Lily picked up the pile of underthings. “As I was growing up, we were constantly on the move, rarely staying in one place for long. My parents were field workers; when the work was done, we left. The roads were dusty and dirty, and by the end of a single day, we were all filthy. So we washed. Often. We bathed upriver from where the underwear was washed.”
“Why?” asked Isobel, remembering her first glimpse of Lily.
“Because it covered the dirty part of our bodies,” she answered, as if that would make perfect sense to Isobel. Then she gave Isobel a mystified look. “I suppose ’tis different when you stay in one place all the time, ye don’t get as dirty, but still, I will never be able to wash all of my clothing in the same tub.” She nodded at the clothing she had picked up. “Here, let me take them downstairs. I have some work to do in the great room. I can get these untangled and folded and put away.”
Relieved, Isobel stretched her back and yawned. She had been up since four in the morning, fussing and stewing about things over which she had no control. And she’d been in the garden today and felt grimy. Earlier she’d asked Henry to bring up some hot water so she could bathe; she hoped she didn’t fall asleep in the tub.
After tossing her clothes onto a chair by the door and pinning her hair high on top of her head, Isobel stepped into the tub and audibly sighed as she sank into the now lukewarm, sudsy water. She must have drifted off, because she was awakened by the sound of her name being shouted in the hallway. Before she had a chance to react, Duncan MacNeil, the lord from hell, barged into her private bath. And stood there. And stared. She sank deeper into the water, hoping to salvage some of her dignity. “Get out of here, ye big ass!” Heat raced through her; she flushed red all over.
• • •
Duncan was rooted to the floor; his feet wouldn’t listen to his brain telling them to move. Isobel was exquisite. Heat from the water had curled her tendrils even tighter around her face, and her cheeks, neck, and chest, were pink and glowing.
“Get out!”
Finally he shook himself. “Well, now that I have you defenseless, I want some answers.” He continued to gaze at her chest, now and then seeing a perky pink nipple pop through the suds.
“Didn’t you hear me? You shouldn’t be in here, by all that’s holy,” she huffed, her arms crossed over her chest, hiding anything he might wish to see. “Please leave…Your Lordship.”
He ignored her. “When in the hell were you going to tell me we have a son?”
She gasped, seeming prepared to sit up but remembering where she was. Her chest heaved. “We don’t have a son,” she said, her voice rigid. “I have a son.”
He smirked at her. “It takes two, I believe.”
“Ocht, yes. I forgot your part; seduction and deflower; sweet talk and retreat. The perfect romance.” Her voice was filled with scorn.
Duncan cringed. “I admit to being a jackass, all right? I admit I was a wild kid who had no boundaries. I took what I wanted when I wanted it. I admit what I did to you was wrong, but if I had known—”
“Ye would have stayed to make an honest woman of me?” she interrupted, her face a mask of mock anticipation.
Duncan had the decency to look away. “No. I don’t know. At the very least I would have seen that you were properly taken care of.”
“I was taken care of by my aunt, good and proper, who had birthed babies before I was even born. I was in good hands, thank you very much.” She sank lower into the water, a scowl on her face.
He couldn’t stop the questions that slammed against his brain. “Even if you’d needed money, my family—”
“No,” she interrupted again. “Don’t talk to me about your family. We had already been there. Aunt Paula insisted we face the duke and tell him what happened.”
Duncan couldn’t imagine anyone turning her away. “But it doesn’t make any sense. Did you speak with Rosalyn? My brother?”
Isobel shook her head. “An old man, perhaps a valet or butler. I don’t know. All I know is that we were told the family was on holiday and we weren’t the first to try to extract money from them, and he promptly slammed the door in our faces.”
“But later…” He didn’t even know how to finish.
“Later, when I thought there might be some resemblance to you, I was afraid your family would take him away from me. After all, he was born and lived in a brothel, for God’s sake. The landed gentry on this island could have had him removed from my care. They could have taken him to live at the castle and he would have eventually forgotten me.” She pressed her lips together as though to keep them from trembling. “And if that happened, I couldn’t bear to look at him and not even have him recognize me.” She glanced away, innocently offering Duncan a view of her lovely profile. Her nose was pert and her lips generous. She had a smooth neck, despite the scar, and her shoulders were feminine.
“My family isn’t like that,” he murmured, suddenly aware of her vulnerability.
She swiftly turned her gaze back to his, her eyes glistening with tears. “But how was I to know? My first experience with them was not exactly a positive one.” She began to shiver.
Duncan swore. He reached for a large towel and motioned her out of the tub.
Her teeth chattered; she hugged her chest. “Ye must think I’m crazy.”
“Isobel,” he scolded softly, “please get out of the tub before you catch a chill.”
Resignation showed on her face. “The least you can do is close your eyes.”
He did as he was told and felt her step into the towel, then he wrapped it around her and brought her close to his chest. Surprisingly, she didn’t resist.
“Isobel, Isobel,” he crooned, enjoying the feeling of her body against his. “So the late Mr. Dunbar doesn’t exist.”
“Nae,” she answered. “It always seemed like a reasonable story; only now does it sound ridiculous.”
“I’m glad there was never a husband, Izzy, real or not.” He glanced into the mirror in front of them and looked at her. “You have freckles across your nose. I hadn’t noticed them before.”
“Aye, it was dark, or don’t ye remember?”
“Oh, I remember. I offered you a swig from my flask and you tried bravely to act as if you drank the stuff every day.” He chuckled against her hair, drew in a breath and smelled jasmine. “You sputtered and coughed, but took another sip just to prove you weren’t some innocent virgin, wandering around in the woods alone.”
“Aye,” she said, giving him a small grin in the mirror. “But that’s what I was.”
He ran his fingers over her bare arm, noting with delight that his touch created gooseflesh on her skin. “I discovered that, didn’t I?”
“Aye.” Her voice was almost a whisper. In the mirror, he could see that she’d closed her eyes and that the pulse beat hard against the hollow of her neck.
“We are quite a pair, aren’t we?” His gaze lingered on her face, pink and healthy, her neck, glowing from the bath, her body, naked under the towel. Desire rose inside him. He nuzzled her ear, her soft curls tickling his nose, and without a thought blew gently into her ear.
She suddenly pulled away and grabbed the towel, wrapping it tightly around her. “You still have a way of ruining the mood. Now you can leave, like you did the last time.”
He deserved that. “We haven’t resolved the issue, Isobel. Our son thinks his father is dead. I’m very much alive and I’m not going anywhere.”
She snugged the towel even tighter and gave him an angry glare. “And how do I know that? I don’t even know you. You could try to sweet talk me into sharing the news with my son, and then, fast as you please, leave again and never return. Or worse, take him with you. Do you realize what that would do to all of us?”
Duncan rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll admit my track record isn’t good, Isobel, but I’m not a cad. I have a son, and I want to get to know him. I would like to be a part of his life.”
She frowned and studied him. “Who t
old ye about the boy?”
“I met Hamish on the road; his horse had thrown a shoe.”
“Well, a pox on Hamish! A lot of good it did to tell him to keep his mouth shut.”
Duncan couldn’t stop looking at this Isobel, this partially clothed woman he had deflowered ten years before. She was angry and she was beautiful and once, just once, she had been his. “I’ll be grateful to him for the rest of my life,” he said quietly.
Isobel studied him. “I’m probably a wee bit insane, but I’ll give ye a chance. You’ll have to give me a little time. I can’t just blurt it out.”
“I want to be there when you tell him,” Duncan insisted.
She muttered something and then said, “I should have let Hamish adopt Ian years ago.”
Anger flared in Duncan’s gut. “That is not going to happen. Ever. I don’t care if you marry the gorilla. No one is going to be that boy’s father but me.”
Isobel tilted her head and looked at him, her eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t care if I married Hamish? Because he’s asked me every time he visits and now with your royal approval, I suppose I might as well say yes.”
The thought stung Duncan. He had blurted out the words without thinking. No, he didn’t want her to marry anyone and take Ian away. That left one solution, but he couldn’t quite form the words. “I would imagine that if you haven’t agreed to wed him yet, you won’t. Just…don’t make any hasty decisions.” With that, and against his better judgment, he stormed from the room.
• • •
Isobel sagged into a nearby chair. Blight on Hamish! She should have known he couldn’t keep quiet about such a thing when it had bothered him so as a bairn. But did she really believe he wouldn’t? Did she, somehow, hope he would tell Duncan about Ian?
Lily poked her head around the door. “Are you all right? I just saw His Lordship stomp out of here. I swear there was smoke coming out of his ears.”
Isobel grabbed her robe, slipped into it and tied the sash around her waist. “Hamish told him he is Ian’s da.”
Lily gasped. “And after he vowed he wouldn’t. What happened?”
Isobel sat at her vanity and tried to comb out her hair, noting with some disgust that her hands shook. She tossed the comb on the table. “Truth to tell, I don’t exactly know. By the saints, he’s already taken possession of Ian and the lad still doesn’t know Lord MacNeil is his da.”
“It’s a tangled web, that’s for certain.”
Isobel studied her fair-haired teacher. “Don’t you ever wonder about your life before you were found?”
Lily spoke pensively. “I have, of course. But what good does it do? I was raised by a kind, if unusual family, they cared for me the best they knew how, they fed me and clothed me. Travelers are stern parents, Isobel, although to look at them one wouldn’t think so.”
“Stern? Did they beat you?” Isobel always wondered about the Travelers’ family life, for she had seen many wagons of them come through Sheiling from time to time. The children seemed wild and the men dangerous and the women dark and mysterious.
“Oh, no,” Lily responded. “They didn’t punish that way. But they expected their children to do what they were told. Except for me,” she said with a soft smile. “I was the ugly duckling they plucked from the river. They let me do as I pleased, and oddly, I had this desire to learn and read and my questions were so annoying, sometimes I think they rued they day they saved me.” Her smile remained soft. “I think they were as grateful to be rid of me as I was to go on my own way.”
“You came here from Ayr, didn’t you?”
“Aye, not so far away, but when you’re alone without means of transportation, it might as well be the moon.” The water had drained and Lily wiped down the tub. “After I left my family, I found the position with the elderly rector and his wife, who reveled in teaching me things and answering all my questions.”
“They did a wonderful job. But you called yourself an ugly duckling earlier. You’re hardly that.”
Lily dipped her head. “Perhaps not, but I was the odd one, to be sure. My brother and his friends were dark, their eyes so brown they were nearly black. They preened and pranced around, trying to impress all the girls, even me.” She stopped wiping down the tub for a moment and her eyes misted over. “Except Stefan.”
“Stefan?”
“Stefan was a throwaway child, like I was. I mean, his mum had been taken against her will by some lofty gentry person, and she refused to raise the boy. So, my mum and papa took him in, just like they did me.”
Isobel tilted her head and studied Lily. “You care for him.”
Flustered, Lily quickly finished wiping the tub and folded the towel over the edge. “Nae, it wasn’t like that. Actually, they all frightened me more than anything. My sister, Kizzy, began to fill out into a woman overnight it seemed. She was…very curvy. She wore low-cut blouses to show off her, you know, cleavage. And mind you, it was abundant.” Lily refolded the damp towel and replaced it again. “We weren’t close. Kizzy and her friends were eager to grow up, eager to catch some boy’s eye. They dressed very provocatively, always hoping that the boys would notice them. They thought they were ready to marry the first boy they were attracted to. And they were encouraged by their parents.
“But they knew nothing of marriage. They weren’t even allowed to kiss a boy until he asked her to marry him.” She looked off into the distance. “There was something exotic about my family, and to an outsider I imagine they seemed dangerous, just because of the way they looked.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Before I left, Kizzy was sweet on some fellow. I wonder if she’s married by now. Even though I was raised in the same household, my brain wouldn’t surrender to their ways of thinking.”
“Was Stefan expected to do the same?”
Lily shook her head, her gaze focused once again on something far away. “Nae, Stefan could do anything he pleased,” she answered, her voice soft.
“Do you miss them?”
Lily’s expression became thoughtful. “It’s strange. I never really felt loved. Oh, I was well cared for, but my mum was a bit distant with me as I grew up, like she didn’t know what to do with me. I think we were all content when I decided to leave.”
Just then Fifi bounded into the room, tail wagging, tongue hanging over the side of her teeth. She ran to Lily, who picked her up off the floor. “Have you been in trouble again? Has Delilah chased you from the kitchen? You’re lucky she doesn’t have a cage built for you so she can put you away when you’re a naughty pup.”
“How long have you had Fifi?” Isobel asked.
Lily nuzzled the pup’s furry neck. “I found her when I was living with the rector. I guess I rescued her just like I was rescued, but I couldn’t bear to lose her; she’s become such a treasure to me. I hope Delilah doesn’t truly mind Fifi’s antics.”
“Delilah is a pussy cat in truth and we both know it.” There was clomping on the stairs, and moments later Delilah stormed into the room.
“There’s that rapscallion! Do ye know what she did? Do ye?” Delilah’s fists were on her ample hips and her bounteous bosom moved as she spoke. Her dark eyes blazed.
Lily flinched. “Oh, dear.” She clutched the pup to her and it peered over her shoulder at the Amazon, apparently thankful to be in a safe spot.
“She dug up them newly planted rose bushes we worked so hard on just this morning,” she said. She shook her finger at the dog. “If ye weren’t so bloody scrawny, I’d cook ye up for supper.”
Delilah threw both women glances that were warmer than her words. “I guess I can put a wire fence around the flowers.” With that, she stomped off, but not before Fifi yipped at her.
• • •
Duncan’s ride to the castle was swift. He left his mount at the stable and ran into the building, shoving the door open so hard it banged against the wall, startling Rosalyn, who was placing fresh flowers in a vase on a table by the stairway.
“Duncan? Wh
at’s—”
“Where’s Fletcher?” he interrupted, immediately sorry for being so brusque.
“He’s in the library with Geddes.” Her answer was cautious as she studied him. “What’s wrong?”
He strode to the library door and yanked it open. “Come in here and find out.”
The two men inside glanced up, appearing surprised at the interruption. “Duncan?” Fletcher’s face was guarded. Geddes reacted more slowly, carefully placing some papers back into a file.
Duncan was so upset he hardly knew how to begin. “I have a son.” He nearly choked on the words, not from despair but from disbelief.
Behind him, Rosalyn gasped and before him, both men stood in unison.
“Tell me what’s happened,” Fletcher ordered. “You can’t be sure—”
“Damn it, Fletcher, I’m not a kid any longer. Don’t tell me what I can or cannot be sure of.”
Fletcher appeared at odds. “Well, then, let’s hear it.”
Rosalyn entered behind Duncan and closed the door. She took a seat by the fireplace, her face creased with worry, her hands clasped in her lap.
Duncan paced and began his story. When he had finished, everyone was silent.
Rosalyn spoke first. “We were never notified of such an event,” she recalled, her voice quavering. “I suppose it was Barnaby who took the message…” Her voice trailed off, because even back then Barnaby was a bit addled. “But why didn’t they stop back when they could speak with someone from the family?”
“They were told that they weren’t the first to try to blackmail the family by some means or other. Knowing Isobel as I do now, I imagine both she and her aunt wouldn’t be humiliated twice.”
“But they wouldn’t have been,” Rosalyn urged.
“How would they know that?”
“What do we do now?” Fletcher asked.
“We do nothing,” Duncan answered. “I need to sort this all out myself. Isobel is a very proud woman. If she senses any push from this house, she’s liable to ship the boy off with the fisherman, just to keep him out of my clutches. She’s already threatened to let the giant adopt him.”
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