Heat of the Knight

by Jackie Ivie

  “Lisle?” Langston bowed his head to put his forehead near hers. “Does that dress come with a shawl?”

  “I’ll find one,” she whispered back.

  “Good. I’ll wait. Captain? Go ahead. I’ll join you in a moment. I’ve got to await my wife.”

  “That woman has certainly changed, Monteith, and all for the better that I can see. Makes me almost want my own Highland lass. Is that what carrying your heir is doing to her?”

  Lisle was on the fourth step, then the fifth; then she was moving up them automatically and without any more thought to anything other than the obvious. She was carrying Langston’s heir! Chills ran her arms, wings of nervousness fluttered about in her belly, and she swung the wardrobe door open with a movement that made all the shawls dance about in the interior. Then, she dropped her hands to the flatness that was her belly, despite the inner conviction that it was true.

  She was carrying a baby—Langston’s baby! Lisle tied a ring stole about her shoulders and turned the knot to the back so the gossamer fabric created a curtain effect, hiding what she should have already had the smarts to keep hidden. She wondered if Langston suspected. She wondered why the captain had, and then she remembered. Langston had given him that excuse for wedding her in the first place. She slammed the armoire door shut.

  The captain was still there, he was still talking, and she was almost down the staircase before she knew what they were talking of. Langston was still talking of what this William wanted, and why it was important, and food likes and dislikes, and then her stomach felt like it caved on her.

  He wouldn’t—! He couldn’t—! Monteith Castle was going to host the Duke of Cumberland, the man called Butcher Willie? The man who had ordered and executed the razing of the Highlands following his victory at Culloden? Everything in her recoiled. She was surprised to see her hand still skimming down the banister and her feet still moving underneath her without a sign of the devastation that was happening inside.

  “He’ll bring troops?”

  “Of course, although I’ve told him it’s not necessary. We’ve got the barbarians cowed—and their women beaten. There’s not a Highlander about with any intellect, strength, or power to give William a difficult time. And if they do, we’ll just have us another Culloden, won’t we?” The captain laughed at the end of his words. Lisle clenched her hand on the wooden railing.

  “They’ll bring their own horses?”

  “Why? You want to put them on your own stud?”

  “Of course. A testimony from Cumberland will further my ambitions a hundredfold in London.”

  “I’ve heard he’s much too corpulent to put such a thing into action.”

  “He still likes horseflesh, though? Riding?”

  “When his gout allows it. You’ll see. Ah. Here’s the lovely Mistress Monteith. My dear, allow me to escort you in.”

  Lisle looked toward Langston for help, and all he did was nod. Everything was cringing, screaming, raging. She reached a hand that trembled and placed it on the captain’s arm. Then she was matching her steps to his and trying everything she knew to keep from crying aloud with the hatred of it.

  “You have the oddest luck, Monteith,” the captain said when they were at the largest dining room. “You choose a woman I’d have run from, turn her into the loveliest creature on the earth, and manage to subdue her into submission. She keeps quiet. I am very envious, I’ve decided.”

  Lisle’s teeth were grinding in step with her feet, and then they were in what used to be a room full of furniture, with more hanging from the beams. She looked up. Now all that was up there were full chandeliers of lit oil lamps. Lisle looked about the room with awe at how lovely it all was, and an instant curiosity in where he’d put the furniture.

  Then, it occurred to her. There hadn’t been one stick of anything strange hanging from any beam, anywhere. The furniture was gone…all of it.

  “You’re going to have to work on your conversation skills, my dear Lady Monteith. A bit of light conversation wouldn’t go amiss, and would have any man tied to your side. I vow it.”

  A bit of light conversation? she repeated to herself. A shiver went right up her spine and climbed the back of her head. Lisle’s face probably showed it. She was going to gag.

  “Then again, a man can’t help but look brilliant when around a woman with such a skill for quiet.”

  “I—” Lisle tried to say something but it got stuck in her throat.

  “No words means no arguments. You understand?” He was leaning toward her, and then he was winking at her.

  Lisle’s eyes went huge. He mistook that look, too, as he squeezed the arm she was holding against his side.

  “If you’ll pardon me, Captain?” Lisle smiled slightly up at him, pulled her hand out of his grasp, and turned, right into Langston.

  “Langston?”

  His arm enveloped her, taking away all the panic and dulling the shaking she wasn’t very good at disguising. Langston was absolutely right about her. She was a terrible liar. Everything on her body had been in a state of amazement and surprise at carrying a baby, and then it turned to disgust at what she’d had to touch; what he’d made her touch. Her eyes narrowed.

  “You made me do that!” she hissed.

  Langston frowned.

  “You wanted me to learn, and so you made me touch him!”

  “Not exactly,” he replied softly.

  “Well, you succeeded. I learned. Doona’ let that man touch me again. He won’t survive the skean I put into him.”

  “Lisle.”

  “Doona’ ‘Lisle’ me!”

  “At least keep your voice down then.”

  “My voice is down. Otherwise I’d be tearing out handfuls of that black hair from your scalp and screaming you into a deaf state.”

  His lips twisted. “Visual,” he said.

  “Why would you do this to yourself? Isn’t it enough to host that snake? Must we add the Butcher?”

  “Cumberland is a learned man. He’ll be a wonderful conversationalist. I doona’ even think he likes to argue. It would take too much effort, and that he doesn’t give.” He was smiling and talking and moving her over to a seat at the very end of the very long table, and then he was helping seat her.

  “Entertain your guests, Lisle.”

  “I detest this about you, Langston.”

  He sighed. “Take some time to introduce my new valet, Percy, to a certain Mistress Angela. I believe they’ll make a fine coupling.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I believe I spoke too soon, Monteith. She has a vicious tongue, and turns it on you. That’s interesting and enlightening.” It was the captain again. He was seating himself to Lisle’s right.

  She tried glaring at Langston. It didn’t do much. He simply lifted one brow, his right shoulder in a shrug that wouldn’t hurt him, and turned his back on her. She told herself she was never speaking to him again.

  Langston had three ships awaiting them in the harbor, and three more just barely visible on this horizon, although you needed a spyglass to make certain. At least that was what she was told. She didn’t ask anyone about anything. She wasn’t speaking to anyone. She told herself it was for the practice, since he was denying her his presence.

  She was getting all her information from her maid, Betsy, who had now been joined by two more young girls named Bess and Cassie. Mary MacGreggor wasn’t going anywhere where her feet weren’t on solid ground. Betsy was made of more adventuresome material. Then again, she seemed to be on very good terms with one of the lads flitting about through the sails and across the decks, and handling baggage, and then they were escorting her and her little entourage to what was probably the largest cabin aboard any ship, ever.

  Lisle stood in the doorway with her mouth open slightly, and looked at a scene someone had dreamt up from an inferno of some kind. There was dark wood everywhere, and it was sliced in a diagonal pattern with ruby-red strips of what looked to be velvet. And there were mirr
ors…everywhere, making everything look like a kaleidoscope of colors—red and black—wherever she looked. It gave her an instant headache.

  “They tell me His Lordship designed this cabin.”

  “Nae doubt,” Lisle replied.

  “Isn’t it grand?”

  That was Betsy again. She was walking into the room, looking about and up and all along, at every black lacquered piece of furniture, and the slick black wood that encased their bed.

  “It looks like hell,” Lisle replied.

  That got her a gasp, and reinforced her vow not to speak. All that came out were spates of angered words that should be directed toward one man, and since he was denying her that, got to be lashed out at whoever was available.

  It was better to remain silent…and alone. All too soon, the cabin emptied. Lisle sat in one of the red velvet–covered chairs and watched as her maids unpacked her clothing, hung it in all four of the wardrobe closets he had lined against one wall for that purpose, and then served her a light supper of a hard roll, sliced ham, and a mustard seed spread that made her nose itch.

  The cabin emptied again, and when the ship left the dock she was very grateful to be alone. No one needed to know that she was a dreadful sailor and that everything she’d eaten for the last month wasn’t going to stay there.

  Then Langston was there, hauling her into his arms from her position at the chamber pot, and rocking her and soothing her brow. He was speaking words of such devotion and love that she forgot she wasn’t ever speaking to him again, and she just let him hold her until the next bout of mal de mer hit.

  “This all your fault!” she wailed when her stomach settled enough she could use her voice.

  Langston got onto the mattress with her, although he did it slowly. The movement still made her retch. She opened her eyes to slits and glared at him.

  “Dinna’ you hear me?” she asked.

  “You’ve got the sickness. That isn’t my fault.”

  “You brought me here, dinna’ you?”

  He couldn’t deny that, and after a few moments, he didn’t try.

  “You also made certain I’d be put in a cabin resembling hell. You ken what that does to one?”

  “Hell?” He lifted his head to look around. “I fancied it more like a rich, elegant, calabash tent. They’re everywhere. One could always find something to look at while smoking oneself into a state of lethargy.”

  “Aye. Yourself.”

  He grinned. “Some say it’s not such a bad thing to look at.”

  Lisle looked at him until the grin faded. “You design this cabin?”

  “Nae,” he replied.

  “But you left it this way? With all your gold?”

  “I rather like it.”

  “Ugh.” Lisle was rolling back off the bed and running back over to the privy closet, her hand plastered to her mouth.

  He was sitting on the bed, looking at his hands, when she groped her way back, using the wood along the sides for handholds. If every shard of mirror was telling the truth, she was pale to the point that her hair looked flame-colored and theatrical. She grimaced at herself. He must have thought it was at him.

  “You finished raging at me?”

  “I wasn’t raging,” she replied nastily.

  He snorted. “You keep so little hidden. It’s a real joy to spar with you when you try to do so.”

  “I wasn’t raging. You want to see me raging? Wait until I have firm ground beneath my feet, and a kitchen full of pots to launch at you.”

  He was laughing at that. Lisle lay carefully on the bed, waiting for the pitch and roll of the thing to make her belly wish it had never eaten anything—again.

  “It won’t last, love.”

  “Doona’ call me love!” she replied.

  “Very well…sweet.”

  “Doona’ call me sweet, either!”

  “You are difficult to please tonight.”

  “You left me with that Captain Barton arse the other night, and you want pleasure tonight? Find yourself a tavern wench!”

  “There’s a shortage of taverns aboard my flagship. Consequently, that would also mean there is a shortage of tavern wenches. Aside from all of that, I happen to find myself enamored of just one woman in this world, and there is nae woman that could possibly compete.”

  “Would you please cease talking?”

  He laughed for an answer, and then kept talking. “Cool water is what you need. I’ll be back. Doona’ move.”

  “I couldn’t move if I wanted to,” she grumbled.

  “That would also mean that you’re unable to climb about, seeing things that should remain unseen, and learning things that are best left undiscovered?”

  He was out the door before she could answer, and beyond a weak toss of her head, there wasn’t much she felt like answering, anyway. But he was going to be back, and she was going to give him an earful. Just as soon as she finished retching and crying and sobbing. He returned, wiping cool cloths about her cheeks and across her forehead, and crooning nonsensical things to her, until she was ready to cry again over his stupidity.

  “This is all your fault!” she wailed when he wouldn’t cease.

  “You already said that. I already replied.”

  “You doona’ know the whole of it!”

  “Apprise me.” He had her head pillowed on those two lumps of his chest, which, when he didn’t make them taut, had the consistency of a warm mattress, except for his heartbeat. It also made his voice sound like it was coming from very far away.

  “You should have let me stay. I wouldn’t have been trouble.”

  “And go without you? This is a honeymoon. I’d look a fool.”

  “You already look like that.”

  “My thanks. At least my acting isn’t in question.”

  “You wish to look like a fool?”

  “Fools can’t do much. Therefore, they’re not looked at closely.”

  “I hate travel by ship!” Lisle replied.

  “It’s just down the coast. We’ll be there a-fore you know it.”

  “And I failed at music! I can’t even read notes.”

  Langston stopped breathing for a moment, and then he restarted it. Lisle wondered if he noticed. “Music?” he asked.

  “You have them play music. With horns.”

  “Horns?”

  “Aye. One long note. Sometimes two or three of them. Spaced far apart. Always the same tone—always. I doona’ know which note you have them use. It’s like this.” Lisle moved her head a bit, sucked in a breath, and mimicked the note.

  “Really?” The one word was accompanied by a stroke of his finger along her cheek and to her jaw.

  She nodded. The support of his chest moved as his arm moved. Lisle let her head roll with the motion. He was pulling her closer to him, and that was making the heartbeat thicken in her ear. That was interesting.

  “What else is my fault?” he asked.

  “The three notes. They mean something. Something like hide or run, or the rangers are coming. Something like that. One note means all is clear. I think. I’m na’ certain since I’ve heard it but once and we weren’t home at the time. He must come in your direction a lot.”

  “Home. You just called my castle home.” He wasn’t in control of his breathing, but that was all right. The arms tightened for a moment too, tucking her nose between the muscles of his chest, and then he released her, although one arm stayed at her back.

  “I have nae other place to stay,” she replied finally.

  “Having nae other place to stay, and calling a place home, are two incredibly different things, Lisle.”

  “I doona’ ken what two notes mean,” she replied.

  “What?” He wasn’t feigning the confusion.

  “I know what one means. I ken what three means. I doona’ know what two means.”

  “Why na’?”

  “I’ve never heard it. I imagine it means to keep an eye out.”

  “Hmn.” The moan of sound r
umbled through his chest. It sounded like acquiescence, so she just continued her complaints.

  “Then, there are the beams. You spent so much time putting them in all your chambers. It was a total waste of gold, clutters up good space, and they’re very difficult to keep clean…when you’re not hanging furniture from them.”

  “All of which has kept several carpenters, masons, and woodcutters employed that I recall. It still does.”

  “Right.” She nuzzled her nose against the mound that had the heartbeats coming from it.

  “You think I have another reason?”

  “I know you do,” she answered.

  “Really? Do tell.”

  “You have steps cut into your walls, or hidden into fireplaces, or you have them fashioned right out of your bookshelves without any subtlety at all. They’ve been designed into the very walls. They all lead to a beam, and from there you can reach any number of your perfect little windows without much effort. You could even bring a weapon while you did so.”

  “A weapon? You have strange ideas, my dear. You don’t think I did it to correct the symmetry of each room?”

  “Oh nae, not with you. They have another reason.”

  “What would that be, if I may be so bold?”

  “They’re for defense. The same as your cannons.”

  “Cannons?” He was still stroking a hand along her back, and his breathing hadn’t changed, but he was going to have to work on the rest of his body, for his heart had definitely gotten stronger and faster. She smiled slightly. He wasn’t a perfect liar after all.

  “Aye. Cannons, and then there’s the complete armory that’s in your chapel. You can defend just about anything against just about any foe. Only you’re willing to risk it all for naught.”

  “I am? This doesn’t sound like me.”

  “You want to fight the battle of Drumossie Moor again, and you want it to come out differently this time.”

  “What Scot doesn’t?”

  “You think you can change history, and I’m afraid that you’re planning on that very thing.”

  “How am I doing that?”

  “You’re trying to buy it with this gold of ours. How much of it do we have, anyway?”