by Jackie Ivie
His eyes went huge as he stared at her. Then he was grinning, and then he was whooping great, loud gusts of sound, until the cabin rang with it.
“You’re na’ unhappy?” Lisle teased.
The Langston she loved pulled her into his arms, put her against the solid pounding of his heart, and held her there, soothing her with the drumlike rhythm of it. The entire time he had her clasped to him, he was cupping the place that held their son, with hands that contained reverence to each finger.
“I love you, Lisle Monteith. You are the life in every breath I take, and the joy in everything I see, and I’m a-feared you’re in every thought I am having, and will ever have.”
She reached up to ruffle the edge of where the black hair was just deciding to drop onto his forehead, and then she moved her gaze down to his.
“Then, doona’ do this thing,” she said softly.
He went rigid. Cold. Dark. The arms about her dropped away and then he was moving from her, standing, and there wasn’t anything on him that was loving.
“There is nae bargaining tool you can use to stay my destiny, Lisle. None. You canna’ even use my son.”
He turned his back on her and strode out.
The Duke of Cumberland was exactly on time. Lisle stood in her chamber, the white and maroon one with the light wooden beams crossing it, and listened to the horns the Sassenach were blasting as they entered the enclosure of the castle yard. She could almost hear the portcullis falling at every gate they went through, and she was surprised they didn’t hear it and take note of it, or at least feel a brush of suspicion about the entire thing.
But no. This William was an arrogant, pompous, overly proud son, the favored son of their King George, and he had subdued the Highlands as no man before him could have hoped to. He was making a triumphant return journey, since, being a second son, military success was the most he could hope for from his father.
Lisle was under house arrest, although there was no order given, and no room denied her. It was an understanding, and she’d been made aware of it ever since she’d decided to try and use her own son for negotiating. There was a Highlander in Sassenach dress at every door she decided to try, and in every window she peered out of, and they also seemed to know what she was being punished for and had tried to do.
Lisle felt the tears filling her eyes and forced them back down. She wasn’t going to cry! She was going to go down to the amazing feast Monteith Castle had prepared and she was going to charm the socks off that Sassenach bastard, if she had to learn how to be an actress in order to do it. And she was going to wear the dress Langston had ordered her to, although she felt like a kept woman in it. He knew what he was doing. He was keeping Cumberland’s eyes on her, or on anything other than the obvious, until the trap was sprung.
Then, there came the sound of a long, drawn-out note, overriding the Sassenach flare of noise and making everything stop and listen. It was followed by two short blasts of a horn. Two. Lisle waited for the third, but it never came. Two? What did two mean?
“Show him the prisoners, Monteith.”
Captain Barton’s eyes were gleaming, and the mug of chilled ale he’d swigged only seemed to intensify them. Langston swung his glance away from where all the troops they’d brought with them were also partaking, and smiled with a sardonic, evil expression.
“I’d best prepare them first.”
“For what?”
“Viewing.”
Barton laughed heartily. William didn’t look like he had much intelligence for the jest, but he was drinking fully of the ale, too. That was a good omen, a very good one.
Servant women flitted about, taking tankards, filling others, and always slipping a sleeve down onto an arm with the movement, showing every red-blooded male there that a Highland wench was just as well endowed as any they’d find in any of the finest taverns in London. Langston smiled.
“My dungeon, it is. Gentlemen?”
They rose from the thick, overstuffed chairs they’d been in, and followed him. They were joined immediately by at least thirty men to accompany them, coming from the ranks of William’s personal guard. It was obvious they were a well-trained unit, too. They hadn’t partaken of a drop of anything offered, nor had they shifted glances to anything the women displayed.
He knew that Etheridge and the Green Company were also aware of it. As the most elite corps, it was going to be their chore to subdue any that hadn’t had a tankard of the ale.
“These are the MacDonald clan you spoke of?” William asked as they went down first one hall, and then another.
“Oh, yes. And wait until you see them. Twenty-seven of them! All trussed up and ready to haul to London. Just like I promised.” It was Captain Barton answering, and the drug only seemed to heighten his arrogance and make him louder.
“You gave them to a Highland laird for safekeeping? Isn’t that highly unusual?” It was obvious William was searching for the correct word.
It was probably damned unusual, Langston thought.
“This is no normal Highland laird, Wills, old boy!” Captain Barton clapped the duke on the back, and received a stern look for his effort. It didn’t affect him much. “This is Monteith. Hated by both sides, loyal to none. Isn’t that right, Monteith?”
“It would seem you have me directly in your sights, Captain. My congratulations,” Langston replied, drawing out the words with a bored tone. They were at the door to the dungeons. Langston turned to prepare them. “Don’t go too close to the bars.”
“The bars?” William asked.
“Why ever not?” Captain Barton wanted to know.
“Because desperate men do desperate things. The MacDonalds are that.”
The men, wearing MacDonald plaide and posing as MacDonalds, were desperate, all right, but it wasn’t for any escape. They were also writhing and screaming and one of them appeared to be trying to climb the walls, while another was looking at his toes as if they held all the secrets of his world. There was one beneath a bed of straw, splashing in the film of water coating the floor, and the smell of filth assailed their nostrils to the point that William started gagging. Langston smiled. He’d ordered it prepared, and the men they were watching had but been placed there an hour earlier. They were also well into the bane of every opiate addict—withdrawal.
“My God, Monteith! What have you done to them?”
It was Captain Barton, and he wasn’t going anywhere near the bars. He was staring at the men inside and then at Monteith as if he were a demon only Satan could have dreamt up.
“I tortured them. Exactly as you specified. Think nothing of it. They’ll be on their feet and ready for travel in a matter of days. Those that survive, that is.”
He yawned, and watched as William looked like he was ready to retch into the perfumed handkerchief he had held to his nose.
“Have you seen enough, Captain?”
Barton nodded. Langston smiled and waved the way back up the stairs. He could hear the stones of the secret passage moving before the door was shut, and made a mental note of reprimand. They were not to move the prisoners until it was time, and it wasn’t time…yet.
Supper was served exactly on schedule, and with a gaiety that seemed to permeate the air until even the wine sparkled like it was champagne. Lisle made her entrance, and Langston’s heart felt every bit of the hurt and pain that was reflecting from those sky-blue eyes at him. She looked across the room at him and nodded. Then, she was walking over to take her assigned place, and holding her hand out to the butcher of the Highlands and introducing herself with the slightest warble to her voice, enchanting that fellow until his eyes looked like they’d forgotten how to blink.
Langston was halfway to a stand before he caught himself. She was wearing a sky-blue taffeta dress that he’d selected, but once again he’d forgotten that she had a very lovely bosom, and only an idiot put such a thing on display when there was a man known for his sexual appetites as her dining partner. Langston groaned, and sta
bbed his fork into his gelled cranberry mold, separating it with the thrust and watching the filling ooze out with a strange feeling of satisfaction that was only tempered when he looked up and watched William Cumberland fawning over his wife.
As if she’d felt his gaze, she looked up, speared him into place with the pain luminating out at him, and making him wrench the silver spoon in his hand until it warped. She looked away, placed her hand on the duke’s arm, and laughed lightly at something he’d said. All of which had Langston rising from his seat again, and feeling nothing over the blood-pounding heartbeat in his ears but pure and absolute hate.
Then Lisle was turning to the captain at her other side, and leaning slightly as she conversed with him. The movement had the front of her gown gaping farther open, and she made certain the gentlemen were looking there, as she brushed a stray lock of her hair from where it was at least trying to shield some of her. Langston groaned.
He’d planned everything to the smallest detail, except for one thing: his own reaction to his wife.
Langston controlled the tremble of his own hand as he reached for, and downed, the water in his goblet. He needed her tonight; her beauty, her power, her charm. He was trusting her more than he should, but he was prepared for a betrayal by making certain every one of the chairs had a servant directly behind it, and that servant wasn’t just a footman. They were Yellow Company, well trained, and well armed. The duke had even done him the great honor of dismissing his own guard, since he felt so certain of Monteith, and so safe in his hands.
Lisle was laughing, and Langston was not. He watched her pose and flirt with the men at either side of her, and knew he was turning red with an emotion he should have killed off years before. The sweat was making the shirt stick to his backbone, and run from there to the edge of his English trousers, and he couldn’t wait to shed them and put on his rightful raiment, and take his rightful place.
She damn well better get her hand off the duke’s sleeve!
Langston had his napkin tossed to the table and his chair already sliding out before he caught the motion, and stared down at the plate of squab pie they’d served him, looking at it like it was something that hadn’t been invented yet. He took great gulps of air, pulled his collar from his neck, and wondered what was wrong with him that he couldn’t control his emotion any better than this.
She truly was ruining him. He was going to be useless as an actor and a liar if this kept up. He sat back down, put half the pie in his mouth in one bite, and started chewing, viciously, with intent, and with a look down the table that if she’d chanced to glance up she’d have gasped in shock at.
They served another course. She was laughing and hiding her mouth and saying things that made them laugh, and everything he put in his mouth was as tasteless as the next, and then everything went completely still as he saw her lift a wine glass and take a sip of it.
Langston was on his feet, and halfway down the table before she set the glass down. Then she was looking up at him with those beautiful, brittle-looking, sky-blue eyes, although anyone else would have a hard time looking anywhere but at how much bosom she was putting on display, and pleading with him not to hold the matter against her anymore.
“Gentlemen. I’m afraid my wife has taken ill,” Langston said, nodding his head for one of the servants to assist her with her chair.
She was in his arms, and she was pliant and looking at him with a dazed expression, while he was kicking himself for every kind of a fool for allowing her to come into close contact with anything that might harm her, or their baby. Langston’s eyes filled and he had to blink them rapidly before the two Englishmen noticed that the laird was close to sobbing, and then they’d want to know why. It was at what he’d done. Very little was going according to plan.
Lisle looked up at him with eyes that were swimming with her own tears. Then she was pouting and smiling and making little kissing noises. All of it was driving him insane with all he had to keep in his mind; the things he had left to do. There was nothing for it but to get her into competent hands.
“Excuse me, gentlemen. I have to see my wife to her room. I’ll be down shortly.” Langston ran up the steps. He was calling for Mary MacGreggor and giving her heartless instructions to keep Lisle up and sober and walking. Then he was running back down the steps before any of the men got the idea to leave.
He reassured himself with his instructions. There hadn’t been much opiate in any glass of wine, or in any of the ale. There hadn’t been enough to harm anyone. He just wanted their senses dulled, not obliterated. He needed every one of them well and alive, and healthy; exactly as he’d told Captain Barton a prisoner needed to be.
“Well! It’s been a lovely evening, Monteith. Congratulate your wife when you see her again. Tell her Big Wills has a surprise for her. I’ll be happy to let her see it.”
Langston had his hand in a fist, and was ready to swing it before sanity returned, and with it time and reason and everything he’d prepared and worked for. He uncoiled his fist by act of will, and worked his fingers loose.
“My pleasure, my lord duke. If you’ll be so good as to come outside. We’ve got everything prepared.”
“You’re a wonderful host, Monteith. I’ll recommend you to all my friends back in the civilized world. I vow it—”
The words died, as well as his breath, as they stepped out onto the front steps, and then went out farther onto the grass, as the number of English soldiers coming from behind them pushed them out. The door shut, loudly, and there was a sound of a bolt being drawn. Langston stood on the steps, folded his arms, and waited while both the captain and the duke, and those men who were sober enough to be with them, took in the sea of Highlanders facing them, and filling the castle grounds in perfect rows and with perfect precision. Each division had a banner held high that had a golden lion passant at the center of green, while the only difference was the color or design of the ribbon clasped in its claws.
On perfect signal, and in perfect unison, the pipers, standing two hundred deep, started the skirl of their pipes, while the drums all about the edge of the courtyard started in, thumping a beat that felt like it went across the turf and climbed into every man’s back.
“I don’t understand, Monteith. These are Highlanders…and they play the pipes, and they’re armed, and they’re in kilts! Captain?”
The duke’s voice was gaining in volume, and then there was a general sound of noise and confusion coming from the sides of his courtyard as English soldiers appeared, all carrying muskets and all looking like they’d just as soon bed down and sleep it off.
Langston nodded, and a thunder of noise started filling the enclosure until it echoed off the walls and reverberated into the sky. One by one every crenellation in every bit of every wall filled with the round barrel of cannon and they were all pointed directly down at the courtyard before them.
“Monteith!”
Langston nodded again, and there was a sound of windows being opened. He didn’t have to look up to see how every window in every portion of his home was filling with a musket or a crossbow, and they were also pointing at each and every Englishman in the enclosure.
“You have an explanation of this?”
Cumberland was trying to ask it over the drums and the pipes and Langston lifted his arm for a silence that, when it fell, seemed to make the very sounds of their sweat breaking out on their bodies audible.
“Of course I have an explanation,” he said slowly and distinctly. “I am a Highlander, born and bred. Forever.”
“You are a bloody, conniving, barbaric bastard!”
That was Captain Barton, and he was spitting between the words, with anger that was turning him red.
“True,” Langston replied loudly. “Now, what are you going to do about it? The answer has to be, not much. In point of fact, I’d ask you to lay down your weapon, but you’re na’ even wearing one, so it would be a moot request.”
“What do you want?” The duke asked it, pe
rfectly sober-sounding and lethal. He was cunning. He’d just kept it well hidden.
“To negotiate, of course.”
“Speak up.”
“Not with you. You’re but a pawn. I want to speak with your father.”
“The king doesn’t speak with rabble.”
“Oh…I think he will. You see, I have something of his. I think he’ll want it back. Especially if I sweeten the pot and keep it quiet.”
“You’re holding me for ransom?”
“Na’ exactly. I’m holding you for peace. I’m even paying the ransom to get rid of you.”
“What?”
“I’ve got something King George will want back. He’s got something that I want back.”
“What is that?”
Langston sighed heavily. “I have prepared my dower house for you and Captain Barton, and even the Highland Rangers to use. You’re to be my guests, enjoying my hospitality. There will be meals served, ales, wines; you’ll want for nothing, and there will be nothing spared for your comfort.”
“How long are we going to be your…guests?”
“That will depend on how amenable your father is. I imagine he’s hearing about this just about now, and I daresay he’ll want this little episode closed rather quickly, because otherwise he has to face the embarrassment of how easily it was to kidnap his favored son in a country he thought subdued.”
“He knows already?”
“I sent my emissary a sennight past. I doona’ wish to be your host for an overlong period. I’d prefer it to be brief.”
“What do you want?”
“I already told you. I doona’ negotiate with pawns. Only kings.”
“I’ll not stand by and allow you to—!”
Langston swiveled to glare at the captain. “Barton, please. I already had to weigh heavily on if it was worth keeping your sorry neck unsliced for the duration of the negotiations. I doona’ think you are worth much. But then, I had a thought. There might actually be someone out there that thinks you have some worth. Every man has to have a mother, at least. Do you think she’ll pay much for your return?”