Tempted by a Warrior

by Amanda Scott

  A twinge of guilt stirred within him at what she might have deduced.

  His eyebrows had risen alarmingly when he’d seen her, but although Fiona had detected the initial glint of anger, he did not seem angry now. He looked rueful. In any event, he said over his shoulder, “Forgive me, Tony. I forgot that her ladyship had asked to speak privately with me. I’ll send someone for you when we have finished our talk.”

  “Aye, sure,” Tony said, vanishing as Dickon shut the door.

  Fiona held her breath. But when he did not demand to know what she was doing in his chamber… when he said nothing at all… she said, “He kens fine that you had no appointment with me here. At least, I hope he does, because the sort of appointment he must be thinking—”

  “Just so, lass,” he interjected. “Tony will say nowt, but I trust that you have good reason for being in here.”

  “I did, but first I want to know about these.” She gestured to the documents. “I do not know much about such accounts, but I do know when numbers are to the good and when they are not. These appear to be nearly all expenses.”

  “They are, aye.”

  “You told me I had to be frugal until you’d discovered how things are here. But then you did tell me that the estate could bear my expenses, did you not?”

  “I did, aye.”

  She waited, but he did not continue.

  “Is there any money?” she asked at last.

  “Nowt to speak of,” he said.

  As a chill swept over her, he added gently, “The land here is good enough for barley, mayhap for oats, and, of course the apple orchards thrive. With better management, I hope to show a good profit here in a year or two.”

  “A year or two! Then how am I to meet household expenses until then? Jane just told me we need to have one of the big pots mended, and I told her to send it to the smith. How will we pay him for mending it?”

  “You will have him present his reckoning to me, of course,” he said calmly.

  “But you—” She stared at him. “Are you paying for the things we buy? Do you mean to pay for fabrics for my new dresses, for my bairn’s clothing? Good sakes, sir, you say that you worry about scandal! What do you think that will stir?”

  “It will stir nowt to concern you,” he said. “My responsibilities for you, your bairn, and the Jardine estates give me broad discretion. The reason you found these documents here is that I am keeping careful accounts—unlike the Jardines, I might add. I did not reveal the full state of their finances for two reasons. I did not yet have a clear picture of them, and I saw no reason to frighten you. These estates will be profitable with good management, and it is my duty to provide that.”

  “You should have told me,” she said. “It is unfair to encourage me to act as mistress here and not tell me that we have no gelt to pay for things.”

  “Had you asked questions, I’d have answered them honestly,” he said. “I did not lie to you about anything. I just asked you to be frugal, and then, when I realized that things would soon improve, I encouraged you to replenish your wardrobe.”

  “How very reasonable you are,” she snapped. “How logical you sound! Well, let me tell you something, my lord. If I am mistress here, I have a right to know the truth. You say you did not tell me because you did not want to frighten me. You tell me with one breath that you want me to trust you and then, with the next, you admit that you keep things from me. I will tell you what being mistress here means to me, sir. It means being free to make decisions for this household and for myself. It does not mean letting you protect me from the truth. Being wrapped in cotton wool is just as stifling and just as demeaning as never being allowed to make a decision at all!”

  As she flung the words at him, she saw his lips press together until tiny muscles in his jaw twitched, giving her a feeling that his teeth were grinding and that she was making him angrier with every word she spoke. But she did not care.

  Then, in the same even, carefully controlled tone she had endured when he’d scolded her, he said, “Would you have dared to speak to your husband like that?”

  Heat flooded her cheeks, and she bit down on her lower lip to keep from snapping a rude reply. Then, meeting his gaze, she said, “I did, aye, more than once, and suffered painfully each time until I learned to mind my tongue.”

  “Well, don’t mind it with me,” he said. He grimaced and then smiled wryly. “You were right, lass, and I apologize. I should have told you how things stand.”

  Fiona stared at him in astonishment, wondering why in the world a simple apology should make her feel like crying again.

  Chapter 14

  Kirkhill watched Fiona, wishing she would go on speaking her thoughts aloud. In particular, he wanted her to explain what had brought her to his chamber.

  At last, he said, “You did say that you had reason to await me here, lass.”

  Her cheeks flushed, and her gaze slid away from his. Then, taking a breath, she looked him in the eye and said, “I was looking for you, but the truth is that when I rapped and no one answered…”

  She paused, looking down, wetting her lips with her tongue.

  Suppressing a grin, he said, “Curiosity, lass?”

  She nodded and raised her head but still avoided his gaze as she said, “I hated this room because it was Old Jardine’s, and whenever I had to come in…” She stopped, nibbled her lip, and then added in a rush, “I just wanted to see how you had altered it. When I was here with you that other time…”

  “You’d prefer not to think about that, either, I expect.”

  She shook her head. “It isn’t that. What with all you were saying to me then, I just did not heed the changes you had made in here.”

  “By that time, as I recall, I had just had Hod get rid of Old Jardine’s bedding and the chests of his clothing. Why were you looking for me tonight?”

  She shook her head. “Not now or here. Someone else might come in.”

  He wanted to protest, but he knew Joshua would be along soon. The man would not talk about anything that Kirkhill did, but Fiona did not know that.

  Even so, he had let her keep her secret long enough, and he suspected that she had looked for him to tell him at last about her dream.

  In any event, he could not wait indefinitely for her to decide to trust him. He was losing patience with the mystery of Will Jardine.

  Moreover, if Will was not dead, it could mean that he and his obstreperous father had again decided to support the English. If that was so, the sooner they found Will the better it would be for the Scots.

  Accordingly, he put both hands on her shoulders as he had on the hilltop and said firmly, “I’d prefer that you confide in me because you feel safe doing so. But before much more time goes by, I am going to insist that you tell me all about that dream of yours whether you want to or not.”

  “Faith, do you think you can force me?”

  “Do you think I cannot, even though I swear I’ll do nowt to harm you?”

  She glowered at him, telling him clearly that she knew he could.

  “I’ll not press you further now,” he said, “because Joshua will be along soon to see to his duties. So I’ll say goodnight and send you up the service stairs as I did before. You did come in that way, did you not?”

  She nodded, watching him as if she did not want to hear what he’d say next.

  “Tomorrow, Fiona. We can walk by the river or take horses out again as we did today. You decide what will make it easier for you, but we are going to talk more about Will, and you are going to tell me about your dream.”

  She licked her lips again, then blurted, “I’m afraid it is just as you said about your friend… a… a way of remembering what I don’t want to remember.”

  Nodding, he said bluntly, “It may be something of that sort. But it might just as easily be nowt but a bad dream suggested by things people have said to you, or something that your mind made up out of summat or nowt, as Joshua would say. We cannot know until we get it into
the sunlight, lass, and look at it together.”

  When she grimaced, his hands tightened briefly on her shoulders before he let go of them to embrace her.

  For a long moment, he held her close, enjoying the sense of her head against his shoulder. When she shifted so that her breath warmed his neck as she sighed, he moved a hand to her chin and tipped her face up more, making her look at him.

  “If we are going to get anywhere, lass,” he said, “you must help me learn what happened to Will. Until we do, we’ll have to go on hiding our feelings for each other. Before tomorrow morning, you must decide if yours are strong enough for you to trust me, because if we don’t find him, and continue to feel this attraction we feel, my spending time here, as I must, would become torture for both of us.”

  “I have to think,” she said. “I must go.”

  Fiona hurried up the service stairs, her emotions in turmoil. She could still feel the warmth of Dickon’s body, but she thought that he might at least have tried to reassure her that she was not beginning to remember something she didn’t want to remember instead of practically agreeing with her that she might be.

  Halfway to her bedchamber, she recalled that she had twice ridden past the graveyard shortly before she’d had the dream, first with Nan, then with Dickon. Mayhap it was just a horror put into her mind by her usual reaction to graveyards.

  She had loathed all graveyards since the day that Will had told her of her father’s death. Will had said that Dunwythie’s own temper had carried him off, but Fiona had known that by eloping with the son of an enemy, she had acted in a way that her father would see as a betrayal. She had no doubt, even now, that it had been the shock of that betrayal that had killed him.

  Her failure to say a proper farewell to him had tortured her dreams with graveyard images long before the nightmare about dumping Will into his grave.

  She had nearly persuaded herself that seeing the graveyard had put the notion into her head of burying Will by herself. Thinking about it gave her shivers, though.

  Not only did she not want to think about it but she also, definitely, did not want to tell Dickon about it. At best, he would think her mad. At worst, he would believe her a murderess.

  Kirkhill arose early Saturday morning determined to win Fiona’s confidence, but by the time he finished breaking his fast, she had not yet come downstairs.

  He did not wait for her but, seeing Davy at one of the lower tables, left the dais to speak to him.

  “Don’t rush yourself, lad,” Kirkhill said when the boy jumped to his feet. “I want you to stay here until the lady Fiona comes downstairs. When she does, I want you to run and find me so that I may join her here.”

  “Aye, sure, laird,” Davy said. “Ye’ll tell Joshua I’ll be a bit behind time?”

  “I’ll tell him,” Kirkhill promised. “Mayhap this afternoon I’ll have time to show you a few more things about using a dirk properly.”

  “Aye, sure,” Davy said, his face clouding. “’Tis no the same though since Hod broke me da’s dirk.”

  “I might have an idea about that, too,” Kirkhill said, ruffling the boy’s fine hair. “You just eat enough now to build some muscle in you.”

  “I will, aye,” Davy said, smiling again.

  Taking an apple for himself from the basket on the high table, and another for Cerberus, Kirkhill found Joshua in the stables brushing the destrier and told him Davy would be late. Then, casually, he added, “I may ride out later with her ladyship. If I do, I’ll want the pair of you to escort us as you did yestermorn.”

  “From the start this time but at a discreet distance, I’m guessing,” Joshua said without looking up from his currying.

  “Aye to both, but I’ll have no more of your sauce, my lad.”

  “’Tis a dangerous game ye play, m’lord.”

  “Perhaps, aye, but we still have much to learn, Joshua, and I’m hoping that her ladyship can help.”

  But Davy no sooner ran out to tell Kirkhill that her ladyship had descended to break her fast than a rider arrived from Dunwythie Hall.

  “M’lord,” he said to Kirkhill, “Baroness Dunwythie, Baroness Easdale, and their lord husbands arrived at the Hall late yestereve. They mean to ride here to Spedlins to take their midday meal wi’ ye and the lady Fiona unless I go back at once and tell them that such a visit today wouldna suit ye.”

  “Such a visit would suit us gey fine,” Kirkhill assured him.

  “That be good, as they’ll be starting soon,” the gillie said. “Our lady did say to tell ye she’s gey eager to see the lady Fiona and to know that all is well wi’ her.”

  “Get yourself some ale in the great hall, lad, and food if you need it. Then you may ride back to meet your mistress and tell her that she and anyone she chooses to bring with her will be welcome at Spedlins as long as I am master here.”

  “Thank ye, sir, I’d be grateful for a morsel and a sip.” Jumping down from his horse, he found Davy in front of him. “Here now, lad,” the gillie said, squinting down at him. “Be ye big enough to handle this beast o’ mine?”

  “Aye, sure,” Davy said. “If ye want to see a true beast, ye should see our Cerberus, yonder by the stable door.”

  The gillie followed Davy’s pointing finger and his eyes widened at the sight of the black destrier. “That be a fine animal, indeed,” he said.

  Davy nodded solemnly. “Sithee, I’ll take good care o’ yours, too. The great hall be that way, so just go as your nose tells ye to keep a-going.”

  “I’ll find it,” the gillie said. Thanking Kirkhill and assuring him that he’d be off again as soon as he had refreshed himself, he strode toward the tower entrance.

  Kirkhill, making a hasty adjustment in his plans for the day and, once again, giving thanks for sisters, followed in the gillie’s wake. He entered the hall in time to hear Fiona exclaim, “Gerrard’s Eckie, is that really you?”

  “Aye, m’lady,” the gillie said as he strode past the lower hall trestle tables to the edge of the dais, where Fiona and Flory sat at one end of the high table.

  Pulling off his cap, he made a creditable bow.

  Fiona stared at the young man with mixed emotions. Delight warred with hesitation and wariness, but curiosity overrode all.

  “Do you come here from Annan House or from the Hall?” she demanded.

  “From the Hall, m’lady. I ha’ been serving her ladyship—Lady Dunwythie, that be, no the lady Phaeline—these past two years.”

  “Then Mairi is at the Hall?”

  “Aye, at least she were when I left, but she did expect to be away as soon as everyone had broken fast. They be a-coming here to take midday dinner wi’ ye.”

  “Everyone? Is Lady Easdale there, too, then?”

  “Aye, and his lordship and Sir Hugh.”

  “His lordship?”

  “Aye, m’lady, the master. I dinna ken if ye ha’ met him. He married the lady Mairi after—”

  “Aye, sure, you mean Robert Maxwell. But surely, they do not call him Lord Maxwell!”

  “Nay, nor does anyone call him Lord Dunwythie. Most folks still think o’ that being your da. But the lady Mairi did say it were proper for us to address him as his lordship and m’lord, so most folks do refer to him as the lord Robert.”

  “Do they,” Fiona said. Movement beyond him diverted her to Dickon’s approach. She said, “This is Gerrard’s Eckie, my lord, who serves my sister. His father is captain of the guard at Annan House. Eckie tells me we are to have guests for dinner—a fair crowd, I expect, because I’ll wager that my mother and Nan will come with the others. I shall have much to do to prepare for so many.”

  She gazed at him expectantly, even hopefully.

  Knowing just what she was thinking, Kirkhill dismissed Eckie to his “morsel and sip” and went to pour himself a mug of ale from the jug on the high table.

  Then, to Fiona, he said, “The kitchen has been in almost daily anticipation of such a visit from the moment we learned your sister would be re
turning to the Hall. I own, I did not expect her to come here so soon, but she is certainly welcome.”

  “Even if the kitchen is prepared, sir, I must go and tell them what to expect.”

  “Knowing that you were breaking your fast, I sent a lad to warn Jane.”

  “But I must—”

  “Fiona-lass, I ken fine that you will want to attend to all manner of things, to see that everything is as it should be to receive them. But young Eckie did say that your sister’s party would not be leaving until they had all broken their fasts.”

  “Which they may well have done at the crack of dawn,” she said.

  “I doubt that,” he replied. “Sithee, lass, I do not know them all, but the larger the party the less likely it is that their departure will take place as expected.”

  “Sakes, m’lady,” Flory said. “Your mam won’t even be out o’ her bed yet.”

  Fiona gave her a fierce look, but Kirkhill intervened, saying, “The journey will take them at least two hours. So you should have plenty of time to do all that you need to do before they arrive.”

  At the emphasis he put on the word “all,” she looked sharply at him.

  He held her gaze until her cheeks grew pink. Then he smiled, saying, “Now that that is settled, the sooner we have our discussion, the sooner you will be able to get to everything else.”

  “But—”

  “We can talk in your solar as soon as you are ready. I will await you there. You may bring Flory with you if you like.” Giving her a look that warned her he would not be put off, he turned and headed for the solar.

  Fiona watched him go with increasing irritation. She had hoped that with so many guests arriving and so little warning, he might agree to postpone their discussion. Instead, he had exploited the situation to further his own ends.

  Sorely tempted as she was simply to go about her own preparations, that last look he had shot her warned her that she would probably be sorry if she did.