“Aye. I’ve learned much from our Lachlan.”
Long seconds passed while Glinis searched for the words she’d prepared on the way here. Damnation—they’d fled her grasp now that she needed them! Alex brushed several more strokes before he faced her.
“Is there something in particular ye’ve come to see me about, my Lady?”
His eyes were as green as the summer sea, and just as mesmerizing. They bore into her, melting her belly along with her wits. The same, smug confidence she knew of him was still there, still maddeningly... maddening. But now—curse his handsome face!—now, she couldn’t force herself to take offense.
It was several seconds more before she realized she was staring. Glinis breathed deeply, and summoned the strength to do what she must.
“I want to apologize for... for what happened last night.”
“And what happened last night, my Lady?”
Glinis pressed her lips together. “Dinna be coy wi’ me, sir. Ye ken well enough that my behaviour were inappropriate, my station being what it is. I shouldna have spoken to ye in that way.”
That irritating grin of his returned. Well... it would have been irritating if he weren’t so damned appealing.
“’Tis only inappropriate if I hadna welcomed it.”
She tossed her hands in the air. “Sir Alexander, I dinna ken what to make of ye. Just when I begin to think ye’re different than all those other shallow young men who see me as a forbidden prize, just when I begin to think there might be more to ye—ye go and prove me wrong.”
Her accusation only encouraged him. His grin deepened.
“I have two things to say to that, my Lady.” He sobered. “The first is that when I said I welcomed yer behaviour, it were not entirely a glib remark. I’ve been told much about ye by Viscount Strathcairn, and if what he says is true, then ye’ve been handed a difficult lot in life—much more difficult than any woman should have to endure. Ye’ve handled it wi’ grace and dignity yer whole married life. Ye’re more than entitled to unlock yer suffering and let it out once in a while. I’m glad ye were able to do so wi’ me, for I enjoyed offering ye what comfort I could.”
Glinis’s knees wobbled.
“And the second?” She hoped her voice did not wobble, too.
“The second, sweet Lady, is that I am no foolish young man, and ye’ll no’ be a forbidden prize for long. Now, dinna mistake me: I dinna wish death upon his Lordship. But—and God forgive me for thinking it—he isna long for this world. That means ye willna be a married woman much longer.”
Her stomach lurched. Words became a foreign concept. God forgive him, indeed. God forgive them both!
Sir Alexander meant what he said. It was clear from the soft authority in his voice and the certainty of his gaze. He’d stated his intentions, and he did not speak them lightly.
Yes, he was certainly no foolish young man; Glinis could not put him in his place like she had with the others who pursued her. She’d long ago made herself a sinner by taking a lover or two into her bed. But with Alexander MacByrne, her sins had achieved a new depth, for her desire was not for his body alone. She desired more. Much more.
She desired his soul. His entire being.
The realization was wonderfully terrifying.
She took an uncertain step back. Then another. She pressed her hands against her thighs, trying to rub off the stain of her impure thoughts through her palms.
“Er... excuse me,” she mumbled.
Pivoting on her heel, Glinis left the stables in a daze. Her body moved on its own, taking her to the front entrance of the castle. Just before she reached the doors, she veered left, and followed the inner wall until she was out of sight of the bailey.
She could not go inside. Not yet. What if someone saw her, saw the telltale flush of her cheeks, the glazed look in her black eyes. They would know the wicked things that plagued her mind. They would know that her heart now, too, had sinned against her husband.
Alone, she leaned against the stone, welcoming the cold that seeped through the fur lining of her cloak and into her skin.
She was not in love; she could not be in love. Not with this ten-a-penny knight who had ridden through the castle gates and into her life for the first time less than a month ago. No, this was not love.
But how could she be sure? She’d never been in love before. She’d heard great things about it, of course. Love made a person act a fool; it made the heart race one minute and ache the next. Love made one blind to sense, and honour, and duty. John Douglas and Lilian MacInnes had taught her that.
If this wasn’t love... what else could it be?
Ten
MOIRA MacINNES WAS undoubtably, no two ways about it, in a strop with him.
She’d been unaccountably cool towards Lachlan the second day after their wedding, just as she’d been the first day.
The third day she’d been downright hostile.
Was the lady stark-raving mad, or had he managed to insult her in some unknown way?
He spent a good deal of time searching through his memory for what he might have said or done, but nothing stood out as particularly offensive... given that their marriage was a complete fabrication.
He’d had just about enough of trying to be friends with her. He should give up—God’s bones, he’d tried hard enough. But one thing Lachlan Ramsay was not was a quitter. Not at least before he was convinced there was no hope. He’d give it one last try.
She unwittingly gave him the perfect opportunity when, one morning, she announced that she would be away from the castle.
“Oh aye? And what d’ye have planned for the day?”
Moira rounded on him. “Am I no’ trusted to be out and about by myself? Very well, then. I must tend to my animals and the upkeep of my lowly hut. I’ve relied on young Master MacCormack for three days now, and ‘tisna fair to trespass upon his friendship any longer.”
“Easy, lass. ‘Tis no’ that I dinna trust ye. I were merely showing polite interest—d’ye ken the word polite, by the by?”
Moira lowered her eyes to Lachlan’s chest, annoyed with herself for snapping so quickly. “Oh... well, I beg yer pardon, then.”
“We havena spent much time in each other’s company these past few days,” he explained. “I thought perhaps I might escort ye. I’m good wi’ animals, and would not mind lending a hand.”
“We havena spent much time in each other’s company because we’ve nothing in common.”
“Aye, ‘tis true. But that can be remedied, no?”
She considered his offer, her lips twisting up at the corner in a long-suffering—and rather endearing—grimace.
“Oh, go on, then,” she allowed.
Within the hour they were mounted and on their way south through the swelling hills and valleys of Kildrummond.
Moira did not say much on the journey, and in the silence, Lachlan allowed his mind to wander.
He wondered how things were going back at Slains. He wondered if Lord Erroll had made a decision yet on whether or not he would stand with the Earl of Douglas against the king. Word in the Highlands had it that the move against the Crown by the notorious Douglas chief was imminent.
He shuddered to think what the impact would be upon the more isolated, less involved branches of Clan Douglas that wished only to be left alone.
Such gloom-and-doom thoughts. They gave him the chills. Lachlan forced his attention to other matters...
Like the difference between his and Moira’s mounts. Yes, that was another matter he could distract himself with nicely.
His bay gelding was one of the handsomest he’d ever seen (and he wasn’t just saying it because it was his). At fifteen handbreadth to the withers, the bay was on the larger side of horse. He would have made a great destrier, but early on in his life, before Lachlan had acquired him, someone had decided to remove the necessary male bit that gave the destrier a suitable temperament for war.
As a consequence, his gelding was gentle. Author
itative, tall and beautiful, he was a good warhorse because he was as loyal to his master as Lachlan was to him. He trusted his master to bring them both through battle—and was prepared to die alongside his master if it came to that.
As loyal and handsome a beast as ever there’d been.
Moira’s beast, on the other hand...
“What d’ye call that thing?” he jested, reaching out to flip a lock of the mare’s tattered mane.
She levelled a stern look on him and guided her mount away. “Her name is Beauty.”
‘Oh aye? Were ye having a laugh when ye named her?”
“Ye would say that.”
Her accusing tone stung. “Come, now. Ye have to admit the name doesna really suit the animal.”
“The name suits her just fine. She may be no beauty to look at, but she’s a beauty on the inside. A kind, gentle soul she is, and that’s worth more than any beauty the eye can see.”
His amusement faded as his folly became glaringly clear. Lachlan groaned inwardly.
“Ye’re right. A beautiful soul is, indeed, far better than a beautiful face.”
She ignored him, carefully indifferent. Still, he could see how deeply his off-handed words had cut her. He regretted his remark more than he should have.
When they reached her hut, she hopped abruptly from her saddle. She did not wait for him to help her—a deliberate slight. Tying Beauty’s reins to a metal anchor fixed into the stonework, she gave the animal a few strokes and soft words. Beauty responded with a gentle whicker, and nudged her wet nose into Moira’s side.
A gentle soul, indeed. Lachlan felt like an even bigger arse.
He hopped from his own horse and tethered him beside Beauty.
The poignant thought came to him then: they were both so much like their mounts, he and Moira. Lachlan, like his horse, was overtly handsome. He’d known it all his life. He’d taken it for granted all his life, too. But he was a good person. He cared about others. He was a knight by trade, and fought when he must; when his master told him he must. But he had no real appetite for blood and combat.
Unlike his mount, he had his ballocks still. He chuckled silently, pleased with his own joke.
He didn’t know Moira well enough to say how alike she and Beauty were, though he suspected it was a great deal. Outwardly, the animal’s scar was a distraction, her tattered mane and patchy coat ugly. Many people would not bother to see past these defects in appearance to see the soul beneath it.
It was the same with Moira... though the word defect was rather harsh. She was skinny. Too skinny for a female. She had no curves, no soft pillows to her. The stark outline of her body would put many men off; they were unlikely to look past it to see her marginally pretty face—alright, perhaps it was a tad more than marginally pretty. She had not the unearthly beauty of Lady Glinis, but her luminous eyes, and her rich tumble of hair were quite attractive.
And if word in the village was correct, she was a kind, gentle person on the inside, too... when she chose to be. If he could just get past whatever wall she’d put up against him. If he could only discover why she was so determined to be contrary with him.
Mulling these thoughts over, he followed her into the darkened hut.
The place was bare, but tidy. A half-finished tapestry was draped over a wooden stand, its ends hanging less than an ell off the dirt floor. The fireplace was cold and empty, but it had been swept clean. And the scent of fresh hay filled the place, giving it a warm, inviting feel which most village homes had.
It was obvious she loved her home; cared for it and took pride in it. His admiration for Lady Moira MacInnes grew.
“Oh, see now,” she tisked, dragging her toe across the hearth through a trace scattering of ashes. “See now, I kent I should have been by earlier.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s only gone and let the sheep wander around the place. Can ye no’ see the hoof marks in the ash here?”
Lachlan edged closer and inspected the floor where she pointed. Indeed there was a hoof mark or two. Barely visible.
“And this is yer Niall MacCormack ye’re talking about?”
“Och, I kent I couldna trust him, I kent it!”
Surprised by what he judged an overreaction, he rubbed her arm. “Calm yerself. There’s no reason to be so upset, no harm’s been done.”
“But there could have been.” She wrenched her arm from his touch. “They could have chewed my tapestry. They could have gotten into my pantry. They... they could have—”
“Moira, it isna something to get worked up over.”
He reached for her again. Again she pulled back.
“Nay, dinna touch me. I kent I shouldna have left. I canna be away from my home. I need to be home!”
“Glendalough is yer home now.”
“Glendalough is no’ my home,” she shouted. “It shall never be my home wi’ that Glinis hating me at every turn. Wi’ those despicable nobles whispering about me behind my back and even to my face. D’ye ken the things they say to my face?”
“Well, perhaps a little, but—”
“And ye,” she spat, jabbing her forefinger at him. “Ye make it all worse, what wi’ yer shameless flirting!”
“Flirting?” He stared at her, aghast. Was that what this was all about? “Ye’re no’ jealous, are ye? We agreed this wasna a real marriage.”
“Jealous? Jealous? Dinna flatter yerself.” She threw him a look of such undisguised contempt that he felt immediately foolish. “Jealousy has nothing to do wi’ it. How d’ye think it makes me look when everyone at the castle sees ye being such a flirt? They dinna ken we’re no’ really married. All they see is a marriage that neither of us wants, a match that isna well suited, and a bridegroom who finds the female servants far more interesting than his own wife!”
Her accusations thus hurled, Moira MacInnes did something that Lachlan never imagined he’d see from her...
She cried.
Right in front of him. The last of her shattered control fell away, and she buried her face in her hands and cried.
Lachlan felt like he’d been hit by a battering ram.
She was right. Of course she was right. On some level he’d known that life in the castle was not comfortable for her. But he’d never given much thought to just how poorly she was treated by those above her station.
Thinking back, he recalled several instances where he had witnessed their derisive glances, overheard their snide remarks. At the time, he hadn’t paid much attention. It wasn’t because he didn’t care. Not at all. It was because he thought of Moira as a strong, self-assured woman who did not let such insults affect her.
But it was clear she’d been hurt by every one of them. And by the countless others he’d not been around to see and hear.
And he, Lachlan Ramsay, Viscount Strathcairn, had only gone and added more fuel to the fire by flirting—no, shamelessly flirting, the insensitive arsebugger that he was—with all the lovely young lasses.
As if being the bastard child of Lord Kildrummond was not enough of a reason for those high-and-mighty nobles to ridicule her, he had to go and give them another one.
The thing was, though, his wandering eye was innocently meant. He was a man; he flirted. To flirt was as natural to Lachlan Ramsay as the rising sun was to the morning. He had never, not once, thought about how his actions would be perceived now that he was a married man... more or less.
He should have thought about it.
He’d never felt so ashamed in his life.
“Moira,” he pleaded achingly, and pulled her into his arms.
“Let me go.” She shoved against him with little success. “I dinna need yer pity.”
“Please, lass, dinna fight me. Let me apologize. I am very much in the wrong. I never meant to humiliate ye, but I see that’s exactly what I’ve done. Words canna tell ye how sorry I am, and I promise: there will be no more of it.”
She was silent for a while, staring blankly at the red and black l
ines on the plaid over his chest. She held herself rigid, straining away from him in symbolic defiance, but she did not pull out of his arms.
“I want to come home,” she said eventually, her voice so low that he could scarcely hear her.
Lachlan glanced about the hut. He pondered the word home; he’d never had one like this before. With his father commissioned at Slains, he’d lived in a castle all his life. Yet it had never been a home in the same way that Moira’s simple hut was home to her.
This place was no more than a peasant’s dwelling. But it was loved. Meagrely furnished, yet every piece of worn furnishing was cared for. The pantry was tidy, the dirt floor swept and tamped, and the rushes clean.
In a way that he didn’t understand—and didn’t particularly want to understand—he desired to know what having a home like this would feel like. To know what the word home meant to the heart.
“Alright,” he heard himself say. “We’ll leave the castle and stay here.”
Moira’s head snapped up. “I beg yer pardon?”
“We’ll live here while we’re waiting for all this business to be over.”
“What—just like that? We’ll pick up and leave?”
“Aye.”
“But... but what will his Lordship say?”
“It matters not. I am lord of my own viscountcy; I dinna need his approval. And ye are now my wife—in name at least. So if ye want to, we’ll live here.”
She stared at him, awestruck. “Aye. I do want to.”
“Well then, that’s settled. Although I do have two conditions.”
“Which are... ?”
Her wary gaze warmed him. A genuine, effortless warmth which lasses in general rarely brought out in him.
“The first,” he said, “is that we must spend our days at Glendalough. I have business at the castle, after all. If the estate is to be mine, I must learn how to run it. Ye need no’ make yer presence known there; ye can hide away in the solar, if ye wish. Or ye can bring yer Niall along to entertain ye.”
“Why must I go at all?”
Lachlan frowned. “Well, I suppose ye dinna need to. Though d’ye no’ wish to see yer father from time to time?”
A Noble Deception (The Douglas Clan) Page 11