by LL Muir
There were five rooms to the main floor of the house. The sitting room and dining room comprised the front half. A small library filled the rear corner with a window onto the wee garden, and the larder sat behind the kitchen with a door that led to the steps and the barn beyond.
She found a serviceable gown in the closet of a smaller bedchamber and changed into it. She then carried her wet things back downstairs. A long closet ran behind the library where the heat from that fire could dry her clothes, and she had just set about hanging them when Gerard poked his head inside.
“I’ve set a fire in the library, lass. And another in the kitchen stove. We’ll stay to the rear of the house and avoid lighting candles, aye?”
“We can’t just pull the curtains?”
He shook his head. “If anyone is watching the house, they’ll know the curtains were left open. If they see smoke from the chimney, hopefully, they’ll think a servant watches over the place. The best way to make someone curious is to hide something from them, aye?”
She understood. In a population of opposing alliances, Inverness was a dangerous place. And if Jean-Yves was a Jacobite sympathizer, his house wouldn’t be a safe haven after one o’clock the next afternoon. But until then, she was determined to keep Gerard Ross inside it, no matter what she had to do.
Gerard declared he needed to check the perimeter, but promised he would be back before supper was ready. With no choice but to trust him, Nessa nodded and let him go. Since the man couldn’t read her thoughts, there was no need to run away from her.
Yet.
True to his promise, Paddy delivered a freshly cleaned and plucked chicken to the kitchen. Since they wouldn’t be staying too long, Nessa saw no need to boil the bird. So she melted some lard in a heavy pan and set out to fry it. When Gerard left the next day, anything remaining could go in a sack. Soup couldn’t travel, and thermoses hadn’t yet been invented. By the time he set out, however, her two days will have passed, so, wherever he went, he’d be going without her.
The point, she had to remember, was that he would still be alive and able to flee.
She made a mental note to mention how well Scots would fare in Canada…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
With the chicken laid out in the pan, she partially covered it with a lid and headed back to the larder to find some root vegetables. She was eager to attempt a batch of French-fried potatoes and reasoned that good food would keep Gerard distracted for the rest of the evening. If she stuffed him full enough, he might doze, which would give her an opportunity to tie him up without too much fuss.
Stuffed into the back of a shelf, she found a gunny sack full of small Irish potatoes and some onions. She could have squealed with delight, but she was trying to keep her emotions at a low keel while Gerard was lurking around the place as prickly as a hedgehog. If only he knew what was about to happen mere miles away from Inverness…
Mere hours from now…
She stepped quietly out of the larder and stopped to keep the door from making noise. But in her stealth, she heard the low drone of men’s voices in the library. Gerard was back, and Mullens with him. She’d thought the smaller man had gone. Would he be staying for supper?
She took a step in that direction but stopped short when she realized Gerard was deliberately keeping his voice low—and since she was the only other body in the house, he had to be saying things he didn’t intend for her to hear. So, naturally, she edged closer.
“Promise me ye’ll keep her safe if this clash goes Cumberland’s way. I cannot say, for certain, which side she favors, if any at all. But I do not want her harmed, spy or no’.”
He thought her a spy? For Cumberland? Was he out of his mind?
“Aye, sir. I promise.”
“And you understand, if she is a spy, that I cannot allow her out of this house?”
“Aye.”
“I regret I cannot stay,” Gerard said. “The lad said they are gathering near Drumossie moor and I must join them before morning. I need you to find a horse for me—”
“Not so easy a task—”
“Whatever you have to pay. Just have it in the barn by midnight.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Collect the lass in the morning. I dinna ken where I’ll put her…”
“I’ll find her, sir. No worries.”
“Ye’re a good man, Mullens. When this is over—”
“Dinna fash o’er me, sir. Godspeed.”
Nessa crept back into the kitchen and set about washing the vegetables. There was no rush. She had until midnight to contain a large, powerful, nervous Highlander who actually believed he could leave, and leave her behind.
A pocketful of forgiveness…might not be enough to satisfy her now.
~
Gerard stuck his head into the kitchen and found the lass slicing onions. Tears damped her cheeks and he chuckled. “It is a lucky thing I noticed yer onions, lass, or I might have thought I was the one to make ye greet.”
She waved him away with her knife. “Just worried for my brother and my cousins, is all.”
“Oh, aye.” He’d nearly forgotten about the brother, who had supposedly gone off to fight with the Jacobites. Or had she ever mentioned which side he’d be fighting for? “I am sorry, lass.”
She waved him away again.
“Do ye have need of anything?”
She shook her head and didn’t look at him.
“Then I’ll pop upstairs and see if I can find some dry things as well. The chicken smells tantalizing, truly.”
She nodded slightly.
“All right, then. Dinna go anywhere.” He forced a laugh, but she didn’t seem to see his humor. No matter, though, as long as she obeyed him.
Upstairs, he found some fine things his friend had left behind. The black trews were snug to his legs, but they were dry. And to keep them from revealing too much of him to the innocent lass cooking his supper, he donned a green silk shirt with long, generous tails. His feet had to remain bare, for there was not a dry slipper in the house that could fit his large feet.
In the small closet off the library, he hung his plaid next to her gown and turned her clothes over to dry the other side. Just touching them gave him that same strange sense of the familiar, and he was beginning to get angry about it all.
Was he so distracted by the cause that he couldn’t remember where he’d seen her before? Was he losing his wits?
The one person who could help him wasn’t far. He only hoped that, once they finally sat down together, she would finally tell him her tale. She’d claimed it was a long story, but no matter. He only needed her to finish the telling of it by midnight. Long before the strike of twelve, however, he hoped she would be sleeping soundly…behind lock and key.
~
He padded into the kitchen to show off his finery, but the lass was not there. The pan of tempting chicken had been set to the back of the stove. A platter of delicious-looking potatoes waited on the cupboard, but Assa was gone. His heart began pounding, urging him to move quickly.
The library was empty. While he’d been petting her clothes like a fool, had she gone back up the stairs?
He took the steps three at a time and pulled on the railing to help him along. Not in the bedchambers. He edged carefully up to the window in the largest room. She was not below on the street. Not in the side garden.
He hurried to the door of the privy chamber and knocked. The door swung open. Empty.
He chided himself as he hurried down the steps again.
Fool. She is preparing a meal. No doubt she was inside the larder, and is likely back in the kitchen.
But she wasn’t. There was barely enough light to see into the back room, but the floor was clear. Unless she had tucked herself onto a dark shelf, she’d been and gone. He felt the fool checking the library once more before looking in the kitchen again. Out of breath from more than just exertion, and ready to laugh at himself, he stepped through the doorway with a quip on his tongue.<
br />
But the chicken still waited quietly.
“Assa!” he hissed at the foot of the stairs, then moved carefully through the dim hallway to the front of the house. “Lass! Where are ye?”
“She’s here,” said a calm, male voice. Seated on the couch with his back to the door was a blond man with his hair secured behind his head with a dark bow. He turned his head slightly, smiled at Gerard, then stood. The red of his thigh-long red coat was still easy to see in the light of the western sky coming through the large sitting room windows. “Forgive me,” he said. “Sergeant Colville, at yer service.”
His weapons were in the closet, with his wet clothes! He hadn’t so much as a dagger in his boot—he had no boots!
Assa jumped up from a chair in the far corner and hurried toward him with a forced smile on her face and warning lift of her brow.
“Sergeant Colville, allow me to introduce my bridegroom, Bennett Ross.” She wrapped her hands firmly around his upper arm and squeezed. “Bennett, this is Sergeant Colville, and Private Semphill is the one trying to start a fire for us.” She patted his chest. “I’m sorry, husband, but I had to confess everything to the Sergeant. We haven’t been as stealthy as I’d thought.” She laughed lightly and dragged Gerard around to the chair she’d vacated, urged him to sit, then stood behind him with a hand on his shoulder to hold him down.
Colville resumed his seat on the couch. “Yes, yer wife explained. I’m pleased to discover ye’re not a couple of Jacobite supporters.”
She laughed lightly and tapped his arm. “I told him that is precisely who we’re hiding from, that yer father was none too pleased ye married a Campbell and sent us from his house. I also told him how we had planned to spend our honeymoon in Inverness, but when we heard old Jean-Yves was routed from town, we jumped at the chance to hide out here, in case Dunvegan becomes available.”
“It’s not the lass’s fault,” Gerard said carefully. “Please remember that.”
The sergeant’s face flared orange in the light of the fire, newly caught. “Dinna fash, Mr. Ross. I’m marrit myself. I ken just how tempting it is to make a wife happy. And I’m certain that, when the Duke is victorious, he’ll be happy to have more supporters in Inverness, no matter how they came by their new homes, aye?”
Gerard nodded, barely able to contain his disdain for the traitorous Scot. Did he not know that his leader would have no more respect for him than he had for the Jacobites? That he and Semphill were hated by the very man they served?
The private moved around the room lighting sconces. He returned his smoking reed to the fire, turned, and was immediately alarmed. Gerard recognized him and jumped to his feet to shield Assa as the man pulled his weapon from his back and aimed it at Gerard’s heart.
“Sergeant, this man was at Prestonpans,” said the private. “I would ken him anywhere.”
Colville was on his feet as well, arms poised for a fight.
“Prestonpans?” Assa chided and forced her way between them all. “Ye must be mistaken. Bennett’s been wooing me every day since last June. No doubt it was his brother, Gerard, ye faced at Prestonpans. He’s the second son, ye ken. Bennett here is the fourth. It was either me or the clergy for him, but I took pity.” She looked at him and sighed dramatically, then nudged him back to the chair. “Sending him to the kirk would be a great waste, would it no’?”
The sergeant glared at the soldier. “What do ye say, Semphill? Is it possible ye’re mistaking this man for a brother?”
The private shook his head at Gerard, his eyes narrow. “If so, the resemblance is remarkable.”
Gerard tried his damnedest to appear innocent while plotting the murder of both men.
“Auch, aye,” Nessa said. “All four Rosses could be twins—in the right light.”
With the effort she’d put into her performance, it was the least Gerard could do to play along. So, against his instincts, he took his seat again and patted her hand. “She assures me I’m the most handsome of them all, of course.”
The sergeant laughed. The private returned his gun to his back, but his frown never completely cleared from his brow. Every now and then, he would sneak a long look at Gerard and frown harder.
“I invited the two to share our meal, husband. But it seems they’ve already had their supper.”
Colville clicked his heels together. “And now that I know the house has not fallen to riffraff, I can rejoin my company. There is bound to be a battle to remember in the next day or two. No doubt ye will wish I would have pressed ye into service tonight, Ross, so ye hadn’t missed it.”
“But you promised, Sergeant,” Assa said with a pout. “And it’s only our second night married…”
The man had the decency to blush. He gestured for his man to go ahead, then turned back. “A very happy marriage to ye, Gerard Ross, and to your Campbell Bride.”
Gerard was careful not to blink. “Nay, sir. ‘Tis Bennett.”
The man grinned. “Auch, so it is. So it is.” After another click of his heals and a slight bow, the man was gone.
Gerard closed the door gently and turned, prepared to start his own interrogation of the Campbell lass, but found her crumpled to the floor in a puddle of velvet robes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nessa woke to the cold touch of a wet cloth on her brow.
She was lying on a chaise lounge in the library. The fire crackled off to her right and she faced the window onto the garden where only a few yellow blossoms were now visible in the darkness.
The large shadowy form of Gerard sat beside her hip and he peered closely at her now-open eyes. “Ye gave me a scare. I thought ye were play acting again. Now smile sweetly for the bastards who are no doubt watching through the windows.”
She did as he ordered.
“Now. I’m going to kiss ye, and ye’ll keep on smiling. But know it is only for our audience, and it is yer own fault for telling them we’re newly wed, aye?”
“Aye.” She had to force the smile to remain on her lips, for it was a fact she didn’t like the idea of him kissing her when he didn’t wish to.
He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers. It wasn’t nearly as gentle as his other kisses had been. It was far more impassioned. But that didn’t frighten her as much as the feeling that she was being punished.
“I believe that is quite enough, sir,” she said, flashing her teeth in more of a threat than a smile. “When next ye kiss me like that, ye’ll pull back a stump of a tongue, aye?” She reached up and stroked the side of his face.
An emotion she didn’t recognize flitted across his features and she pulled her hand back as if she’d been burned. But it was too late. Whatever her threat had triggered could not be undone.
He got to his feet, bent, and scooped her into his arms. He then carried her into the kitchen, and she had to hang onto his neck while he tossed the chicken onto the platter of potatoes. After he propped the platter on her stomach, he pulled a bottle of wine from a cabinet, and carried her up the stairs.
Once they reached the master bedchamber, he sat the wine on a table, went to the side window, and yanked the curtains closed, one side at a time. With her arms still draped around his neck and her knees over his other arm, he did the same with the window at the front of the house.
“There,” he said. “That should convince them.”
“Of what?”
Stumbling about in the darkness, he took the platter from her and set it on the chest of drawers. She screamed when he tossed her away from him. Thankfully, she landed on the bed.
“Convince them we’re serious about something other than politics, at least.”
He bent over a table and struck a flint, then lit an oil lamp and turned the light low. Returning to the chest of drawers, he popped a bit of potato into his mouth and stared at her as if she might be the next thing he sampled. So she scooted back against the headboard and braced herself for a fight.
His brows jumped in surprised. “Ho, ho! Those are tasty.”
He plucked up the platter and moved to a chair by the door. “Ye’d best act quickly, lass, or ye might not eat much tonight.”
French-fried potatoes? A platter of chips had proven more tempting than her? She felt slightly more insulted than relieved. And after another minute of being ignored, she finally stood, but he paid no notice. She took the lamp to the dressing table and sat. He picked up a leg of chicken and gave it his all.
She fussed with a comb Jean-Yves or his wife had left behind and finally allowed her gaze to wander to her own reflection in the mirror. Her curls were a bit out of sorts, but if she ever had a day when they remained in order, it would be once in her lifetime.
Her face was pleasant enough. No stray marks of red. Smooth and pink. Possibly a bit pinker than she was comfortable with, but when her temper was up, her face was usually flushed. Her lips were a bit swollen and bruised, but not terribly so.
Her robe was closed tight with small ties above the waist. The lower portion consisted of a generous skirt that wrapped around her body once, and half as much again. In truth, it was possibly more modest a costume than her own gown had been.
She’d had nothing to be ashamed of when the Sergeant and his soldier had barged through the front door. Thankfully, she’d been quick with an explanation and slow to act guilty. It was a talent she might have learned by watching the telly over the shoulders of those mortals at Culloden.
No. There was nothing in the mirror that might tempt a man, let alone a braw, handsome Highlander like Gerard Ross. Especially when compared to a plate of chips and chicken.
The woman in the refection inched her fingers toward the dangling tail of satin ribbon that held closed the throat of her robe. In a horror of realization, she pulled back her arm and sat upon her hand.
A stolen glance proved Gerard had noticed nothing. But the chicken was going the way of the world, and quickly.
She strode to the chair and pulled the plate from his unsuspecting hands. After his initial surprise, he smiled and waved the large breast he still held like the captured flag of the enemy.