The MacGowan Betrothal

by Lois Greiman

  “Although it does seem a bit of a shame considering all,” she admitted and tilting her head for a better view, turned her brazen smile on Isobel. “If I am not mistaken, our young Scot has been thinking of you, Belva. Tell me, chere, is he ever called ‘Mour’? It would seem quite appropriate.”

  Reaching out, Gilmour snatched the linen from her hand, but Madelaine turned with elegant slowness, showing not the slightest surprise that he was awake.

  “Ahh, Laird MacGowan,” she said. “So you have finally decided to join the discussion, have you?”

  “If it is not too much trouble, I would broach a question,” he said.

  She raised one eyebrow at him. It was as thin as the stroke of a quill on her high patrician forehead. ” ‘Tis no trouble. Ask away, lad.”

  “What the devil are you doing?”

  “Ahh, that. I was just about to make you less troublesome to the maids. ‘Tis the price to be paid when one forces himself on m’ enfant.”

  Somehow he could not find a single word, but turned his perplexed gaze on Isobel and tugged the linen up toward his chest. Recalcitrant as an aging mule it snagged beneath his thigh and slid sideways, baring one of the few thing that had managed, thus far, to remain covered.

  He tried to lift his thigh and found that the bruised muscles refused to budge the slightest inch. Thus, he raised his gaze with slow deliberation back to Madelaine and asked, “What have you done to me?”

  “Saved you a great deal of pain, monsieur,” she said and slowly lifted her gaze back to his face. “Liddie is a marvel with the herbs.”

  “She drugged me?”

  “Oui.”

  “Hmmm,” he said and philosophically relenting his hold on the linen, plumped the pillows with a painful twist of his arm before settling back against them. After all, if she was intent on staring, he might as well let her have her fill and give his legs a chance to rejuvenate lest it became necessary to make a wild dash for the door.

  “You said he would remain asleep until dawn.” Isobel’s voice sounded none too strong.

  “Did I?” Madelaine smiled. “I must have been mistaken. How is it that you feel after Liddie’s ministrations, MacGowan?”

  Well, he was naked and bandaged, and apparently not able to move the lower half of his body. “Not quite up for a gelding,” he said and though he was determined to keep his expression impervious to their stares, he couldn’t quite help wishing that the linen was just a hand’s breadth to the right.

  Madelaine laughed. “Mayhap it can keep, then. What think you, Belva? Were his sins against you so heinous that we must seek immediate justice?”

  Gilmour realized in that moment that he had never seen Isobel at a loss for words, and although her chin was high, he noticed that her hands were clasped and her gaze locked firmly on his. She looked decidedly flushed.

  “I never actually said he forced himself on me, me lady.”

  “Didn’t you now? I was certain ‘forced’ was the word used.”

  “I was about to say that he forced his way into me home.”

  “Ahhh. My mistake. We might as well put that away then,” she said and tugged the scarlet linen over his nether parts. Her knuckles brushed him just so, and she smiled. “You’re well enough crafted, MacGowan, for a Scot.”

  “I’m thrilled that you approve, so long as you see no need to keep me better parts in a jar by your bedside.”

  “Of course not,” she said and laughed. “After all, the situation has been well explained now, has it not? You but forced your way into her house. Is that correct?”

  “Aye,” he said and watched as she sat down on the mattress beside him. She was not a beautiful woman, but she was arresting, smooth skinned and commanding.

  “How does your chest feel?” she asked and placed the palm of her right hand flat against his unwounded pectoral.

  He raised his brows. Behind her, Isobel was scowling. “As if I’d been stabbed,” he said.

  “Our Belva has been rough on you.” She tsked and smoothed her hand sideways. His nipple contracted. Hardly ever did women threaten to geld him and caress him in the same moment. “But that way you will not forget her, oui?”

  “Where are we exactly?” he asked, but in actuality he wasn’t certain if he truly cared just now or if it merely seemed wise to maintain some semblance of sanity.

  “You are a guest at Delshutt Manor,” she said and slid her hand downward, letting her fingers bump slowly, one at a time, over his nipple. “So you are the rogue of the rogues. I have heard tales.”

  “They are most probably exaggerated.”

  “Ahhh, modesty.” She raised her brows in surprise as she slid her hand lower. Mour held his breath as it tripped down his abdomen and stopped just above the linen.

  Gilmour raised his attention from her hand to Isobel. She stood frozen, her tilted eyes wide, and for a moment, for just one second he wondered if he saw a momentary flash of violence in her gaze.

  “Tell me, monsieur, what is it you do that makes scores of women swoon with longing?”

  He pulled his gaze from Isobel and met Madeline’s. “Perhaps ‘tis naught more than me reputation that makes them sigh.”

  “But surely you have done something to gain that reputation.”

  He shrugged. The action still felt strangely disembodied. “Mayhap some find me charming.”

  She smiled her approval. “And what do you do that women find so enchanting? Or have I already witnessed the height of your charms?”

  He canted his head, so that his feather, still firmly fixed in his braid, dropped against his shoulder. “That depends on one’s point of view I suspect.”

  “I have the point of view of a widowed baroness who is oft bored,” she said and lifting all but her ring finger from his skin, slid it sideways, so that it just skimmed the edge of the cloth. “What might you do for me?”

  “I fear you are above me own humble station, me lady,” he said and Lady Madelaine chuckled.

  “Watch this one, Belva,” she said in a voice smooth and husky again. “He may be neither as large nor as charming as some, but it could be he is craftier than all.” Her finger trickled onto his arm and down his knuckles. “He is also filthy.”

  The change of verbal direction seemed to catch Isobel by surprise. “What’s that?”

  “Your lad,” she said, turning her attention to Bel. “He is in dire need of a bath.”

  “He is not me lad.”

  “Ahhh. Then you would like someone else to assist him with the task?”

  Isobel’s lips moved for a second without sound, then, “He is a man fully grown. Surely he can bathe himself.”

  “He has been wounded.” Madelaine’s hand tripped from his fingertips onto his thigh. “By you, I believe.”

  “I did not ask him to follow me. In truth, I insisted that he leave me be.”

  “Indeed.” Madelaine rose slowly. “You are quite right. Tell Polly to draw a bath and prepare to wash our guest.”

  Isobel scowled. “Why Polly?”

  “I think he’ll enjoy her. Don’t you?”

  “He cannot even move.”

  Madelaine glanced with some surprise at Isobel. “What are you suggesting that they might be doing?”

  “Nothing! That is to say, ‘tis none of me own concern what he does.”

  “I only meant that she would be pleasant company,” explained Lady Madelaine. “I find Polly to be quite a likable lass, don’t you?”

  “Aye, but he is still influenced by Liddie’s herbs. Surely he will need someone stronger to assist him. One of your lads, perhaps or—”

  “I’ve not known you to fret so over my guests in the past,” Madelaine said.

  “I am not fretting. I merely—” she began, but Madelaine was already hustling her out of the room.

  “You’ve had a hard time of it, chere. Brigands, abductions, this rogue bedeviling you…” Glancing back, the corners of her subtly painted mouth quirked the tiniest amount. ” ‘Tis sure
ly time for you to rest.”

  For a moment Isobel balked at the door. “Truly, I am feeling quite—”

  “None of that now,” Madelaine said and pressed her into the hall. “Liddie will never forgive me if I allow you to become overtaxed.”

  Madelaine gave him one last glance as she closed the door. “You rest, lad,” she said. “We’ll have time together later.”

  Gilmour was still debating what that meant when a knock sounded on his door. To his surprise and relative delight, he found that he could move his legs enough to cover himself sufficiently, dragging the sadly inadequate linen up his legs and nearly to his chest.

  “Who—” he began, but the door opened with a flourish before he’d managed the second word.

  “Good eventide, love.” The maid that bobbed in the doorway was short and bonny. She dimpled when she smiled and her breasts, carefully displayed above a lacy bodice, were possibly the largest he had ever seen. And he’d seen a few. Breasts, as it happened, were two of his favorite things in the entire world. “Come on in then, lads.”

  The lads came. Broad and tall, one fair and one dark, they carried a tall copper tub between them. Muscles swelled like giant bellows as they set it easily to the floor and straightened. They were both strikingly well favored and just past a score of years.

  “Will there be anything else, Polly love?” the nearest one asked. Bending close, he slipped a brawny arm about her waist. Plump as she was, she could bend with surprising ease.

  “As a matter of truth, there is,” she murmured.

  “What’s that?” he asked, leaning in.

  “Water,” she said and danced away. “For the poor man’s bath.”

  The lad smiled. “Later then,” he said.

  “Mayhap,” she replied and giggled.

  The door was closed in a second. Polly placed her fists on round hips and perused him. It wasn’t the first time that day that he considered hiding under the bed.

  “Now then, what of you, Gilmour of the MacGowans?”

  “What of me?”

  ” ‘Tis time to get you cleaned up, it is. Madame doesn’t like her lads soiled.”

  “Her lads?”

  “Aye. You’ve just met two of them.”

  He tried not to let his brows shoot into his hairline. After all, he was worldly, he reminded himself. “And what exactly do her lads do?”

  “Oh, some of this and some of that,” she said and paced a bit closer. ” ‘Tis said you’re exceptionally good at such things. I was thinking, in fact, that I might get a wee taste—ach! But here comes the water already.” A “lad” entered, carrying a bucket the size of Manchester. “You’ve always been a bit quick on the draw haven’t you, Boots?”

  The dark-haired man grinned. “The better for a second go,” he said and emptied his bucket into the tub. The fair-haired fellow followed on his heels, and in a moment the copper basin steamed at him from the far corner. The lads disappeared with a grin for Polly and a happy, conspiratorial sort of nod that made Gilmour feel a bit queasy. What the hell sort of situation had Isobel gotten him into?

  “Well then…” Polly stood with arms akimbo, smiling broadly. She could, it seemed, smile while talking. “Out with you.”

  “What’s that?”

  Dropping her fists from her hips she paced toward him. “Get out of bed now and into the bath.”

  There had been a time, he realized, when he had thought he had seen a bit of the world. He had, it seemed, been as innocent as a swaddled babe. “I fear me legs don’t work.”

  “Your legs don’t… ach!” she exclaimed. “Liddie was after you was she not? Here then, the lads will carry—”

  Lads! Nude!

  “Nay!” The word escaped a bit faster than he had planned, but the thought of those two burly brutes lifting him naked into the tub was just a bit more than he could stomach just now. “I think I can manage.”

  “There’s me scrappy lad.”

  The scrappy lad’s legs cooperated quite nicely, actually. Apparently whatever Liddie had given him had worn off while leaving his legs intact. A soothing thought. But it was quite difficult, he noticed, to wrangle the linen about his hips as he shimmied toward the tub.

  Polly took his arm, as if he was a decrepit old man who might lose his course on the way to the garderrobe, but in a moment they had reached their destination. She smiled and tugged at the linen.

  “Here now,” she chirped, happy as a green finch in spring. “There’s no need for this now, is there?”

  He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t think of a reasonable excuse for dragging the linen in with him like a bairn with a favored blanket. It came away in her pale, dimpled hands.

  “Ack!” Her eyebrows rose. “How nice. I was wondering why Madame called you More.”

  “What—”

  “Into the tub with you.”

  It was, perhaps, the most embarrassing moment in his life to step into the water. His balls brushed the cool metal. The water steamed against his knees.

  “There, now. Isn’t that better? Just relax.”

  Relax?

  “Here.” Folding a huge loose woven cloth, she propped it behind his head. “Lie back, love. Little Polly ain’t going to eat you up.”

  He leaned back with frank misgivings and rolled his eyes toward her.

  “Let me think now. Where did I put that soap? Oh yes!” she exclaimed and dipped her hand into her bodice. “There it be.”

  He truly hadn’t thought there would be room between her bosoms for so much as a hound’s tail hair. But there you go. Wrong again.

  “What needs washing first?” she asked and eyed him up before tsking. “Them poor ribs of yours. Whatever happened?”

  “It seems there are those who do not care for the MacGowan clan.”

  “Jealous, were they?” she asked and laughed. “They must of seen you in the altogether aye?”

  Again he tried to verbalize thoughts, but she bent to soak a rag in the water, which caused her bosom to pop out of her bodice. His eyeballs popped as well.

  “Oops,” she said and shaking her shoulders, settled them back into place.

  “If I may ask a question,” he ventured.

  “Certainly,” she agreed and wrapped the wet rag across his face.

  He spoke through the only opening. “What manner of place is this?”

  “This?”

  He didn’t bother to respond.

  “This is Delshutt Manor. Madame’s summer home.”

  “And Madame is…”

  “Relax now. There’s a good lad. I’m going to give you a shave. We don’t want them nasty whiskers burning any tender flesh, do we now?”

  She uncovered his face and lifting an oddly shaped bottle from a nearby trunk, poured out a few droplets of oil. Its scent, pungent and strangely sweet, filled the moist air. He breathed in and, despite everything, found himself relaxing. It was then that he realized she had produced a blade from somewhere. He stiffened as memories stormed back. Talk of castration tends to make one jumpy.

  “Madam is Lord Fulton’s widow. Before that she was wed to Sir Ludlow of Huxcliff and Lord de la Font.”

  “At the same time?” He eyed the blade as it drew nearer.

  Polly giggled. The razor wobbled. “You’re a wry one, ain’t you, laddie?” she said and scraped the blade across his cheek, over his jaw and down his throat. He dared not swallow. Indeed, he may have stopped breathing. “Nay, o’ course, not at the same time. The church frowns on that sort of thing, don’t it now. Still…” She straightened and as she did so, her bosom pressed intimately against the back of his head. “Madame does what pleases her. But…” She drew out the word as she leaned over him to finish his right cheek and draw the blade down his left. “She’s as generous as they come.”

  “Generous?”

  “With her staff. We be more like family than—ach, now I’m dripping,” she said, and sidling to the right, leaned over the tub to gather a droplet of oil from his chest onto
her fingertip. With the cooper pressed against the underside of her bosoms, they swelled up like raised dough, pale and swollen and fragrant with the soap that had somehow been hidden between them. “Well now…” Her face was very close to his. “What needs me ministrations the most?” she asked and taking the soap from its place by the tub, ran a foamy track down his chest. “Very nice,” she murmured, and dipped her hand beneath the water. It slid downward. He tensed.

  “Polly!”

  She jumped. He jumped. They turned in unison. Isobel stood in the doorway, dressed in a borrowed nightrail that billowed about her fragile frame. Only her pale, narrow feet were visible beneath the embroidered hem.

  “Polly.” Her voice had softened. ” ‘Tis so good to see you.”

  “Isobella!” The plump woman straightened with a smile, her arm wet past the elbow, suds dripping from her plump fingertips. “I was terrible worried for you. You’ve had yourself a time of it.”

  “Aye.” Her gaze skittered to Gilmour and away. “Aye. But I am safe now.”

  Polly nodded happily and reached out to distractedly lather Gilmour’s shoulder. ” ‘Tis glad I am to hear it.”

  “Aye!” The word was a little sharp.

  “Were you in need of somemat afore you find your bed, Isobella?”

  “Nay, I…” Her hands fidgeted. “Well, in truth, Lady Madelaine has asked me to fetch you.”

  “Madame? But ‘twas she who set me to this task.”

  “Aye well…” Bel paused for a moment and licked her lips. “I suspect she found something more pressing.”

  “More pressing than this?” Polly asked and laughed. “I have me doubts. She wanted the lad bathed right quick. In any event I’ll be finished here in a hop,” she added and leaned forward to slip the soap merrily down Gilmour’s chest again.

  All eyes followed its descent.

  “Polly!”

  “Aye?” The soap stopped just below the water surface.

  ” ‘Tis quite urgent, I believe.”

  For the first time in Mour’s short acquaintance with her, Polly frowned. “Are you certain?”

  “Aye.” Isoble stood as straight as the king’s royal guard. “Quite certain.”

  Chapter 15

  The room fell into silence as Polly closed the door behind her. Isobel stared at it, holding the soap the woman had handed her, and wondering why in heaven’s name she had told such a lie.