A Well Favored Gentleman

by Christina Dodd

  She echoed, “If only?”

  “If only Lady Alanna would return.” Lightning flashed across his sharp features, and he stroked her palm with the pad of his thumb.

  Confused by the warmth and comfort of his grasp, Alanna exhaled her hard-held breath and gazed at their joined hands. Holy Mother! Her hands! In a desperate hurry to cover her mistake, she said defiantly, “If Alanna should return and marry you, your life won’t be worth a bottle of spoiled wine.”

  “You mean Brice will kill me? Let him try.”

  “Nay, I mean Alanna will kill you!”

  His teeth gleamed with sharp, white amusement. “If Alanna should return and marry me, I can handle her.”

  She tried to wrest her hands away, but Ian gripped tighter. Raising her fair hands to his lips, he kissed them, one at a time, and placed them in her lap. Standing, he stretched, expanding himself to touch the rafters of the ceiling.

  Shocked out of her wits—quite a usual by-product of being with Ian—she stared, mesmerized by his promise of faith and his promise of passion.

  With one long stride he was at the door and opened it to a fresh-washed day.

  Looking beyond his broad figure, she saw the sparkle of puddles, and sunshine so clear it almost hurt the eyes. He stepped out and captured a drop of rain in his outstretched palm. In the distance, the church bell tolled twelve times.

  Laughing, he turned back to her as she hid in the shadows. “See? The storm fled as we spoke. I told you it would be over by noon.”

  The pact was sealed in the oldest manner of both man and beast, with a union between the two families.

  Thus the strain of selkie blood was introduced to the MacLeods. As the years went on, other matings took place among the people and the selkies of Fionnaway. Thus it was seen that most of the offspring became fully human, having only a few minor gifts of magic that faded with the generations, and the selkies realized then the humans would conquer the earth.

  Chapter 10

  It didn’t take an uncanny sense for Ian to know something was wrong. As soon as he set foot in the manor, he heard the abnormal, shuddering silence. The servants scurried rather than walked. They avoided his eyes. And the closer he got to the great hall, the more ominous the hush grew.

  Death? He thought. Had his father died? He’d been alive, if barely, when Ian had checked on him that morning. Ian had forced another potion of betony down his throat and left him in Mrs. Armstrong’s care. But surely if Leslie had gone to meet his Maker, Armstrong would have met Ian at the door with the news.

  No, something else was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. Ian’s stride lengthened as he crossed the corridor, and he burst into the sunlit chamber like a man racing to save his beloved. And stopped.

  “What are you doing, marching in here like a lout? You should have learned better manners than that by now.” Leslie Fairchild leaned out of his chair by the fire and spoke confidingly to his wide-eyed, thoroughly embarrassed audience of three. “His lesser breeding will always be a stain on the name of Fairchild.”

  “A stain of your making, Father,” Ian replied as always, but he was stunned. In his peripheral vision, he noted the others. Wilda sat at Leslie’s right hand, and as always, he had reduced her to a trembling child. Brice sat beside Wilda, and Ian saw him reach over and pat her knee quickly, then jerk his hand back as if he had dared more than he dreamed. Edwin sat on Leslie’s left, lounging in a parody of relaxation.

  And in the center of the web perched the bloated and grinning king spider. “You’re…awake,” Ian said.

  “Alive, you mean.” Leslie snorted. “It would take more than that little illness to kill me, much though that may disappoint you.”

  But he wasn’t well. Blue stained his cheeks, his breath came with hesitating regularity, his knees wavered beneath his sumptuous velvet robe. The miasma of death surrounded Leslie, and Ian wondered at the effort of will he expended simply to keep himself erect.

  “And glad we are to hear it, sir.” Edwin stepped into the breach with a smile that appeared to be almost genuine. “Rumors were flying, and despite your son’s reassurances, we feared the worse when we arrived.”

  Leslie sneered with the expertise of one who used sneers as weapons. “No, young man, you’re not getting your hands on Fionnaway just yet.”

  The open vitriol wiped the courtesy from Edwin’s face and replaced it with fear. Hastily he threw his brother into the fray. “It’s not I who’ll inherit Fionnaway. It’s Brice.”

  “So he will.” Leslie turned his attention to the shrinking Brice, then back to Edwin. “But he’ll go off to London, won’t he, and you’ll administer the lands, so you’ll both gain from my death. Don’t just stand there at the door, Ian, come in!”

  Ian didn’t want to come in. He had just had his worst fears confirmed. His father had known, even before he had summoned Ian to his side, that Ian couldn’t inherit Fionnaway. Leslie had known there was an heir after Alanna, and he had promised Ian something he could not deliver.

  And why? Ah, with Leslie a simple answer always existed. He did it to be vindictive, because he was the worst of the wicked Fairchild family, and he reveled in it.

  But—slowly Ian unclenched the fists that had curled at his sides—Ian had done what few men had done before him. He had circumvented his father’s cruelty. He held Alanna in the palm of his hand.

  “You’re a minister, Mr. Lewis. Tell me what to do.”

  “I am a minister, Lady Alanna, and I canna tell ye what t’ do. Look in yer heart. Ye know the right thing.”

  “But if I go back, Fionnaway Village will be without a witch.”

  Mr. Lewis shifted on his bench, his back moving to a new spot against the church’s stone wall to gather the warmth from another patch of sunshine. As always, he wore his kilt, with his woolen stockings pulled up over his skinny legs, and a hat and long sleeves, buttoned down, to protect his parched skin from the sun. Nothing seemed to help. Liver spots dotted his cheeks, and his lips cracked as he spoke. “That’s a point. We’ve never been without a witch before.”

  “I do help the people. I mix the herbs and deliver the children, but I don’t make magic. The people believe in the spells enough to cure themselves.” On the other end of the bench and wearing her witch’s garb, she petted her huge cat as he draped himself across her lap. Below them, just off the edge of the cliff, the sea rumbled and rocked in the aftermath of the squall. Alanna watched it as Mr. Lewis did, in wonder, fear, and pleasure. Wonder, for it gave Fionnaway its wealth. Fear, for when the storms came, they destroyed with uncaring fervor. And pleasure, because she loved it. Loved it in all its moods, loved the creatures that lived therein, loved it because it made her who she was. A MacLeod of Fionnaway.

  In the summer the church bench remained available to the confused or the angry or the sorrowful. There the farmers and the fisherfolk came to seek advice from their aging minister, who had his feet well planted in the mud of common life and his head cleared by the exalted air of the Lord.

  “It is fitting and proper t’ have a MacLeod in Fionnaway.”

  “Nothing bad has happened since I’ve been gone.” She hated sounding defensive, but she couldn’t help it. She had done what she had done to preserve herself, but she’d been trained differently. She’d been trained to think of Fionnaway first, and she experienced a twinge of guilt when she thought of her precipitous flight and ignoble imposture.

  Whisky protested her tightening hold with a nip at her fingers.

  “Aye, and lucky we are about that. If Mr. Fairchild had done anything t’ break the pact…”

  Mr. Lewis’s brown eyes turned a shiny gray, and for the first time Alanna wondered about his family. He had none she knew of; where had he inherited that dry, cracked skin and odd gaze? “If Mr. Fairchild had done anything untoward, I would have returned immediately.”

  “Word is, Mr. Fairchild’s dying.”

  “I’ve seen him. He may be dying, but he still…frightens me.” Wh
en he’d come off that bed calling her name, she had wondered if he was the devil, invincible in his wickedness and impossible to kill.

  “Surely he canna hurt ye now.”

  She touched the faded bruise at her eye significantly.

  “Is it that o’ which ye’re afraid?”

  Mr. Lewis saw too much. He knew too much. Indeed, everyone in Fionnaway had heard the story of how Mr. Fairchild had crept into her bedchamber and tried to force himself on her. And although time had passed, the disgust lingered.

  Of course it lingered. It had marked the moment she had grown up. Since her mother’s death when she was six, she had been the lady of Fionnaway, outspoken, headstrong, overweeningly confident. She had known—known!—herself to be untouchable. She had said and done as she wished.

  When her father had died, she had been a proper daughter and put on the mourning, but she did not lie to herself. She was relieved. Even when Leslie Fairchild had appeared and the courts had upheld his right to call himself her guardian, she had still believed herself inviolate. She had laughed at him, scorned him, made him a jest in her house. She hadn’t realized a seventeen-year-old girl stood no chance against such experienced viciousness.

  “Did he hurt ye so much?” Mr. Lewis asked.

  “A few bruises. His wee bid for manhood might even have been amusing, if not for…” She hesitated, hating to admit her previous silliness. “He made me realize I was vulnerable.”

  “As all women are vulnerable.”

  “He is an old man, and he held me down with his hand over my mouth. He ripped at my clothes.” Her hands shook as she remembered. “He hit me.” And at that moment she had realized that, no matter how she fought, she couldn’t force him off.

  Pulling a long face, Mr. Lewis said, “Aye. I think sometimes we tended ye too closely in yer younger years. Someone should have warned ye men like that existed.”

  “I knew they existed.” She rubbed Whisky beneath his chin, taking comfort from his purring complacency. “I just thought I could never be threatened.”

  “There are some who would say ye learned a lesson that could have been much more painful.”

  “I know. I’m wiser now, and glad for it. I can no longer imagine using my position as the lady of Fionnaway as an excuse for…”

  “Tantrums?” he suggested when she hesitated.

  She didn’t answer.

  “For sarcasm and mockery?”

  She looked at the ground.

  “For saying what ye wished, regardless o’ the consequences?”

  Her face burned, but she couldn’t deny the truth of his accusations.

  “Ye have always done what is good and right. Now ye’re just a wee bit more mature, and I canna say that’s a bad thing.” He watched her through half-closed eyes. “Have ye met Mr. Fairchild’s son?”

  She jumped. Had Mr. Lewis read her mind? “Aye.”

  “He’s come by the church several times since he’s been here.” The minister watched her unwaveringly. “If I were a woman, I would say he was braw.”

  Brave and splendid, the Scots word meant, and Alanna agreed. “But not kind.”

  “Kind?” Mr. Lewis whisked that away with a sweep of his hand. “Ye mean he willna let ye ride roughshod over him. At the same time, he willna hurt ye. He seems an honorable man, and I believe he will protect ye.”

  “Honorable?” She remembered the threats of the morning. “Honorable is not the term I would use for Ian Fairchild. He wants to marry Lady Alanna so he can own Fionnaway.”

  Mr. Lewis did not look shocked and dismayed, as she had hoped. Instead he nodded. “Ah. So if ye go back, ye’ll wed young Ian.” The priest stroked his overhung eyebrows with the blunt tip of his index finger and contemplated her with a thoughtful gaze. “Would that be so bad?”

  “Would that be so…?” Like a spring coiled too tight and suddenly released, Alanna flung herself to her feet. Whisky sprawled on the ground, complaining with a deep-throated yowl. “That would be dreadful. He’s no better than his father.”

  “Isn’t he?” Mr. Lewis watched her pace before him. “I quite liked him. Na at all toplofty.”

  She remembered the banter between her and Ian when he’d thought her a lowly witch. He had thought that, hadn’t he?

  “And I thought his perceptions superior,” Mr. Lewis said.

  “Maybe.” Probably. “He thinks I can send a message to Lady Alanna.”

  “Quite superior.”

  When Ian spoke to her, when he looked at her, she thought he knew the truth and toyed with her like a badger with a mouse. But he didn’t. Oh, please, he didn’t, because if he did, she had made a rare fool of herself. “I can’t believe you’re taking his part,” she said to Mr. Lewis.

  Like a seabird on a stroll, he cocked his head back and forth. “Well, ye’ve got t’ wed. Ye’re the MacLeod woman, and the line descends through ye. Ach, do ye want Fionnaway t’ pass t’ that other branch o’ the family?”

  “Nay…” She dragged her toe in the dirt. “But Ian Fairchild is not the kind of man I wished to marry.”

  “So you’re afraid o’ him.”

  “Pshaw! Afraid of him.” Afraid of the dreams he brought her, aye. Afraid of the softening she experienced when she watched him walk, like a conqueror who had his choice of women. Afraid of this wanting to be the woman. But not afraid of him.

  “That’s good,” Mr. Lewis said, smiling cryptically. “I wager there’s good in Ian Fairchild, if ye just dig deep enough.”

  “He threatened to turn out old Mary from her sewing and Robbie from his fields.”

  “I might wonder if he had an ulterior motive.” Before she could sputter a response, he held up one hand. “But either way, this is na the end o’ the world. Ye go back t’ Fionnaway, ye look over young Ian, and if he suits ye well enough, ye wed him. If na, ye claim Fionnaway as yer own on yer birthday.”

  “He intimated it will not be so easy as that. He said that he would go to the courts and claim I must have lived as a fallen woman to survive these four years. He said Brice would do the same, and they would fight over the guardianship of my lands.”

  “He is determined, isn’t he? He’s left ye with no recourse but t’ return and marry,” Mr. Lewis said. “But while I might be wrong, lass, I dunna think he’s like his father. He wouldna force ye.”

  “Won’t he?”

  “There’s the sadness o’ yer misfortune.” Mr. Lewis sighed. “Ye dunna trust any man, do ye?”

  “You.”

  “And I’m only half the man.”

  She looked at him, startled.

  He offered an explanation. “As old as I am, I scarcely could be called on t’ pleasure a woman.”

  “As if that is what makes a man. My father pleasured dozens of women, yet he lacked steadfastness. My cousins have proclaimed themselves quite the profligate gentlemen, yet they’re weaklings both.”

  “Unfortunate in yer experiences,” Mr. Lewis repeated. “’Tis too bad, for ye’ll na love until ye trust.”

  She stiffened and declared loudly, “I can exist without love.”

  He laughed and picked up the cat that rubbed his ankles. “No living being on earth can exist without love. ’Tis the cause o’ much foolishness, this quest for love.”

  He sounded so reasonable, so patient, she suddenly felt melodramatic and a bit like the walker she’d seen on a high rope once—dangling in midair for no more good reason than to give the farmers something to jeer at. Yet she said steadily, “There has never been a man born of woman who could entice me to take that kind of risk.”

  “Now, that I believe.” Tucking Whisky under his arm, Mr. Lewis stood and took her hand. “Anyway, why do ye ask me for advice? Ye’re a wise lass. Do as yer heart urges and ignore the cold reservations o’ yer mind. Ian is a man, and when ye shed that witchy garb and show yer radiant self dressed like a lady, he’ll react as a proper man should.”

  She didn’t bother to wonder how he had divined her plan. She only grinned.
Mr. Lewis saw her through the eyes of an old affection. She doubted Ian would have been charmed by her freckles and her carrot-top if she were poor. But she did have to marry. She would go back to rescue her people from Ian’s threatened injustice, and watch him carefully. If he proved worthy…She wiped her palms on her skirt. If he proved worthy, would she wed him? Would she take a chance on a man who had the capacity to make her weep for his love? To try anything to capture it? To reduce her to a woman of sorrows, as her mother had been?

  For it wasn’t only the men she didn’t trust. Now that she’d seen Ian, she dared not trust herself.

  “I’ve secured a ride for ye,” the minister said. “The woodcutter and his oxen await ye.”

  For one last moment, she clutched Mr. Lewis’s hand tightly.

  “You’ll take care of Whisky?”

  “Ye know I will.”

  She broke free. She was putting her life of liberty behind her, and taking on one of obligation and restrictions. Tying the hood of her ragged cloak tightly over the bright sheen of her clean hair, she hobbled toward the timber-laden cart.

  Mr. Lewis’s call stopped her. “Did ye know yer cousins are visiting?”

  She halted. “So I heard.”

  “’Tis uneasy I am.” Mr. Lewis sounded harsh and uncompromising. “They care nothing for the pact. Dunna even believe in it.”

  “Brice says he’s a modern man in a backwater of superstition.” Alanna smiled as she quoted her cousin. “Edwin is nothing but Brice’s tag-tail. Don’t worry. I can handle them.”

  “We put our faith in ye, mistress.”

  Mr. Lewis didn’t call her by that title often, and she understood both the intensity of his concern and the depth of his dependence. “I understand better than anyone what will happen if the wrong ones take control. I will take care.”

  Alanna trekked to the ox cart and climbed the small, clear space at the side.

  The woodcutter stared at her and grunted, “Witch.” Then he clucked to the oxen.

  Alanna clung as they jerked forward. Sticks poked her sides and back as they jolted along, and she wished she could have walked to the manor. But the swelling of her ankle hadn’t subsided and she’d lose her nerve if she waited another day. She yearned, with all her might, to be going the opposite way, climbing the fells or seeking the moist scents of the forest. She was breaking her word to herself; she was returning before Mr. Fairchild had died, and she knew, in her heart, he would find one more way to ravage her.