No one spoke.
‘I have come to make restitution,’ he said. ‘But make no mistake. I am The MacKenzie. There is only one voice that matters here. Mine.’
There was nothing more to say than that.
They finished afterwards and, if his men disapproved of what had happened, they said nothing. He’d made it clear what he thought of those who questioned him.
He would not afford dissention in the ranks. Many clans had been destroyed. Farms abandoned. Castles left crumbling. He was fighting against a tide that would not turn unless he did it with his own hands.
He had to be in charge and unquestionably. One drunken fool would not undermine what he was. And he would not issue threats, however veiled, to Lachlan’s wife. He would not call her honour into question. Lachlan would not allow it.
He made his way back into the castle, ravenous. He went back to his bedchamber and changed clothes, ignoring the hunger that flared inside him as he looked at the door that connected his room to his wife’s.
When he went down the stairs and into the dining room, he was surprised to hear an English voice rising above the familiar cadence of all the Scottish burrs around it. ‘And what does the daily routine generally consist of?’
‘You needn’t worry about it.’
‘Quite to the contrary,’ Penny said. ‘I do believe it is my position to worry about it.’
His wife was standing next to the dining table with the housekeeper and both women were regarding each other with deep suspicion.
‘I’m hungry,’ Lachlan said.
‘Of course,’ the housekeeper said, casting Penny a frosty glare before turning and making her way towards the kitchen.
‘What is it you’ve got up to?’
‘I need to know my duties,’ Penny said.
She had bathed.
She had exchanged the heavier dress she had worn for travel for one that was white, light and ethereal and put him in the mind of the dress she had worn on their wedding day.
She wore a fichu which covered the swell of her glorious bosom, a pity, he thought, and her hair was arranged in an artful fashion, low on her neck, not quite to the English style.
He preferred it.
‘You don’t have duties.’
‘I do. The duty of a wife is to see to the running of the household.’
‘You’re an outsider. You don’t know our ways.’
‘And I’m determined to learn them. You have not lived here as a man. I wouldn’t imagine you know much more about the running of a household than I do.’
He went to issue a denial, then found that he couldn’t. For, in many ways, she was correct. He had lived here until the household had become somewhat derelict. Ignored by his father. Only then had he even begun to consider what went into the maintaining of a household when the lack of it had become apparent.
‘It is my job to organise the servants and oversee the menus.’
‘The menu is my only concern at the moment. I’m ravenous.’
She looked up at him, her expression sharp. ‘I did note that there is a bit more available than haggis and blood pudding.’
‘Am I to look forward to a dinner of toast, then?’
Her lips twitched. ‘It would serve you right.’
* * *
But when the meal appeared, it was rich and fast, with a great amount of variety. Pheasant and eggs and sturgeon. Root vegetables and a stew.
Fresh bread—he was extraordinarily thankful for the fresh bread. And the ale. The food felt like home. He felt home.
‘You brought me my jewellery box?’ she asked, looking up at him, something shining in her blue eyes that he couldn’t read.
‘I sent a man for it, aye.’
‘You… After I asked you to?’
‘Aye.’
‘You said you wouldn’t.’
Her gaze made something shift in his chest, made him feel as though he was reaching for something he couldn’t put a name to. ‘What is it you’re asking for, lass?’
‘Why did you do it?’
There was a feeling for it, but no words. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like the sense that there was something in him he couldn’t identify.
He did not believe in such things. A man in his position had to know. There was no space for uncertainty.
But he could not put words to it and, more to the point, he did not want to. For there was a softness to the feeling and he could not allow for softness.
‘It’s not a matter of consequence,’ he said, ignoring the itch beneath the surface of his skin.
‘It is to me.’
‘But not to me,’ he said, his tone hard. ‘And if it is of no consequence to me, it is of no consequence to anyone.’
‘Of all the arrogant…’
‘I am Laird of this castle. Chief of Clan MacKenzie. A lack of arrogance would not engender faith.’
‘You didn’t fetch the box to make me happy? Or to…be kind or…?’
‘I wished to shut you up, even if just for a time, but it appears it hasn’t worked.’
Colour flared in her cheeks and she looked away from him. He had done wrong by her. And that…he felt regret for that.
But to do right by his people meant he could not put her first. He had to guard against anything that might put the clan at risk.
He turned his focus back to his meal.
He didn’t speak as he ate. And it took him a while to notice that she was sitting there quietly, much of her food untouched.
‘You’re not hungry?’ he asked.
‘I think I’m a bit more tired than I realised. I have lived a lifetime in less than a fortnight.’
He stared at her, quite unable to make sense of her words. This moment was the culmination of an actual lifetime for him.
These last days on the road had been simply that. Days. The woman knew nothing of the passage of time.
‘You make no sense.’
‘I fear we don’t make sense to each other,’ she said. ‘For there is nothing terribly different about all of this for you, is there? You make a decisive move, claim what it is you want. And that’s the way of it. It’s nothing for you to use my body, because it could be myself or a woman who takes coin for such an act. It is nothing for you to travel, for you’ve been all around the Continent and I have never left England. I’ve scarcely been away from the estate. No man had ever put his hands on me, his mouth on me, until you. And you… You just say how it is, how it will be, and trust that it will be done. You don’t worry at all what that means for me. What it feels like for me. I lost the future I had planned. The hope of children. And you can’t understand why it feels I’ve lived a lifetime in this span of days? You couldn’t even give me a lie about my jewellery box. Some indication that you have a heart. I’ve had to replace any thoughts of what I had to what my lifetime might be with new ones. With yours. I’m glad it feels inconsequential to you.’ She stood and moved away from the table. ‘I’m tired. Don’t come to my room.’
And with that she made a very decisive choice. She left him there with a full belly and less of a sense of triumph than he felt he ought to have.
He didn’t know why in hell he’d felt he had to fight her about the damn box. Except it shouldn’t matter.
And neither should the feelings of a woman who had been a small piece of what he’d planned to accomplish. His revenge was done and she was his. He had the clan to concern himself with now.
Yet he found himself concerned with her. And he did not know a way to banish those feelings now that they’d taken hold.
CHAPTER EIGHT
There was, Penny found, a strange sort of pleasure to be had in barring him from her room. For the first two nights, she was drunk on it. She’d ordered him not to come the first night. She’d locked the door the second. He’d trie
d it. Once.
She could practically feel his outraged pride through the heavy wood and she’d gloried in it. She didn’t lock it the next night because she’d been hoping he might come through that door and she’d have an excuse to turn him away directly again.
Because all those nights he had come to her room while they had been traveling to the Highlands she had surrendered herself. All the pleasure that he had added to her body he had taken away again when he left.
When he finished and simply fell asleep.
Then it cost her when he took that small gesture, that beacon of hope represented in her jewellery box, and crushed it so callously.
The distance felt like a reclamation.
It was difficult for her to get the women in the household to warm up to her. She did not experience open hostility, but the frosty nature of her interactions with Rona, the housekeeper, made it clear that she was not welcome as the lady of the house.
The kitchen maids, Margaret and Flora, were marginally better. Her personal maid, Isla, was quiet, but didn’t seem to have any ill will towards her.
But she had heard whispers about Lachlan. The staff might ignore her, but there was an advantage to that. They often didn’t notice when she was around and she was accomplished at listening in on other people’s conversations. It was the only method of gleaning information that was as good as asking.
They said it was suspected he was no different than his father and that his English bride was evidence of this. Of his obsession with their oppressors.
Penny knew that wasn’t true. Her husband was far from obsessed with her. In fact, he seemed quite happy to ignore her.
But she had concerns about the fact that his marriage to her was causing him trouble.
She gritted her teeth. She shouldn’t care.
Except… This was her home. This was her home, whether she had chosen it or not. And she didn’t want to spend her years here as an outsider. She could understand why they hated her. Her people had disrupted their way of life. While Lachlan might have a hope of restoring his clan, so much of the Highlands had been scarred beyond repair. The way of the clans was becoming near extinct and she did not expect that they would welcome her with open arms easily.
She had also heard that Lachlan had brought terror into the village. That a man had expressed his concerns about his return and Lachlan had drawn his sword.
She knew that he wasn’t going to be violent without cause, but the fact he was trying to rule with iron over a people who were already inclined to distrust him… It wasn’t going to work.
She had been victim of his remoteness. She already knew the way those green eyes could make a person feel.
Small.
He was not going to earn allegiance by terrifying everybody, by turning this place into an army, where he acted as captain as he had done during the war.
She was forming an idea, a plan. But she was going to need help.
It was not enough to simply plan menus. She was the lady of the castle and she was going to make that matter. But she had reached her limit here within the castle walls. She needed to get out. She hated the silence, the stillness.
She’d already taken a large chunk out of the library. She’d walked every bit of the gardens contained within the castle grounds. She’d retrieved her needlepoint supplies and had worked at stitching little flowers for hours on end. She’d begun inserting herself into the kitchen, learning to cook certain meals even though the maid protested. Gradually, in those things, she’d been reminded of who she was. It was like coming up out of a fog.
This life was still hers, even if Lachlan had put himself in position as Laird over her.
She could make the connections she craved. She could create a life she enjoyed out of what she had here. Lachlan didn’t get to decide.
* * *
‘Isla,’ she said to her maid one day. ‘I think I should like to meet more of the people. Lachlan spends his days working the land, working to restore his relationship to the people. It seems that as his wife I should do something.’
‘The MacKenzie hasn’t left any orders for you.’
The MacKenzie, she had learned, was what a man in his position was called. Like the King, but the highest of his clan. The most singular.
‘I don’t await his orders for everything,’ she said. ‘He thinks that he has full control, but he does not.’
‘He must not be a cruel man, then.’ Penny was surprised when Isla continued the conversation. Surprised and pleased. Her interactions with her maid had grown more cordial recently, but they still hadn’t had much conversation. She was eager to get to know her better. They spent so much time near each other…why couldn’t they be friends?
Penny frowned. ‘No. Why do you say that, though?’
‘Because it sounds to me that he hasn’t got control of you simply because he won’t exercise the right. And that means something stops him. A limit to his cruelty.’
Penny leaned towards Isla. ‘Did the previous chief… The MacKenzie…did he not have a limit to his cruelty?’
‘No. He wanted land. And he wanted money. He wanted to be part of the English peerage. It was a gift when he began spending so much time away from the Highlands.’
‘I know as much from my husband.’
‘His temper was a beast and one all the more easily roused when he was in his cups. He had many mistresses and beat them all.’
‘He beat them?’ Not even her father had ever sunk so low.
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘One so badly she died.’
‘He killed a woman?’ She tried to imagine Lachlan losing his temper, tried to imagine him raging on her with his fists. She couldn’t. And she had felt supremely wounded by the fact he had not fetched that jewellery box for her out of the kindness of his heart.
But he had been raised by a man who truly would harm a woman if he was of a mind to do so.
She had never felt protected. She had been sheltered in many ways. The cruelty she’d been exposed to had been a particular kind of neglect. It had shielded her from many of the other atrocities in the world. That a man could beat his lover to death…
‘That’s why he thinks there is something wrong with his blood,’ she whispered.
‘It’s a silly thing,’ Isla said. ‘He’s not a bad man.’
‘You don’t think so? I have… I’ve heard some of the household whispering. They think what he did in the village was a sign he might be violent.’
Isla shook her head. ‘He didn’t kill anyone.’
‘That is a low standard for behaviour.’ She paused. ‘They also think…they also think his marrying me shows he’s like his father. That he likes… English things. I don’t know if they’ll ever accept me.’
Isla made a tsking sound. ‘You didn’t personally slaughter our people. I understand the distrust. I don’t fear you.’
‘Well, I’m not very frightening. Lachlan, though…’
‘If he were a bad man, you would know already. They would know already. Evil men don’t take long to show it.’
‘Don’t they?’
‘It’s not been my experience. A drink or two and the alcohol ignites the temper on some brutes.’
Her maid could not be any older than she was. To think that she already had such experiences made Penny’s heart squeeze.
‘I hope you have a good man now,’ Penny said.
Isla blushed. ‘Aye. Though I know I shouldn’t speak of it.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Penny said. ‘I’ve been very lonely. For…for ever. And I would like a friend.’
‘I don’t know if that’s allowed.’
‘Aren’t I the lady of the manor?’
‘I suppose you are.’
‘Then it seems that I should get to make some rules. And I say that we should be allowed to be friends. But that
isn’t an order,’ Penny said. ‘You can’t order someone to be your friend.’
‘I will be your friend,’ Isla said. ‘It can be lonely in this house.’
‘Then you’ll come down to the village with me?’
‘Yes,’ Isla said. ‘What is it you wish to do?’
‘We can bring bread.’ Penny brightened. ‘We can bring bread and we can meet everyone. And you can show me who I should speak to.’
‘I can do that.’
‘Good.’
Perhaps she could help Lachlan find his place here. If she could balance his hardness with some of her softness.
As silly as it was, Penny felt triumphant because she truly felt that if she could make a difference here, if she could carve out a space for herself, then perhaps it might feel more like her life. And not simply a sentence that had been handed down to her by her father and his failures.
How strange. She had not thought of her father for some time. She didn’t miss him or regret leaving home in the least.
For so many years her life had been consumed with him. And he hadn’t loved her. He might not have used his fists on her the way that Lachlan’s father used his fists, but his coldness had been an arrow through the heart.
The way that she had spent her life cut off, the way that she had spent it so lonely…
It ended here.
Her life was not where she had planned for it to be.
But she had been set on being a duchess. And there would’ve been responsibilities that went with that. There would’ve been this. This community of people that she bore responsibility for, and that she could have. She could make a full life.
* * *
With a heavy cloak settled over her shoulders, she and Isla ventured out into the village. Round rock houses were surrounded on all sides by sweeping mountains with sharp angles and curves that protected the dwellings from the harsh, cold winds. Grey stone broke through the blankets of green lichen, the only contrast to the deep colour, so vivid it nearly overwhelmed her vision.
It was wild, this place. The sky somehow higher here than in England. But great clouds reached down to touch the earth, wreath the mountains in mist.
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