“So I’ve noticed,” Mrs. MacNab agreed, shaking out a large, moth-eaten square of linen and tying it around her ample middle. “Well, if yer sure?”
“I am!” She could imagine nothing more mortifying than having Thomas Donne brought to her under false pretenses.
“Should I bring yer food into the dining room when it’s done?” Mrs. MacNab asked.
“No,” Fia said quickly, fearful of being excluded from yet another living creature’s company. She would never have thought herself so dependent on the simple solace one found in being in another’s presence. It alarmed her a little. “I’ll eat in here.”
Besides, she told herself, there was really no reason to dirty the dining room. Particularly as that very morning she’d spent a good three hours there, with the windows flung wide as she beat the heavy draperies and then swept the resultant dust from the carpet.
She didn’t fret over what ridiculous conclusions Thomas might make if he were to discover the means by which she’d taken to wasting the days. It was her experience that males seldom noted their surroundings unless they contributed directly to their discomfort.
“Suit yerself,” Mrs. MacNab said, disappearing into the pantry.
“Do you mind if I wait in here while you make the meal?” Fia asked hesitantly. She could so easily be rejected.
Mrs. MacNab reappeared carrying cheese and what looked like some dried weeds, which she deposited on the table alongside the fresh vegetables. “Makes no mind to me, lass.”
Mrs. MacNab then proceeded to chop, mince, hammer, pulverize, and otherwise lay waste to everything on the table before adding each ingredient in some arcane and complicated order to a skillet filled with sizzling butter. The fragrance nearly sent Fia into a swoon.
Throughout all, Mrs. MacNab said not a word. Knives flashed, wooden spoons whirled, and by the time she was done flour dusted the air and the floor and every other surface. But after one taste of the delicious savory custard flan that appeared from the skillet, Fia would gladly have cleaned the tiles on her knees for another bite.
At the end of her meal, Fia pushed herself away from the table and casually asked the question plaguing her. “Where is Captain … Thomas?”
Mrs. MacNab dumped the lump of dough she’d been stirring in a huge earthenware bowl onto the table’s far end. She smacked the wad of dough, sending a puff of flour into the air. “Ye mean the McClairen.”
Fia regarded the stout woman curiously. “You do realize that clans have been abolished and the chieftains divested of their authority?”
“Oh, aye,” Mrs. MacNab responded placidly, rolling the dough with the heels of her hands. “So I hear tell. But tha’ means nothing to us.”
“Who is ‘us’?”
“Clan McClairen,” Mrs. MacNab answered with a touch of impatience. “Who else?”
“But I thought that C—” She caught back her words just in time. “I’d heard the McClairens were gone from these parts.”
“Aye.” Mrs. MacNab snorted, kneading away. “ ‘Gone’ is one way ye might put it. And we were, too. But he found us.” For the first time emotion underscored the woman’s voice. “Found most of us in the Americas but some of us in the lowlands and a few, like me, were in Edinburgh.”
She paused in the middle of her kneading. “ ’Course, Jamie stayed here all along with old Muira and a few others that preferred to live like animals in the coves rather than run.
“But the rest of us, I’m shamed ta say, had scattered like cunny flushed from a warren after Carr informed on Ian McClairen and killed his McClairen bride.”
Fia’s head shot up. She forced herself to relax. To hear someone describe her mother’s murder so prosaically … She waited for the inevitable inner recoil that always accompanied the thought of her mother’s murder.
Was there a name for it? Like “patricide” or “matricide”? It seemed to her that there ought to be a specific term for the murder of a wife, and a specific name for the children of such a murderer. A brand of sorts to mirror the brand in her mind … and heart.
The pain and recoil came, but less insistently this time. The long-standing question still bubbled beneath the surface, demanding an answer she did not own—what had Carr’s blood bequeathed her? What did having a murderer’s blood in her veins make her?
Always before she’d heeded whatever inner protective devices had kept her from examining those questions too closely. Now she tentatively examined the very peripheries.
When she’d realized who Thomas was, she’d understood the bitterness that had rung in his voice when he’d spoken to Rhiannon Russell all those long years ago. Carr’s crime had been not only against a defenseless woman, it had been against a member of Thomas’s family—albeit a distant relation.
And if Janet had been Thomas’s relative, then that meant that Thomas’s people were, in some distant manner, her people. Her people.
The concept still surprised Fia. She had always considered herself uniquely alone—cut off from her brothers by her father and later cut off from her father by the truth. But suddenly she had … people. She stared at the homely, bovine Mrs. MacNab bent over her dough.
“Are you a McClairen?”
“Aye. I were in Edinburgh, working in a kitchen after me husband was killed at Culloden. The laird come down—oh, about five years ago now—and says he’s come to fetch me home to the”—she looked up, cleared her throat, and went on—“isle. We was spread far and few but somehow the laird found all of us that was left. He paid up fer them that be in servitude and bought passage home fer them that was far away.”
“And are there many?”
“La! Twenty-four of us. Twenty-three fer a while, but last spring Gavin’s lady had a son.” An unexpectedly tender smile appeared on Mrs. MacNab’s face.
Thomas McClairen had found twenty-three people and gathered them back to this land. Why?
Fia pinched off a piece of bread dough and worked it absently between finger and thumb, puzzling out the increasingly complex enigma of Thomas McClairen. Ostensibly Thomas had brokered a handsome life for himself in the American colonies. He had wealth, the prestige of owning a successful shipping business, presumably a house, and most definitely friends to whom he was unswervingly loyal—like James Barton.
Yet here he was in Scotland, where he ran the risk of his identity being discovered and his life forfeited. A risk that would certainly turn into a reality, for Thomas had said that Carr knew his secret. Why, then, did Thomas stay?
It seemed to Fia of the utmost importance that she find out the answer to that question, and only Thomas could supply the answer.
Mrs. MacNab untied the apron from around her broad hips and settled it across the top of the mound of dough she’d fashioned. “There, now,” she said with satisfaction. “ ’Twill rise overnight and be ready fer bakin’ on the morrow.”
“Where’s Thomas McClairen?”
Mrs. MacNab dusted her plump hands together, sending dried flakes of bread dough flying.
“Mrs. MacNab, please. Where is he? I need to speak to him.”
“Aye, lassie, aye,” Mrs. MacNab said, clucking gently. “No need to be so impatient. He’s right there.”
Startled, Fia swung around. Thomas stood behind her.
Her gaze drank up the sight of him. For a moment she could not suppress her pleasure, nor did she try. His tanned face had been browned even more and the fine white lines at the corner of his eyes etched deeper. His proud, straight shoulders looked unnaturally straight, as though he needed to consciously keep them from slumping. A day’s growth of beard darkened the hard angle of his jaw and amidst the dark stubble Fia could see a glint of silver.
He was in his thirties, she realized. At least a decade older than she and no longer a youth, no longer the suave figure who’d lounged in smoke-filled drawing rooms. He was a man used to hard labor and exhaustion and … and what else?
“Where were you?”
“I had business,” he said, dragg
ing a chair across from her out from under the kitchen table. “Do you have any more supper left, Mrs. MacNab?”
“Aye.” Within minutes she’d produced not only a dish heaped with the flan Fia had enjoyed, but a cold joint of roasted beef glistening with crisp fat, a goose liver terrine, a loaf of bread, and a thick wedge of yellow cheese. She then filled a large earthenware pitcher with foaming ale, said, “I’ll be back on the morrow. Mind the bread,” and left.
“Mrs. MacNab,” Thomas said around a mouthful of bread, “does not believe in standing on ceremony. And she shares the Highlanders’ unaccountable conviction that she is as good as the next.” The spark of amusement in his eyes was entrancing.
“Except you.”
He chuckled. “Oh, no. No exceptions, I’m afraid. In fact, I’m not at all sure her command wasn’t directed at me.”
“Mrs. MacNab,” Fia said firmly, “worships the ground you walk on. I’m sure if you asked her to don a toga and dance around the stable at first light, she’d be happy to oblige.”
He tore off a chunk of bread, stuffed it in his mouth, and swallowed. “Well, if she’s convinced you of such patent flummery, I shall have to see about raising her wages. There’s bound to be some advantage in having you believe that there exists at least someone who holds me in awe.”
Her eyes widened. Dear God, he was teasing her.
She … she loved being teased!
Kay and Cora teased her sometimes, and the delight of it, the guilelessness, the fondness and charity of it never ceased to delight her. She sometimes shivered with pure pleasure that she could be treated with such beautiful, casual affability.
He was regarding her with mock speculation, waving the end of his baguette around to emphasize his words. “Whatever do you suppose that is?”
“I’m sure I haven’t any idea,” she murmured, trying to slow the beating of her heart.
“Neither do I. But look, I’ve been in your company a grand total of fifteen minutes and you haven’t …” Whatever he’d been about to say he decided against and instead leaned over the table and flicked his finger across her cheek. “Do you realize you have flour on your face?”
Her hand flew to cover her cheek, and her eyes grew rounder when she touched her skin and felt its heat and realized she was blushing. She, who’d been seen in public in the most outré of gowns without developing so much as a single degree rise of temperature, blushing over flour on her face. Or was she blushing over his playful touch and teasing smile?
She could not think of an appropriate reply. She did not want him to stop teasing her and she hadn’t had the time to understand why and she never did things unrehearsed, without plenty of serious thought and consideration. And yet she didn’t want him to keep teasing her because that way led to more possibilities unfolding upon more of possibilities—and possible consequences.
She would leave. She would go to her room and consider her course, consider what her goal here was and how she would achieve it. But her thoughts as well as her body felt unpleasant and unreal, as if she had somehow lost substance. She was supposed to be seducing him, she reminded herself, regarding him with troubled eyes.
But that was before she’d discovered who he was and that he’d good causes, the best of causes, for his enmity, and yet did not, would not, avenge himself on her, his enemy’s daughter. In fact, she would wager her very life that he’d never even considered such a course. So, dear God, what was she doing here?
He wasn’t even attending her, but sawing through the slab of meat in front of him. How can one seduce a man who’s eating cooked beef?
She stood up.
“Please, sit down. I would count your company a favor,” he said without raising his gaze from what was apparently a delicate operation.
She sat down. What choice did she have? she asked herself, striving desperately for a sense of injury. She was a prisoner in this house, kept away from people, from creature comforts. She was used to society, bright lights and …
It wouldn’t wash. No matter how much she tried to convince herself otherwise. She was very used to her own company and very used to the tempo of country life. It was his company she missed. It was Thomas.
They were still enemies, made so by blood. He disapproved of her. He thought the worst of her. He’d brought her here because her very presence was a cankerous contagion from which purer beings must be spared.
He’d also held her head and stroked her back while she was sick. He’d covered her with his jacket and used his body to shelter her from the wind. He was angry about her childhood. And he teased her.
She gave up, capitulated utterly and completely, and sat down.
Thomas had tried to keep away. He’d lasted five days, each one tormented by the memory of her as he’d last seen her, standing in her undergarments, so damned and obviously innocent of the effects she’d had on his body. He’d returned determined not to let her know how anxious he’d been to come to her.
But this camaraderie was, in its own way, as enticing as the allure of soft skin and sweet, clean hair. Though that was enticing enough.
Soft pink color tinted each of Fia’s perfectly formed cheeks. A stray tendril of black hair curled along her throat and disappeared beneath the simple lace kerchief crossed over her décolletage and tucked beneath the edge of her bodice. Such practical, modest, country attire. Yet on her, ravishing.
He cast about for something to say. “I hope this stay in the country isn’t too onerous for you.”
She looked up. “Not at all. I love the country.”
“Forgive me,” he said. “I had been led to believe that your husband kept you from society.”
Beneath her face’s calm facade a shadow of scorn had arisen. “I’m not surprised. You’ve probably been led to believe a great many things about me that aren’t necessarily true.” There was no reproach in her voice, but he felt the rebuke nonetheless. She went on without waiting for him to reply.
“Gregory MacFarlane was never jealous of me, nor did he ever have cause for jealousy. I honored him and my marriage vows to the day of his death.
“In only one matter did I ever disobey him, and that was in the matter of our mutual residence. We had none. I would not go to London and he would not stay at Bramble House. Consequently, we lived much apart.”
He believed her. She’d spoken every word without emotion or emphasis. She’d simply recited to him the facts of her marriage.
“I see. Why are you telling me all this?”
She shrugged. “I am not really sure. The truth, as far as my life is concerned, is a liquid thing. Perhaps I just wanted to tell you another rendition of it. My rendition.”
“What else should I know?”
She studied him for a long moment and Thomas felt the consideration in her gaze. “Nothing,” she finally said, “nothing more yet.”
She relaxed and placed her elbows on the table, steepling her fingers before her lips and lifting one brow. “Might I ask a question now?”
“ ’Twould seem fair.”
“Where were you sent after you’d been sentenced for treason?”
He’d not foreseen this. He’d expected her to press him as to how long he would keep her, what he’d been doing while away from her. He’d never expected her to show interest in his past. “An island in the West Indies. I was a bond servant there. Until James Barton purchased my bond.”
“I see,” she said softly. And Thomas had the distinct impression that she did see, that she understood the history behind his few short words.
“This happened because you committed treason?” she asked.
“Because your father told Lord Cumberland that my brother and I had been couriers for the Jacobite conspiracy.”
It did not surprise her and she did not question or deny it but only said, “And that is why you sought to hurt Ash by tricking Rhiannon into another’s arms.”
He wished she hadn’t known about that. It had been a mean-spirited act, one that had les
sened him.
“It wouldn’t have mattered to Carr,” she said. “You made the mistake of thinking he cared for his sons.”
“I didn’t seek to hurt Carr then. I sought to hurt any Merrick,” he confessed, and then hastily sought to reassure her. “But no more,” he said. “I swear it.”
He held his hand palm up and extended it across the table, the gesture implicitly begging for her trust. She did not look down. Her gaze locked with his. A long moment passed. Then, as tentatively as dawn approaches the darkness, he felt her hand slip gently into his own.
Chapter 18
—after a month Kay apparently decided he’d had enough, for he stood up, glared at me, and announced to his tutor, ‘Since she has all the answers, why doesn’t she do the bloody assignment?’ ”
Thomas laughed. They had stopped beneath a hawthorn tree. The sunlight piercing the feathery foliage above cast a shimmering mosaic of light and shadow over Fia’s upturned face.
“And did you?” he asked.
Fia cast him an impish look. True, a month ago he probably would not have been able to identify it as such, but they’d spent so much time in each other’s company that he’d begun to discern the subtleties of her expressions.
It was rather like peering over the edge of a boat into deep water. One had to look past the reflected sky to see the glories hidden beneath the surface. It was an immensely addictive endeavor. He lo—He delighted in watching Fia.
“Did you?” he prompted again, and won a brief, self-deprecating smile.
She leaned her back against the tree and crossed her arms. “No. Mr. Elton began giving me private lessons and thus stopped me from interrupting Kay’s with my disastrously uninformed queries. We were both much happier for it. Kay,” she said confidingly, “is quite competitive, you know.” At his look of speculation, she nodded sagely. “And he crows something terrible when he wins.”
The darling! Somehow he managed to refrain from telling her that Kay had said pretty much the same thing about her. He’d disbelieved the lad then, but no longer. He believed quite a bit he would never have credited.
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