by Jane Godman
Martha’s shy smile dawned. “He was, although I didn’t know it at the time. I was jealous so I watched those girls like a hawk as they flocked around him like bees around the honey pot. I was able to observe every detail of their flirtatious behaviour toward him. That is how you must behave with Edwin, Iona.”
“But I din’nae know how to flirt.” Iona slumped into a chair and gave the edge of the rug a glum kick.
“I don’t suppose any of the young women who came here hoping to snare Fraser had taken lessons. It just seemed to come naturally. What I particularly noticed was that they did their best to draw his attention to their feminine attributes. Eyes, mouth, hair and breasts. You must do all you can to get him to look at those.”
“He looks at them quite a lot already. There must be more to it than that,” Iona insisted.
“It would probably help if you could hang on his every word. Oh, and laugh at everything he says.”
“I want him to take me to bed, not think me a simpering ninny!”
“Iona, trust me—” it was Martha’s turn to offer reassurance, “—no-one will ever think that about you.”
Chapter Eight
Lady Lachlan, contrary to the mutterings of her housekeeper, left her bedchamber immediately after the churching service and joined her guests at dinner. Edwin did not know what he had expected Fraser’s wife to look like, but this slim, softly spoken woman took him by surprise. If he had given the matter any thought in advance, he supposed he might have pictured Fraser with a strong, stormy beauty. Someone like Iona, who would be prepared to do battle at his side.
“You are very welcome here at Lachlan, Sir Edwin.” Martha’s English accent was another revelation.
“Am I?” He smiled down at her, then cast a glance in her husband’s direction. “Are you sure?”
She followed his gaze to where Iona and Fraser stood together before the vast fireplace in the castle’s great hall. Although there was still some vestige of tension in Fraser’s frame, Edwin sensed that he was struggling to stay angry with his sister. As if to illustrate this point, Fraser threw back his head and laughed at something Iona was saying.
“If you are to understand the Lachlans, Sir Edwin, you must appreciate the strength of the ties that tether them to each other. They are the same ties of love that have bound them for centuries to these highland lochs and glens.” Martha regarded him gravely. “And I hope you will allow me to refer to that which is forbidden. They are shackled as well—with chains hewn in a furnace of honour and fealty—to the Jacobite cause.”
“Yet you are English.” Edwin kept his eyes on Iona. If truth was told, he had reached a point where he found it difficult to look elsewhere when she was in the room.
Martha shook her head. “I was English.”
Intrigued by her words, Edwin managed to drag his gaze back to her. He raised his brows. “So you became a Scot upon your marriage.”
“No, I became a Lachlan. The vows I made to my husband transcend all other loyalties.”
“Does Fraser feel the same way?” He could not believe the Laird of Lachlan would say such a thing.
“Yes.” Her voice was serene, her expression completely secure. Edwin felt a surge of pure envy. She was so sure she was loved. That was a certainty he would never know. No, he corrected himself. It was a luxury in which he could never allow himself to indulge.
The gong that Cora used to signal the start of the meal sounded, and with a slight bow, Edwin offered Martha his arm. The guests would arrive for the baptism feast on the following day, but there were only the four of them at the vast table that evening. Cora and her maidservants served platters of meat, bread and vegetables while Fraser poured wine into goblets. Any unease Edwin might have felt at being seated at the table of a man who clearly wished to consign him to the devil was soon put to flight by the increasingly odd behaviour exhibited by Iona.
“An excellent vintage, my laird.” Edwin tilted his glass in salute to Fraser. This statement seemed to entertain Iona greatly. Throwing her head back so that the slender, white column of her throat was exposed to Edwin’s gaze, she gave one of her husky chuckles. She wore her hair in its customary long, loose style with jewelled combs catching it up and securing it at each side. As Edwin watched in fascination, she twirled one long, bright strand around her finger while staring up at him with wide, golden eyes.
Although Fraser acknowledged Edwin’s words, his attention was claimed by Martha who initiated an earnest, and apparently urgent, discussion about the replacement of the furnishings in the library. This strange lapse in manners by her hostess did not dismay Iona, and Edwin took his lead from her. Clearly a different set of manners prevailed here in Scotland.
“It occurred to me today that you have not told me anything about your family.” Iona sipped her drink and leaned closer, still twisting her hair around her index finger.
“That’s because I have no family.” Edwin looked intently at her. “Is there something in your eye?”
“No. Why?”
“You keep batting your eyelids up and down. I thought you might be in some discomfort.” He wondered what on earth he could have said to make her blush. He might almost suspect her of being drunk, except for the fact that she had not yet touched her wine.
She ignored his comment, but he was relieved to notice that she immediately stopped the disconcerting blinking movement. “Ye’ve no family at all?”
“Apart from a couple of cousins I see very rarely… What on earth are you doing?” The exclamation left his lips as she began frantically pulling at the strand of hair she had been twirling. As he spoke, Iona tugged so hard that her elbow jerked back and caught him a blow in the chest. Edwin grunted slightly and shifted away from her.
The blush had intensified so that it had become a deep scarlet. Abandoning any pretence at nonchalance, Iona tried to use her left hand to unwind her hair from around her right forefinger. “It is wound so tightly that I can’nae feel my fingertip,” she explained.
“Well, why on earth did you do it?” Edwin asked, with a combination of exasperation and amusement. Leaning over, he tried to assist her. It was an impossible task. The hair was so tightly embedded into her flesh that the tip of her finger was taking on an alarming, bluish tinge. “Cora, can you fetch some scissors, please?”
“What are you about, lass?” Fraser looked up from his conversation to frown in his sister’s direction.
“’Tis naught. A trifling matter that will soon be remedied,” Edwin assured him, accepting the scissors proffered by Cora. Apparently satisfied at this, Fraser turned back to continue his conversation with Martha.
“Och, no! Please, just leave me be and I’ll do it myself,” Iona pleaded.
“Nonsense. You are making it worse. Hold still.” He snipped neatly through the thick lock of hair, enabling her to remove the strands from her finger.
Iona bent her head over her plate and applied herself to the rest of her meal in near silence. Edwin addressed one or two remarks to her, but received only monosyllabic responses. He became aware of Martha casting occasional, concerned glances in Iona’s direction and wondered what was going on. When they had stood together at that bleak little altar and made their vows, Edwin had not realised the enormity of the task ahead of him. The truth was gradually revealing itself to him, however. When he placed that ring on her finger, he had agreed to spend the rest of his life trying to fathom what was going on inside that fascinating, maddening, beautiful head of hers.
“Since we are just family tonight—” Martha’s gentle smile encompassed Edwin as well, “—I know we can dispense with formality. Iona and I will not leave you alone to linger over your port.” Edwin wondered if Fraser’s relief at this news was as great as his own. A glance at the big man’s face revealed it was. “I hope no-one will mind if I retire to my room. I intend to conserve my strength for the coming festivities.”
Fraser sprang to his feet, his face full of concern. “I’ll escort ye. You shoul
d not have tired yourself, Martha.”
She patted his arm. “Nor have I, my love. Do not trouble yourself. Iona, my sweet, will you accompany me? I have something I particularly need to ask you about my dress for the feast.”
The two men stood side by side, watching as, arm in arm, their wives ascended the wide staircase. Iona’s stormy tones carried clearly down to them as they rounded the curve of the gallery. “I told you I would be no good at it. Now I’m left looking like an idiot. Moreover, I have a chunk out of my hair and no feeling in one of my fingers.” Although Martha responded soothingly, her exact words could not be heard.
Silence reigned over the great hall. Edwin stole a look at his host’s countenance. Fraser’s expression was bemused. “Din’nae look to me for help. I’ve known her since she was a day old, and she’s as much a mystery to me now as she was then.” He drained his goblet. “Since it seems we are to fend for ourselves, what is your choice? Cards or billiards?”
Edwin flashed him a smile. “I’m happy to thrash you at either.”
“So fast with the challenge. So typically English. You were not on the field at Culloden that day, Roxburgh, but the fight we gave your fine duke fades to naught when compared to the spectacle of a highlander wielding a billiard cue.”
Iona decided to refrain from any further eyelash fluttering or hair twirling.
“I did’nae even get a chance to thrust my breasts at him.” She glanced ruefully down at her bodice.
“I think it’s wisest not to attempt any more traditional flirtation techniques. Breast thrusting might end in further disaster.” Martha was holding her baby son with his tiny red-gold head tucked into her neck. For a moment, as she turned her face to kiss his cheek, Iona caught the glimmer of a smile on her face and glared at her.
“Are ye laughing at me, Martha Lachlan?”
“Yes, but only a little bit. Now, let us decide what next must be done.”
After a lengthy consultation, during which several plans were discussed and discarded, Iona decided upon one simple strategy.
“I will do all I can to arouse him. How difficult can it be when we are in the same bed?”
She thought she caught a glimpse of something that might have resembled doubt in Martha’s eyes and waited for her to speak. When all Martha said were a few quiet words of goodnight, Iona left and made her way to her own room.
It was all very well having a plan, Iona thought as she sat up in bed some time later and gave the bank of pillows a resounding wallop. If the object of your schemes remained absent, it was very difficult to translate any carefully laid strategy into action. Upon leaving Martha, she had made ready for bed. Donning her nightgown, she had deliberately left the laces that fastened it loose so that it slipped down revealing one slender, white shoulder. Next she had brushed her hair until it shone like burnished copper. Studying her reflection in the mirror over the dresser, she had grimaced—as she always did—at her pale skin with its sprinkling of freckles. She had pinched her cheeks to induce a little colour to bloom and tried out a sultry pout. After tonight’s performance, he is likely to ask what is wrong with my mouth, she decided, turning away from the mirror in disgust.
She had rehearsed her role. “Oh, Edwin, my neck and shoulders ache dreadfully. Would you be so obliging as to massage away the stiffness?” She tried out a variety of soft, breathy voices each quite unlike her own. Then she had waited patiently. She revised that thought. She had waited, perhaps a trifle impatiently, for Edwin to join her so that she could put her plan into action. She might have even paced the room a few times. When, after an hour or two, he had not returned, she clambered into the inviting warmth of the bed and dozed on and off. Since each creak of the floorboards or crackle of the fire had set her heart leaping in anticipation of his arrival, her sleep had been fitful at best. Now dawn was approaching and there was still no sign of Edwin.
We should never have left them alone, she thought, with a sudden flurry of panic. They hate each other as only an Englishman and a Scotsman can. Fraser has a temper like a raging bull, and Edwin cannot be relied upon to hold his tongue and refrain from taunting him. An image of her husband’s lifeless form and her grim-faced brother wiping the blood from his dirk intruded on her drowsiness, jerked her fully awake. Sliding out from under the bedclothes and shivering slightly at the cold rush of air, she searched for a shawl and slipped her feet into her shoes.
The landscape beyond the casement windows of the castle corridors was lit by a cold, sickly grey, indicating that the hour was later than she had thought. Sounds of the servants stirring confirmed this suspicion and did nothing to alleviate Iona’s concerns. The great hall was deserted apart from a yawning maid who was sweeping the grate in preparation for setting a new fire.
“Have ye seen my husband or the laird this morn?”
The girl bobbed a quick curtsy. “No, my lady.”
Iona hurried back up the staircase. The Tower House was a medieval structure, a castle within a castle. It had been built to withstand a siege and ensure that the laird and his extended family could continue to live in comfort while their clan occupied the inner walls of the fortress. The great hall and kitchens took up the entire lower floor and was the focal point of this imposing structure. The first floor contained the family bedrooms and on the second floor there were a number of smaller rooms designed to provide all the pastimes suitable for a noble Scots family. Here, Martha’s hand could be detected in the new furnishings that brightened the library and the pretty parlour that she used as a sewing room. The hangings on the corridor had been painstakingly restored to their original glory and the dark wood panelling gleamed with a mirrorlike gloss. The games room, however, was Fraser’s domain. Its brooding masculinity remained as it had been for centuries and was untouched by Martha’s attempts to update it. A billiards table dominated the room. Above it a vast iron circle, resembling a giant cartwheel, was suspended from the ceiling by heavy iron chains. Candles, placed at regular intervals within this chandelier, burned low in their sockets. Balls and cues lay abandoned on the tabletop as if a game had been interrupted.
Iona paused on the doorstep and scanned the rest of the room quickly. In a corner near the window, a card table had been set up. A candelabra placed on its surface illuminated the scene. To her relief, Edwin was seated on one side of the table opposite Fraser. Her husband was lounging in his seat, apparently perfectly at ease and not remotely in fear of his life. In fact, he seemed to be laughing at something Fraser had just said. He had discarded his jacket and cravat, and the ribbon that usually confined his hair at the nape of his neck had come loose. He held his cards fanned out in one hand while the other was thrust into his breeches pocket. His eyes were heavy-lidded, and Iona had no hesitation in ascribing this, together with his dishevelled appearance, to a number of empty bottles lying on the floor next to the table.
“Another tie. Will ye play again, Roxburgh?”
“But of course. We are well matched, my laird.”
Iona decided it was time to put an end to this scene of dissipation, but Fraser’s next words made her stop short. Subterfuge was not in her nature. Nevertheless, she stepped back into the shadows.
“We may be well matched with the cue and the card, but ye hold other winning hands, ’twould seem. First there was the matter of our oddly struck bargain. Now, ye can call my sister your own.”
“You may rest assured I mean Iona no harm.” From her hidden vantage point, Iona could only see the two men in profile. It was annoying not to be able to read their facial expressions. She saw, however, that Edwin kept his eyes fixed on Fraser’s face.
Fraser sighed heavily. “I’ve no choice but to take your word. Ye’ll forgive me for pointing out I’m not inclined to fondness when it comes to the word of an Englishman.”
“You’ll forgive for pointing out, in my turn, that I’ve kept my word to you so far. You have avoided attainder. Your lands and castle remain your own. No warrant has been issued for your arrest. You
will not face the hangman’s noose or the executioner’s sword. No prison walls or colony-bound ship await you.” Edwin swirled the liquid in his goblet, lifted it to his lips and tossed it back. “I think you might say you got the best of this bargain of ours.”
“Aye, and I’d give my finest stallion to know why you did it…and how.”
Iona saw Edwin’s lips curve into a smile. “How is easy. I’ve friends in high places.”
“Higher than Cumberland? Yon fine duke would have my head in a basket on the morrow, and he is the son of a king, man. How can your friendships take you higher than him?”
“True power may be quieter, yet more pervasive, than royalty.”
“My God, Roxburgh, ye sound like a damned republican. ’Tis a dangerous way to talk.”
“Even to a Jacobite?” There was a challenge in Edwin’s tone.
Fraser gave a snort of laughter. “So we know a little of the how you have wrought our bargain, but what of your motive? Why would ye wish to save me—a man ye did’nae know when first ye came here—from what your fellow Englishmen would claim to be justice?”
Iona could see the vehement shake of Edwin’s head. A lock of dark hair flopped onto his brow, and he brushed it back with an impatient hand. “That, my Scots friend, is something I am not prepared to reveal. To you or to anyone. Now or ever.”
Fraser shrugged. “Your choice. One more question. How is it ye serve the king, yet ye have no duties to keep ye at Fort William?”
“I found I could no longer wear my red coat with any pride. For that reason I have recently purchased my release from the army.”
Silence reigned for a few minutes before Fraser spoke again. “Will ye no deal those cards, man, so I can get on wi’ thrashing ye once more?”
Iona’s guilt about eavesdropping for so long was alleviated somewhat by her annoyance at her brother’s words. They were actually going to continue drinking and playing despite the fact that dawn was painting the sky a brighter shade. Drawing her shawl closer about her shoulders, she emerged from her hiding place. Edwin watched her as she approached. His eyes were slightly unfocussed, and dark stubble shadowed the lower part of his face. These things did nothing to lessen the attractiveness of the smile that dawned in his eyes. Iona answered him with a frown. He had no right to be charming when she was trying to be annoyed at him.