by Karen Ranney
“It’s a deserted fortress in the middle of nowhere.”
If she hadn’t been watching him so closely, she wouldn’t have noticed the fact that his features stiffened almost imperceptibly. Had she offended him, or did talking about the castle disturb him in some way?
“What does she say, dear?” her mother said gently, and Elspeth realized that she’d once again been unconsciously rude.
She didn’t feel comfortable reading the letter aloud, but she explained the gist of it. “She says that she cannot leave her patient until he’s well, and that she’s especially disappointed not to be able to meet with you, Mr. Marshall.”
“I do understand,” Mr. Marshall said, nodding and smiling affably. “The well-being of a patient comes before all else, I’m afraid.”
“Is he so very ill?” she asked Captain MacRae, feeling sorry for him to have such a grief to bear.
“I expect his complete recovery any day,” he said, smiling at her.
“Will you be returning to the castle, then?” she asked, holding the letter firmly on her lap so that the vellum did not betray the tremulousness of her fingers. She concentrated her attention on it and not their visitor.
“I had planned on returning to my ship.”
Elspeth felt a tiny pang, too small really to note, in the area of her heart. Even her breath seemed tight, and her chest felt as it had when she was ill last winter of a lingering cold. But she forced her smile to remain as it was, clinging fiercely to her lips. “Then I shall wish you a safe journey. Will you be leaving soon?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
She glanced over at him in surprise, to find him looking at her in an altogether strange way. Never had a man regarded her as intently as this young captain, and with such a somber expression on his face. He was studying her as if she held the answer to his plans.
“Perhaps you can join us for dinner,” her mother said, standing. “In order to welcome Mr. Marshall to our home.”
He replied courteously, the words slipping past Elspeth as if they were simply a faint breeze. She couldn’t stop staring at him, even though she knew that what she was doing was hideously impolite. It seemed, however, as if her heartbeat were tied to his gaze, and the only way to calm it was to keep smiling at Captain MacRae.
She heard her mother saying something, and Jack murmuring a reluctant assent. Perhaps her father conversed with Mr. Marshall, or the maid responded to her mother’s query. The world could have marched into their pleasant and cozy parlor at that moment, and Elspeth wouldn’t have noticed.
Nor, did it seem, would Captain MacRae.
Chapter 13
T wo small candles sat in the center of the kitchen table, illuminating the empty bowls and the loaf of bread. A small bowl of chopped green onion sat next to it. It was a simple meal but a hearty one, reminding Hamish that some of the greatest pleasures of life were uncomplicated and unadorned. Without speaking, Mary ladled the soup from the large pot where it simmered on the fire.
He sat opposite her, and they began to eat. A moment later, he looked over at her and smiled. “It’s the first time I’ve shared a meal with anyone for over a month,” he said.
“You needn’t have been a hermit, you know.”
He only smiled, thinking that if anyone could coax him from his lair, it would be Mary. What had she said when first approaching him? Something about dragon’s toes.
“Shall we adjourn to my chamber, then?” he asked when their meal was finished.
“Wouldn’t it be wiser for us to play here?” She looked around the well-lit room. He knew her thoughts as well as his own. In his tower room, the bed took up most of the space. How could he concentrate on their playing when he had a game of another sort on his mind?
“I won’t touch you until the winner is certain, Mary. You have my word on that.”
She only nodded, once, dependent so easily on his oath that it momentarily disturbed him.
He went to the well, drawing the water for her, and when she washed the dishes, straightened the table and chairs. Turning, he found her looking at him with a smile on her face.
“You’re very appealing, Hamish MacRae,” she said. For a moment they simply looked at each other.
“Is there a reason for your approval?” he asked.
She shook her head, still smiling.
He banked the kitchen fire and waited until she was at the door before extinguishing the lantern and the remainder of the candles. He crossed the courtyard with her hand in his, for all the world as if they were two sweethearts in a darkened garden.
Once in the tower, he followed her upstairs. Twice, she hesitated, no doubt due to her dislike of heights. The second time she did so, he came up beside her, placing his hand on the small of her back, leaning close as if they were two people in a crowded room and his words were directed to her ears alone.
“It’s all right, Mary,” he said. “You’ll not fall. I won’t let you.”
She nodded, accepting his word without reservation once more. She began the ascent again.
“You shouldn’t believe me quite so easily,” he said, hearing the words echo back to him.
She looked surprised, or perhaps it was just the effect of the flickering candle in her hand.
“Is your word not to be trusted, Hamish?”
He smiled, thinking that she was his equal in bluntness. “It’s not my word that concerns me as much as your trust. You grant it too easily.”
Once, he, too, had believed the best of others, but he was no longer the fun-loving and open-to-adventure man with a ready smile.
She reached the landing and turned and looked at him, her eyes serious over the candle flame. “Should I not believe you, Hamish?”
He should tell her that he wasn’t a man she should depend upon, that others had done so and they’d died. But he didn’t, because saying the words would darken the look of expectation in her eyes and make her turn away. He wanted her hunger and her passion, needing them more than any softer emotions.
He led her inside his room, closing the door firmly behind them. Pulling up the chair, he stood behind her as she sat. He let his hand trail over her shoulder before loosening the end of her braid and watching as it fell down her back.
“I like your hair free,” he said, pulling the pins loose. Her hands reached up to catch them, but she was too late. They’d already fallen to the floor in a shower of gold.
She looked abandoned and flushed, and they’d not yet begun to play.
Reaching out, he touched her cheek.
“Did you blush as much before you met me?” he asked. “If so, it must be a detriment to your healing career. Or did the citizens of Inverness call you Angel simply because you were so innocent?”
“I’m neither innocent nor maiden,” she said. “You ought to know that better than anyone.”
He knew only too well. Having lain with her twice, he was also disturbingly aware that it wouldn’t be enough. He wanted her in the morning and in the evening, and perhaps instead of their noon meal as well.
“But no,” she said, “I’m not known to blush.”
Hamish didn’t tell her that more than once he’d seen her cheek pinken, or her gaze fall to the floor is if she were afraid to reveal the look in her eyes.
He lit more candles, being improvident with the supply that Brendan had brought from Inverness. One day, he would need to replenish his store of provisions, but that time seemed too far away to matter to him now.
Mary said nothing as he rounded the table and sat opposite her, in a pose similar to the one they’d had as genial dinner companions. Here, in his tower room, the atmosphere was more charged. Even the air felt thicker. The wind was coming out of the north, and the room was a little chilled since he’d not yet lit the brazier. But he didn’t move to do so, thinking that their heat would warm them.
Suddenly, he didn’t want to play games with her, not with words and certainly not shatranj.
“Must we play?�
�� he asked, feeling on the knife’s edge of desperation, an abrupt and uncomfortable feeling.
She looked up from where she was arranging her pieces on the board and smiled softly, a teasing, almost haunting expression. “Yes, we must. Unless you’re willing to concede to me.”
“Then I concede.”
She sat back in the chair and surveyed him. “That easily?”
“Some things are worth fighting for. Some aren’t.”
She played with the elephant piece, her fingers stroking it from tusk to tail in one tender movement of her finger. He would have preferred her hand on him instead.
Her cheeks were blossoming with color, but he didn’t tease her about it. Instead, he reached out his hand and covered her wrist, feeling the pulse beat fast and heavy.
“I know how fleeting time is, Mary, and how fragile our own little worlds. Why should I waste time in pretense?”
She looked at him, that singular directness of her gaze that always surprised him. “We haven’t, have we? We’ve both stated what we wanted in clear terms.”
“Have you been unsatisfied with the bargain?”
She shook her head, stared down at the board. “We’ve been selfish, though, haven’t we?”
“There are worse things, Mary,” he said, his voice more grating than he wished.
“You act as if people each live in separate worlds, Hamish. That none of us ever touch another’s life.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“It would be lonely, wouldn’t it? In that sort of world, there’d be no understanding, no kindness. No communion between people. We would all be independent, and alone.”
He was unaccountably irritated with her. Standing, he walked to the window and opened the shutters wide, uncaring that he invited winter into the room. He turned his head and saw her rubbing her hands over her arms to warm herself.
“There are worse things than being alone,” he said.
“You don’t believe that. If you did, I wouldn’t be here now.”
“It’s not for the state of my soul that you’re here,” he said, the words sounding base and crude.
She only smiled in response and stood, coming to his side.
“You’ve said that before. Once more, and I will begin to believe that you’re trying to convince yourself more than me.”
“You would have me be someone I’m not, Mary.”
“While you would have me believe you’re someone I doubt you are,” she argued.
“Who do you think I am?” A question he probably should not have asked, but she stirred his curiosity.
“A man struggling to find his way,” she said, startling him with her words. “Someone who’s basically decent, but who doubts even that about himself. Someone who’s trying to accept a horrible time in his life, to put it behind him, and go on.”
“Is that who I am?” He didn’t refute her words. He wasn’t the tortured knight she portrayed him to be. But he didn’t tell her the truth, even though the moment shouted for it.
Who was he? A man who asked himself eternal questions, none of which he could answer. Could he have done more? Could he have done something differently?
His hermitage had accomplished what companionship could not, allowing him to focus on the reality of what had happened and not allowing him to avoid or ignore it. Eventually, he’d come to accept the act he’d committed. Perhaps the one person he truly didn’t trust was himself, an alarming realization to have at this moment.
“A man is not solely defined by his thoughts of himself,” Mary said gently. “Other people help to flesh him out as well. A loved one, parents, siblings, and friends. You might have lost your sense of self, for however long you were a prisoner, but you were never truly alone. There were people who loved you even when they thought you dead.”
“My father had a saying,” he said, wondering why this particular errant memory had been buried until now. “He said that if you would truly know a man, talk to his friends.”
She smiled at him almost approvingly. So much so that he almost hated to say the words that would dispel the myth she’d created about him.
“My family and my friends knew the man I was, Mary. Not the man I am now.”
“Are they so different?”
As much as night was from day. He reached out and pulled her to him. To warm her, he told himself, but that would have been more easily accomplished by closing the window. To silence her, then. He wanted her passion, not her prose. Not her wickedly incisive way of pushing him to the brink of honesty.
“How long were you a prisoner?”
“Thirteen months.” Seventeen days, four hours. He knew the time well.
“Can’t you forgive yourself for having been captured?”
He pulled back and looked at her. Her eyes were swimming with compassion, a look that made him want to shield her eyes, cover them with his hand. Her tenderness was almost his undoing. But she wasn’t done yet.
“I don’t think it would be an easy thing for you to be prisoner. I don’t doubt that you railed against it every day until your body simply gave out.”
“Don’t ascribe to me actions of a hero, Mary. I did what I had to do in order to survive.” There, as close to the truth as he would come.
“You remind me of my husband’s apprentice,” she said surprisingly.
He turned, closing the window while keeping his back to her. It was the last thing he’d expected her to say. “Why?”
“Charles would always look at one of Gordon’s chalices, something he’d worked on for months, and then place his own work beside it. He never noticed his own ability to fashion flowers and fruits so beautifully they looked real. He only saw that Gordon was so much better than he at carving rampant lions and doing delicate scrollwork. A man should not measure himself against other people’s strengths without knowing his own.”
He turned and faced her again, unwittingly amused. He didn’t measure himself against others, but against himself. What he thought was right counted for more than a stranger’s beliefs. That’s why he’d had so much difficulty accepting what he’d done. He’d violated his own ethics.
“What do you think my strengths might be, Mary?”
“Your endurance,” she said unhesitatingly. “Your ability to survive what would have killed a lesser man. Your capacity to simply be patient and wait for the propitious moment to escape. I’ve no doubt that you were planning it all along.”
He nodded slowly, wondering how she knew. Walking back to the table, he touched a few of the pieces on the board.
“Are you certain you want to play?” he asked, deciding that the subject should be changed, and quickly, before he told her what had happened in India. He wanted absolution. Did Mary’s compassion extend that far? He realized that he didn’t want to put her to another test.
“Especially with the stakes you’ve laid out?” she asked, smiling slightly as she walked toward him. “I would be wiser to say no. But I don’t think I’m especially wise when it comes to you, Hamish. So yes, let’s play.”
She sat and arranged her pieces, an intent look in her eyes. Competition enlivened her, it seemed.
“Tell me about this apprentice of Gordon’s,” he said, sitting. “What happened to him after Gordon died?”
“He’s still with me,” she said, not looking up from the board. “Ever since Gordon died, he’s become more and more interested in my activities. He fusses if I’m not back to the shop before dark, and looks fierce when I’m called to the bedside of a sick patient. It’s a treat being here and not having to answer to Charles.”
“How did you manage to escape him long enough to leave Inverness?”
“You’re Alisdair MacRae’s brother,” she said, glancing at him with a smile. “Such an important customer could not be slighted.”
“He sounds very possessive,” Hamish said carefully, wondering why the thought annoyed him.
“He is,” she agreed. “I’ve felt for many months now that I shoul
d talk to Charles, that we should make other living arrangements. Sometimes, he acts as if he inherited me along with Gordon’s customers. It’s very taxing.”
“Have you given him any reason to think that there’s more to your relationship than apprentice and widow?”
She looked up from the board. “Charles? Of course not. Gordon thought of him as his son. I’ve come to look on him almost as a stepson.”
“But he was much younger than Gordon, as you are. Perhaps he thinks of you differently.”
She shook her head, concentrating on the board, as if the game held momentous attraction for her.
She was a voluptuous woman with a lovely face and unforgettable figure. He could well imagine the dreams Charles had had, with her sleeping in the same house. Hamish could almost pity the man; he’d felt Mary’s allure from the first moment they’d met.
After a moment, he spoke again. “I imagine that he won’t be happy about your decision to remain with me.”
“No,” she said, looking at him once again. “But perhaps it’s just as well. If he doesn’t wish to buy me out, I’ll simply close the shop and move to a smaller house with my maid, Betty.”
That idea did not sit well with him, which was doubly strange since her future was none of his business.
It took him fifteen minutes to beat her at shatranj. He would have done it in less time had she not taken great deliberation with every move. In fact, he almost convinced himself to let her win again. Almost. However, he was feeling decadent and devilish. Satan in his tower. She was an angel who had been delivered to him for his delectation. In this place she called Castle Gloom, it was almost as if they were fighting the eternal struggle of good versus evil.
He wondered who would win that eventual battle even as he won the game. He moved a piece on the board and watched as she realized what he’d done.
“I can’t move,” she said, but still didn’t look at him, as if she didn’t want to admit defeat.
“No,” he said calmly. “You can’t.”
“That didn’t take any time at all,” she said, staring at the board.
“I could have done it faster, but I decided it wouldn’t be chivalrous of me.”