The Marquess's Scottish Bride

by Lauren Royal

  “Powdered bones won’t cure anybody,” Caithren scoffed under her breath.

  “Rubbish!” bellowed a stout gentleman standing beside her.

  “Ah! We’ve a disbeliever here, ladies and gentleman. Well, sir, what must I do to prove my miracle cure?” The mountebank put one dirty finger to his chin and tapped it three times. Then his eyes lit up. “Aha! I shall poison someone, then cure him!” With a smarmy smile, he reached into a black bag at his feet and pulled out a squirming green creature that croaked. Cait jumped.

  Chuckling, Jason put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  Dr. Miracle raised the small, warty thing for all to see. “I have here a toad, the most poisonous creature known to mankind.” His calculating eyes scanned the gathering. “If a fellow swallowed this animal, it would lead to almost certain death, would it not?”

  The crowd murmured its agreement.

  “But!” He raised a grimy hand. “I will have it be known that my Universal Healing Potion will cure even this toad’s mighty poison. Now…” He paced in a slow circle. “Who will volunteer to swallow this creature? Who among you be brave enough?”

  Around and around the mountebank went, while the crowd backed away, until suddenly he stopped right before the man who had shouted “Rubbish!” He strode forward and thrust the toad in the man’s face, which was too close to her own for Cait’s comfort. She leapt back, right into Jason.

  Warm arms came around to steady her. “Watch,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Are you brave enough, my man?” the mountebank asked. “Will you swallow the toad and take the cure?”

  With a huff, the man turned and elbowed his way out through the crowd.

  Dr. Miracle smirked as the mass of people parted, then closed in where the man had been. “Very well, then, I shall pay someone six pence if he will offer to swallow this poisonous toad, then be cured by my tonic.” He walked slowly around the interior of the circle. “Will no one volunteer? Ten pence, anyone?” The toad sat docilely on his open palm, though Caithren could see its fat little sides heaving. “Hmm…I’ll make that a whole shilling and include a free bottle of Dr. Miracle’s Universal Healing Potion, worth another shilling. Now, who will volunteer?”

  “I’ll swallow it for a shilling.” A ragged young man stepped into the open center. He looked like he could use a shilling.

  The mountebank puffed out his chest. “Ladies and gentleman, may we have a round of applause for this brave fellow?”

  Everyone clapped, and some hollered and whistled. More fairgoers came to see what the commotion was about, pressing Cait closer to the center of the circle.

  Dr. Miracle handed the young man the toad, then reached into his black bag and drew forth a dusty brown bottle. He tugged out the stopper. “Worry not,” he assured the man. “My healing tonic will revive you—even should you be dead.”

  The volunteer looked alarmed at that pronouncement. He swallowed hard and gripped the toad harder. It croaked in protest.

  “A whole shilling,” the mountebank reminded the man. “Just for swallowing this fat little creature.”

  The young man scrunched up his face and squeezed his eyes tight before opening his mouth and stuffing the toad inside. With a gulp that could be heard to the back of the circle, he swallowed. Gasps and muttering ran through the crowd as they waited for something to happen.

  After a tense minute, the man doubled over and let loose a pathetic moan. His head went back, and his eyes rolled up in his skull. “Cure me now!” He fell to his knees. “I’m dying!”

  Dr. Miracle raised the brown bottle high into the air. He turned in an agonizingly slow circle, hampered by the suffering man, who was clutching at his ankles.

  “Shall I administer the cure?” he bellowed at the crowd.

  “Save him!” a woman screamed.

  “Let him die,” a man yelled. “Serves him right for being such a gull.”

  “No, cure him!”

  The young man collapsed on the ground and curled up in a ball.

  “Give him the cure!” someone hollered.

  Several joined in the chant. “Cure him! For heaven’s sake, give him the cure!”

  Caithren twisted to see Jason’s face, but he didn’t look alarmed. His arms tightened around her as he watched over her head. She turned back to the toad-eater, who was now rolling on the grass in screaming agony.

  “Cure him! Cure him! Cure him!”

  The mountebank knelt slowly and cradled the young man’s head in one dirty hand. He shoved the bottle between his lips, encouraging the man to drink. Two swallows later, the man’s body relaxed and stilled on the ground.

  In silence, the crowd waited. And waited.

  The man drew a sudden breath, and his eyes popped open. His hands went to his stomach and felt around. He raised his head, then sat up, then stood up and did a little jig.

  “It’s a miracle!” he cried. “The miracle cure works!” He skipped around the circle, snatched the bottle, and took another swig. “Give me no shilling,” he told the doctor, “but an extra bottle of this Universal Healing Potion.” When Dr. Miracle handed him a second bottle, he clutched them both to his chest as though they were made of diamonds, not glass.

  The mountebank pulled more bottles from the bag. “Who else would like a bottle? Only one shilling for my miracle cure!”

  As people jostled to buy, Jason pulled Caithren from the crowd. “What do you think?”

  “Very entertaining,” she declared with a smile.

  “Entertaining?”

  His look of confusion didn’t fool her. “The toad is in that young man’s pocket,” she said. “I wonder how much the mountebank pays him for each bottle sold?”

  “I wonder how else I’ve underestimated you,” Jason returned. But he didn’t look displeased. “Should we buy tomorrow’s breakfast and dinner now?” Low in the sky, the sun streaked the wispy clouds with shades of pink and red. “It’s getting late, and we’d best make an early start if we want to outpace Gothard.”

  And the fun was over, Caithren supposed with an inward sigh. She needed to find her brother and go home.

  Before she could even nod her assent, Jason went into action. He purchased a burlap sack from one vendor, then wove through the market filling it with selections from others: bright yellow cheese, tart pickles wrapped in parchment, and small round loaves of bread. From a produce stand he chose apples and costly oranges while Caithren amused herself watching two lambs in a pen, gamboling after their mother. She didn’t like to think they might be someone’s supper tonight.

  Across from the fruits and vegetables sat a table laden with leather goods. Belts were arranged in neat rows, alongside coin pouches, scabbards, and luggage.

  And by itself to the side sat one magnificent backgammon board.

  It was a sight to behold. Black leather pips alternated with gray, the whole embellished with scrolling designs stamped in gold leaf. Two dice, fashioned of the blackest jet, lay as though just spilled from their matching leather cup. The markers were carved of jet and ivory.

  Caithren smiled to herself, remembering hours on end spent playing with Cameron on Da’s scarred wooden set. Jason wandered to her side, his burlap sack bulging with what she reckoned must be food enough for a week. “Do you know how to play?” he asked.

  “I do.” She squinted up at him. “I wager I could beat you.”

  “Do you, now?” He studied her, his features schooled into serious lines. But his green eyes danced. “And what might you be willing to wager?”

  She blushed furiously at the tone of his voice. “I haven’t any money—”

  “—thanks to me,” he finished for her in a singsong manner. “Well, I expect we’ll come up with something.” Once again, he spilled coins from his pouch and motioned the vendor over.

  She’d meant to have a match then and there, not for him to buy the board. She should have known better than to even look at it. Though she gasped at the price, he didn’t react. After c
losing the deal, he presented her with the set, picked up his sack, and announced that he was thirsty.

  She carried the board across her forearms, like it was a king’s scepter.

  Without asking if she wanted any, Jason bought white foamy drinks for them both. “Syllabub,” he said, leading her to a bench.

  She frowned into her goblet, then sipped. “Oooh,” she breathed, sipping again. It was the lightest, creamiest, sweetest thing she’d ever tasted. “It would set the heather alight!” she exclaimed. “It’s wonderful!”

  Laughing, he reached to wipe a foam mustache from atop her lip. Heat rushed to her face, and she turned away. Sipping their refreshments, they watched silently as other fairgoers paraded past. Cait balanced the backgammon set on her lap, careful not to let any syllabub drip on the fine leather. She still couldn’t believe he’d bought it.

  The sun was setting, casting the horizon in brilliant colors. As it sank below, a brief green flash lit the sky.

  Part of her wishing the evening would never end, Caithren sighed. “Tomorrow will be a clear day.”

  He sipped from his drink. “And how do you know this?”

  “Didn’t you see the green ray? They say it portends of fair weather. Have you never heard the verse?” She drank, then licked her lips. “Glimpse ye e’er the green ray,” she quoted, “Count the morrow a fine day.”

  “You’re slipping. I actually understood that one.”

  Smiling, she touched her amulet. “It’s also said that to see the green is to gain powers of seeing into the feelings of your heart, and thus not to be deceived in matters of love.”

  “Hmm. Sounds like yet another superstition.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t say I believed it.”

  He took a long swallow, then rubbed his bare upper lip with a finger. “I’m sorry there were no gowns here today.”

  “English gowns, pah! My own clothes will do if I wash them.” She reached over the backgammon set to brush some dust off her forest green skirt, then toyed with an ivory marker, sliding it back and forth across the board. “It’s decent clothes I was wearing when you—”

  “Helped you off the coach?”

  In the midst of a sip, she nearly snorted syllabub out her nose. “Aye, you might put it that way…if you were a candidate for the asylum.”

  Jason let loose with a loud peal of laughter, accompanied by the first genuine, unaffected grin she’d seen from him.

  It lit up his face, and a place in her heart.

  She smiled in return, lifting her goblet to hide the blush that threatened.

  “Wait.” He set his goblet on the bench between them. “Just wait right here.”

  At a loss, she sat and watched him take off, threading his lean form through the teeming crowd. Not a minute later he was walking toward her with his hands behind his back. He stepped up close, so close their knees almost touched, and leaned to tuck a small bunch of violets behind her ear.

  “Ah, lovely,” he said. “Of a sudden, I thought that would complete the picture.”

  “Picture?” Now she really blushed.

  What was happening to them?

  “When you smiled, it was like a…oh, never mind.” He looked away.

  “Thank you,” she said, drawing his gaze back to her. She reached up to touch the soft, fragrant petals. “I do love violets.”

  Behind them, wives haggled over herrings, oysters, and mackerel. Across the way, feathers flew as a hundred chickens squawked their protest at being crammed in a wooden pen. But when Jason took the game board off her lap and held her hands to pull her to stand before him, they could have been the only two beings in the world.

  Her heart seemed to stop for a moment, then pounded so hard she felt sure he could hear it.

  His eyes burned into hers. Slowly, tentatively, he ran his hands up her arms to her shoulders, then trailed back down to lace their fingers together. When he lowered his head, she tilted her chin up.

  But he only kissed her on the forehead.

  Her heart plummeted.

  “We’d best be going,” he said. “It’s almost dark, and with the fair in town, I expect the inns will fill up early around here.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  CAITHREN POPPED an orange section into her mouth and licked her sticky fingers before rolling the dice.

  “Double sixes!” she crowed. Removing four white markers from the backgammon board, she added them to her stack with a gleeful clink.

  Looking wary and distracted, Jason shook the dice as he scanned the large, plush common room at the George of Stamford.

  Cait separated another section of the orange. “What are you looking for?”

  “Not what. Who.” The leather dice cup stilled in his hand. “The Gothard brothers.”

  “You think they’re here in Stamford?” She hoped not. “Have you seen any sign of them?”

  “No.” He rubbed the back of his neck, still glancing around. “It’s just a feeling. I know they could be far ahead or behind us, but something tells me they’re near.”

  She made her own survey, seeing nothing alarming. People conversed in pairs and groups. They went in and out of the taproom or through the double doors into the more formal dining room. Two men played cards in one corner. A couple made their way up the stairs, laughing, their arms full of purchases from the fair.

  “Well,” she said, “I’m thinking those brothers cannot afford a coaching inn as nice as this one. Or any of the other inns you’ve chosen along the way.” The patrons in the common room looked well-heeled and groomed, not rumpled like she remembered the Gothards. “Is that why you’ve been choosing as you have? In order to avoid them?”

  A ghost of a smile curved his lips as he rattled the dice. After a moment it became obvious he wasn’t going to answer. But she’d bet he was attempting to steer clear of them.

  To keep her from getting the reward?

  She’d never understand him.

  He rolled a one and a two. With an exaggerated groan, he advanced one of his black markers a paltry three pips. “Why did I buy this backgammon set?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m glad you did. Though heaven knows how we’ll manage to carry it.”

  She rolled again, a three and a five. Two more white markers came off her side. She held out a piece of orange. “Would you like some?”

  He tossed the section into his mouth and rolled the dice. Double fours, and he was finally able to remove three of his black markers. But three rolls later the orange was finished and the match was over.

  Two up on him now, Caithren celebrated her victory with naught more than a yawn. “What time is it?” she asked sleepily.

  The watch he dug from his coat pocket brought her wide awake. The mere sight of it made her jaw drop. Solid gold, the thing was, with blue jewels stuck on the lid.

  “Eight o’clock,” he said and snapped it shut.

  “May I see?”

  “I know it’s early.” He handed the pocket watch over. “But if you’re wanting that bath I promised, you’d best head up and take it now. We’ll have to get an early start tomorrow if we want to be sure of catching the Gothards.”

  She stared at the watch, turning it gingerly in her hands, then flipped it open. “Eight o’clock,” she murmured. That wasn’t why she’d asked to see it—she’d believed it was eight o’clock. She’d just wanted to feel it, to touch such a wonderfully beautiful thing.

  Maybe there was no cause for concern on Jason’s behalf. Maybe he had more money than she’d imagined.

  But he was a miller.

  “Where did you get this?” she couldn’t help asking.

  Taking the watch from her, he pocketed it with a smile. “It was a gift from a lovely young woman.”

  “Oh.” A gift from a lovely young woman. Why should that matter to her? Three days from now they’d reach London, and then they’d part company. It was what she’d wanted all along, wasn’t it?

  “My sister-in-law,” he added.

  �
��Pardon?”

  His grin widened. “The watch. It was a gift from my sister-in-law. You do know what a sister-in-law is? The woman who married my brother.”

  “I know what a sister-in-law is, Jase.” She rose and snatched up the backgammon set. “I simply cannot imagine you having one, let alone her being fond enough of you to gift you with a watch like that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, heading for the stairs. “You’re too ornery by half.”

  His laughter followed her up all the way up.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  AN HOUR LATER, Jason knocked on the door and entered to find Emerald sitting by the fire, swishing her new comb through her silky, bath-damp hair.

  He’d never seen anything quite like Emerald’s hair. The women in Cainewood’s village always bound up their hair or hid it beneath a cap. And the court ladies of his acquaintance were always fussing with theirs, cutting it and curling it and crimping it and twisting it into all sorts of unnatural creations.

  But Emerald’s hair was straight and thick and shining. Swish. The ivory comb he’d bought her ran along its gleaming length. Swish. Swish.

  Her eyes were downcast, but he remembered them lighting up at each of the small things he’d bought her. He pictured them sparkling with delight when she tasted the syllabub, crinkling when she laughed at the ropedancers, and flashing when she tsked at the mountebank.

  Swish.

  Jason didn’t think he could stand it a moment longer. His hands itched to bury themselves in that silky hair.

  He’d never experienced such strong, strange impulses in his life. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from flirting with Emerald, and he could barely keep his hands off her. It was as if the normal, polite fellow he used to be had suddenly vanished, replaced by a feral animal wearing his skin—and its gentleman disguise was wearing thin.

  More than anything else, he wanted to kiss her.

  He’d dreamt of kissing her last night and hadn’t wanted to wake. The real experience couldn’t possibly be as good as the dream, but hang it if he didn’t want to find out.