The MacGowan Betrothal

by Lois Greiman

  Surely no one with eyes like hers could be evil. But worse atrocities had been done for smaller gain, and she had nothing to call her own. But even if Anora were gone, Evermyst would not be Isobel’s, for her heritage was not common knowledge. And although Scotland’s king himself had decreed that Evermyst would be passed down through matriarchal lines, she would have a difficult time proving kinship.

  The possibilities spun through Gilmour’s mind like swirling autumn leaves. Replacing Francois’s foot on the ground, he swept his hand down the stallion’s neck and tightened his girth.

  If he had interpreted Isobel’s conversation with Laird Grier correctly, she should be here any moment. It seemed the good baron had a weakness for mushrooms and it was clear enough that Isobel wished to please him. A few words with Martha had told Mour that Isobel gathered her ingredients for the day’s meals in the morning. A passing conversation with Elga had informed him that the Red Lion’s kitchen was devoid of mushrooms, thus he waited in Francois’s stall, for a bit of dialogue with Fleta had informed him that Isobel was wont to ride her mare when she went gathering.

  It was only a matter of minutes before the stable door opened and closed. Light footfalls hurried down the hard-packed aisle and soon he heard Isobel crooning to her steed. It was then that Mour stepped out into the aisle with Francois following eagerly behind. Walking toward the door, Gilmour stopped abruptly as he glanced into the mare’s stall.

  “Isobel?” He made certain he sounded surprised and couldn’t help but grin a little when she jumped at the sound of his voice. “And what might you be doing here? Dare I hope that you’ve come to meet me?”

  She scowled at him. Her gown was woven of a simple gray plaid, yet its hue seemed to make her eyes as bright and wide as the morning sky. “Are you leaving us so soon, MacGowan?”

  “Nay,” he said. “Wee Claude has done a fine job with him, but I fear he needs more exercise.”

  For a moment her eyes clouded, but then she smoothed her expression and glanced haughtily at the golden stallion. “He looks quite hale to me.”

  “Aye, well…” Mour tugged at the reins, trying to calm the animal’s restive motion. “He is very brave. Much like his master.”

  “Deflowering virtuous maids takes some nerve, does it?”

  “You’d be surprised,” he said and watched as she led the mare over to a slight outcropping of rock that protruded from the stable wall. Stepping onto it, she tugged the mare over, but just as she was about to jump onto the animal’s back, Francois nickered, and the mare, pricking her ears forward and back, sidled away.

  Isobel tried again, but Francois, encouraged by the mare’s interest, arched his golden neck and pranced in place. The mare all but batted her eyes at such a manly display and flatly refused to cooperate with her mistress’ urgings.

  “Here, let me assist you,” Gilmour said, and stepped forward, but Isobel backed quickly away.

  “Nay, I am fine.”

  Not a stride separated them, making it possible for Gilmour to examine her upturned face at close quarters—her bowed mouth, her feline eyes. If she didn’t have that hideously disfiguring scar, he might almost be tempted to kiss her… again. And she might be tempted to pin-prick him… again. “Still stirred up from our time together in your cottage?” he asked.

  She narrowed those impishly slanted eyes. “I was not stirred up.”

  “Excited, then.”

  “Have you nothing better to do than torment me?”

  “One can only deflower virtuous maids for so long before…” He sighed with studied drama. “I fear even that loses its appeal.”

  “Your life is indeed difficult.”

  ” ‘Tis true,” he agreed. “Let me give you a leg up.”

  She began to argue, but he bent and cupped his palms near her left knee. “Step on me hands.”

  “I was thinking of other regions.”

  “You’d best mount up before Francois becomes porous.”

  She glanced at the flirting stallion, frowned, then, seeming to think it wise to remove herself from between the two beasts, stepped into his palms.

  It was simple enough to boost her onto the mare’s back, but her skirts, misplaced by the procedure, bunched irregularly under her legs. It seemed only courtly that he smoothed them out, tugging them gently over her knee to skim them down the delicate muscles of her calves. It was a simple process. Innocent really, yet he hardened immediately, making it difficult to pull his hands away.

  Isobel, on the other hand, was already urging her mount toward the door. His hand fell reluctantly away even as other parts reached for her.

  “And where are you off to this fine morn?” he asked, following behind on foot.

  Isobel snatched her basket from the door top where she’d left it as the bay cast a sidelong glance at Francois. “Please do not concern yourself with me, MacGowan,” she said. “See to your mount. ‘Tis quite obvious he needs your care.”

  But his mount was now prancing in place, thumping his shod feet with cadenced impatience against the hard-packed earth in an attempt to catch the mare. Gilmour tightened the reins a tad.

  “Francois but needs to stretch his legs a bit,” he said, ignoring the steed’s ridiculous display of burgeoning good health, “to ascertain whether he is fit for the journey home. Mayhap we could ride together.”

  “Pray, do not put yourself out,” she said, and ducked as she passed beneath the stone arch of the stable door.

  Gilmour followed, then mounted as Francois kept up a mincing piaffe.

  ” ‘Tis no trouble,” he insisted, riding behind. “After all, ‘tis me duty as a man of honor to see to your safety.”

  She raised one dubious brow at him but said nothing, and the sun, just past the edge of the nearby woods, sparkled with golden optimism on the shabby village below. Beside the tanner’s cottage two sows faced off in apparent disagreement, and farther down the lane, an old man ambled along pushing a wooden barrow.

  “Good morningtide to you, Issa,” he rasped in a voice that comes with old age and wood smoke. Stopping jerkily, he gazed up at her. “I had a mind to bring these fine eel to the inn lest you’re in need of a bit of fresh meat.”

  “I am indeed,” said Isobel. ‘Talk to Fleta. She’ll see to it.”

  “Me thanks,” said the old man and leaning his bent back over the cart, pushed off again.

  Gilmour let Francois ease into a high stepping trot. “So, Bel, where are we off to?”

  “Good morning to you,” called a woman who was just opening the cobbler’s shop for the day.

  Isobel answered, but kept riding.

  “A mystery, is it?” Gilmour asked, allowing his stallion to reach the mare’s side. The steed canted his golden nose in that direction, snuffling her scent in greedy wafts as he nickered in deep-throated appreciation.

  “There’s no need to pretend, MacGowan,” Isobel said, then, “Good day to you, Birtle.” The lad had not yet reached his twelfth birthday, little more than wee Claude’s age, and yet Gilmour could have sworn he saw a spark of adoration in the boy’s upturned face. “Would you hurry on to the inn, lad, and tell Fleta that I said to give old Flynn an extra copper for his eels?”

  The boy took off at a gallop, his knees bony beneath his flying plaid.

  “And what am I pretending?” Gilmour asked, happy to have her attention to himself for a moment again.

  “That you do not know where I’m going.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  She glanced at him, her question written on her face.

  “I did not know you thought me gifted enough to read your mind.”

  “Not gifted,” she corrected. “Meddlesome. You are following me, just as you did some nights back. Just as you most probably have every night since that time.”

  Although she was irritatingly correct, he just laughed and leaned closer. “Lass, it’s only just morning.”

  Again she scowled at him.

  “I’m hardly expecting you t
o go bathing in the bold light of day.”

  She turned her face away and steadied her mare, which arched her long black tail and eyed Francois askance. Silence settled in for a long stretch of time; enough time, in fact, for Gilmour to wish he could see her hideously disfiguring scar from this angle. Because from where he sat, perfection seemed unavoidable.

  “I wish to know why you are following me,” she said finally.

  “Is it too early to consider bathing?”

  It was possible that she was blushing, but maybe it was just the rosy hue of the morning light that colored her cheeks. “Why?”

  They rode side by side through Henshaw’s slanting gate, and although Gilmour was uncertain why such an idea would enter his head, he couldn’t help but think that such an ancient fence was not enough to protect a woman like Isobel from the evils of the world at large.

  “You are me brother’s wife’s sister,” he said finally, “and the only person I know in this village. Surely it doesn’t seem strange that I spend a few minutes in your company when I happen to see you pass by.”

  “What of Fleta? She seems willing to share her time with you.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. “Jealous, Isobel?”

  “Daft, MacGowan?” she countered and nudged her mare into a canter.

  Francois needed no encouragement to follow. Beneath the robin’s egg sky, the road curled like a russet ribbon over a rock-strewn hillock and beyond. Isobel reined the bay to the east, leaving the path and making her way through gorsebushes and heather until they reached a quiet stand of crack willows.

  Dismounting quickly, she let her mare roam and carried her basket into the woods.

  Gilmour threw his leg over Francois’s high pommel and jumped to the ground also, but deemed it wise to keep his stallion close to hand, for no matter what was said of him, he was still more trustworthy than his stallion.

  The steed took a few willing steps, then tugged on the reins and glanced longingly back at the mare.

  “Best not to think about it,” Gilmour said and remembered that it was difficult to walk in a state of arousal. Apparently, hideously disfiguring scars didn’t bother him as much as he had hoped.

  Tying Francois to a willow that grew near a boggy stretch of moor, Gilmour entered the woods and found Isobel easily. Bending forward from the waist, she was apparently gathering mushrooms, but it was difficult to tell, for in that position, the high pale tops of her breasts were just visible, and suddenly he found it absolutely necessary to concentrate on breathing.

  Sensing his nearness, she raised her gaze.

  Gilmour shifted his attention and cleared his throat. “All this way for mushrooms?”

  “The baron favors pigeon pie.”

  He knew that, of course, and yet he felt tension creep up his spine at her words. “And you favor the baron?” he asked.

  “Laird Grier is quite generous.”

  Gilmour’s little finger twitched once, but he crossed his arms casually and leaned back against a lone maple. “In exchange for what?”

  She widened her eyes and gave him a pinched smile. “For whatever he wishes.”

  Gilmour MacGowan, the rogue of the rogues, did not feel jealousy, so what was it that ate at his gut? He didn’t know, but he didn’t like it, and pushed it aside as he turned the subject. “You should not come out here alone, Bel.”

  “Oh? And why is that?” she asked as she shifted around a moldering log for more mushrooms. The sunlight, bright in its early morning glow, fell through the branches and illumined her in a circle of golden light. Her hair glimmered like a thousand candles and her skin looked as pure and perfect as a blessed child’s. Of course, he couldn’t see “the scar.”

  “Surely you know what some unscrupulous knaves might do if they found you here alone.”

  “I’m certain you could tell me.”

  He tilted his head in concession to the insult.

  “Unless you are offering, you should be more careful,” he said.

  “Unless I am offering what?” she asked and batted her ridiculously slanted eyes at him.

  “I think you know what I speak of, lass.”

  “Men?” she guessed, “and how they can’t be trusted?”

  “Just so.”

  “Mayhap you are simply judging them by your own behavior.”

  “Nay,” he argued. “I assure you, I know what they are thinking when they look at you.”

  “Truly?” She turned toward him so that he could see the delicate curves of her breasts, the more dramatic sweep of her waist, and the delectable flare of her hips. “And pray, what are they thinking?”

  His nostrils flared, his finger twitched, and his desire pulsed to attention. “They are thinking they would like to have you,” he said.

  “As in own me?” she asked.

  “As in, have their way with you,” he said, and found that his tone was harsher than he had planned.

  She stared at him for a moment then turned rapidly away. “And they are different than you, MacGowan?”

  His erection nudged against his plaid. Whoever thought a Scotsman should spend his days in coarse wool with no undergarments had not spent time with Isobel Fraser. “Aye, I am different,” he said and tried to will away his desire. It had never worked before and it didn’t work now, so he rethought the idea of wearing his sporran around his waist instead of slanted across his chest. But then, ‘twas surely a sin to hide one’s light under a bushel. “I fear you shall never know the difference, Bel, for I only wish to keep you safe.”

  “Then go home, MacGowan, and I am certain I will be perfectly safe.”

  “You think me a threat?”

  A glimmer of confusion crossed her face, but it was replaced so quickly with an expression of confidence that it seemed almost to never have been. “I think you are bored and you are wealthy, MacGowan, and in me own experience those attributes can cause naught but trouble.”

  “Truly?”

  “Aye.” She shrugged. “You want what you cannot have.”

  “And what might that be?” he asked and stepped closer.

  She looked directly into his eyes, her own as steady as the earth. “Me.”

  Something flipped in his chest, but he calmed it. “But the baron can?”

  “If I say he can.”

  “So you give yourself to that dull…” He smoothed his tone, took a careful breath and tried again. “So the laird of Winbourne is your lover?”

  “Truly, MacGowan, ‘tis none of your concern.”

  “You are me kinswoman, and therefore ‘tis me responsibility to see that you are treated well.”

  “And you think he does not treat me well enough?”

  Sweet heaven! Had she truly slept with the man? Something knotted in his stomach, but he kept his tone neutral and his expression calm. “He is only the fourth son of an aging drunkard, but methinks he could do better than allowing you to work like a slave in yonder inn.”

  “I shall keep that in mind,” she said and turned away, but something gnawed at his soul, making him push up behind her.

  “Then you have done it?”

  “Done what?” she asked, as if not quite able to focus on his question.

  He struggled for calm, but his hand reached out of its own accord and swung her toward him. “Have you given yourself to him or nay?” he asked, his voice low.

  “In truth, I do not think I should divulge such delicate information. For despite what you say, I think you are jealous, MacGowan, and I have no wish to endure your wrath should me answer displease you.”

  Surprise made him loosen his grip a mite. “You think I would harm you?”

  “You are vain and spoiled, and little have you desired that was denied you.” She nodded, still holding his gaze. “Aye, if you were thwarted you would retaliate with vengeance.”

  He stepped up close, not because he meant to, but because he was drawn against his will. “What do you think I would do to you, lass?”

  She had to
raise her chin to look into his face now, but she did so, though she didn’t answer for a moment.

  “Do you fear that I would take you against your will?” he asked, and pressed closer, so close, in fact, that he could feel the heat of her willowy body against his. “Tell me, Isobel, what do you fear?”

  Still she did not answer, and so, with aching slowness, he cupped her cheek in his palm. “Do you fear me touch?” he asked.

  Her eyes were wide and intense, her mouth pursed in silence and though he told himself to pull away, he did not. Instead, against his better judgment, he skimmed his thumb with slow deliberation across her ruby bright lips. He felt the impact of that simple movement sizzle down his spine like summer lightning. Pull back, his mind commanded, but his body was on another course entirely.

  “Or is it this?” he asked, and bending forward, touched his lips to hers.

  Her mouth was soft and full beneath his. Fire smote him, burning on contact. He slipped his fingers into her hair, and when she did not pull away, he opened his mouth and tasted her with a slow touch of his tongue.

  For an instant he felt her quiver, and then she pulled away.

  “Leave me be, MacGowan.” Her eyes were cool and steady, her voice perfectly modulated, unruffled.

  “Twas a sad thing, really, because he was quite certain that if he dared speak, his own voice would come forth in naught but a mewling whine. So he took a moment, watching her in silence and waiting for his desire to abate enough to allow him some semblance of pride.

  “I wish you no harm, Isobel,” he said finally. Truth be told, he suddenly felt she was the one with the power. Power to punish, and power to please.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Nay,” he said, and though he told himself to leave off, he could not seem to keep from stepping forward. When he slipped his arm around her waist she felt as slim and willowy as the trees that graced the moor. His hand slid over the curve of her hip, and with that simple movement, he felt his composure crack a smidgen more. “I may pleasure you,” he whispered, “but I shall never harm you.”