In the Bed of a Duke

by Cathy Maxwell

  At one time, he’d counseled Lady Rowena; but she’d turned on him as she did all who served her, with the exception of Moira. Tavis had come upon the priest shivering in his sleep on the ground outside Nathraichean’s walls. Everyone else was afraid to take the old man in lest they anger Lady Rowena, but Tavis had felt he had nothing to lose. Moira had left him, and the cottage was too empty and silent without her.

  And while age may have clouded the priest’s eyesight, it had not touched his mind. He came awake the moment Tavis closed the cottage door. Lifting his head, he asked in French-accented English with just a hint of a brogue, “What is the news? Why did the laird send for you this morning?”

  Rubbing a tired hand over his face, Tavis answered, “He had me ride on the search party he sent out for the Maddox. I’m hungry. I’ve got bread and cheese. Do you want anything?”

  “I’m fine,” the priest started to answer, and then stopped. “A glass of wine would not be so bad?”

  Tavis snorted with friendly disdain. The priest had already uncorked the bottle, and it sat on the table beside two cups. He poured a measure into one cup before turning to the cupboard, where he would slice bread.

  Father Nicholas left his chair by the hearth and crossed to the table. He carefully moved his fingers across the wood until his hand found his cup. “Did you find the Maddox?”

  “We did. He was in Darry Boden’s hayrick with a woman.” Tavis poured himself a measure of whiskey that Ragnor MacKenna had given him in exchange for some smithy work. It wasn’t the best, but it would do.

  “A woman?”

  “Aye.” Tavis sat down heavily in the chair across the table from the priest’s. His cottage was not large but neat and tidy. It had belonged to Moira’s father, Angus, the blacksmith the laird had apprenticed Tavis to years ago.

  “The laird had invited the lass to be a guest,” Tavis said, “but she ran off with the Maddox instead. Guess she fancied a duke. They are all the same,” he concluded. “They’d sell a man’s soul for money.” After all, that was why Moira had left.

  She’d wanted to be a fine lady with pearls for her hair, and Bruce could give her those things. The love she and Tavis had once shared had meant nothing.

  He drained his glass and would have reached for another but stayed his hand. He’d been drinking too much lately. “Moira wanted to talk to me today.”

  The priest set down his glass. “For what reason? What has it been—close to a year since she has spoken to you?”

  “Eighteen months since she walked out my door…but who is counting?” he added with wry self-derision.

  Father Nicholas smiled his understanding, but Tavis stood, suddenly on edge. It was as if someone ran the tip of a knife down the back of his neck. This niggling sense that something was not quite right had been with him all day. He shifted his weight, taking an anxious step right before turning left. He’d had this feeling once before—the day Moira had left.

  However, this time, it was much stronger.

  “What is it, my son?” Father Nicholas asked. “Sit down. Relax. You’ve worked hard this day.”

  Tavis noticed his leather apron tossed over a chair by the hearth. He’d been on his way out the door to his forge when the messenger had arrived with the news the laird wished his presence.

  He hated that apron and all it represented. His soul longed to be free of the forge and fire.

  “I had a taste of something today,” he confessed. “Of something I’ve wanted for a long time. I liked riding with them, Father. I liked being one of the warriors—–even if they made me ride Butter and do all the grunt work.”

  It had felt as if he should have been one of their number all his life.

  “Of course, I may have botched my chance to ever do it again.”

  “What happened?” Father Nicholas asked.

  “I confronted Bruce.” Tavis told him the story. “Being dragged all the way to Nathraichean would have killed the man. Of course, Bruce is angry. I humiliated him.”

  “Are you sorry?”

  “No,” Tavis answered stoutly. “The man took my wife. The laird bought my divorce. He paid for it with his own coin because he favors that worthless sow Bruce. But matters will be different in the future. I shall not be so gullible.” He clenched and released his fists at his side. “Not now that you have taught me to read—”

  “You were a very apt pupil,” Father Nicholas demurred. “It was an easy matter. I was surprised how quick your mind is.”

  “Why? Because I am nothing but a smithy. I learned quickly. I’ve always learned quickly, but I’ve naught had the chance. And now, perhaps, I can win Moira back. Perhaps now, she will see that I’m every lick as good as that bastard Bruce.”

  “Mon fils, she betrayed you.”

  Tavis’s chest tightened. “She was lured away with pretty things. If she wasn’t so pretty herself, Bruce would never have looked at her.”

  The priest shook his head. “You forgive too easily. Bruce could not have persuaded her if she had not been willing.”

  “I’ll win her back.” Tavis looked around at his cottage’s humble furnishings. It all appeared so poor now when, in truth, there had been a time when he’d thought himself the richest of men—because he’d had Moira. They’d known each other since childhood. He’d always loved her.

  Father Nicholas leaned forward. “Do not be blind.”

  “I know they were lovers,” Tavis answered, waving him away as if he could make any protests disappear. “But that was Bruce’s fault. Moira is too sweet to understand such evil.”

  “No, she just cuckolded you.”

  The words were damning in their truth. They ripped Tavis’s breath from his body. “No one has dared speak to me thus—”

  “I say what is whispered behind your back,” Father Nicholas said calmly. “Sometimes a man needs to hear it.”

  Tavis’s response was to bring his fist down on the table in a rare show of temper. The tabletop caved in; the wine bottle went flying.

  For a second, Tavis stared at the damaged table. He never gave free rein to his anger. Orphans learned to keep their feelings close.

  The priest was unimpressed. “So you have a temper, mon fils. No one questions that. We question your wisdom—”

  “Temper?” Tavis shook his head. “I have a rage inside of me, Father. There are times since the laird and Bruce took Moira away from me that I could have torn down this whole fortress with my bare hands. They had no right to take a man’s wife. Not my wife. She was all I had.”

  “She left willingly.”

  Truth made his words cruel.

  Tavis didn’t stay to hear more. He picked up his leather apron. “I’ve got work to do.” He slammed his way out of the cottage.

  Work waited for him at the forge. He stoked the fire. The flames leaped to life. He envied them their freedom.

  Angrily, he picked up the tongs and used them to shove a bent plow blade into the fire. He’d pound that blade into submission. He’d mold it back into something useful.

  He just wished he could do the same for himself.

  The blade reminded him of the time Lady Rowena had attacked him with the garden hoe.

  He’d been a lad of no more than six and already living under Angus’s roof. He’d been sent on an errand but had met some boys who wanted him to play a hiding game with them. The temptation to join them had been powerful. He’d been anxious to set aside the errand and searched for a good hiding spot. He found it in the laird’s garden—and that was his first memory of Lady Rowena.

  She’d been the one to ensure he knew he was an outsider.

  Lady Rowena wasn’t a true lady. The title was a pet name from her childhood. They said she’d insisted on keeping it. As she’d grown more troubled in life, the courtesy title seemed to give her comfort.

  The child Tavis hadn’t known any of this. He’d seen her from afar, of course, on holy and fair days, but he was stunned by her beauty upon seeing her so close.

>   She had golden hair and eyes that mirrored both the sky and the sea, a blue-green the likes of which he’d never seen. She wandered amongst the flowers and the shrubs designed for her pleasure and stepped close to where he hid beneath some bushes close to a hole in the garden wall. She was singing, the sound high-pitched and nonsensical but Tavis had liked it—until he made a sound.

  She caught him spying on her. Her beautiful eyes had gone wide and wild. She’d started pulling at her hair and calling him names. He’d been too frightened to run, certain he would be in trouble no matter what he did. But he took off as fast as he could when she picked up a garden hoe. She swung it at him, calling him the “Devil child.”

  Her aim was true, and she’d hit him on the temple, but Tavis had kept running. It wasn’t the blood from the cut on his face that had scared him as much as the expression on hers.

  He’d avoided her after that. She’d calmed down some over the years but then, few saw her, and when they did, it was like today, only for a wee bit, and she didn’t seem to recognize him.

  However, Tavis had learned an important lesson that day. He didn’t stray from his errands ever again, and he kept quiet. Nathraichean was the only home he’d known. There was no place else for him, especially if what Lady Rowena had said was true and he was the Devil’s child.

  He pulled the plow out of the fire and carried it with the tongs to the anvil.

  The Devil’s child.

  The reason he had let the laird arrange a divorce was because he’d been afraid to leave.

  Now, he wished he had. He wished he’d taken Moira, kicking and screaming if need be, away from here. Having her for a wife had been the only good thing that had ever happened to him.

  And he hated knowing Father Nicholas and the rest of the clan were right. He hated knowing that she had willingly left him.

  “Hey!” The boy’s shout startled Tavis from his dark thoughts.

  He turned and was so surprised to see Ian Munro standing there, he almost dropped his hammer.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you, Tavis,” Ian apologized. “I thought you saw me approach, but you didn’t say anything.”

  “I was woolgathering,” Tavis admitted. He liked Ian. The lad was all of thirteen, skinny as a pole, with a pinched face and a thatch of red hair on his head. He was also the man of his family. They’d once lived on Sutherland land. The Duke of Sutherland, a man who spent most of his time in London…just like the Maddox…and had tossed aside his responsibilities as chieftain of his clan in return for profit. He was one of the strongest supporters of the Clearances and probably never lost a wink of sleep while families lost their homes.

  Ian’s father had died trying to protect the family’s home after the troops had set fire to it. The lad’s mother was not faring well. She was heavy with child, her sixth, and Tavis had overheard gossip that she might not last through this pregnancy. “What is it, Ian?”

  The boy held a sickle with a twisted blade and a broken point in his hand. It was dull with rust so had been out in the elements for some time. “I found this. Someone threw it aside. Can you fix it, Tavis?”

  Tavis examined the tool. He understood what a good find this was for the boy. Those burned out by the Clearances escaped with little more than the clothes on their backs. With a sickle, Ian could help cut hay and earn food for his family.

  Of course, there was a reason this one had been tossed aside. To fix it would mean creating a new one.

  Tavis looked at the boy, and said, “You know I can. It will be better than new when I’m done.”

  His expression determined, Ian said, “I can pay you when I get work.”

  Tavis shook his head. “Pay me? For this little bit? Why, I’d feel a scoundrel for taking money for doing nothing more than pounding the rust off and doing a bit of straightening.”

  Ian’s face relaxed at his good fortune. “Will it take long? I can help the others on the morrow if I have my own tool.”

  “I’ll have it done in an hour.”

  The boy was so happy he would have jumped up and down—except he wasn’t a boy. Not any longer. He was a man. Careful to contain his enthusiasm, he said, “I’d been to the other smithies, and they said they’d have to make new.”

  “You should have come to me first,” Tavis told him. “That’s why I’m the best.”

  “You are,” Ian agreed. “I feared you’d be too much for me. Thank you, Tavis. Thank you very much.”

  “Go on with you. I’ll see you in an hour.”

  Ian ran off, but when he thought he’d gone around the corner and Tavis couldn’t see him, he jumped in the air, punching it with one fist.

  And Tavis felt like a hero.

  Father Nicholas had come out of the cottage and now came up behind. “You can’t keep giving your work away for free.” This was an old argument between them.

  “I thought you all had taken a vow of poverty,” Tavis answered.

  “Yes, but you haven’t. And I prefer a full belly.” Father Nicholas laughed at his own humor and sat in a chair beside the forge. “Are you still angry with me?” he asked.

  “’Tis not you I’m angry at,” Tavis said, putting the plow blade aside and setting to work on the sickle, “but myself.” A new thought struck him. “The laird is going to make the Maddox stand trial this night.”

  Father Nicholas frowned. He didn’t like these “trials” the laird liked to hold. He said they had nothing to do with a court of law. They were more for MacKenna’s ego. Usually the clan gathered to listen while the laird lectured. The evening would end with the defendant being lashed.

  Many enjoyed these events. Tavis and the priest did not. “He wishes me to stand by his side this evening,” Tavis said.

  “Why would he do that?” the priest asked, as surprised as Tavis had been by the request.

  “To irritate Bruce, I imagine. Ever since Gordon has arrived, Bruce cannot be certain he will be laird.”

  But the priest wasn’t interested in the struggle between Gordon and Bruce. Instead, he surprised Tavis by asking, “What did you think of the Maddox? As a man?”

  The picture of the Sassenach’s stubborn pride rose in Tavis’s mind. Something about him made Tavis uncomfortable.

  “Well?” Father Nicholas prompted.

  “I didn’t like him.” He pulled the sickle blade from the fire and began pounding the hot metal, an effective way to end that topic of conversation.

  A moment later, knowing he was being ignored, the priest rose from his chair and went inside.

  “Would your brother look exactly like you if he were your twin?” Charlotte asked from her side of the wall.

  Darkness was only an hour or two away.

  She’d let Phillip work but now, she wanted these moments to talk to him. And he was willing as well.

  “I don’t know,” Phillip answered. “Some twins don’t look anything alike. And the MacKenna clan seems to have an aversion for the razor.”

  She smiled in agreement, then asked seriously, “But isn’t there some sort of connection between twins? If he was physically close, wouldn’t you feel drawn toward him?”

  “Like a magnetized rod?”

  “Or brothers.”

  Colster was silent a moment. “I don’t know…and I feel like an idiot for having to admit it. I’ve always been confident of what I should do in any circumstance, until now. Charlotte, if Justin and I ever meet, he would have every right to hate me. Justin. He probably doesn’t even know his Christian name, let alone he was born a duke. Who knows what MacKenna may have done to him?”

  “None of this was your fault. Or his.”

  “And yet we’ve paid a price. That is, if it is true. This could be another of MacKenna’s tricks.”

  “You have to believe it isn’t, Your Grace,” she answered.

  “I want to believe it isn’t,” he confessed. “I want him to be alive.” He paused, and then added, “And stop calling me ‘Your Grace.’ There’s been too much between us, Ch
arlotte. Besides, if Justin is alive, then I must become accustomed to not hearing ‘Your Grace.’”

  “Can you?” The idea was intriguing. Most men held on to what they possessed.

  “I will.”

  She heard the steel in his voice. It made her smile because that was the man she knew…although her opinion of him had changed drastically over the last two days. He was far more companionable and honest than she’d ever imagined he would be. He was as mortal as the next, perhaps more so because of the weight of the title. He was not allowed to make errors. Not with everyone watching his every move.

  “Phillip,” he said.

  “What?” she asked, mystified.

  “My name is Phillip. Say it. Let me hear it from your lips.”

  His voice had dropped to a more intimate tone. Heat rushed to her cheeks and belly as she whispered, “Phillip.”

  “Phillip and Charlotte,” he said from the other side of his wall.

  Phillip and Charlotte.

  If she had paper and pen, she’d write it down, wanting to see the names in physical form.

  “Charlotte, are you there?”

  She placed a hand on her belly, warning herself not to be giddy. “Yes, I am…Phillip.” She liked the name.

  “I need for you to know, I’m sorry—” His voice broke off. She leaned closer to the stone.

  “Phillip?”

  He didn’t answer, but then she overheard male voices, too far away to be distinct.

  They’d come for him.

  She stood, wanting to stop them from taking him. Her door remained closed. She waited. Minutes passed. No one came. It was as if everyone in the world had disappeared and left her alone.

  But MacKenna wouldn’t do that. Sooner or later, he would come for her. She’d crossed him, and she felt she knew enough of his character to believe such a slight would not go unpunished.

  The hour was growing late. The sky was turning soft shades of pinks and purple.

  If the laird of Nathraichean thought she would be a docile captive, he was wrong. She wasn’t going to shirk or beg. She was the Duke of Colster’s woman. Charlotte and Phillip.