CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ronat woke alone, with the sun fully up and staring in the window. She blinked at the chair by the bed and the empty room. Malcolm had gone. Or had he been here at all? Could she trust her memory even a little bit? Perhaps she’d dreamed that he was beside her, holding her hand while she slept.
She took stock of her injuries. She had a slight headache. The bruised places were sore and her ankle was tender. But if she got up, moved around, she might remember and know what was real and what was imagination. She couldn’t stay in this bristling room another minute. She threw back the covers and carefully got out of bed.
She put on the borrowed gown of soft, saffron-dyed linen. It was too large for her, but she tightened the laces as best she could and wished she had a belt to gather up the extra length. She looked for shoes and stockings, but there weren’t any. She stared at the soft pink soles of her feet and grinned. She was obviously used to wearing shoes. It was a very small clue to who she was, what she was, but she’d take it.
She hobbled across to the massive chest by the wall, lifted the iron hasp, and threw back the lid. The scent of sweat and rust and old hides was overpowering. The box held a jumble of men’s shirts and knives, a drinking horn carved from bone, and a quiver of arrows. She dug deeper and pulled out a pair of enormous leather boots and marveled at the sheer size of them. Cormag MacDonald must have been a giant of a man. Under the boots she found a belt, so long it would go around her twice, but it would do. She saw a flash of light and discovered a wee mirror with a polished wooden handle—an odd thing to find in this man’s clothing chest, surely. Perhaps Cormag had been as vain as he was mighty. She glanced into the mirror, noted the bruises on her face. She stared hard at her reflection. She knew the face staring back at her, but she could not put a name to it. “Ronat,” she whispered, as if the word were a charm against forgetting. Nothing happened. She put the mirror back in the chest, unable to bear not knowing who she was.
She wound the huge belt around her waist. The trailing end of the leather hung almost to her knee, but it made it possible to arrange the gown so it didn’t drag on the floor. She draped Malcolm’s plaid over her shoulders and hoped she looked respectable. With no comb, no ribbons, her hair would have to do as it was, long and loose over her shoulders. She ran her hands through it and grinned again.
Apparently, she was vain as well.
Malcolm sat down at the table in the room that had once been the solar, a room meant for the lady of Dunbronach and her women to sew or read, or gossip. It was now his study, a proper office, filled with the law books he’d brought from Edinburgh.
He forced his mind off the lass asleep in his half-brother’s room, and turned his attention to the scanty clan records instead. There was a list of those who had perished during the Sickness—fifty-four people—and those who had survived, thirty-two people. He opened a box filled with crumpled scraps of paper. Each scrap had notes or numbers jotted on it. It appeared to be the way his father managed his finances. To Malcolm’s eyes, it appeared that there was money at Dunbronach, or there had been. But Archie’s coffer stood empty. He took his father’s notations to the elders, who were gathered in the hall for breakfast.
“How is our Ronat this morning?” Dougal asked. The others looked equally eager for news of her. Malcolm felt heat rising under his collar. What would they say if they knew he’d spent the night in her room? He cleared his throat. “I’ll look in on her later, when I’ve finished working. Now, about income and profits—”
“If ye mean ready money,” Fergus said, folding his arms over his chest and scowling, “there isn’t any.”
“Yes, I see that. But how is it you manage without coin?”
“We make do, or we trade with our neighbors for what we need,” Fergus said.
“Unless they’re unwilling to share—then we take it,” William said.
“It’s a time-honored tradition,” Dougal added.
“What happens if they need something from you?” Malcolm asked.
“Then they trade with us,” Fergus said, as if he were speaking to a particularly daft child.
“Or they steal it from us, if we can’t protect ourselves,” William added. “There’s been a lot of that since the Sickness. That’s why we’ve hardly any cows, because we have so few men to stop the reivers.”
“Then we need alliances,” Malcolm said. “Agreements.”
“Och, we have agreements—we’ll kill anyone we see taking our cows, and they agree to do the same to us,” William said.
“A strong laird who can defend his holding makes others less likely to steal,” Fergus said. “As for alliances, marrying another laird’s daughter—preferably a rich one—makes a fine alliance.”
“But who has the most wealth hereabouts and marriageable daughters?” William asked, his voice rising. “The damned MacLeod of Iolair—that’s who! I’d rather cut my own throat than see us allied with that bastard!”
Malcolm swallowed. “What exactly would you do if a MacLeod arrived here?”
William drew his dirk. “We’d cut his throat and throw his body to the fishes.”
Fergus held up a hand. “Since that will never, ever come to pass, I don’t see why it should concern us now. A wedding with a Stewart lass, or a Cameron, would bring us all we need.”
“Fine breeding stock,” William agreed.
Malcolm set the pile of notations and scraps on the table. “Mistress Nancy Martin comes with a fine dowry,” he pointed out. “In cash.”
Dougal smiled fondly. “Oh, we have cash. It’s cows we need, and people.”
Malcolm heard only one word. “We have cash?”
“Aye. Money from selling extra wool and crops,” Fergus said.
“And what happened to the coin?” Malcolm asked.
“Why, Archie buried it, nice and safe, in the time-honored tradition,” William said.
“Where?” Malcolm prompted.
Dougal rubbed his chin. “Well, in the time-honored tradition, the laird keeps it a secret. Only he and his heir know where it’s buried.”
“Cormag?” Malcolm said, feeling a rising sense of panic. “Cormag knew?”
“Of course not. You were his heir, not Cormag,” William said.
Malcolm sat down heavily, utterly defeated.
The elders looked at each other, their grins slipping.
“It’s your fault, Malcolm Ban MacDonald. Ye weren’t here when he died. If ye’d been by his side before he passed, Archie would have told ye. But ye were in Edinburgh, courting an English major’s daughter,” Fergus shouted.
Malcolm shut his eyes. “Did he write it down, leave a will?”
“His will was that we fetch ye home and make ye laird,” William said.
Malcolm felt frustration gnaw on him. How could this system possibly work? He got up and crossed the room, took down the jug of whisky, and poured some into a cup. He downed it in a single gullet-searing swallow. Then he poured another and drank that too.
“I knew ye’d develop a taste for whisky,” Dougal said cheerfully. Malcolm frowned at him.
“We need that coin,” he said. “We cannot survive without it. There is no seed for crops, no money to buy livestock or supplies.”
They looked at him blankly. Malcolm glanced at the swords on the walls and considered dragging one down and running the lot of them through. He pierced them with a sharp glare instead, looking from one to the other. “If you had to guess—in the old Highland way—where would you hide a cache of coins?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When she was dressed, Ronat opened the door of Cormag’s chamber and hobbled into the corridor. She paused and leaned on the wall. She needed a crutch or a strong arm to lean on, but there was no one about. There were several doors to be seen, all closed, and she wondered which one would lead her back down to the hall and if she could hobble that far.
She went to the door across from Cormag’s chamber and knocked. There was no answer, so s
he tried the latch, and put her head around the edge of the door. The room was empty.
She gaped at the pretty, feminine chamber. The bed was hung with damask curtains, and cushions and pillows were heaped on the matching bed cover. A small dressing table sat in the corner of the room, and there were rugs on the floor and tapestries on the walls. The wardrobe chest here was elegant and obviously made by a craftsman of great talent.
Ronat limped across the width of the soft rug, digging her bare toes into the warm wool, and opened the shuttered window. The whole of the sea spread out before her, gray and blue and silver, and she breathed in the familiar scent of salt water and wind. There was an island in the bay, just beyond the curving arms of the rocky headlands, sparkling in the sun. She leaned out a little and looked down. Waves foamed around jagged rocks below. The swirl of the water beckoned, and the wind brought the taste of the salt spray to her lips.
Someone grabbed her and tugged her back into the room.
Ronat spun to find Malcolm holding on to her belt, his eyes wide.
“Were you going to jump?”
“Jump?” She stared at him. My, but he looked handsome in his fine linen shirt and a green waistcoat that matched the color of his eyes. “I was looking for the stairs.” She realized how daft that sounded when he frowned. “Not out the window, of course. I came in here to look for a way down to the hall. I thought I’d get my bearings by looking out the window.”
He let her go, clasped his hands behind his back, and looked around the room, his expression unreadable. “This is my mother’s chamber.”
Something about the seriousness of his words, the way he spoke in a low, almost reverent tone, made her feel as if she was trespassing. “I meant no harm. Is she here?”
Malcolm’s eyes came back to hers. “Not unless she’s haunting the place, and that’s not likely—she left here when I was a child. She took me with her and never returned. She died a few years ago, in Edinburgh.”
She searched his face for signs of sorrow, but his expression remained carefully flat. “If anyone haunts this room, it would be my father—Dougal says he missed her for the rest of his days after she left.” He pointed out the window. “He would go and stand on that headland and watch for her return, even after she assured him she had no intention of coming back to Dunbronach. Dougal says it’s a great tale of lost love.”
“But you don’t believe it’s so?”
“My mother was a practical woman. She preferred Edinburgh. This place, the Highlands, was too wild for her. She feared I wouldn’t survive here.”
“And you—do you prefer Edinburgh?”
He studied her face as if the answer were there. “I have . . . responsibilities . . . in both places,” he said.
She leaned on the bedpost to rest her ankle and ran her fingers over the damask bed curtain, traced the embroidered pattern of pink, green, and yellow flowers, faded now with age and the effects of the salt air. “You’re important,” she said. He didn’t reply. He stood staring at her. She felt hot blood fill her cheeks. “I must look dreadful. I couldn’t find a comb.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “You look—not dreadful.” He tore his eyes away from hers and crossed the room to the small dressing table. “I’m sure there are combs and ribbons aplenty here. My mother liked pretty things.”
Ronat moved unsteadily to stand next to him, to look with him into the drawer he opened. She breathed him in, smelled the soap he’d washed with, the warm, clean, male scent of his body. His fingers were long and masculine against the feminine jumble of hairpins, ribbons, and wee pots of face powder and rouge. Even if she was the vainest woman in Scotland, his mother would have had little cause to use such things here, Ronat thought.
He picked up a length of ribbon—white—and held it up.
“Will this do?” he asked.
She reached to take it, and her fingers brushed his. She pulled back and so did he, and the ribbon fluttered to the floor between them. He bent to retrieve it as quickly as she did, and his cheek brushed hers, smooth and freshly shaven. Sparks ignited in her veins, made her gasp in surprise. He mistook it for pain and grasped her elbow to steady her, which made still more sparks flare.
“Sit down,” he said, guiding her to the small satin-covered stool that sat before the dressing table. He stood behind her, regarding her in the mirror, concerned. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have gotten up so soon.”
She shook her head. “I was anxious to get up. I don’t think I’m used to lying in bed. I was hoping to take a walk. Beitris told me there’s a waterfall in the hills . . .”
He was looking at her with that same disturbing intensity as before, his green eyes fixed on her yet revealing nothing of what he was thinking. She wondered what showed in her eyes, what he read there . . . She lowered her gaze, turned to look again in the open drawer the ribbon had come from. There was a comb, and a brush, and she picked them up, surprised that her hands trembled. She turned the comb in her hand, suddenly feeling shy at the prospect of combing her hair before him.
“Permit me,” he said, and took the comb from her. “I shall avoid your injuries and be careful of any knots,” he said, his tone stiff and formal.
He worked the tangles out gently, almost expertly.
“You’re good at this. Do you—do you have a wife, perhaps, in Edinburgh?”
He met her eyes in the mirror. She could have sworn he blushed slightly. “I? No, I’m not married. I used to watch my mother comb her hair when I was a child. When we first went to Edinburgh, she missed my father. She would often call me to her room to say good night and tell me that it was better that we had left Dunbronach.” The comb stilled. “There were always tears in her eyes when she said it. Sometimes, near the end, she’d forget and call me Archie.”
“Then perhaps it is as Dougal says, a tale of lost love.” She sighed, her heart filling, but he looked cool and practical. He put the comb down and stepped back. “I shall carry you down the stairs. They’re steep and dangerous. I intend to rebuild the keep, modernize it—”
“But why?” she asked. “It seems like a lovely old place. I can imagine your ancestors here, generations of them, climbing those same steps. Perhaps your father carried your mother up on their wedding night . . .” She felt her cheeks heating, remembering the way Malcolm had carried her.
He folded his arms over his chest. “Do you believe in fairy stories and magic as well?”
She felt the mist in her brain thicken again. “I—I don’t know. I hope I do.”
He frowned. “What of modern ways, good sense, logic?” he demanded. “Beitris tripped coming up those steps only yesterday. She only spilled a basket of linens, but she might have broken her neck. William has a scar on his shins, not from battle, but from falling on the stairs. They need to be replaced. The whole place should be torn down and rebuilt.”
She braided her hair in deft movements and tied it with the ribbon. “Do they think they need to be fixed—Beitris and William and the rest of your clan?”
“No, they do not. They believe because a dozen generations of MacDonalds used the same stairs, put their feet in the same indent, tripped on the same cracks and broken stones that they are somehow sacred. It makes no sense. A modern house could be built here, with clean lines, more space, fewer stairs . . .”
“You could build the new around the old,” she suggested. “Add to what’s here, perhaps. The past is as important as the future. It tells us where we came from, what we are. Believe me—you don’t know how important that is until it’s taken from you.”
His frown deepened. “I didn’t mean to remind you . . . You have my apology. I wasn’t thinking—” He clasped his hands behind his back and bowed slightly. Edinburgh manners, she supposed, since she saw nothing to apologize for. He shook his head. “I always think before I speak.”
She smiled at him. “Sometimes it’s better to feel than to think, and to trust in a wee bit of magic.” He was still frowning, as if he didn’t be
lieve her. She bit her lip and changed the subject. “Is there a pair of shoes I might borrow?”
He looked down at her bare toes, peeping out from under the hem of her gown. “And stockings,” he said. “I should have thought of it. You’ll need those. And garters, and—” His eyes moved upward, from hem to hip to bodice. His face flushed again. He was obviously wondering what she had on beneath the gown. His gaze made her feel naked. She resisted the urge to fold her hands over her body, and raised her chin instead.
“I am clad just the way the rest of the women of this clan are,” she said. “I don’t need more clothes, or better ones. I only need shoes, so I may walk out. And a crutch, or a walking stick like Dougal’s, perhaps.”
He turned to open the double doors of the wardrobe. There were undergarments aplenty—petticoats, bodices, and corsets. He stared at the intimate items for a moment, and she watched hot blood fill his face. He took a breath and plunged in among the carefully folded garments. The scent of lavender, pressed between the clothes, filled the room. At last he pulled out a pair of slippers and held them up.
Her heart sank, even as she wanted to laugh at the triumph in his eyes. The delicate shoes were made of satin, embroidered with roses, and laced with satin ribbons. The high heels were painted red. “Those are dancing slippers,” she told him. “They would be ruined by walking in the hills.”
His face fell. “Of course. I doubt my mother ever walked outdoors.”
“Why do ye wish to walk the hills?” Glenna asked from the doorway.
“How long have you been standing there?” Malcolm asked. “People with good manners announce themselves when they enter a private room.”
Glenna grinned and looked around the pretty bedchamber. “Private, is it? The door was wide open. Have ye decided to keep her after all?”
Malcolm frowned at his niece. “She needed a comb and shoes.”
“Aye, there’s probably not much call for shoes in the sea,” Glenna said. She crossed to the open wardrobe, ran her fingers over the lace and muslin garments, held up the bone stays.
When a Laird Finds a Lass Page 8