The Lady and the Laird

by Maura Seger

  "All the servants are back?" Katlin asked. It seemed too good to be true.

  "That's right, miss. His lordship sent word they were to return. Isn't that just like him? I'll tell you, miss, you can look high and low and you wouldn't find another gentleman like him. He's one in a million, he is."

  "At least," Katlin muttered. She shifted her poor, abused feet more comfortably on the pillow and tried to convince herself that she should be glad the servants had returned. At least, life would take on some semblance of whatever passed for normal in these parts. The problem was that she had Angus Wyndham to thank for it.

  That galled her. Not for a moment did she believe he had helped her merely because it was the decent thing to do. That naive she wasn't. No, Laird Wyndham thought she was so utterly incapable of holding on to Innishffarin that it didn't matter how much help she had, she would still lose. He could have his cake and eat it, too—help her along, but still get everything in the end.

  The worst part of it was that he just might be right. She really hadn't had any idea of what was involved when she decided to take up her grandfather's challenge. Now that she did know, she could well understand Lady Margaret's opposition.

  All the same, it was far too late for regrets. She was here, and simple pride would keep her from retreating. Besides, there was the overwhelming fact that to go was to give up Innishffarin. Somehow—and she knew it was a totally irrational notion—the dank, drafty pile of stones was sneaking its way into her heart.

  "Madness," she murmured under her breath. "Absolute madness."

  "What was that?" Sarah asked. She had almost finished her tasks and was about to leave. "Did you want something?"

  "No, thank you," Katlin replied hastily. All she really wanted was to be left alone. "I'm fine now. I'll just rest for a while and then I'll be down to speak with the servants."

  But the moment Sarah had shut the door behind her, Katlin left the bed. She simply could not lie there like some simpering miss. At the very least, she could get a better grasp on her surroundings.

  The day before she had noticed little about the castle except its size and primitiveness. Now she was determined to do better. Shod in a soft pair of slippers, she burrowed in the back of the wardrobe until she found a worn cotton dress she had insisted on bringing despite Sarah's disapproval. The dress was years old and consequently a bit tight in the bodice, but at least she was able to put it on by herself.

  Cautiously, she opened the door and peered out. The tower passage was empty, as were the narrow steps that led down to the second story of the castle. For the first time she noticed that the staircase did not end on the tower landing but continued upward, growing narrower and more winding in the process. Following it, she came to a small wooden door at the top of the steps, which opened to reveal the roof of the tower. Unusually, it was made not of wood—which would have long since rotted through—but of good sturdy stone. The surrounding walls were almost as high as Katlin herself and crenellated to allow a view of the surrounding countryside. She could make out the road she had followed, and far off in the other direction the chimneys of what appeared to be a large manor house, Wyndham Manor, no doubt.

  Pleased by her discovery, Katlin was enjoying the view when she realized that a lower wall ran from the tower all the way around the castle. A walkway surmounted the wall and linked each of the corner towers to the others. A small stone staircase led from the roof of the tower to the walkway. Katlin took it and followed along until she came to the second tower. Here, too, the roof was of stone, allowing her to cross it, and here was a small wooden door leading to interior steps.

  Excited by what she was beginning to understand of the castle's plan, Katlin descended from the second tower. She expected to find herself in a different wing of the upper story, but the steps led down to the ground level.

  She passed through another door to find herself in a low-ceilinged corridor lit only by small slit windows near the ceiling. Regretting that she had come that way, Katlin nonetheless felt compelled to press on. She took a deep breath, lifted her skirts to prevent them from brushing along the dusty floor and began making her way toward an opening she saw farther down the passage. It appeared to lead to the outside, where she most devotedly wanted to find herself.

  She had gone a dozen yards or so when she was suddenly overcome by a damp coldness that seemed to wrap itself around her. Shivering, she quickened her pace only to find the coldness growing worse. Beneath it was a rank, cloying smell that made her nostrils twitch. She stumbled and had to catch hold of the wall to keep herself from falling. The moment she did so, she regretted it, for a slimy chill seized her palm and spread the length of her arm.

  Katlin screamed and rubbed her hand against her dress. No longer pretending that something wasn't very wrong, she broke into a run. Just then her strength seemed to desert her. Try though she did, the doorway to the outside appeared to come no closer. Rather, it seemed to be receding down a long, chill tunnel into nothingness.

  Just then a hand touched her shoulder. Katlin turned her head and found herself staring into the face of a very old man with a thin gray beard and penetrating eyes surrounded by a web of fine lines. Under other circumstances, she would have been overjoyed to find another person. The problem was that she stared not merely into the face but right through it. Behind the transparent features, she could see the passage and the tower door through which she had come.

  The old man's lips moved but Katlin could hear no sound. Nothing, that is, but for the scream that tore from her, much louder than the first, and the last sound she heard before darkness closed around her.

  Darkness and then light. She was lying on fragrant softness, the warmth of the sun was on her face and she felt suddenly, inexplicably safe. Hesitantly, she opened her eyes. "You!"

  Angus Wyndham stared at her, a look on his rugged face of mingled amusement and perplexity.

  "Really, Miss Sinclair," he said, "if this business of rescuing you is going to become a habit, I'll need a bit more notice so that I can arrange my affairs accordingly."

  "Ooh, you...." Words failed her, which under the circumstances was probably just as well.

  "Temper, temper," Angus admonished. He reached out a hand, and without so much as a by your leave, hoisted her to her feet. Grinning, he added, "Such a curious thing you are, screaming for help at one moment, bridling the next."

  "I was not screaming for help," Katlin insisted, ignoring the echo of fear that went through her as she remembered the scene in the passage. Refusing to meet his eyes, she said, "I was merely screaming for its own sake, that's all."

  Angus shot her a frankly skeptical look. "Nonsense, you were terrified out of your wits and you would have welcomed me with open arms had you been in any condition to do so. In point of fact, you had fainted. I merely carried you outside and let the fresh air revive you."

  His smile faded as he continued to regard her. She was very pale, her eyes were darkly shadowed pools, and try though she did, she could not control the tremors that still racked her. Nor could he quite ignore the way her snugly fitting dress accentuated the ripe curve of her breasts. She looked less than ever the proper lady and more the enticing female. It required an effort for him to remember that she was a Sinclair, and even then he didn't quite manage it.

  His fingers curled around her chin as he compelled her to meet his eyes. "What happened in there?" he demanded.

  Katlin wrenched her head away and glared at him. Bad enough that he had witnessed her foolish behavior, now he seemed determined to rub her nose In it. Not that she wasn't grateful. The fear was still fresh enough for her to feel thankful to anyone who had pulled her out, but she wasn't anxious to let him know that. He already had far too many advantages over her, not the least being the strange, giddy way he made her feel.

  "Nothing," she insisted, and for good measure, she added, "I am surprised to find you still here. I presumed you had left."

  "I stayed on to help your driver repair t
he stable door." He held up his hand. "No thanks are necessary. After all, it only makes good sense for me to take care of my property."

  "You beast," Katlin said, not loudly but with distinction. Her normally soft eyes were narrowed to angry slits. Really, he brought out the worst in her.

  Just to make sure he didn't miss the point, she went on, "You insufferable, arrogant, infuriating man. I will tell you once more, Innishffarin will never be yours. Never. I am here to stay and nothing—not absent servants or escaped horses and most especially not you—is going to make me leave. Is that clear?"

  "Impeccably," Angus said. He inclined his head slightly without taking his eyes from her. "In that case, madam, with your leave, I will be on my way." Almost as an afterthought, he said, "Incidentally, I think I know what it was that disturbed you in the passage."

  "What?"

  Angus smiled. He turned to go. Over his shoulder, he said, "The ghost."

  Katlin stood, hands on her hips, and watched him disappear around the corner of the castle. Oh, no, she thought, absolutely not. She was not about to let him say such a thing and then waltz off. Forgetting her battered feet, she ran after him. He was almost to the stables by the time she caught up. Reaching out a hand, she grabbed his arm.

  "What ghost?" she demanded.

  He stopped and looked surprised. "Surely you know about that?"

  Katlin dropped her hand and clasped it with the other behind her back. Better that than give in to the temptation to pummel him. An entirely new side of her personality seemed to emerge every time she had to confront the laird of Wyndham. It was a new and decidedly unsettling experience.

  "No," she said, "I do not, nor will I allow you to make such an allusion without offering any explanation. If you think you are going to start some sort of a rumor about Innishffarin being haunted in an effort to force me out, you are very much mistaken."

  "I wouldn't be starting the rumor," Angus said matter-of-factly. "It's been around for years. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it."

  "I don't believe in ghosts," Katlin said firmly.

  He shrugged. "As you wish. I've never seen the spirit, or whatever it is, so I can't attest to it myself. All I can tell you is that uncounted people have claimed to encounter a strange area of coldness in different parts of the castle. A few have even said that they saw an old man who tried to speak to them."

  What little color had returned to Katlin's cheeks vanished. "A—an old man?"

  "That's right." He looked at her thoughtfully. "Did you see anything?"

  "No! That is, I don't know what I did or did not see. Obviously, I was overly tired. The point is, I don't want silly rumors frightening my servants."

  "They all know about the ghost," Angus said. "Except John and your maid, of course, and I dare say they'll find out soon enough. Servants never seem to be bothered by the thing, so you don't need to worry about them."

  "I still don't believe you," Katlin insisted, although her conviction was eroding. She had seen the old man, much as she was loath to admit it. The thought that she might actually have glimpsed something beyond the daylight wholesomeness of the ordinary world made her stomach clench. What had she gotten into when she decided to come to Innishffarin?

  "And I'm not leaving," she went on. "Now more than ever, I am determined to stay."

  Angus gave her a look that would have quelled a lesser woman. "Stubbornness is a necessity in a good sheepdog. It has a certain appeal in a salmon at the end of one's line. But in a woman it is absurd. You are totally unfit for life here. The longer you refuse to admit that, the more miserable you will make yourself."

  Katlin clenched her hands more tightly and said through clenched teeth, "Your opinions are boorish, Laird Wyndham, and being so they suit you perfectly well. Good day, sir."

  He gave a final, exasperated shake of his head and turned his back on her. Moments later, she was rewarded by the sight of him riding off on the big stallion. Why that did not please her more she couldn't possibly say.

  "Exasperating man," she muttered and took herself around the castle until at last she found the front door and made her way back inside. Not for anything was she going through the side passage again. The very thought of it made her quake. But she wasn't going to think about it, or about Lord Wyndham, or indeed about anything except the business of staying on at Innishffarin. And for that she knew exactly what she had to do next.

  "Summon the servants, Sarah," she informed her maid, rather grandly, for she was feeling very much on her dignity. A good, brisk talking-to, that's what was needed, the kind her great-aunt Margaret used to dish out regularly with salutary effect. She would make her expectations clear, exhort everyone to do their best, and before very long, Innishffarin would be running smooth as silk.

  That, at least, was the plan. Sadly, it was destined for failure. A solid indication of that was the fact that the first person to respond to her summons was not a person at all but a sad-eyed sheep who emerged at the top of the kitchen steps, sauntered across the great hall and stood, head to one side, staring at her mildly.

  "Baa," the sheep said just before it began chewing on one of the tattered wall hangings.

  Chapter Four

  She wasn't what she was supposed to be. There was no getting around that. Miss Katlin Sinclair was a surprise.

  Oh, she looked right enough—beautiful, feminine, helpless. He could hardly call himself a man and be immune to all that. The problem was the strong suspicion he had that there was a great deal more to the lady than met the eye.

  She had courage, for one thing, evidenced by her attempt to walk into the village. Not much sense, of course, but then that went without saying. And she didn't scare easily, unless he counted screaming and fainting at the sight of something—whatever it was— in the castle passage. The news that Innishffarin was said to have a resident ghost had provoked merely anger, not the dismay he more rightly expected.

  No, not what she should have been at all, which made his life decidedly more complicated. It simply hadn't occurred to him that Isaiah's granddaughter might try to hold on to her wild Scottish legacy.

  Not that she'd manage it, he told himself as he urged the gray to a canter. There was no risk of that. In a week or two at the most she'd come to her senses and depart. Then at last he could get busy repairing the damage done by decades of neglect.

  A fortnight he'd give her, he decided. If she hadn't seen the light by then, he'd have to take sterner measures. The decision pleased him. He was smiling as he galloped along the shore road.

  Breakers tumbled along the rocky beach at the foot of the cliffs. A fresh wind blew out of the north. On such winds had the Vikings come in times long ago. Mostly, they'd kept going south where fatter pluckings were to be found. But a few had felt a kinship for the land that was so similar to their own. Among them had been his ancestors—proud, fierce men who having claimed the place were never to be dislodged.

  Only once had anyone managed to wrest land from the Wyndhams. For more than a century, he and his had lived with the wound, but not for much longer. Soon, very soon, all would be put right again.

  His piercing blue eyes were thoughtful as he turned down the long, narrow road that led to Wyndham Manor. Here the land flattened somewhat, allowing for the wide, velvet lawns generations of gardeners had cultivated.

  There was an old saying about such lawns, that they were easy to come by, all you had to do was seed, water and roll for two hundred years. The timing was just about right.

  Wyndham Manor had stood since the early days of the sixteenth century. It was built in the Jacobean style with tall, gabled walls topped by elaborately carved chimneys and set with high, leaded windows. In the bright afternoon light, the gray stone glowed warmly.

  As always, Angus felt a spurt of pride and pleasure as he came within sight of his home. Yet, again as always, that did nothing to ease his desire for Innishffarin.

  A groom hurried out to meet him, not Padraic who was senior man in the
stables but a boy still in training for his post. He took that very seriously, casting a careful eye over the stallion.

  "Had a good run, sir," he said.

  "Good enough," Angus agreed. He patted the horse's rump and watched as he was led away, then he turned and strode briskly to the house; already he had wasted enough of the day.

  His steward was waiting for him in the long, high-ceilinged library. With a sigh, Angus resigned himself to going over the accounts. He did the task weekly, much as he loathed it.

  The steward was an elderly man, William by name, and uncle to Padraic. Most of the people working at Wyndham were related one way or another, and most of them had been there as long as the Wyndham family itself. As a result, few hesitated to speak their minds.

  "What about the lass then?" William wanted to know when they had finished going over the tallies. "She's not serious about staying, is she?"

  "Hard to tell," Angus said. He pushed his chair back, stretched out his long legs and put his feet up. William, who was a fastidious man, winced at the sight of his boots. Many a sheep farmer mucking out stalls would have been too proud to wear them, but his lordship had never been one to care much for appearances. If he liked something, he stuck with it.

  "Shame it isn't winter," William said matter-of-factly. " That'd send her scurrying back to London right quick."

  Angus shrugged. "She's a bit of fluff," he said not quite honestly. "I give her a fortnight, if that long."

  "And then..." The steward smiled. He knew better than anyone other than Angus about the money that was already set aside, the plans already drawn up, everything decided and only awaiting the moment Innishffarin once more became Wyndham property. And what a moment it would be. Surely, they'd be rejoicing the likes of nothing anyone had ever seen.

  "Soon," Angus said softly, reading what was in the older man's eyes. He wasn't alone in his yearning. The tumbledown castle perched on the cliff was a source of hungry fascination for many.