by Julia London
The man looked wild with shock, his eyes darting to Mared, then Payton, then to Mared again. But as the realization that he was dismissed set in, something ugly passed over his face and he suddenly laughed. “Aye, I see what it is,” he said coldly. “Ye will protect yer whore and send away yer best footman.”
Mared gasped, but Jamie was already moving. He shoved past the dining furniture, knocking into one chair in his haste to quit the room. As he passed Payton, he paused. “Eight years of me life, and this is the gratitude ye show me?” He spat at Payton’s feet.
Payton stoically watched him until he had disappeared in the corridor, then turned around to Mared.
She was standing against the wall, her eyes wide with consternation, her arms folded tightly across her. She withered beneath his scrutiny and drew her lower lip between her teeth as pink patches of shame rose on her cheeks.
Payton strode to her, laid his palm gently against her cheek and brushed her lip with his thumb. “Are ye harmed?”
“No, no. I’m quite all right,” she assured him and glanced up through her lashes, smiling tremulously. “But ye might have allowed the curse to take him.”
He said nothing, but carefully moved her head to one side to have a look at the mark on her neck. It was a small bruise, one that would fade quickly, but it hardly mattered—it made his blood boil with anger, and he thought that if Jamie had the misfortune to still be standing here, he might have killed him with a single mark such as this to the man’s throat.
He moved to touch the bruise, but Mared quickly lifted her hand and covered it. He put his hand to hers, intent on moving it to have a better look, but she leaned away from him. “’Tis trifling,” she said, and slipped to one side, out of his reach, and moved to the dining table.
“Mared…I’m sorry, lass,” he said genuinely and marveled at the burden she bore under the mantel of that curse. “There is much ignorance in this world.”
“Ach, ye need no’ apologize!” She glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled weakly. “I am quite accustomed to it. The disdain, I mean to say. Yet others are no’ usually so bold in their disdain as he.” She turned back to the table. “I’m really quite all right.”
He could only guess how it was to spend her entire life under the veil of that miserable curse; to have every aspect of her life touched by it. But Mared resumed clearing the table, and the sound of laughter from the green salon reminded Payton of his duties as host. “If ye will excuse me, then.” He wanted to say more to her. He wanted to tell her that were she his, she’d never fear that curse again. But he’d said it all before, and more. So Payton walked out of the dining room, his fist clenched with rage.
He did not see Mared again that night, for another argument had erupted among the Glaswegians, and it took the combined efforts of him and the footmen that remained to see them to their carriages for the ride home.
Payton did not see Mared, but when he retired that night, exhausted and out of sorts, he smelled the lilac, her scent. She’d been here. She’d touched his things, had touched his bed. He’d grown used to detecting that scent every night and found he could hardly sleep without it.
Yet he slept badly, for his dreams were familiar—of longing or searching for Mared, of big oaken kegs of Eilean Ros whiskey, of his late father. But mostly, he dreamed of Mared, and when he dreamed about her, they were dreams of frustration, and he thrashed about, until the linens and pillows of his bed were strewn haphazardly about.
He arose early the next morning with the troublesome task of replacing Jamie on his mind. In spite of Jamie’s atrocious lack of judgment, he’d been a good footman, and he would not be easy to replace.
After some discussion, Payton left it in the capable hands of Beckwith for the time being and rode to Aberfoyle, where he was to meet with two men who were interested in investing in his distillery. That was followed by a discreet, but informative call to the smithy’s son.
When Payton returned to Eilean Ros, it was well after dark, and it wasn’t until he’d retired to his suite of rooms and emptied his pockets that he realized he’d forgotten to call on the late Mrs. Craig’s husband.
“Damnation,” he muttered. He hadn’t missed a week since Mrs. Craig had died. He was faithful in his vow to see after the welfare of the elderly Mr. Craig, and his grandson, chubby-cheeked Graham, a lad who’d had the misfortune of losing his mother in childbirth and his grandmother soon after that. His father had long since departed to some foreign port. Payton had promised Mrs. Craig on her deathbed to look after the two of them.
He’d intended to call with a pouch of gold crowns so that Mr. Craig might purchase what dry goods he and young Graham might need before the weather turned to autumn and the rains set in, but his thoughts had been otherwise occupied today. And as he had promised Miss Crowley to attend kirk services with her and her family on the morrow, he’d be riding in the opposite direction of the Craig house.
He’d ask Beckwith to deliver it, then.
But Sunday morning, he could not find Beckwith—he’d left to call on his elderly mother, Charlie said. Payton walked outside to have a look, hoping to catch Beckwith before he departed.
While Beckwith was nowhere to be seen, Mared was there.
Aye, Mared, wearing her old purple gown, her arisaidh wrapped around her shoulders. She was speaking with the two maids, who, Payton noticed, were wearing gowns that had once belonged to his cousin Sarah. Rodina was twirling this way and that, and Una was inspecting the hem of her sleeve.
It was Una who saw him first and dipped a quick curtsey, which prompted Rodina and Mared to turn and have a look.
Rodina curtsied, too, but when Mared turned, she smiled and waved.
“Good morning, ladies.”
“Good morning, milord,” Rodina and Una muttered.
“Good morning, Douglas!” Mared chirped, and the two young women looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “What is it, then? Oh! Ye must think me impertinent,” she said, and with an easy laugh, she shook her head. “I beg yer pardon, but on Sundays I’m no’ in his masterful employ.”
Rodina’s eyes grew wide, and she looked anxiously at Payton. Una was too shocked to peel her gaze from Mared.
“Sundays ye are free to come and go as ye please,” he politely corrected her. “But ye are still very much in my employ, Miss Lockhart.”
“Am I?” she asked cheerfully, and put a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun as she looked up at him. “Then I do beg yer pardon, milord, for I misunderstood completely.”
“I’m scarcely surprised, as ye seem prone to misunderstanding.”
“I prefer to say I am open to differing interpretations,” she cheerfully retorted and bobbed a curtsey at him, all the while looking at him with a devilish spark in her eye.
Rodina and Una gaped at both of them.
Payton shifted his smile to them. “Yer gowns are quite lovely,” he said.
“Thank ye, milord,” Una said. “Miss Lockhart gave them to us.”
“Well…no’ me,” Mared clarified. “The gowns were a gift from Miss Douglas.”
Payton knew better than that. Sarah lumped servants and dogs together in her thinking, and she would not make a gift of her gowns to two lowly housemaids.
“She was very pleased with Rodina and Una’s service. She told me so more than once,” Mared added, looking at him pointedly.
It took him a moment, but when he realized that as it was customary for a lady to pass her gowns to a housekeeper when she had grown tired of them, he assumed Sarah must have given them to Mared. Mared, in turn, had given them to Rodina and Una, extending the thanks that would never come from Sarah.
He glanced at Mared. She cocked her head.
She’d have no argument from him. Rodina and Una were good chambermaids, and they’d both worked hard to keep Eilean Ros in order after Mrs. Craig’s death. He greatly appreciated Mared’s act of kindness, and he smiled at Rodina and Una. “Aye, she said as much to me, as well
. In fact, it was the last thing that she said upon her departure.”
“Oh!” Una said, obviously surprised, and looked at Rodina.
“She did?” Rodina asked with a bit of a squeal.
“She did indeed.” The two women grinned at one another. “If ye ladies would be so kind as to pardon me, I’d have a word with Miss Lockhart.”
“Oh, indeed, milord!” Una said, linking arms with Rodina, and the two housemaids walked away and up the drive, whispering and laughing as they stole a glimpse over their shoulder at Payton.
Mared watched them walk, and when they were out of hearing distance, she smiled slyly at Payton. “Thank ye.”
“It is I who should be thanking ye,” he said. “How very kind of ye to give them those gowns when ye are obviously in need of them yerself.”
She laughed fully. “Honestly, sir, surely ye deduced by now that I’d die before I’d accept charity from a Douglas.”
“On that I may depend as fiercely as the sunrise.”
Mared laughed again and glanced at Rodina and Una walking up the drive. “Will ye attend kirk services today?”
“Aye. In Aberfoyle.”
“Ooh, I see,” she said, giving him a sidelong look.
“Ach, ye donna see at all,” he said with a grin. “And before ye attempt to convince me that ye do, I’d request a favor of ye.”
“A favor of me? I suppose ye wish me to speak with Miss Crowley, then? Attempt to convince her that ye’re no’ as obstinate or hardheaded as she might fear?”
He chuckled. “No, no’ that. I’d ask that ye call on Mr. Craig,” he said, withdrawing the pouch of gold coins from his pocket. “I had meant to come round yesterday, but I was detained in Aberfoyle, and regrettably, I must be to Aberfoyle again today. Might I impose on ye to take this to him on yer way to Talla Dileas?”
“Of course,” she said, and looked curiously at the bag. He took her hand, turned it palm up, and deposited the bag in it. “’Tis coin,” she said uncertainly, feeling the weight of it, and squinted up at him, assessing him with a lopsided smile. “Gambling debt, I’d wager. I’ve always heard a Douglas canna hold as much as a shilling when he gambles.”
“Interesting. I’d always heard the same of the Lockharts.”
“Wicked lies and mean conjecture.” She winked as she slipped the pouch into her pocket.
“Thank ye kindly. Now ye best run along and catch them,” he said, nodding to Rodina and Una. “Ye’d no’ want to startle the poor vicar by stepping into the kirk alone and risk bringing the whole of the heavens down on yer heathen head and his congregation.”
Mared laughed, a gloriously warm laugh. “And ye’d not want to keep Miss Crowley waiting for yer odious company. But before I go,” she said, “I’ll thank ye for coming to my aid last night.”
He considered that progress of a sort, for there had been a time Mared Lockhart would not thank him for anything but perhaps his own death. Impulsively, he touched her hand. “’Twas trifling,” he said, repeating her words. He nodded in the direction of the two chambermaids. “Ye best go, then.”
“I’m going.” And she stepped away, walked down the drive, her step light, her braid bobbing behind her. Payton watched her, ignoring the peculiar ache in his chest, smiling when she paused at the end of the drive and turned around to see him once more.
“Aye, go on, then,” he muttered quietly. “Go now before I fetch ye back to me.”
Fifteen
L iam was waiting for her where the kirk road joined the main one, as he had every Sunday since her enslavement. Mared’s heart filled with joy at the sight of him, and she ran. Liam caught her up in his big arms, holding her tightly to him. “What has kept ye? We expected ye a half hour ago!”
“I stopped to pay a call to Mr. Craig. He’s alone with his grandson now.”
Liam grunted and set her down, held her at arm’s length to peer closely at her. “Has he harmed ye, lass? Has he laid as much as a finger on ye?”
He asked the same questions each week. “No!” At Liam’s skeptical look, she laughed. “I’ve hardly seen him at all, Liam.”
It was a slight alteration of the truth, and still, Liam frowned. “Aye, then what is this mark on yer neck?” he growled.
“A rather unfortunate accident with an apparatus in the washroom,” she said lightly, and reached up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Where is Duncan?” she asked. “I’ve so longed to hold him!”
Liam grinned irrepressibly at the mention of his young son, wrapped his arm around Mared’s shoulder, and together, they walked to where the rest of the Lockharts awaited her in the kirk yard.
It was later that afternoon, at Talla Dileas, that Grif announced they had a new plan to free her. “’Tis rather brilliant, in our estimation,” he said, and the six of them nodded in almost perfect unison.
“Brilliant?” Mared asked, perking up. “What is it, then?”
“We sell acreage to Sorley,” Grif said. “I donna know why we didna think of it before now! Douglas may have refused land in exchange for ye, but Sorley? Aye, he’ll want it, he will. We’ll sell enough to buy ye back.”
“How much?” Mared asked.
Grif blinked. “How much?”
“How much land will ye sell?”
“Ach,” he said, flicking his wrist, “‘No’ so very much.”
“How much?” Mared insisted.
“Thirty acres,” Grif said, his smile fading.
“Thirty!” Mared cried. “Ye’d sell thirty acres of Lockhart land? Ye must no’ do so, Grif! No, no, I’d rather give a year of my life to Douglas than sell as much as an inch of this land!”
Grif exchanged a perplexed look with Carson, who asked, “But ye’d agreed we’d trade the same amount of land for ye to Douglas, did ye no’? ’Tis the same, lass. Sorley or Douglas, it makes no difference.”
Mared tossed her head and looked at a painting of a Lockhart ancestor. “Aye, perhaps I did agree then. But upon further reflection I now believe that one year can be borne with the proper fortitude. And I seem to possess the proper fortitude.”
That opinion was met with perplexed looks all around.
“Tell her of Hugh!” Anna said excitedly.
“’Tis rubbish, Anna, I’ve told ye as much,” Liam said gruffly.
“It may very well be rubbish, but it also may very well be true, Liam. If you won’t tell her, I will,” she said firmly and struggled to her feet—it seemed to Mared that Anna had ballooned overnight. “We’ve heard a rumor that Hugh is in Scotland,” she said, her brown eyes glowing with excitement.
“In Scotland?” Mared echoed skeptically. “What have ye heard?”
“That he has returned from a rather long journey.”
“Aye? And from where has he returned?”
“Oh, we’ve not the slightest idea,” Anna cheerfully responded.
“Aha. And from whom have we heard this?”
“Ben MacCracken,” Anna said, and both Liam and Grif rolled their eyes.
“All right, yes, we heard it from Ben MacCracken, but that does not mean it isn’t true!” she insisted.
Mared smiled at her sister-in-law, but she agreed with her brothers’ skepticism. Ben MacCracken tended to suffer from illusions brought on by far too much barley-bree consumed in the man’s lifetime. He’d most recently vowed he’d supped with bonny Prince Charlie, in spite of that man’s death at least thirty years ago. If old Ben knew anything of Hugh, it was what he’d dreamed after a few drams of his beloved barley-bree.
“Then I’m hopeful,” Mared said to spare Anna’s feelings and took Duncan from Ellie. “But I’ll not allow my hopes to be raised to such heights that they would be dashed to pieces in a fall.”
With a sigh, Anna nodded and fidgeted with her sash. “I know Mr. MacCracken is a bit addled…but it is entirely possible that he heard something about Hugh in a public house,” she muttered.
“Of course it is,” Ellie said soothingly. “And the fact that he
offered to share what he’d heard in exchange for coin should not sway your opinion in the least.”
“Oh please,” Mared said, pausing to kiss Duncan’s chubby cheek. “I donna want to spend our day speaking of Hugh MacAlister! I should much prefer to hear wee Duncan speak. Can ye speak, lad?” she asked, tweaking his cheek.
The baby gurgled and shook his chubby hands in the air, and the Lockharts were suddenly encircling Mared and Duncan, urging him to speak.
Later, during a very lean supper of fish—creamed finnan haddie—the conversation turned to how they might convert an old maid’s chamber adjacent to Anna and Grif’s chambers into a nursery.
Mared smiled and nodded at the conversation, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She thought about the fury she had seen on Payton’s face when Jamie had touched her, the set of his jaw, the murderous look in his eye. She thought about Mr. Craig, who had told her how Payton had devoted himself to Mrs. Craig’s grandson, ensuring that the two of them should never want, and how he called personally at least once a week to see to their welfare.
Mared wasn’t certain any of it was a surprise, but it had cast him in a different light. Alight that was less Douglas…and more that of a man.
When supper was over, and the port was drunk, Mared glanced at the clock on the mantel. “Ach, I suppose I should be getting back,” she said.
“’Tis late, lass. I’ll take ye on the morrow,” Liam said.
“No, I best go tonight, Liam.”
Her family stopped talking all at once and looked closely at her.
Mared colored slightly. “He’ll, ah…he’ll add another day to my enslavement if I’m late,” she quickly explained. “He’s added three as it is.”
“That was no’ our agreement!” Carson said sternly. “What right has he?”
“Ah, well…ahem…there was the broken ewer, I suppose. And the ruined neckcloths,” she said, smiling weakly. “And I think, perhaps, the silver.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed.
“I’ll endeavor to be more careful,” she quickly assured them. “But I best go back now and no’ brook his displeasure.”