He could hear other voices, a pair of females chattering in the background; and if it hadn’t been so ludicrous, Duncan would have suspected Marsali of convincing English-to-the-core Edwina to join the Jacobite cause. Whatever their conspiracy, he had been excluded. He resented it. Being forbidden to use his private sanctuary, women taking over the castle, his life.
He pushed the door open. And nearly fainted. Bolts of every fabric under the sun from watered silk to Valenciennes lace, from taffeta to tartan, smothered the fastidious order of his desk. Frills and furbelows, fans and strands of faux pearls squashed his priceless maps, his military memoirs, battle plans, and notes.
Standing unnoticed in the doorway, he listened to the conversation within. Marsali was bouncing around a long cheval glass while Edwina scolded her to hold still, and a pair of seamstresses sewed furiously at the hemline of a gold tulle gown that billowed from her slender waist like petals from a rose stem. A feathered headdress sat atop her untidy mop of hair.
“There is a language to wielding a fan, my dear,” Edwina was in the process of explaining. “For example, what would you do if you’d like to let a gentleman know you are interested in him?”
“I’d tell him straight to his face,” Marsali said. “I’d walk right up to him—”
“No, you would not,” Edwina interrupted, rolling her eyes. “You would position the fan against the side of your cheek like this. It’s far more subtle. No, darling, don’t scratch your nose with it. That’s very crass.”
“But my nose itches,” Marsali said. “It’s from all of these horrid feathers stuck in this ridiculous thing on my head.”
“It’s called a tiara,” Edwina continued, unperturbed. “By lowering the fan to your throat you’re issuing an invitation to a private meeting.”
Duncan entered the room. Sneaking up behind Edwina, he grabbed a sandalwood fan from the clutter on his desk and bopped the other woman on the head. “And this means you’re an extravagant ninny, Edwina. Do you mind telling me what you’re doing?”
Edwina glanced around, batting the fan away in annoyance. “I am helping this dear young woman in her quest to attract a mate.”
“Edwina, I have arranged to interview every prospective suitor within a hundred miles on Friday afternoon. The dowry I am offering is hefty enough to lure MacDuff from the grave. Do you really need to impoverish me and undermine my influence with your well-meaning inanity?”
Edwina plucked a loose thread from Marsali’s hair. “I suppose you were going to get her out in rags and parade her like a guttersnipe?”
Duncan gently shouldered Edwina aside and stared out through the window, deliberately not glancing at Marsali. The seamstresses at her feet fell silent, watching the renowned warlord in awe. Rarely did they glimpse the man in such a personal moment.
“I’ll take the dress off if you don’t like it,” Marsali said with a self-martyring shrug, breaking the silence that had fallen. “I look like a baby duck that’s been tortured in it anyway.”
Duncan turned slowly, assessing her with a long, heavy-lidded look.
To tell the truth, she despised the fussy dress, her small white breasts forced into full view by the bindings of her gusseted bodice. She lowered her gaze to the floor, frowning as the silence lengthened.
He swallowed with effort, struggling not to smile. “You do not look like a baby duck at all, lass.”
She glanced up, hope replacing her uncertainty. “No?”
He shook his head. “No. Not at all.” A slow grin broke across his face. “You look… like a baby turkey a fox dragged across the farmyard.”
She gasped. Then she stepped over the two seamstresses sitting in wide-eyed interest on the floor and punched him in the shoulder, pretending outrage. Duncan backed into his desk with a helpless grin, making little gobbling noises behind his hand.
“Stop it,” Edwina said, giving Duncan a cold glare. “Marsali, you’re going to ruin that dress. Both of you, stop acting like infants.”
Marsali ignored her to pull off her feathered headdress and throw it at Duncan. He caught it in one hand and put it on his head, mimicking a turkey strutting around the room. Marsali laughed until she couldn’t breathe, until she was bent over at the waist and leaning against the desk for support.
Edwina braced her arms on the desk and watched them in disapproval. The seamstresses straightened, sharing amused smiles. The chieftain never behaved in such a manner.
“Look at this, my lord,” Marsali gasped between giggles, pulling her gown down over her shoulders. “Edwina put powder on me here. As if anyone would care. Have you ever seen such a thing in your life?”
Edwina yanked the gown practically back up to her nose. “He’s seen more scented shoulders than anyone I know, darling. Save such an intimate view for your husband.”
Duncan lowered his gaze and pulled off the headdress, his light mood broken by the reminder of the reason behind all the fuss: to make Marsali attract another man. What had come over him? He shot the seamstresses a stern look to silence their delighted whispering. He should have let Edwina do as she wished.
“Who’s supposed to be paying for all this nonsense anyway?” he asked, his curt voice chilling the air.
Marsali’s amusement faded, confusion flooding her as she watched him clear the clothes from his desk onto a chair. Distant again. The curtain of stony reserve was pulled back down between them. It was almost as if he resented her for making him laugh. What had she done wrong?
“You’re paying for it, Duncan,” Edwina said in a hard voice. “Don’t you think Marsali is worth it?”
Duncan rifled through the papers on his desk, his heavy black brows drawn together in a frown. “You might have asked my permission first before you turned the solar into a sewing room. It took me weeks to organize these entries. Yes, I think she’s worth it. Damn it. Those feathers are everywhere.” He glanced up, his gaze dark with an emotion Marsali could not fathom. “Isn’t there another room you could use besides the solar?”
Edwina studied Duncan’s face. “The light is better here than anywhere else in this gloomy castle. I take it you’re not going to deny us permission to hold the ball in the great hall?”
“It’s a foolish idea.” Duncan looked down at his desk again, flicking a lacy garter off a biography of Julius Caesar. “I had planned to interview suitors in a civilized manner. I don’t see the point in turning it into a public spectacle.”
“The plain fact, Duncan, is that you’re putting her on the auction block,” Edwina said, her voice growing in volume.
Duncan pushed back his chair, his knuckles white as he gripped the desk. The two seamstresses crept around the table, then fled into the hall without a word. Marsali covertly grabbed her half-eaten oatcake from the desk and ensconced herself in the window embrasure to enjoy the argument. She loved to watch the chieftain lose his temper, especially over her.
“The auction block,” Duncan repeated. “I resent what you’re inferring.”
Edwina shrugged her broad shoulders. “You could at least cloak the arrangement in a milieu of refinement. You’re the one who said that she couldn’t be expected to impress anyone of consequence looking the way she did.”
“I never said anything of the sort,” Duncan retorted.
Marsali’s hand stopped halfway with the oatcake to her mouth. This was getting good. “You made fun of the strawberry stains on my skirt,” she reminded him.
“There are five men who answered my summons and whom I judged worthy of granting an interview,” Duncan continued, ignoring Marsali. “Providing them with hospitality for a night or two hardly calls for a ball. This is not London, Edwina. We are not doting parents hoping to unburden ourselves of a spinster daughter.”
“Only five?” Edwina looked personally affronted that all her efforts for Marsali would draw such a scant audience. “Five, Duncan? There must be a mistake. Without a decent means of communication, it could take months to hear from everyone.”
&nb
sp; “All I need is one,” Marsali said pragmatically, but in her heart, she was convinced that although Duncan might be a master tactician, he was a terrible matchmaker. He hadn’t even asked her what sort of man she wanted to marry.
She chewed the oatcake in thoughtful silence. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Duncan could have hand-picked five hundred Highlanders and she’d have remained emotionally unmoved. The man of her dreams would have to have a heart as deep as the sea and the courage of a lion. He would have to love children, and—
“I hope you aren’t going to sit like that when you’re introduced to your future husband,” Duncan said in a rude voice, motioning to the feet she had casually planted on the wall. “There’s no need to give the entire world a view of your underthings, even if they did come all the way from France.”
That said, he sat down at his desk.
Amused, Marsali sneaked a look at Edwina, who was standing over Duncan with her forefinger pressed to her lips as if to warn her this was not the time to cross the chieftain. She scooted her bottom up against the worn cushions and covertly tugged down her gown. This past week Duncan’s outbursts of temper had everyone in the castle practically treading on eggs to avoid setting him off. He made no secret of how eager he was to get her off his hands. He’d told her over and over that it had taken a feat of diplomatic genius to convince the captain of dragoons not to have her arrested for treason.
Uncle Colum’s spell clearly hadn’t done a damn bit of good. The chieftain’s emotions were more elusive than ever.
A dangerous impulse came over Marsali to touch him. Aye, just to smooth the frown from his forehead, or to brush back the strands of black hair that waved around his broad shoulder. She could stare at him for hours.
“Your feet, Marsali.” He scowled at her over the sheaf of letters in his hand, his voice rich with sarcasm. “Do you think you could manage to keep them on the floor? In fact, if you and Edwina are finished with the royal fitting, might I be allowed an hour in privacy to repair the damage done to my desk? I’m accustomed to outfitting men with bayonets. Your wardrobe is outside my realm of interest.”
Edwina snatched up an armload of petticoats with an injured expression. “Come along, Marsali. We’ll set up shop in my bedchamber, and I don’t want to hear anyone complain about the high cost of candles either.”
Marsali darted an uncertain look at Duncan as she swung her feet to the floor. “Let’s leave it till later, Edwina. I thought I’d go fishing this afternoon.”
“Fishing?” Edwina cried, collapsing in horror against the door. “Tell me that you’re going to change out of that gold tulle gown first.”
Duncan glanced up, narrowing his eyes. “You are not going fishing, Marsali. Not in a gold tulle gown, nor in a sackcloth. Not with only four days left before you’re to be presented as a… a prize.”
“A prize?” she repeated, a pleased grin lighting her face. “Are you going to hold an archery contest for the honor of my hand?”
Duncan lowered his gaze, his voice muffled. “No.”
“I should certainly hope not,” Edwina said from the door. “A contest. How plebeian.”
Marsali danced around Duncan’s desk, her eyes bright with excitement. “A boxing contest, my lord?”
“No. Leave me alone, lass.”
“A sword fight?” she whispered in delight, draping herself around the back of his chair with her cheek brushing Duncan’s chin.
An imperceptible shudder went through him. He leaned forward, breaking the spark of electricity between them. “No, you bloodthirsty wee pagan. There won’t be any lives lost on your account if I can help it.”
Her small face sagged in disappointment. “Well, if I’m to be dangled as a prize, how am I to be won then?”
Duncan turned stiffly in his chair, a little alarmed to find her practically falling into his lap. “You are to be won with honesty and the ability to control you. You are not to be ‘dangled’ like a worm before trout.”
“Oh,” she said with a deep sigh, and she reached around him for the velvet ribbon hanging from the hourglass on his desk. “ ‘Honesty and the ability to control me?’ What a thrilling prospect. Perhaps I’ll end up with a sheep herder, or the village bell ringer. I can hardly wait.”
Duncan sat back in his chair to watch her tramp to the door; her dainty body was rigid with resentment. “You’ll thank me one day. When you’re a little older and settled down, you’ll come to realize I had only your best interests at heart.”
She turned at the door, delivering her own parting shot before she ducked under Edwina’s arm to escape. “And perhaps when you’re older, you’ll realize you’d have done better to wear a hairshirt to pay for your sins than to sacrifice my life in order to save yours.”
Duncan stared at the door as she disappeared behind it. Startled, Edwina hastened after Marsali to escape Duncan’s reaction to her all-too-honest assessment of the situation. No one had ever dared speak so freely to Duncan’s face.
Silence fell over the solar, but, to Duncan’s chagrin, Marsali’s presence lingered like a sprinkling of fairy dust in the sunlight.
He exhaled quietly and tried to bury his disquietude beneath the pretense of reorganizing his desk. Rude ungrateful girl. Incorrigible, irreverent creature. Not a word of thanks for the effort it had taken to weed out the dozens of horrible suitors who had been lured by the handsome dowry that accompanied her hand in marriage. The letters he’d handwritten to noblemen near and far, the discreet inquiries into the personal backgrounds of the hopeful petitioners who had presented their names for Duncan’s consideration.
And only five names had emerged unscathed from Duncan’s harsh scrutiny from the list of fifty. Five men who had no history of sexual perversions, physical deformities, drunkenness, or profligate ways. Five men who would petition him to prove themselves worthy of his old friend’s daughter.
He pushed aside the clutter on his desk and paced to the window, noting her old discarded gown on the cushions where Marsali had tossed it. He had grown fond of her. But how could he guarantee that the man he chose would treat her well? How—
“What the hell?” he said aloud.
He stared down through the window as a figure running from the kitchen yard in a gold tulle gown caught his eye. A fishing pole protruded from the wooden bucket slung over her arm. Sunlight glinted in her hair as she darted across the yard like a dainty damselfly.
He opened the window, sighing in exasperation, and stuck his head outside. “Put down that pole before the hook catches in your gown! I am not made out of money.”
She grinned at him and thrust the bucket behind her back. Unfortunately, the fishing pole stood a good two inches taller than she, and it protruded from the side of her head. “What pole, my lord?”
He fought a smile at her impertinence. “Put this on,” he said, waving her old blue muslin out the window. “I’ll leave it outside the door. Edwina would have a fit if you got fish scales on her creation.”
“But everyone is already on their way to the loch. There’ll be no fish left if I change.”
“Do as I tell you, lass.”
He ducked back inside, his throat tightening with an unfamiliar emotion at the sight of her small ridiculous figure trudging back toward the keep. The wrong man could so easily destroy her innocence. Yes, she was a strong young woman in many ways. She had lived among his crusty clansmen too long to have remained untouched by some of life’s harsher aspects.
Her short existence had been scarred by loss and struggle; the energy she’d exerted ousting the English from her land would have been better spent living a young girl’s dreams. At Marsali’s age, Sarah had done nothing more strenuous than riding around Hyde Park.
Sarah.
Her betrayal should have hurt more than it did, but perhaps he was merely too numb to feel anything beyond the lingering aftermath of his anger. Or perhaps, unconsciously, he had half expected to lose her all along. Despite all the acclaim showered on him, Du
ncan had never moved easily within the prim parameters of British society. A Scottish marquess and cavalry general attracted a certain amount of positive attention, and while a well-bred young woman might harbor fantasies about a Highland barbarian, the reality of a marriage between them would soon override the romance.
Sooner or later, even if Duncan could have kept Sarah away from the castle, the subject of his past would have come up between them. A rumor would have reached her ear. If only secretly, she’d have wondered whether she had married a murderer, and Duncan couldn’t have borne that.
In an odd way, losing her was a relief. He no longer had to fear she would find out who he really was.
Marsali laid the fishing pole carefully against the wall and picked up the dress Duncan had left outside the solar door. She’d forgotten to change her shoes too, and Edwina would explode if she caught her fishing in a pair of pearl-seeded slippers. Her lovely old boots with the comfortable holes were tucked under Duncan’s desk.
Hell. She’d have to disturb the chieftain again, and from the sound of deep silence within the solar, he was engrossed in his writing and wouldn’t appreciate the interruption.
She opened the door and crept inside, clutching her bucket. Her nerves were practically coiled into springs as she awaited a fierce scolding from Duncan. No one could shout like him.
Except that he wasn’t behind the desk. Or at the window. A little disappointed that she’d missed an opportunity to watch him as he worked, she ducked under his desk for her boots. And straightened with a jolt of alarm at the sound of his voice only a few feet from her on the worn Turkey carpet.
“Damn the bastards,” she heard him mutter. “They’ve surrounded our supplies. This is bad. Very bad.”
Marsali froze, listening intently and rubbing her knee, which she had knocked against Duncan’s chair. Who was he talking to in that terse angry voice? And where was he?
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