he’d let her get more than an arm’s length away, but pressing himself against her entire side was not only against logic, but probably against several social codes as well.

  “Where?” he asked finally, scanning the crowd.

  “In the pink. With the white lace.”

  “The bit of fluff with blond hair and no brows?”

  “Nae. That’s her sister.”

  “Is na’ she also your daughter, then?”

  Lisle narrowed her lids and fluttered her lashes up at him. “Aye,” she replied evenly. “That she is.”

  “There is na’ much family resemblance.”

  “I think they look like each other. Everyone else does, too.”

  “I mean…to their mother.”

  Lisle thinned her lips this time. “You are na’ amusing, my lord.”

  “Oh dear. I’ve regressed,” he replied.

  “What?”

  “From Langston. I really wish you’d refer to me by my given name. Especially in public like this. I am trying to pretend we’re wed.”

  “We are wed.” Lisle rotated the ring on the finger of her left hand, and couldn’t resist glancing down at it. It just looked so right, on the hand resting on his arm. She knew he saw her.

  “Oh. Then, I’m trying to pretend we’re wed, and we want to be.”

  “Langston Leed Monteith,” she said in a low, and what she hoped was a threatening-sounding, tone.

  “Very good. You got all of it that time. It’s just as you said. You are a very good pupil. You do learn fast.”

  He was smiling down at her and making every decent thought fly out, to be replaced by several indecent ones. It was as if he knew it, too. Lisle had to drop her gaze and that had her looking right into Angela’s stiff face. She’d lost her escort, if that was what the young soldier was.

  “Good eve, Angela,” Lisle said.

  Angela didn’t so much as nod. She did look straight at her and then move her gaze beyond her, to something at her back. It was insulting and it was meant to be insulting. Lisle colored, despite herself.

  “I hope you’re well?” Lisle tried again.

  “As well as gold can get one,” Angela said finally.

  Lisle stepped forward to say, “You should na’ be here.”

  “I deserve a future, doona’ I?” Angela asked.

  “You deserve a good Highland man.”

  “There are only Highland traitors left, dearest Lady Monteith.”

  Lisle’s teeth set. “I doona’ wish an Englishman for a stepson, Angela.”

  “And I doona’ wish an English-loving traitor for a—oh. He’s naught to me, is he?” She smiled brightly, turned, and moved away before anyone could reply.

  Lisle was sucking in breath and letting it out as rapidly as possible. It was to dim the shock into a manageable emotion.

  “Shocking. Absolutely shocking,” Langston said at her side.

  “What?” Lisle’s voice showed how surprising that description was, coming from him.

  “This filial respect thing. You doona’ appear to have much. I suppose I should have warned you.”

  “About what?” she asked.

  “I’m na’ particularly well thought of in these parts. These Highlanders are stubborn, self-righteous, and judgmental. You ken?”

  “I already knew all that,” she replied.

  “And if they’ve taken my gold, they really detest me. It ups the amount of evil attributed to me, if you will. It’s almost like they feel I forced them to take it, and self-hate is such a destructive emotion.”

  “Self-hate?”

  “Aye, and if someone has to be hated, and it’s not going to be the individual taking the gold, then it’s got to be the one making them take the gold. It’s going to be me. Dreadfully obvious.”

  “You understand all this, and you still make them take it?”

  “Social change requires gold, sweet. Always did.”

  Sweet. It was a different endearment, and the ease with which it had rolled off his tongue made it even more effective. Lisle had to swallow aroun
d a dry mouth she hadn’t had a moment earlier. She only hoped he didn’t know the reason.

  “How much gold do you have, Langston?”

  “None,” came the reply.

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous. Everything about you reeks of wealth. Everything.”

  He sighed. “Perhaps you should ask the question the proper way, if you wish an answer you’ll like.”

  Lisle stuck her bottom teeth forward and looked up at him. She wasn’t willing to flutter one eyelash, let alone two eyes of them. “And what is the proper way to ask that question?” she asked.

  “You should ask how much gold we have,” he answered. “Marriage does make it a plural arrangement. What I have is yours, and vice versa. ’Twas what we vowed to…if you listened to that sort of thing.”

  “You got the short end,” she replied.

  “Oh…I doona’ think so.”

  His voice had lowered, as had his head. Lisle was very aware of those eyes, looking deeply into her…and there was a dark brown with a reddish tint along the outsides. She didn’t think he’d actually kiss her in such a public room, but she parted her lips slightly just in case he did.

  “In fact, I think I got a treasury beyond price.”

  Someone cleared their throat. Since Langston was breathing the words onto her nose and it wasn’t a far span to her lips, Lisle had been absolutely enthralled. He really would kiss her in a public room!

  “I’m dreadfully sorry to interrupt you, Lord and Lady Monteith.”

  It was a soldier, almost too young to shave. He had Mary on his arm. She was in pink, like her sister, and it had white lace, but there was too much of one or the other to make it visual and elegant-looking.

  “Mistress MacHugh wanted a few words, if it’s not a bother.”

  “Prepare yourself, love.” Langston put his lips very near her ear to whisper it. The endearment or the whisper was sending shivers rampantly over her shoulders. She sucked in a breath.