Lizzie swallowed. “I’ll no’ want it.”
“Then you may stop acting as if you expect me to snatch your maidenly virtue,” he said coolly, and disappeared from her side. When she heard the creak of the bed, she rolled onto her side and burrowed in under his greatcoat. It was heavy and warm and, she thought drowsily, it smelled quite nice—spicy and leathery, just like a man.
She drifted back to sleep with the words you will bloody well beg me for it echoing in her mind.
At Thorntree, Lizzie’s sister, Charlotte, sat at the front window in the drawing room, staring morosely at the top of the gray, imposing structure of Castle Beal visible above the tree tops, high up on the hill. Castle Beal dominated everything in this part of the Highlands, including Thorntree, the modest family estate on the banks of the River Almond, down the way in Glenalmond, in Castle Beal’s long shadow.
Three miles separated the two structures, yet sometimes it felt as if Thorntree was in the castle’s upper bailey, so closely did Uncle Carson keep Lizzie and Charlotte to him.
Since their father, Carson’s brother, had died several months ago, Charlotte and her sister rarely passed a day in which Uncle Carson did not call on them at Thorntree. He did not care that they were grown women—Charlotte was five and twenty, Lizzie three and twenty—and did not need or want his protection. To Carson’s way of thinking, they were Beal women, part of his clan and little more than inferior property, and he insisted on interfering.
Of late he’d tried to keep Lizzie from accepting the attentions of Gavin Gordon, a Highlander who resided with his family in Glencochill, just a few miles over the hills from Thorntree. He was well regarded around Aberfeldy and Crieff. He was rebuilding the Gordon estate—they’d lost quite a lot during the Clearances several years ago, but Mr. Gordon was slowly bringing it to life again. Charlotte understood he’d been buying sheep and adding to his flock. He had plans to begin exporting wool when he had enough sheep to produce it.
Lizzie had been introduced to Mr. Gordon at a harvest dance last year and had instantly taken a liking to him. So had Charlotte. He seemed the perfect choice for her sister. He seemed to genuinely adore her and, moreover, he’d made it quite clear that Charlotte was more than welcome in his house.
Carson’s objections to Mr. Gordon were vague at best and seemed to center on old clan rivalries that the Gordons insisted no longer existed. Lizzie believed Carson’s objection had to do with Thorntree, but as she and Charlotte were the surviving heirs, Carson had no claim to it…other than as collateral against the debts their father had left when he died. Carson had paid a few of the larger debts and, in doing so, had essentially put Lizzie and Charlotte in debt to him. The only way they might repay that debt was with Thorntree. They had no money.
Before their father had died, Lizzie and Charlotte had perhaps known, but not appreciated, that Thorntree was so small it could not support sheep or cattle, and because of the terrain it could not be properly farmed. When Papa died they discovered that not only did it cost more to manage the estate than the estate brought in, they had less than five hundred pounds in their coffers to support the estate, the two of them, and the Kincades, longtime servants who depended upon them for their livelihood. They’d been forced to let go the daily servants.
Aye, Lizzie and Charlotte had been beholden to Carson before they’d even known it. Yet it perplexed them nonetheless—Thorntree was essentially useless to Carson. Although it was useless to him, it was the only thing the Gordon family might accept in dowry.
Charlotte couldn’t comprehend why Carson would deny them that one spot of happiness. They’d argued with him and he had threatened them. Charlotte was proud of Lizzie—she’d refused to give in to Carson’s demands to stop seeing Mr. Gordon.
And then, yesterday evening, Carson had arrived with his little Highland army, dragging Lizzie from Thorntree for God knew what purpose—other than to ruin any chance she might have of marrying Mr. Gordon—and left Charlotte alone in the company of his minion, an oafish brute he called Newton.
The valley’s mist was beginning to lift with the dawn of a new day; Charlotte idly drummed a knitting needle against the arm of her chair, pondering the question of why Carson was so determined to keep them at Thorntree.
“Shall I take ye in to breakfast, Miss Beal?”
Charlotte didn’t as much as glance in the brute’s direction. He was as tall as a Scots pine and as broad as any Highland mountain, with hands as big as the round loaves of bread Mrs. Kincade made each day. His legs, peeking out from beneath the kilt he wore, were huge. Almost as huge as the knife he wore, in his belt. He had a rough beard, flecked with bits of red. Tiny crevices in his skin fanned out from the corner of his eyes, as if he’d been born squinting. He was the sort of Highlander who lived alone high in the hills, and Charlotte did not like him.
“Ye’ve been up most the night,” he said. “Ye must have a hunger.”
“I have a hunger for some privacy, but you do no’ seem inclined to provide it.”
“Ye must eat, Miss Beal.”
Who was this man? Charlotte slowly turned her head to look at him. He stared back at her with brown eyes, his expression unreadable, his enormous hands on his knees. “Are you addlepated, Mr. Newton? Do you no’ understand what I have been trying to tell you? I donna want your assistance! Have I no’ made that plainly clear? I would that you go and do whatever it is oafs do,” she said, wiggling her fingers at the door. “But leave me.” She turned away again, staring out the window at the castle.
She heard him moving, but it wasn’t until he was standing beside her that she realized he’d come even closer. “Out!” she cried, pointing at the door with her needle. “Go away from me!”
He ignored her. With a grunt of impatience, he took the knitting needle from her hand before she speared him in the eye with it, then bent over and scooped her up into his arms.
“Stop!” Charlotte shrieked. “Put me down!”
He did not put her down but carried her to the breakfast room as if she weighed nothing. And there was nothing Charlotte could do to stop him, nothing in the world that could make her legs and pelvis work. She’d lost the use of her lower body six years ago when she’d fallen from a galloping Highland pony.
She was at the mercy of this wretched beast of a man. She was at Carson’s mercy, Lizzie’s mercy—the mercy of the whole bloody world.
Chapter Five
The pounding on the door of the turret room the next morning was loud enough to wake all the dead buried in the Highlands.
From his seat at the table, Jack watched Lizzie almost kill herself trying to untangle herself from his greatcoat and the blanket to stand in her wrinkled gown and mess of wavy auburn hair that just reached her shoulders.
“Lambourne!” a man shouted at them from the other side of the door.
“What a gentle good morning he offers,” Jack muttered. “Aye!” he called back as he gave Lizzie a once-over. She frowned at his perusal and put a hand to her hair. She must not have liked the feel of it, for she winced and hurried to the basin.
“The laird requests ye to break yer fast with him this morn!” the man said as Jack gained his feet and strolled the few feet to the closed door. “The lass as well—I’m to wait and bring ye, milord!”
“No!” Lizzie whispered loudly as her fingers worked frantically to comb her hair. “That’s exactly what Carson wants, to parade us before everyone in this glen! I’ll no’ sit at a table with him! I’ll no’ so much as speak to him after what he’s done!”
Her eyes—even more remarkably blue in the light of day, Jack noticed—were flashing with ire. While he could not disagree with her—Beal’s tactics thus far had bordered on barbaric—he’d be damned if he’d stay in this room any longer than necessary. However, his ersatz wife had a wild look in her eyes, and if he was to be freed from this room, he thought it best to proceed carefully. “As I see it, you have two choices, Lizzie. You may remain penned in this small room with m
e, giving rise to salacious gossip and innuendo that will spread throughout the glen”—he paused long enough to allow that to sink in—“or you may play along with your uncle’s little game and attend breakfast and discern for yourself what he means to do next.”
Lizzie opened her mouth…then quickly closed it. He could almost see a herd of thoughts stampeding through her head. He imagined her agreeing and even flinging herself at his feet, thanking him for his calm and reasoned judgment in a time of great trial, but she—unsurprisingly—disagreed and shook her head. “It’s no’ wise to be seen. The more we are seen, the more untoward the speculation grows.”
“Perhaps your fiancé has come,” Jack quickly suggested. “But you’ll never know if he has come for you if you remain tucked away up here, will you?” Frankly, Jack thought if the fiancé were half a man, he’d come for her, and if he were a real man, he would be dismantling the door of this room just now.
The mention of the fiancé seemed to do the trick. Lizzie froze for a moment, then looked down. “I look a fright,” she said, trying to shake the wrinkles from her gray gown.
She didn’t exactly look a fright to him. Her gown was wrinkled and soiled, but her skin was flawless, her eyes little seas of blue, and her hair a very appealing mass of curls.
Naturally, Lizzie misinterpreted his look. She frowned. “You needn’t look so aghast,” she said curtly as she gathered up from her little bed her shawl and the ribbon she’d worn as a bandeau.
“I am hardly aghast—”
“Just a bit of privacy, if you please,” she interrupted, motioning for him to turn his back.
Jack unenthusiastically turned his back to her.
“Very well,” she said crisply. “I will go along, milord—”
“Jack.”
“Milord. But only on the promise that you will no’ do anything to imply or otherwise suggest that anything happened in this room last night. I must have your word!”
“Jack. Really, I think you are making far too much of this. The whole clan must recognize it for the scheme that it is.”
“Please?” she said, her voice directly behind him and startling him. He abruptly turned and looked down into a most wistful expression. “Will you give me your word?”
“Yes,” he said, so quickly that he surprised himself. “You have my word as an earl and a gentleman. I will let it be known that a veritable ocean of chastity lay between us last night.”
She snorted at that. “You are in the Highlands, no’ London. A simple no will suffice.”
She’d wrapped the bandeau ribbon around her hair, but she’d missed one long curl that draped her neck. An insane urge to touch that curl overcame Jack; he was certain he would have if she’d not bent just then to pick up her shawl and wrap it loosely around her arms, draping the ends just so to hide the wrinkles in her gown.
Not that any man would have noticed the wrinkles in the slightest, for Lizzie Beal had one of the most pleasing décolletages Jack had ever had the pleasure to observe. In fact, Lizzie Beal had a freshness about her, the healthy glow of clean Highland air, and a pair of dark plum lips that could, were a man to gaze too long, be quite dangerously arousing.
“What is it?” she asked uncertainly, her eyes narrowing at his perusal. “Is something amiss?”
“Only a desire to break my fast,” Jack lied, and offered his arm. “If you please, Miss Beal.”
With a roll of her eyes, Lizzie ignored his arm and walked to the door, banging a fist on it. “Open!” she shouted.
“That’s subtle,” he said wryly.
A moment later the bolt slid from the lock and the door swung open, narrowly missing Lizzie. Two rather large Highlanders stood on the other side and peered curiously inside, their gaze straying to the bed.
Jack stepped forward, blocking their view. “Mind your manners, gentlemen.” And, with his hand on the small of Lizzie’s back, he ushered her out.
Carson was waiting in a small room on the ground floor of the castle that some enterprising Beal had managed to convert into a breakfast room. A single window overlooked the meadow where horses grazed. As he waited for the unhappy couple to make their appearance, Carson was reminded that Lizzie and Charlotte used to stand at this very window when they were girls, longing to be on the horses’ backs. Charlotte in particular would gaze wistfully at them, giving them all fancy pretend names such as Hyacinth and Miranda.
Who could have guessed they would grow up to be such intractable women?
The scent of a Highland breakfast—fresh eggs, kippers, brown bread, porridge, and black pudding—filled the room, but Carson was too impatient to eat. He wanted this over and done. There were many pressing issues that required his attention, and he blamed Lizzie for this inconvenience.
When the pair at last entered, Carson gestured to a footman, who instantly set about preparing the plates. “Do please sit,” he said, as if they were proper guests.
Lambourne gallantly helped Lizzie into a chair. The rogue looked quite well rested, but Lizzie looked weary. And she was staring daggers at Carson.
Carson did not sit; he preferred to stand with his hands clasped behind his back, his dark brown eyes boring through his niece. His brother had raised two very headstrong women. He’d often warned Alpin that their independent ways would lead to trouble; certainly no self-respecting Highland man would want a woman who followed the flawed counsel of her own mind. There were already whispers about the two spinsters down the glen, and indeed they were both passing the marrying age. Charlotte would never marry, and Lizzie, well…she’d never marry if she did not learn to subordinate herself to the rule of men.
But Alpin never listened to him about much of anything.
“I trust you found the accommodations suitable?” he asked idly.
“Are you mad?” Lizzie shot back.
“They were quite comfortable, Laird,” Lambourne said. “But a wee bit close, perhaps, for strangers.”
Lizzie looked askance at Lambourne; he gave her a pointed look in return.
“Your niece was no’ as pleased as me,” Lambourne added, still looking at Lizzie, “for she passed the night on the floor.”
“The floor, eh?” Carson said. He was hardly surprised. Stubborn chit.
“Aye. It would seem my charms were no’ enough to persuade her differently.”
Carson snorted at that, and noticed that the footman glanced at Lambourne over his shoulder. That sort of news would carry through the household within the hour.
“I have learned,” Lambourne continued amicably, “that a Highland lass does no’ part so readily with her virtue. Miss Beal was rather adamant that she’d no’ agreed to the handfasting or anything else.”
Bloody scoundrel was intentionally speaking so frankly in front of the servant—he knew, too, that what he said would carry throughout the glen. Carson looked at the footman and gave him a curt nod, sending him instantly from the room. Ignoring Lambourne’s smug smile, he picked up the plates the footman had prepared and laid them on the table himself before the pair. “My niece can be rather difficult at times, milord,” he said. “She takes her own counsel.”
“Why, Uncle, you say that as if it’s undesirable,” Lizzie said with false sweetness as she speared a kipper and put it in her mouth.
“In my day, women did as they were told.”
“In your day, women were sheep.”
“Ah, the kippers are excellent,” Lambourne interjected. “Quite fresh.”
Carson paid him no heed but continued to glare at Lizzie as she ate her breakfast, sliding into a seat directly across from her. “Alpin was too soft with your upbringing, lassie. He did you no service. You and Charlotte are as stubborn as any pair of braying donkeys! Why do you continue to fight me in this?”
“Charlotte?” Lambourne asked, lifting his head.
“My sister,” Lizzie said curtly; and to Carson, “We bray because we are free to make our choices. You canna control us, Uncle. We are grown women.”
> “It would seem that I have controlled you,” he snapped. “You are handfasted, are you no’?”
Her expression darkened. “When Mr. Gordon hears of this—”
“Ach,” Carson cried, throwing up a hand. “Mr. Gordon, Mr. Gordon!” he shouted. How he hated that name! “Have you no pride in your heritage, Lizzie? Can you no’ understand that a Beal despises a Gordon with all of his being?” he said, dramatically thumping a fist to his chest.
“I understand that you despise a Gordon, but that old clan rivalry is nothing but a tale for the history books! Mr. Gordon and I—”
“Are what?” Carson sneered. “Engaged?”
His niece lost her footing momentarily with that question—they were not formally engaged, owing chiefly to Carson’s deliberate interference. “We have an understanding, and you know it perfectly well,” she said tightly. “Does he know of this…this disaster?” she asked, gesturing toward Lambourne, who looked slightly offended. “Did you send your henchmen running to tell him straightaway?”
“Why would I do that?” Carson hissed. “Why should I care what that bloody Gordon knows?”
“It is the reason you stooped to this!” Lizzie cried disbelievingly. “The insanity of this handfasting was done precisely to make it impossible for him to offer for me!”
“It was done to keep Lambourne out of the hands of the English,” Carson snapped.
“My, how that warms the cockles of my heart,” Lambourne drawled.
“What a simpleton you must think me!” Lizzie exclaimed. “Yet it hardly matters, Uncle—your scheme did no’ work as you’d hoped. When Mr. Gordon comes for me—”
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