“I love you, too, so much,” she said, leaning into him and giving him a fierce hug. “I’m sorry that I’m such a disappointment.”
Holding her close, he said, “’Twas only your behavior, not you, that disappointed me. And behavior is easy to mend, Fiona. I expect you to see to that.”
“I will, sir, I swear.”
“Good, then. I trust that you brought an escort with you today.”
Surprised by the abrupt change of subject and thus his hint that the interview was nearing its end, she said, “Aye, Brother Porter sent Tam, one of the gillies, with me. He told him to await me here. I did hope you would go back with . . .”
He was already shaking his head and setting her back on her heels. “Nae,” he said when she paused. “Cousin Buccleuch’s party arrived yestereve, and he sent me word that the lady Rosalie Percy has accompanied him. I mean to call on them before today’s proceedings begin. Likely, though, we will attend whatever festivities follow the sessions tonight. I hope to see you there.”
Fiona’s spirits sagged. Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, though only a dozen years older than herself, was a powerful Border lord, a friend of Ormiston’s, and she liked him. But his grandaunt, the lady Rosalie Percy, was a handsome widow.
Having married an English lord and returned to Scotland after his demise, Lady Rosalie now stayed with one branch of her family after another throughout the year. Ormiston had met her at Davy’s wedding and several times since. His eyes glowed whenever he spoke of her, which had warned Fiona months ago that he’d formed a fondness for the woman. As Lady Ormiston had died when Fiona was seven, she strongly suspected that her father had thoughts now of remarrying.
Although she enjoyed Rosalie’s company, she knew instinctively that such a change in Ormiston’s life would cause a difficult upheaval in her own.
She and Rosalie—or anyone who tried to take her mother’s place—would likely rub uncomfortably together at Ormiston Mains. And Fiona knew who would bear the blame for any strife that resulted from such conflict.
Chapter 4
Having taken leave of Ormiston after breakfast, Àdham had gone out to the stables, where he found his burly, dark-haired equerry, Duff, and his young helper busy with chores. The equerry was briskly currying the horse Àdham had ridden from Blair Castle. Nearby, flaxen-haired Rory gently groomed Sirius.
Beyond thumping its tail, the dog made no move to greet its master.
Àdham greeted Duff in the Gaelic. “Good morrow to ye, too, lad,” he added in the same tongue to Rory. The boy still insisted that he knew naught of his clan or clansmen, which Àdham suspected was untrue, because few in the Highlands or Isles remained ignorant of their antecedents after learning to talk. However, aware that the Islesmen had committed many atrocities during their invasion and that the lad might have seen more than any child should see, he had let the matter drop.
Returning his greeting, Rory looked up from his task, his bright blue eyes atwinkle as he added, “’Tis good ye sent last night tae tell the Mackintosh and them where ye’d be sleeping. Else they’d ha’ sent men out in search o’ ye.”
“Get on with your task, lad,” Duff said. “We’d liefer ha’ your silence.”
“Aye, sure,” Rory said, returning his attention to the dog and getting a cheek licked in approval.
“Have they room enough enough at yon alehouse stable for the horse?” Àdham asked Duff. “His lordship offered to keep it here if need be.”
“There be stabling enough, sir,” Duff said. “Whether ye’ll think much of it be another matter. The lads there be a sorry lot. Since this horse belongs to—”
“Wheesht,” Àdham interjected. “Whilst we bide in town, I’d not want anyone at yon alehouse to deem it valuable enough to steal. So, for now, it is mine.”
“Aye, sure,” Duff agreed with a nod. Then, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “Hoots, sir, look what be a-coming yonder. Be that the Queen?”
Àdham straightened when he saw the lady Fiona striding toward them, her emerald-green skirt swirling sensually enough around her slim legs to be pure silk. She did look regal, and elegant, but her presence in the stable unsettled him. Not just because of her beauty but also because, if she spoke to him as a familiar, Ormiston’s men and his would all wonder how they had come to know each other.
He knew of no acceptable way to keep her out of the stable or silence her, though. She was heading straight for him and looked determined to speak to him.
“Finish up here, Duff,” he said quietly, “and keep the lad with you. Keep him silent, too. That is Ormiston’s daughter, the lady Fiona, so I’d liefer talk with her outside, whilst we walk in plain view.”
“Aye, sir,” Duff said, quirking an eyebrow. “She’s a rare beauty, that ’un.”
Àdham could feel curiosity radiating from him and from the ever-watchful Rory, too. But naught that he could say would satisfy or suppress their interest.
Without another word, he went to meet her ladyship.
“You should not have come to me alone like this, my lady,” he said quietly in Scots when she was near enough to hear him.
“Good sakes,” she said, raising her eyebrows, “I am perfectly safe here. And I wanted to thank you for letting me explain last night’s events to my father.”
“If that is all . . .”
“Prithee, sir, don’t be rude,” she said. “It would look much odder if we were to turn and walk away from each other.”
“I apologize for my rudeness,” he replied, smiling. “However, if you have more to say, perhaps we might walk back toward the house whilst we talk.”
He gestured toward the stable’s open doorway.
“Walking in the garden is a better idea,” she said, turning toward the exit. “I do have a watcher who will escort me back to Blackfriars. But he’ll see us in the garden and be content to wait patiently.”
“Did you tell your father the truth?” Àdham asked as he opened the garden’s picket gate for her. He caught her gaze then, and in the sunlight, saw that her irises were the light blue-gray of water flowing over pale gray stones. Her lashes were long, dark, and thick, and her skin looked so soft that he wanted to stroke it.
“Did you think I would be untruthful?” she asked archly, passing him. She paused then until he had shut the gate and rejoined her.
“What I think,” he said, “is that you would be unwise to lie to him.”
“I rarely lie, and never to him,” she retorted. “Did he reproach you, too?”
“Nae, but I think I displeased him when I said that he would have to ask you for the details of our meeting. Did you tell him the whole truth?”
“I answered his questions, and he knows I went swimming, if that is what you mean. What he said to me is not your affair, though. He also knows that I often go outside alone at home when the moon is full.”
“I’ll wager that he did not expect you to take such a moonlight walk, let alone a swim, whilst you were staying at Blackfriars and attending her grace, the Queen.”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth and held it so for a moment before she released it and looked up at him with her eyes glinting. “Are you trying to divert me so that you need not confess that he was displeased with you, too?”
“Nae, for he was not.” Àdham smiled. “After I explained that I arrived only minutes before you and I met him, he did agree to seek other details from you. We talked then about my family and kinsmen, and less personal things such as his grace’s Parliament and some new laws that his grace wants to pass.”
“Tedious topics,” she said. “The women of the court also talk of such matters when they have no interesting gossip to share. I pay little heed to political talk.”
“Do you pay more heed to the gossip?” he asked.
“Aye, sure, because people are more interesting than politics,” she
said. “My brothers say that men never gossip. But that’s blethers, for how can they learn about other people if they never discuss them?”
“But gossip is just what people think of other people and the things they do. And most such talk is speculative, even imaginary. Men talk about real things.”
“Important things,” she murmured.
“Aye,” he said, grinning. “I’m glad you understand that, m’lady.”
“Faith, you are just like my brothers! You all think that you know everything worth knowing and that women know naught at all.”
“I did not say that.” When she remained silent but her eyes danced, he looked right at her. “Why are you smiling?”
“Because when I said that—that you are just like my brothers—I recalled saying the same thing earlier to my father. I told him you had reacted to my swim just as Davy would have. I think Father nearly smiled then, despite his anger, because he knew that you had not acted as Davy would.”
“You imply that he might have reacted more violently, aye?”
She nodded. “He might have, but we must not tarry, sir. Tam will begin to wonder if I stay too long with you. He might even mention it to one of the friars. And whether men gossip or not, I must not stir talk about myself. Father warned me of dire consequences if I create a scandal. But I did want to thank you, and I see no risk in coming out here to bid a guest farewell.”
“Do you not?” he asked soberly, holding her gaze.
Calmly accepting that look, from which any of his men might have shrunk, she said, “Sakes, sir, do you fear that your people will talk about us?”
He had a sudden urge either to kiss her or to shake her. But he knew that either act would put them both in more danger than any action of hers might.
With strong effort, he held his tongue and kept his hands to himself.
Fiona continued to stare into Sir Àdham’s eyes, startled to discover that they were an intriguing sea-green but determined to conceal her reaction, especially since, this time, his unpredictable behavior had stirred odd tremors within her.
Blessed—or cursed—with three domineering, volatile older brothers and one temperamental, much older sister, she easily recognized the earliest signs of incipient eruption. However, she had much practice at controlling, even stifling, her reactions to such signs. That he had quickly recollected himself impressed her, but there had been something more to it than that.
He said gently, “My lads will say naught. But you should take greater care, your ladyship, or others will talk.”
“Our people won’t. Nor will the men at Blackfriars.”
“But those ‘others’ may as easily be enemies as friends.”
“I must go now,” she said, trying to ignore the odd sensations that his vibrant voice stirred in her. Before she could stop herself, she added, “Will you attend the festivities tonight after the parliamentary session?”
“I ken naught of festivities,” he said. “Moreover, I doubt—”
“They hold them in the assembly hall in Parliament Close,” she interjected. “’Tis the low building you will see next to Parliament House. Nearly everyone goes to the assembly hall. Men fear to offend his grace if they do not, and the powerful ones bring chieftains and others of note. Surely, your chief will include his knights.”
Putting a hand to her shoulder and feeling her warmth beneath the thin fabric, he urged her back toward the gate. “I will go if I am told to go,” he said, and he knew as soon as he said it that he hoped that would be the case.
“I doubt that your lord father will want to see us there together, though,” he added. “Come to that, I think he would dislike seeing us like this now.”
“And I think that if you do go, you should first trim your beard or have someone shave you,” she said, raising her chin as if she did not a care a whit if Ormiston saw them. “Shaggy beards have gone out of fashion, sir—if ever they were fashionable,” she added when he frowned. “Nowadays, fashionable men curl their hair, too. And they rarely let it grow past their collars.”
“Aye, perhaps, but no one would take me for a fashionable man, no matter how I dress or how my hair looks,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m a warrior, so I must keep it long enough to tie back, or it would interfere with my vision in battle.”
“You will hardly engage in battle here.”
“Your escort awaits you, m’lady,” he replied, opening the gate and urging her on with a light hand. “You will not want to give him more food for chatter.”
Rolling her eyes at him, Fiona sobered dramatically, bade him good day with a regal nod, and turned away to meet Tam. She knew that Ormiston had likely gone to visit Buccleuch and Lady Rosalie, but she was nonetheless thankful not to run into him or see anyone who might gossip about her private talk with Sir Àdham.
She could feel where his hand had touched her shoulder, and she felt other sensations when she thought about him. For reasons she could neither describe nor understand, he had a strong effect on her. She wanted to know more about him.
Doubtless, that desire was no more than simple curiosity about a Highland barbarian. In fact, though, and if one discounted his untidy appearance and odd garments, the man seemed no more barbaric than Davy was.
Admittedly, it was unusual for her to think about any man as much as she had thought about Sir Àdham, whom she had known for less than a day.
She liked talking with him, even—or perhaps especially—when he disagreed with her. The only other person with whom she talked so freely was Davy. And that was safe only if she did not let an argument carry her past what Davy would tolerate before losing his temper.
As she crossed the red bridge ahead of Tam, it occurred to her that she might dislike Sir Àdham’s temper, if he lost it, just as much as she disliked Davy’s. When that thought stirred an impishly curious desire to see what one must do to make Sir Àdham lose his, she called herself sharply to order.
If she were naive enough to speak such thoughts to any other lady attending the Queen, she knew exactly how that person would react. If one even spoke of a man who was not her brother, father, uncle, or grandfather, the others would accuse her of wanting to marry that man.
That was not the case with Sir Àdham, because she had decided long ago that she would marry no one who remotely resembled her brothers or her father. Such men believed that the rest of the world, especially its females, should obey their every command without question or pause.
Learning that nearly all Scotsmen believed such things and that many of their wives agreed with them—and warned their daughters that husbands expected such submission—Fiona had decided that she would have naught of such men.
If she failed to find one who was content to let his wife decide things for herself or was at least willing to discuss his decisions with her, she would not simply submit. Instead, she would work to persuade him to agree with her while encouraging him to believe that she was submitting. Just how she would do that, she did not know, but she was confident she would find a way.
At present, she felt no urgency about the matter, having not yet met any man with whom she could imagine spending a week, let alone the rest of her life.
Moreover, the man she did marry would not be one who lived so far from her home that she had never even heard of his. Nevertheless, Sir Àdham was intriguing, and she would learn much more about him.
There could be no danger in that.
Leaving his borrowed horse, Duff, and Rory with Ormiston’s stable master, Àdham found the alehouse in the High Street and went right into its taproom, where members of Clan Chattan had gathered at a table and were imbibing whisky or ale.
“Ho, look at our ram returned to the fold,” one chap shouted, adding, “Did ye find comfort wi’ a skirt, me lad?” Several others quickly chimed in.
Deducing that they, too, had enjoyed a good night’s rest, he
grinned at their imaginative descriptions of his supposed overnight activities and moved to talk with his foster uncle and war leader, Sir Ivor Mackintosh. Sir Ivor was of uncertain age, and his golden-brown hair had acquired streaks of gray, but his broad-shouldered, well-muscled body remained powerful and lithe, and his hazel-green eyes were as sharp as ever. His accuracy with a bow and arrow, Àdham knew, was nearly flawless.
Having deep respect for his wisdom, Àdham often sought his advice.
At his approach, Ivor caught his gaze and, with a gesture, dismissed the man beside him from the table. “Ale, lad?” he asked in the Gaelic, shoving the jug toward Àdham with one hand and gesturing with the other to the vacated stool.
“None yet for me,” Àdham replied in the same language as he pulled out the stool and straddled it. “Do you know where I am to sleep?”
“Aye, first chamber on the right when ye go upstairs,” Ivor said. “Gilli Roy sleeps there, too,” he added. “Nae one else wanted him.”
“I don’t mind the lad,” Àdham said. “He has some odd notions, but we both know full-grown, more educated men who are just as daft. I did hear of some festivities this evening after the session, in an assembly hall, and that nearly everyone attends them. Does that include me?”
“Likely, it does,” Ivor said, eyeing him shrewdly. “Gilli Roy will go, and Malcolm expects us and other knights and nobles amongst our lot to go. That hall sits in Parliament House Close, on the north side of the High Street.”
“I need not attend the parliamentary session, though, aye?”
“Anyone may attend to watch,” Ivor said. “But only barons, bishops, town leaders, and men invited by his grace take part in the sessions. Keep your ears open to what news ye may hear in town about what goes on there, though. I want to hear aught that interests ye, and so, I know, will Malcolm. Come to that, lad, d’ye mean to explain how ye came to spend last night in Ormiston’s house?”
The Reluctant Highlander Page 7