The Intended

by May McGoldrick

  “So you were raised like brother and sister? Or rather like cousins? The way Mary and Catherine have been raised here?”

  “Malcolm is older than I by a wide margin, m’lord. I was still just a child when he was sent abroad to study. And there were long periods when I traveled with my parents to the courts of Europe. Later, soon after Malcolm returned to Scotland, I was sent to France. It would be difficult for me to say that our paths have done much more than occasionally cross.”

  “But you still cared for him enough to try to save his life!”

  “Aye, m’lord! I would have done the same for you. Or for any poor soul! I was taught that true compassion has no eyes, and yet sees all. I could not turn my back on him in his condition, or on the folk that I know rely on him in his own lands in Scotland. But it makes no difference, m’lord. He could have been the stable boy who had once cared for my horse, or the cook’s girl who used to steal the ribbons from my sewing. I would have done the same for any of them!” Jaime paused and looked straight into Surrey’s face. “And that day at Norwich Castle—after seeing the pain and suffering in that horrible place—I would have brought away every one of those prisoners, if I could!” She stopped as her voice faltered.

  Surrey’s face grew grim, and he and his wife exchanged a glance. “I don’t know what my brother was thinking,” he said quietly, “in taking you there.”

  Jaime shook her head. “As repulsive as that place is, I am not sorry that I went there. In fact, I am thankful that he took me.”

  “Aye,” Frances put in. “You were given an opportunity to save a life!”

  “And to add more gold to Edward’s treasures. But all of these things, I’m sure,” Surrey added, his face a mask, “must have only reinforced my brother’s sense of your worth.”

  Jaime sickened at those words. She didn’t care if Edward thought her worth a straw. That had not been the motivation for anything she did, but she scarcely dared to glance at Malcolm.

  A knock at the door and the appearance of a page holding a large book drew everyone’s attention.

  “Ahh, finally,” Surrey cried, moving across the room and taking the book. “And perfect timing, at that. Come to the table, Malcolm. You and I can peruse these letters from our old teacher and reminisce about old times. You see I’ve had them mounted in this volume...”

  The two men moved away to a table at the far end of the room, and Frances motioned Jaime to the seat beside her. As she sat, Jaime felt that she could breathe once again, and worked at unclenching her fingers as she watched Surrey and Malcolm conversing. Her gaze became a look of wonder as Malcolm, who towered over the earl, visibly relaxed to the point of joking with Surrey.

  “You did well, Jaime,” Frances whispered. “Much better than I would have done under the circumstances, I should say.”

  “What was...what was the meaning of all this, Frances?” Her voice was barely a croak as she continued to watch the men.

  “Edward,” the young woman answered with a meaningful nod. Frances cast a covert glance in the direction of her husband. “Surrey, I am fairly certain, believes that he may need to explain, when Edward returns, why he decided the Highlander deserves better treatment than he was getting.”

  “Then Malcolm is not going back to Norwich?”

  “Nay,” Frances said with surprise. “I hardly think Surrey would consider that very hospitable. The fact is, my dear husband and the Highlander have a great deal in common. I believe he has been enjoying his company immensely. Nay! I’m certain Surrey would find it difficult to part with him right now.”

  “I’m very...happy to hear that,” Jaime said uncertainly.

  “Aye? Well, I think Surrey asked you those questions because he knows Edward would be far less amenable to the Highlander’s relative freedom if there were something between you and Malcolm MacLeod!”

  Jaime entwined her fingers tightly in her lap. “Then it appears my answers satisfied Lord Surrey’s concerns.”

  Frances nodded with a look at her husband. “That appears to be so, my dear!”

  Jaime followed her friend’s eyes to where the two men stood bending over the volume of letters.

  “If he is not going back to Norwich, Frances, then where is he going to be kept?”

  “Well,” the countess replied, her eyes dancing with mirth as they looked back at Jaime, “at least until Edward returns, he’ll be with us in the palace. In fact, Surrey has already given directions that one of the best rooms is to be prepared for his guest.”

  “His guest?” Jaime asked in shock.

  “Aye,” Frances nodded with a note of pride in her voice. “That’s one difference between these two brothers. If Edward is going to treat this Scottish laird as a prisoner, then Surrey is sure to treat him as an honored guest.”

  “Frances, you make it sound as though your husband is doing all this simply out of spite for Edward!”

  “I suppose there is some truth to that, Jaime,” she said somewhat defiantly. “But more to the point, I believe there is a genuine fondness between Surrey and Malcolm MacLeod. Since last night, when Surrey went down to the surgery to pay a visit, my husband has been quite cheerful. Perhaps Erasmus is the bond that ties them, but I believe they delight in each other’s company.”

  Jaime’s eyes again returned to Malcolm. He looked to be relating to Surrey some old reminiscence. Since going to the table, he had never once glanced in her direction. It occurred to her that she had all but ceased to exist for Malcolm.

  “I am glad you told Surrey the truth,” Frances said, placing her warm fingers over Jaime’s folded hands. “Surrey needed to hear it from you. Like everyone else, Jaime, he respects you and thinks very highly of you. It would have been painful for him to find that his trust had been misplaced.”

  “I assume he asked the same questions of me that he asked Malcolm.”

  “He did,” Frances nodded with a smile. “And your responses matched.”

  Jaime stared at the needlework on Frances’s lap, trying to think this through. There were birds in the pattern, perched effortlessly in twisted vines of ivy leaves. Jaime looked away. She knew she had every reason to be filled with joy since Malcolm would be well cared for—at least until such time as Edward returned. But she could not ignore the coldness she sensed in his manner—the lack of acknowledgment of her very presence—that made her heart shrivel with pain.

  “Before I even came for you,” Frances continued, “I knew that Surrey trusted all would be well.”

  “How so?”

  “He told Malcolm of your upcoming wedding to Edward, and his reaction was...well...”

  Jaime swallowed hard. “Aye? His reaction?”

  “Well, he seemed to view the match favorably.” The countess glanced at her only briefly out of the corner of her eye. “I believe he called it a union of two identical souls.”

  Chapter 21

  Jaime tried not to think of the distance to the ground as she wrapped her fingers around the vine further up the wall. The leaves of the ivy covering the castle wall brushed against her face, smooth and cool. A stray tendril of new growth searching bravely in the night air for a place to catch hold, tangled in her hair and managed to pull back the hood of her cloak as she herself inched ever higher on the wall. She hadn’t tried anything this foolhardy since she was twelve. In spite of herself, she smiled grimly at the irony of it. The last time she’d scaled a castle wall had been for the same reason. To see Malcolm.

  She’d been restless for two days, unable to sleep and unable to eat. And it was her inability to have even a moment alone with him that had led to this reckless midnight climb.

  It was obvious that he was angry at her. Malcolm’s few glances in her direction had told of a cold fury, intense and fierce.

  But she had to see him. Having him now among the host of knights, ladies, friars, clerks, courtiers, lawyers, nuns, and travelers who shared every meal in the Great Hall brought her happiness and distress. Seeing his handsome face always
turned to Surrey, so close to her and yet so distant, plundered her will to hold back, to wait, to be patient. Malcolm’s public demeanor was dignified, courteous to the point of being charming, but his attentions encompassed everyone around them except her. Jaime felt her composure slipping further with every encounter. She would go mad if she couldn’t share in the warmth of his company.

  But Jaime knew why he was so angry. Each time a conversation flagged, each time a new person joined the group eating at the head table, Jaime knew someone would launch into another detailed account of the upcoming nuptials between Edward and her. And each time she saw Malcolm’s face harden for a fleeting moment before he turned away with that bored, disinterested expression she was learning to know so well. Tonight, as the visiting archbishop from Norwich had jovially offered the ceremony here or at the Cathedral, Jaime had nearly broken down and told him exactly what she thought of his damned ceremony.

  But she had restrained herself at the last moment. Such a spectacle would certainly be unwise—for a number of reasons. She must speak to Edward about the matter first—she felt she owed him that, at least. And Jaime certainly didn’t care to bring any attention to herself at this point. She wouldn’t hazard the chance of these people guessing at reasons for her “sudden” change of heart—for that was assuredly how they would see it. Nay, she wouldn’t jeopardize Malcolm’s newly attained position of safety.

  Jaime looked up at the small ledge outside Malcolm’s room. The edge was only a short distance above her outstretched fingers. And, of course, this behavior is perfectly safe, she thought with a grim smile. Digging the toe of her soft shoe between a vine and the wall, she pushed herself higher toward the ledge. The ivy up here must had obviously been cut away recently, for the vines were much thinner, and she could feel them pulling away from the wall.

  Mary’s chatter tonight had been the final straw for Jaime. Returning together to their room, Mary, dreamy-eyed and romantic, had spoken of nothing but Malcolm. She had gone on endlessly about his chivalrous manners, his looks, his talents, accomplishments, and charms. Jaime had found herself torn between thoughts of being ill and tearing her cousin’s tongue out. But then it wasn’t Mary’s fault, Jaime knew, to be so taken with the rogue.

  And that was exactly what he was. A scoundrel of the lowest, most beastly type! A beautiful, battered, hatefully irresistible rogue!

  She wondered, brushing an ivy leaf away from her face, if this was the way he intended to punish her.

  As Jaime slipped the fingers of one hand over the top of the hard ledge, the vine at her feet gave way, and she dangled momentarily in the night air. Gingerly, she felt for a toehold, found one, and reached up with her other hand. In an instant, she had scrambled onto the narrow shelf and hidden herself in the shadows with her back to the wall. Far below, on the stone paving, she could just make out the forms of two guards conversing in the moonlight. They certainly exhibited no concerns about the Highlander. As she glanced back through the partially open panes of the long, leaded windows into the darkness inside, she hoped Mary would not decide to come down and visit her in the music room, two stories below.

  Jaime shivered a bit with anticipation of what lay ahead, and at the rashness of the climb. Quietly pulling open one of the windows, she stepped over the low frame and through the heavy quilted curtains into the bedchamber.

  The deadly silence that greeted her made the blood run cold in her veins. The last embers of the small fire in the hearth hardly illuminated the chamber at all. Moving cautiously across the freshly woven mat of rushes covering the floor of the room, Jaime almost cried out as her hip brushed roughly against a small table. Jaime spread her fingers carefully across the wooden surface and found a small wick lamp. As her eyes adjusted better, the huge black shape of a damask-curtained bed loomed in one corner. Fearful of calling his name in the dark, she took the wick lamp to the fireplace to light it. If by chance Malcolm had been moved out of this chamber...she shuddered to think of the consequences.

  Jaime shook her head, keeping sight of the bed out of one corner of her eye. That he had been moved was highly unlikely, but still she knew she would feel more comfortable with even the smallest glimmer of light to assist her. She knelt before the embers of the dying fire.

  As she was rising, the tiny flame of the wick lamp shielded by her hand, his rough, masculine voice startled a strangled scream out of her.

  “You are late!”

  Jaime spun around, one hand raised in surprise, the light of the lamp falling fully upon the Highlander. As she stared at him, sitting in a chair beside the window’s heavy curtains, her heart began to beat again with a vengeance, now pounding fiercely in her chest. She must have passed right by him as she entered the bedchamber.

  Malcolm MacLeod was the image of elegance, his white linen shirt open at the throat, and his booted legs sprawled before him. But there was something about his expression that caught her eye. His face displayed more than just aloofness and indifference. Even in the lamplight, she could see fierceness, hostility there. But she had ached so long to be alone with him, that the thrill of this moment could not be subdued by the gleam of an eye or the curl of a lip. Jaime was so much in love with him that, for the moment, nothing else mattered.

  “I expected you to come up here much sooner.” His tone was no more than a low, sensual drawl, and Jaime’s heart caught fire. “Though I hadn’t expected you to come up the palace wall.”

  “I came out the music room window...”

  Malcolm went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Much sooner, considering how short the time you have left before your entry into the blessed state of matrimony.”

  “That is all a mista...”

  “Come, let’s stop all this. You didn’t risk your life for mere conversation,” he interrupted again. “I believe the last time that we were alone we hadn’t the opportunity to finish...” He paused, his eyes raking over her body in a way that took her breath away.

  “Malcolm, I...” She took a step toward him.

  “I’ve seen you watching. Every time I turned during this evening’s meal, I found your eyes upon me. There was hunger in your eyes, but not for food. I knew you would come to me tonight...with something more than simple talk on your mind. Am I wrong, lass?”

  “I...” Jaime wished desperately that she could lie. But she couldn’t. Watching his sensual lips whispering into Mary’s ear tonight had nearly driven Jaime mad. She ached to have those lips whispering in her ear, pressed to her mouth, to her skin. She gazed longingly at them now.

  “Am I wrong?”

  “Nay,” she whispered.

  Malcolm stared at her in a self-satisfied silence, forcing himself to look at her with the cold eye of the critic, and not with the eye of the fool he’d once been. He shook off the nagging thought that only a few days earlier, he’d really thought she loved him.

  But she’d been lying. In the surgery she’d been ready to make love to him, all the while holding back the truth that she belonged to another. To that vile snake, Edward Howard! But he had learned the whole story. Though Surrey admitted that he himself was hardly privy to his brother’s thoughts or plans, he’d told him it was common knowledge that Jaime had belonged to Edward for quite some time. Malcolm knew then that he’d been right from the first in thinking her so foully disgraced. She had freely given herself to one—to an Englishman—and yet still lusted after pleasure in the arms of others. Very well, he thought grimly, in this case, at least, he would satisfy the whims of his captors.

  “Take off your cloak,” he instructed curtly.

  Visibly startled by the request and the sharp tone of his command, Jaime obeyed, folding it and turning to place the dark garment on the table. “Malcolm, I do need to explain.” She gasped, turning her face back to him. “What are you doing?”

  Malcolm was standing bare-chested by his chair, his shirt wadded into a ball in his hand. He was now all but completely healed, and he felt only the faintest twinges of pain in his should
er and side at the abrupt movement. But there was a festering wound within that seemed to be growing worse every day.

  Aye, he thought angrily. What was he doing? The sight of her beautiful face, gazing at him with that wide-eyed mixture of surprise and innocence, drove a shaft of molten steel into his heart. What was he doing? That innocence is nothing more than pretense, he reminded himself fiercely. Her body, so womanly and strong...her breasts, rising and falling with every rapid breath...her hands and fingers, thin and white and outstretched to him imploringly.

  But what did she want? What was she doing?

  Malcolm knew what she was doing. Suddenly furious with himself for thinking that he could somehow shame her by just taking her in his bed, he cast his shirt to the side and took her roughly by the arm.

  “You are leaving here.”

  “Please don’t.” She tried to fight back his hard grip on her arm.

  “Aye, you’re going out. I’ll not have you here!”

  “Hold, Malcolm! Please!”

  “Nay,” he seethed through clenched teeth. “You’ve become a seductress! A witch!”

  “‘Tis untrue!”

  “Aye, ‘tis true! And I won’t be added to your list of filthy lovers!” His face was a mask of cold fury.

  Jaime’s face went white with shock.

  “You can go out this way for a change,” he said, dragging her toward the door. “And you can explain anyway you like how you came to enter through the window.”

  She tried to drag her feet across the floor, but his strong hands lifted her, propelling her swiftly toward the heavy oak door.

  “A fine thing. A pleasant surprise for your arriving husband. The entire serving staff—and the soldiers, too—talking of you, Jaime Macpherson, Edward Howard’s own intended, tossed on her ear out of his prisoner’s bedchamber. The rumors that would go about, of you climbing the walls to spend a night in the man’s arms.” Every muscle in his body flexed with anger, his raging eyes spewed flames as they gazed down at her. “But perhaps this is nothing new. Perhaps your beloved is used to sharing your body with others. Possibly I am expecting more of a reaction than I should!”