by Stone, Lyn
With a rueful shake of his head, Alan ambled toward the stable to find his bed in the hay.
“Madame, allow me to take the little one away now,” Nanette begged. “You are very tired. I see the deep shadows beneath your eyes. You did not sleep above an hour the night through.”
“Leave her and be about your tasks, Nan. See that you set the others to needlework if they are idle.” Honor settled Christiana beside her and closed her own eyes.
She had remained in her solar all the morning and into the afternoon to avoid meeting with Alan. He had given her .no reason to believe he would ever strike her. She knew he had not whipped anyone since he arrived. But he might see fit to confine her for her impertinence. Better that she took the choice upon herself and sought her own seclusion. At least doing so offered some pretense of control on her part. She would choose the place. Hopefully, Alan would not regard the solar as too comfortable for her.
Nan was right about the lack of sleep. How could she rest knowing that she and her child were at the mercy of a man’s idle whims? Even a man such as Alan. It did not help to know that she probably loved him. He made it very clear he did not want that. He did not want her.
Alan seemed a good man, too good to hurt anyone apurpose. He had shown no inclination toward violence in the matter of his cousin, Ian Gray. Now he even trusted him to come to their aid if need be. Trusting kin. Ha, there lay a ridiculous notion if ever there was one. She did not wish any violent tendencies he might possess to extend to herself or her people here at Byelough, but Honor knew she would soon need a man capable of violence.
Days were growing shorter, the weather colder, as winter drew near. She could surely expect her father to arrive sometime within the next month. Even now he could be in Scotland, searching. Oh yes, Melior was right in thinking Hume would come for her. She must be ready for him. Or worse yet, his friend the comte de Trouville.
Unless she convinced Alan to meet force with immediate force and prevail, only God knew what might become of her and Christiana. And Alan would be left maimed or dead.
Father would likely leave Christiana with some crofter’s family to grow up in poverty. If he allowed her to live at all. He would name her illegitimate because of the documents Honor had falsified. She brushed a hand over the small head of her daughter and sighed.
“Lost in gloomy thoughts, dove?” Alan asked softly.
Honor jumped and cried out, surprised at the stealth which allowed him to catch her unawares. “What do you want?” she asked, breathlessly.
“’Tis my time with Kit.” He proceeded to lift the small bundle from the hollow beside Honor. “And with you, if you are speaking to me yet. I confess I do not know what has trammeled you so of late. You look fashed.”
“Fashed? My thanks for such a pretty summary of my looks!” she said frowning. “Thin, and now fashed. I feel so much better.” She regretted her foolish lapse into anger, but he had asked for it with the insult. He sounded very English today. So her last “highlandman” thrust had struck home, had it? She thought it a fair trade for “thin and fashed” and so, said nothing further.
He did not smile at Christiana or at her. While the fact that he did not failed to surprise her, her sense of loss over it did.
The slight frown he wore deepened as he spoke. “I did try prettier words, if you recall. You know well enough how beauteous you are, but I’ll not lie to you even to do you kindness. You look nigh done in this mom. Did you not sleep?”
“No,” she admitted, drawing the coverlet up to her neck. She watched his serious gaze travel over the outline of her body. Heat rose in her like a fever. Why did he look at her so if he did not want her?
“You do not eat enough. The babe saps you of your strength and makes you thin, whether you wish to hear it or no. Will you have a nurse for her if I find one?”
“No! She is mine, Alan. Mine to hold. Do not think to drag some woman here to take my place with her. Do not!” The vehemence of her words shocked even her. She covered her face with one hand and shook her head. “Please. I did not mean to rail at you so.”
The bed sank as he sat down and laid the sleeping Kit on the extra pillow. Large hands took hers and held them pressed together. “I wish you would tell me what is wrong, Honor. Do you fear me, is that what troubles you?”
“No,” she whispered truthfully. She no longer feared him in the usual sense, only his power over her life and her child’s. His tenderness confused her. Why would he be kind to a woman who did nothing for him? If only he would allow her to be a wife to him, she would know how much power she could wield. She had known immediately with Tavish. He had done everything she asked in the two months they had spent together. But Alan seemed quite resistant to her now questionable charms.
Could it be that he only needed more than a subtle prompting? He had kissed her readily enough. And liked it, too. She had felt his desire swell. What had put him off so suddenly? Something had to be done, and quickly. She needed Alan firmly in thrall before her father or the comte came to destroy her life and very possibly his as well.
Honor renewed her efforts. She gave Alan her sincerest attention, always a necessity when dealing with a man, she had learned. “Tell me true, husband. Why do I not please you?”
He sat back and stared at her with disbelief in his eyes. “No’ please me, lass? Ye please me well! Why would ye be thinkin’ ye dinna?”
Ah, the soft Scots returns, she thought, smiling up at him. Fashed or not, Honor knew he had already forgotten what he was about here. She inclined her head so that her hair draped over one eye and then glanced up shyly. “You called me your heartling once. Mo cridhe means something like that, does it not?”
“Aye, but...I wasna thinkin’ then. I hadna th’ right.”
Honor lay her hand on his forearm, feeling the extraordinary heat from his sun-warmed muscle. Or maybe the sun had nothing to do with it, she thought with a smile. “You have every right, Alan. You are my husband.”
For a moment, his breath stopped and he simply stared. Then he pushed off the bed and stood away. “In name. And in all ways you will ever truly need me, Honor, I am your husband. Your protector. No one will ever harm you whilst I live. This, I have promised you time and again!” He threw up an arm in a gesture of frustration. “You need not barter yourself to gain my loyalty, for ’tis yours without the asking. You know I never lie!” His lips drew into a firm line, erasing all the earlier tenderness. And her selfconfidence.
His speech had altered again. Formal, dictatorial, almost reprimanding. With only the slightest hint of Scots lilt underneath his proper pronunciation, he sounded remarkably like Hume. Like her father when he grew angry.
“Barter myself?” she asked quietly, lowering her gaze to the coverlet she clutched in her fists. “In exchange for your strength? That’s what you think I was about to do?”
“Why else would you offer to please an ‘uncouth highlandman’?” he retorted.
“I regret those words, Alan. I do,” she said. “I am sorry.”
“Why? They were nothing but God’s own truth. I ken what I am.”
“What your father made you,” she answered softly. “If not for him, you would have had your due, lived with your family in Rowicsburg Castle. You would be the gentleman you were born to be. Surely you cannot think I hold against you what is no fault of yours? I but spoke out of anger and in haste. I did not think.”
Alan laughed, but it sounded bitter and his eyes were hard, glittering green. He rested his hands on his hips just below the wide leather that belted his plaid. “I could have had my due, as you call it. I could now be holed up in that same castle along with that father of mine. Or I could have been forced to follow the great prancin’ Edward and his pretty knights to defeat at Bannockburn.”
He snorted inelegantly and began to pace. “I ought to thank my da daily for his neglect. Never doubt it, lady, I am a Scot and ever will be, like it or no.”
He stopped his restless wandering by th
e window and looked out, his broad back to her. “I can never be the kind of man you deserve, Honor. I know that. But I promise you I will try not to shame you. I am trying.”
Honor decided not to mention his attempt to alter his voice, his most remarkable feat at changing thus far. Maybe he would abandon that effort after a while if she pretended not to notice, for she rather liked the sound of his brogue.
“Since it must offend you, I’ll not be wearing my breacan again after this day,” he announced defensively. He swatted angrily at the swinging pleats. “I had no chance to change after practice.”
“But I like it,” she said, hoping for some kind of peace or just to ease his mind. “It looks...bonny.” Her gaze dropped to his strong, muscular calves. The word certainly fit.
He whirled around, face dark and eyes flashing. “Do not mock me, wife!”
“I do not mock you, husband! You see? There is no pleasing you, is there? Everything I do, every word I say, you suspect some intent I never even thought upon! Go, then, stalk about somewhere else! I care not a whit what you think, you fractious oaf! Just leave me!”
He stormed out, muttering under his breath in guttural Gaelic.
Honor sighed with exasperation and fell back against her pillow. God have mercy, what was she to do with this man?
The odor of musty hay choked his nostrils, while the smell of dung wafted his way and added its charm. Alan grunted and turned over, trying to wriggle out a measure of comfort in the prickly bed. None to be had, he thought.
His anger increased with each waking moment. He had ridden the boundaries of Byelough that afternoon, tiring himself and his horse beyond good sense. He had foregone supper so as not to see her again this day. Hunger gnawed at his vitals. But the worst of his craving was not for food.
Damn the woman and her winsome looks, her courage, her flowery scent that spoiled him for any other.
Nay, he could not lay this coil at Honor’s door. He had done it to himself. Let himself hope, right from the first, mayhaps even before he arrived here, that he could make a home for himself at Byelough, a secure place in the heart of the perfect woman.
As though Tavish Ellerby’s dearest fortune might fall to himself! Tav’s greatest riches had lain not in the fullness of his coffers, for he held precious little there. The real wealth, the belonging to Byelough’s people and deserving the love of Honor, were the treasures Alan longed for.
What good would more gold do? He had coin enough and knew not what to spend it on. Clothes, he had, left behind by the fleeing English. They abandoned baggage wains full of rich things for the taking. Most of the Scots, intent on chasing Edward’s army south, eschewed the booty. So, here he was with all he needed for a life of comfort except what he truly desired. Love. Even if Tavish had meant to leave him that, the dearest of legacies, Alan could not seem to take full possession.
He could not make Honor love him.
But his wee Kit would. No matter what her mother said, the babe was his, child of his heart. He had seen her into this world and would strive with all his being to make life good for her. Alan held that promise as sacred as the vows he took with Honor.
The people were beginning to look to him for their needs, and that boded well. Some still insisted on Honor’s permission to follow his orders, but fewer did so as the weeks passed and she always agreed with his assessments. Soon, he would be lord in more than name. But what good was that if he could not gain the regard of their lady? His lady now, but only according to words on parchment.
He shifted again and cursed the hay chafing his naked thigh. He had promised to abandon his plaid for hose and tunic. Not that he had any real attachment to the highland garment, other than its freedom and comfort, but it symbolized what he really was. Could he become something other than that just to please Honor? Aye, he knew he would adopt any masque to win her heart.
Hadn’t he already begun perfecting the way he spoke? He barely recalled how his English father sounded. Though his mother had rarely spoken the true Scots tongue in his early years, she had passed on to him the lilt he found so hard to disguise. Life in the Highlands and speaking mostly Gaelic had reinforced it. He must try harder. Maybe if he did not shame her by being so common, she would come to care a little.
With such thoughts still in mind the next morning, Alan rose and stretched his aching muscles. His English clothes were stored in the solar. As good excuse as any to see how the wind blew.
Already awake, Honor sat by the fire as Nan braided her hair. She greeted him with a frown. “You are covered with straw!”
Alan smiled at her, staunchly determined to avoid any more harsh words. “Forgive my intrusion. I have been early to the stables and have come to change.”
“Would you like a bath?” she asked, sniffing faintly.
He turned to go. “I forgot.” Damn, would he never learn? The burn would be freezing, and he simply hadn’t thought of it.
“Alan,” she called, stopping him at the doorway. “Where do you go? You know the tub is here.” She pointed to the painted screen in the corner.
“T’ th’ burn...stream. To the stream,” he said.
“And catch your death? You must be daft. Come you here and wait.” She gestured to the window seat. “Nan, go tell Nial and Tofty to haul water from the kitchens. Find that soap of Tav’s. ’Tis in the chest over there.” She rocked the cradle with one toe to quiet Kit’s fussing as she studied him. “You never bathe here. Have you been swimming in the burn each day?”
If he didn’t know better, he would swear she worried for his health. Pretense, of course, but he appreciated it nonetheless. “Aye, most days. It is warmer hereabout than where I came from. Not so bad.”
“Well, you are not to do that again!” she ordered. “You will come here to bathe. I will not have you freezing yourself, do you hear?”
Alan could not help but enjoy her mothering of him, pretended or not. He could barely remember such from his youth, and it made him feel warm inside to have it now. “Yes, of course. Whatever you say.”
She looked triumphant, mollified and infinitely pleased with his answer. At last he had said something right for a change. Now, should he keep his tongue behind his teeth or risk more words?
“The bloom of good health becomes you, my lady.” There, well said, he thought.
She raised a perfectly shaped brow and almost smiled. “Not fashed? A bit fatter, would you say?”
Now what? What could he say to that? Yes, fatter, and she would be angry again. No, thinner, and she would likely snap off his head. “You always appear beautiful to me, Honor.”
“Blatant flattery, husband?” Ah, she waxed coy now, digging for more praise. Good, he had a store of that reserved for her.
“God’s truth, wife.” He produced his most winning smile. “Your hair brings to mind bright sun on a dark waterfall. And your skin is like fresh cream. I’d wager as sweet to taste.” Och, why had he said that? Hell’s fever, his plaid tented in front even as he spoke the words to her. The unruly beastie beneath it would be his undoing. He swore under his breath.
Honor’s cough sounded suspiciously like a laugh. But Alan knew it was not. She would find nothing at all amusing in having him turn randy. However, when he looked up at her, she had pressed her lips together firmly and her eyes grew wider. Probably fright at being left alone with him after last night’s brangle. “Will ye... will you go about your day, then? Do not let me keep you,” he said hopefully.
“Oh no,” she answered, employing her motherly voice now. “I would stay and assist you. I shall send Nan to see to chores. Truly, I have nothing better to do.”
He colored red, could feel his face burning with it. “Kit, then. Why not take her to hall, show her about?”
“She sleeps. See?” Honor rocked the cradle again with her foot. “Ah, here is your water. Come in, lads, and mind you do not spill.” With that, she busied herself adding herbs and stacking the drying cloths on the bench near the tub.
; From the window seat, Alan could see behind the freestanding screen which Honor had shifted to one side. Visions of himself submerged in the fragrant steaming warmth, Honor dropping her gown to join him, water splashing in ever-increasing waves over the edge...
“Are you ready, husband?”
“Huh?” he gasped. Ready? Hell, any readier and he would burst! How the devil could he get her out of here? Nan had gone. The lads were leaving with their buckets. Except for a soundly sleeping Kit, he was alone with Honor. And unfortunately, ready.
“Give me your plaid and I shall have it cleaned.” She offered a hand to help him divest
“Nay!” he almost shouted. “I wish ye would leave!”
“Oh, I cannot leave Christiana unattended,” she said calmly. “If you do not wish my help, then say as much. I shall sit here and leave you to yourself.”
The thought of her taking the window seat in plain sight of his nakedness made him shudder with pure heat. Her eyes on his body, like invisible fingers, touching everywhere. He drew in a deep breath. “Over there!” he demanded, pointing to the bed. “Sit over there.”
She smiled in acquiescence and sauntered toward the bed. Turning to face him, she braced her hands on the mattress and gave a wee hop to lift her backside high enough to sit. “There!” she said with a small lift of both brows. “Happy?”
Not anywhere close to that, he thought with a rueful shake of his head.
Committed to the bath, he moved to the tub, replacing the screen so that it stood between them. Even then, as he unbelted his plaid and let it drop, he imagined she could see.
With his back carefully turned to her side of the room, Alan stepped into the tub and sank beneath the water. The enveloping heat of it only added to his fever.
God’s truth, ’twas no wonder people bathed so seldom. A bath like this each day could kill a man. And let to its natural conclusion, might soon convince his lass that cleanliness was anything but next to godliness!