by Julia London
Mared snorted. “Aye, that’s a man, expecting so much,” she said. “And it’s just like a Douglas to expect a Lockhart to do his bidding!”
“It should be the pleasure of the Lockharts to do my bidding when the Lockharts owe me three thousand pounds with interest!”
He walked to where she stood, pushed her hand aside and reached in, gathering the three bluish neckcloths in his big hand, and held them up to her. “Mo chreach, what have I done to deserve such torture?”
“I beg yer pardon, but what have I done?” Mared responded and handed him a perfectly white neckcloth.
Payton shoved the three blue neckcloths at her. “Ye’ve added another day to yer employment, that’s what ye’ve done, for I shall need to replace these. Are ye pleased, then?” He pushed them against her chest.
With an indignant sniff, Mared took the blue neckcloths from his hand and dropped them carelessly in the drawer.
Payton’s gaze locked on hers…long enough for it to resonate throughout her entire body. But then he abruptly looked away, stalked to the bed, and tossed the white neckcloth down with his coat and waistcoat.
Diah, but he looked so regal and masculine, and his courtly appearance was stirring something inside her. She foolishly thought of the day on the bank of the pool and imagined him touching her like that again…and touching him.
As he pulled the cuffs of his shirt to straighten them, Payton glanced up and nodded at a lacquered box on the bureau. “Ye’ve had no reason to destroy my gold crest, I should hope.”
Mared shook her head to clear it. “No’ as yet,” she said and turned around before Payton could see the heat he generated in her.
She lifted the lid of the box; within were several jeweled pieces. She picked up the Douglas crest pin. “There ye are,” she said cheerfully. “Unscathed and unimaginative.”
“Hardly surprising ye’d take issue with the Douglas crest after ye’ve taken issue with all that I am.”
She detected a slight note of bitterness and wasn’t entirely certain how to take that. “No’ all that ye are,” she muttered, laying the pin on his neckcloth.
He looked at her again, but this time, she saw the old, familiar twinkle of amusement in his gray eyes. He picked up his neckcloth. “I must insist that ye no’ destroy my clothing, Mared. Furthermore, donna tie neckcloths on cows and dogs. Conduct yerself as a housekeeper. Launder properly, clean properly, and donna lie about and watch others do yer work, aye? If ye do so, we’ll pass this year quickly enough.”
Mared sighed.
“Mared?” he asked, glancing at her from the corner of his eye as he attempted to tie his neckcloth.
“Aye, I understand that ye would have me do yer woman’s work. I understand that ye want me to clean and tend any bairns that might crop up and weed the gardens and feed the sick and prepare food and clothing and beds.”
“Aha,” he said, smiling a little. “I believe ye’ve got it.” He stood back, frowned at the tails of the neckcloth in his mirror, then unwound it again.
“And while I, the woman who is enslaved in this household, toil away at all the important tasks, pray tell what will be left to the mighty laird to do?”
He actually laughed a little as he began to wind the neckcloth again. “It is my solemn task to provide and protect our hearth and home,” he said, peering closely at his reflection in the mirror and his neckcloth, as the ends had come out uneven once more. He untied it.
“Ah, of course,” Mared said politely. “A man must be at liberty to sit about in his study, surrounded by servants and whiskey, and think of nothing but protecting his hearth and home!”
“Bravo, lass. Ye seem to grasp the basic tenets of how a man shall occupy his time.”
“Frankly, I’m a wee bit surprised that ye’ve managed to define the fairer sex as completely as ye have, seeing as how ye live without one.”
“Oh, I’ve no’ defined the fairer sex in her entirety,” he said with a hint of a smile. “There is at least one more function for which a woman is infinitely handy to have about. Lend a hand, will ye?” he asked, turning to her.
Mared sighed impatiently.
“This falls well within the bounds of tending to my clothing,” he said, sauntering toward her.
“Perhaps, but I should think a man of yer considerable stature would be capable of tying his own neckcloth. If ye learn to do it, we might count ye as handy to have about, too.”
He stopped before her, smiled down at her, and said quietly, seductively, “Go on, then, lass…lend a hand.”
She reluctantly took the neckcloth he held out to her and stood on her tiptoes, draped it around his neck, then measured the ends against one another, blatantly ignoring his dark smile and the way his gaze roamed her face, or the surge of energy that seemed to flow between them, much as it had that day at the pool.
“By the by, lest ye doubt it,” he said quietly as she began to wrap the cloth, “I assure ye that I am handy to have about for more than one task.”
She knew very well that was true, and the memory made heat rise rapidly to her face. “Aye. Someone must do the ordering about,” she quipped, her eyes steady on his neckcloth.
“No,” he said, his gaze on hers. “That’s no’ what I meant at all, and ye know it. Frankly, I think it rather a pity that ye shall never know how handy I am.”
She wanted desperately to press a cool cloth to her face. She squinted at his neckcloth. “Ye must think me naïve,” she said flatly, pleased that she was able to speak at all with her heart fluttering so helplessly in her chest.
“Naïve? Absolutely,” he said with a lopsided grin. “Clever? Even more so.”
She couldn’t help her smile in return. “I am indeed clever, for at least I know how to tie a neckcloth,” she said and gave it a firm yank.
“Ow,” he choked, and with a slight grimace, he reached up, wrapped his thick fingers around her wrist. “It need no’ be so bloody tight—”
“No?”
“No!”
She loosened it. “There now,” she said, smiling happily.
He grinned at her impudence, provoking flutters of her heart and little waves of pleasurable anticipation. His hand was still on her wrist, and he casually slid his fingers around, caressing her skin. “If only ye were as tender with the laundry as ye are with the tying of my neckcloth,” he murmured.
“If only,” she said, matching his smile with a coy one of her own. “Will ye have me pin the cloth, milord? Or do ye intend to hold my wrist all night?”
He chuckled and casually caressed her wrist. “Killjoy.”
Her gaze fell to his lips. “Scoundrel,” she murmured, one brow rising above the other.
“Impertinent,” he uttered, leaning down, so close that she had only to move slightly to kiss him. An inch, maybe less, and her lips would touch his. He was challenging her, she realized, forcing her to take the initiative if she wanted a kiss.
She wanted to kiss him. She honestly, desperately wanted to, but she’d learned a very valuable lesson at the pool. She was here because he had forced her to be here. Not at Talla Dileas. Not in Edinburgh, where she so wanted to be. “Enslaved,” she whispered and pulled her hand free before she did anything as foolish as kiss him. But she couldn’t help smiling as she picked up the crest and pinned it expertly on the knot of his neckcloth.
Payton felt the neckcloth. “Aye,” he said, nodding his approval. “Well done.” He gave her a smile that absolutely curled her toes as he picked up his waistcoat and slipped into it, buttoning it quickly. Then he donned the evening coat.
He looked splendid. He’d make Beitris delirious with joy, she thought morosely. But the image of him with Beitris did not mix with the warmth he had created in her, and she felt suddenly out of sorts. Inexplicably angry. She didn’t want to feel this warmth for him.
“Is there more ye want from me, then?” she asked impatiently.
Payton turned and looked at her with surprise, and Mared felt something slith
er between them, a thought, perhaps, a hope…something so hot and hard that it intimidated her, and she unthinkingly stepped back.
His gaze went from warm to confused. “No,” he said quietly, shifting his gaze away. “Ye may leave.”
She quickly walked to the door and exited his room before that thing between them could slither around her conscience and squeeze all good sense from her.
Fourteen
M rs. Mackerell had outdone herself—turtle soup, sweetbread au jus, cullen skink, a stew make of haddock, and asparagus in a lemon cream sauce were served to Payton’s supper companions, which included the lively Glaswegian guests of Payton’s neighbor, Mr. Sorley, and Miss Crowley and her parents. The former, Payton had invited because he needed Sorley’s agreement to siphon water from a particular stream running down Ben Cluaran for his distillery.
Miss Crowley and her parents had been invited, truthfully, to annoy Mared, for he harbored no desire to court Miss Crowley, and she had no desire to be courted. She’d confessed to him, on one of their walkabouts of Aberfoyle, that her heart was rather firmly set on the smithy’s son. She indicated there was some resistance to the match from her father, who, Payton surmised, preferred his educated daughter marry someone with greater fortune than a blacksmith’s apprentice—him, to be precise.
The Sorley party, surprisingly, was made up of several young unmarried women—Sorley’s sister and her husband and their daughter had come, as well as Sorley’s niece, whose four dearest and closest friends had tagged along. Undoubtedly because Sorley’s two nephews were also present.
The young women were absolutely giddy to be at Eilean Ros, but the nephews seemed bored. They were young yet—Payton rather imagined that they’d find nothing less agreeable to them than a supper in the country. Alas, none of the attractions of town life were to be had as far away as Eilean Ros.
The young Sorley party was rather unruly, and Payton wondered if the loud and lively conversation was the way of society in Glasgow and Edinburgh these days. When he was a young man, he’d spent quite a lot of time in Edinburgh. But when his father died, he’d been needed here, and now his trips were infrequent—only once or twice a year, it seemed, to call on bankers and to procure provisions they could not obtain in Aberfoyle.
The Sorley party reminded him of many people he’d met among the so-called high society of Edinburgh. For all their finery, they could be as shallow and loud as the eight young people here tonight, convinced of their own self-worth and piteously lacking in regard for others less fortunate than they.
As if to prove it, the Glaswegians argued about the increasing industrialization of Glasgow, which the two young gentlemen insisted was necessary for progress, and the women insisted was turning Glasgow into a town of tenements. From what Payton could make of the conversation, the young ladies’ objection to the tenement buildings that were springing up across Glasgow was that they were not aesthetically pleasing.
“Ye can’t mean ye dislike the poor, Miss Alyshire,” one of the nephews teased one of the lassies. “Have ye forgotten yer charity, then?”
“Not in the least,” she said imperiously. “But with all the poor flocking in, they shall turn our Glasgow into a Londontown.”
“Then where,” Payton asked quietly, “would ye suggest they go, those who canna make a living off the land any longer?”
“However should I know?” Miss Alyshire had asked, wide-eyed. “I suppose other towns and villages in Scotland.”
Payton smiled thinly and turned his attention to the haddock on his plate, which, he mused, might be capable of more intelligent conversation than Miss Alyshire.
After supper, Payton invited the ladies to enjoy wine in the green salon while he and the men partook of the American cigars Payton had ordered from Miss Alyshire’s overly poor town of Glasgow. And while the two young nephews smoked the American cigars, they boasted to their uncle and their host that they had indulged in cigars of higher quality when recently in France.
The boasting continued when the gentlemen rejoined the ladies—the nephews were keen to impart that they had sampled the best of all dessert wines while in Paris, too, and implied, of course, that Payton’s French offering was not the best.
Payton was appalled by their rudeness, but more by their apparent oblivion to it.
One look at Miss Crowley and he could see that she was not enjoying the evening, either. The young ladies from Glasgow had made no attempts to include her, and had, he thought irritably, rebuffed Miss Crowley’s polite efforts to engage them in conversation. They were much more interested in arguing uselessly with the two pompous, arrogant young men.
In the middle of one young man’s tale of how many francs he’d won at a French gaming hall, Payton abruptly stood and walked across the room to sit with Miss Crowley.
She smiled gratefully as he took a seat next to her. “How do ye fare this evening, Miss Crowley?”
“Very well, milord. Please accept my compliments on the supper. It was excellent.”
“I’m glad ye enjoyed it,” he said with a tight smile. “But I must beg yer pardon for the company. ’Tis rather boorish.”
“Oh no, no’ at all!” she politely disagreed, but it was clear by the look in her eye that she did indeed agree with him.
Payton smiled, and so did Miss Crowley, and he thought the smithy’s son was a lucky lad. “And do ye bring any news of Mr. Abernathy?” he asked in a whisper.
Miss Crowley instantly blushed and stole a sideways glimpse of her parents.
“I take it he’s no’ as yet spoken to yer father?”
Miss Crowley’s smile instantly faded. “No. And I daresay he never shall.”
“No? He’d be a fool no’ to do so.”
Miss Crowley suddenly twisted in her seat and looked earnestly at Payton. “Because he doesna believe he has the proper pedigree or occupation! He swears he esteems me, but that he shall no’ offer until he has a venue of his own at the very least. But he’ll no’ have that for several more years, no’ until Mr. Abernathy is prepared to put away his anvil!”
“Ah,” Payton said, uncertain what to say to her sudden entreaty.
She groaned and shifted forward again, her hands clasped tightly on her lap. “Oh, I do so beg yer pardon, milord! I shouldna burden ye with such silly affairs of the heart!”
“Affairs of the heart are never silly, Miss Crowley. True happiness is important to one’s physical health and should no’ be treated lightly.”
“Do ye really believe so?” she asked hopefully.
More than he could ever hope to convey. He nodded.
“My very thoughts, milord,” she said weakly, sobering again. “At least I try to believe it. I shall never understand why my troublesome heart should attach itself so intractably to the one person who canna seem to find his way to me!”
Her sentiments struck a chord; Payton looked to the windows for a moment, swallowing hard before turning back to her. Miss Crowley’s head was bowed; she was looking at her clasped hands, and a single tear was sliding helplessly down her cheek.
Payton instantly reached for a kerchief in his pocket. “There now, Miss Crowley,” he whispered, pressing it into her hand. “We canna have this, aye? I’ll fetch ye a wee tot of whiskey—that shall make ye feel better.”
She nodded and daintily dabbed the kerchief to her eye.
Payton stood up, looked around for Beckwith, but he was busily attending the Glaswegian women, who demanded quite a lot of attention. That was just as well—he’d fetch the whiskey. He could use the fresh air.
Payton slipped out the opposite end of the salon, walked to his study and helped himself to a healthy tot of the Eilean Ros barley-bree he hoped to manufacture. He then picked up the decanter and two clean tots in one hand and retraced his steps. As he neared the dining room, he noticed the door was open, and he heard two voices—one male, one female—and the female sounded quite familiar.
His step slowed as he neared the open door. He could hear Mar
ed’s labored breathing, which he thought odd, and realized that she was standing just inside.
“Ach, lass!”
Payton instantly recognized Jamie MacGrudy’s voice and stopped cold. “I want only a kiss, just a simple wee kiss from yer accursed lips.”
“Do ye no’ fear for yer life?” Mared asked breathlessly. “Have ye no’ heard the tales, then? I shall curse ye as well!”
“What shall ye do, make me into a toad?”
“That would be the kindest thing I might do! Be gone with ye now, Jamie!”
“Ach, Mared…surely ye know by now I donna fear a’ diabhal, and I donna fear ye. Stop resisting, lass! Stop, now! I mean only to kiss ye!”
Payton abruptly strode through the open door. Jamie had Mared penned against the wall, one hand on the side of her slender neck. Mared’s hands were between them; she was struggling to push him away.
Payton grabbed Jamie by the collar before the man saw him and shoved him up against the wall. Jamie stumbled, then quickly straightened, and glanced guiltily at Mared, then at Payton. “Beg yer pardon, milord. Miss Lockhart and I were just having a wee spot of fun.”
Payton looked at Mared; she was staring at her feet, her hands clasped so tightly before her that her knuckles were white, her chest rising with her breath. But it was the red mark on the side of her neck that caused Payton’s pulse to spike.
He shifted a cold gaze to Jamie. “Gather yer belongings,” he said quietly. “Ye have a quarter of an hour to collect them and be gone from Eilean Ros.”
The color bled from Jamie’s face. “Beg yer pardon, milord—be gone?” He laughed nervously. “Milord, it was just a bit of fun, aye? Tell him, Miss Lockhart. Tell him it was a wee bit of fun!”
“Shut yer bloody gob,” Payton said sharply. “Go on with ye now—gather yer things and get out!”
“Milord, please donna do this,” Jamie begged. “I’ve been in yer employ for eight years. Where shall I go?”
“I shouldna care if ye go to hell, McGrudy. But ye will leave this estate at once and never set foot on it again, and if ye donna go now, I shall cart yer dead carcass out myself.”