“Thank you, M’laird, but I cannae afford tae leave and my pride willnae allow me to take your gold.”
“Perhaps you want more?” Laird Crawford asked her. Crissy was sickened. She stood up as a steady ache settled in her stomach. This was usually her body’s way of telling her that she was putting too much stress on herself. She put her hand on her abdomen and rubbed it gently, but the laird mistook the gesture, fancying that he could see a tiny swelling under her hand. “Perhaps you want it for your child? What do you say to fifteen sovereigns and two necklaces? My wife has plenty to spare.”
Crissy’s mouth dropped open as she stared at him, horrified. “You think I am wi’ child?” she asked in disbelief.
The laird shrugged. “Well, are you not?” he asked, assuming that he already knew the answer. “This is the only reason that my son wants to marry you, I am sure. Women have been playing this trick on men since the beginning of time.”
Crissy felt a sudden hot flash of fury. “NO I AM NOT!” she cried, then went on, “An’ if I wis, M’laird, it wid hae tae be the second immaculate conception, for I am a maiden still!” She dropped her hand from her stomach and glared at him. He stepped back and held up his hands in a gesture of peace.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to offend you, but I do want you to leave this place, willingly or not. I do not want my son married to a housemaid.”
“There we are agreed, M’laird,” Crissy said, her face as hard as stone. “I dinnae want a miserable, hateful hard-hearted father-in-law. I will take whit pay is owed to me for the week, and anythin’ else that is mine, then I will go, an’ ye will never see me again.”
She curtsied, out of habit more than good manners, then swept past him, almost knocking him off his feet. Her eyes were streaming with tears and she wiped them away curiously with her sleeve. The thought of Lewis came to her mind but she quickly stamped on it. She would not think of him anymore; it was unbearable.
She descended to the kitchen where she went straight away to the housekeeper, Mrs Kerr. She was a strict but kind woman, and she listened to Crissy’s tale of a sick family member with sympathy. She paid Crissy what she was owed and threw in an extra two shillings from her own small savings. She liked Crissy.
“If it’s smallpox, lass, ye should stay away,” she warned. “That stuff’s awfy’ catchin.’”
“I will be careful Mrs Kerr,” Crissy assured her, smiling. “I will be back afore ye knaw it.”
“Good, Crissy,” Mrs Kerr replied. “We will a’ miss ye. Godspeed.”
“Goodbye!” she called cheerfully as she went to her room. She packed her few clothes, spare cloak, and shoes into her bag, then took the two blankets from her bed. She was stealing, she knew, but she had need of them; the nights were freezing.
She had only one treasure; a beautiful gold chain that Lewis had given her on her eighteenth birthday a few months before. She had sewn it into the hem of her dress so that she would never lose it and no one else would find it, but now she unpicked it and fastened it around her neck. If she was desperate she could sell it, she knew, but she also knew that she would have to be in dire straits. However, she reasoned that she could just about eke her money out till she got to Largs.
At last she was ready. Trying to swallow the lump in her throat, she picked up her bags and strode out of the castle, over the moat and down onto the road. She walked as fast as she could to get out of sight of it as quickly as she could. She looked back only when she was sure she could no longer see it, and then she began to weep. Goodbye Lewis, my love, goodbye, she thought. Please be happy.
8
Father and Son
By the time the ceilidh was over, Lewis was about to collapse. He was extremely tired, his vision was blurring, and he could not walk in a straight line. He told himself he was not drunk; he had merely danced too much and it had made him dizzy.
“Did it make your mouth dizzy too?” Ewan asked, smiling with mischief in his eyes.
Lewis’s voice was slurred and almost incomprehensible. Ewan put his shoulder under one of Lewis’s arms and his father took the other.
“I hope he is not going to turn out like his brother,” the laird said grimly, as they finally got him into the bedroom and dumped him on his bed.
“I doubt that, M’laird,” Ewan replied. “He is a very decent man.”
They undressed him quickly and drew the bedclothes over him, taking little care since he was already asleep. David stood gazing down at his son for a while with a puzzled look as Ewan picked Lewis’s clothes off the floor.
“Ewan,” he said at last, “is Lewis having a romance with a lady that I know nothing about? I thought he might confide in you.”
Ewan’s heart began to hammer. He hated to lie, and he was not very good at it.
“I think you should ask him that, M’laird, not me,” he replied, avoiding David’s eyes.
“But I am asking you,” David persisted.
“And I am telling you that this is between you and Lewis,” Ewan answered. “It is none of my business, M’laird. Now, I wish you goodnight.” He bowed to David and left, and then clattered downstairs.
Laird Crawford looked at his son for a while, wondering why his children were so much trouble. Presently, Lewis turned over and looked up at his father, smiling at him in a dazed but happy way.
“Father,” he slurred. “Did you see Crissy?” He closed his eyes and grinned stupidly.
“Who is Crissy?” the laird asked, sighing. One of his fantasies, no doubt.
He was used to these. Ever since Lewis was a child he had dreamed about fantastic creatures, people, whole cities, and countries. His imagination knew no bounds. This Crissy was probably a fairy, an angel, or something similar.
“She is the most beautiful creature on Earth,” Lewis crossed his hands over his heart. “She is tall and fair with eyes the color of the sky on a cloudy day. She has lips I have kissed hundreds of times but never tire of. She has a smile like the sun coming out.” He laughed. “And she makes me very, very happy, Father. She really does.”
“Does she have wings?” his father asked, still laughing. “And does she appear when you are jousting, perhaps? Is she your guardian angel?”
Lewis threw his head back on the pillow and guffawed with laughter. “No, Father, though she is an angel to me.”
David Crawford frowned. He realized that Lewis was not talking about a fantasy creature but a flesh and blood woman.
“Tell me a bit about her,” he encouraged. “You said she was beautiful. Was she one of our guests? If she was, we were not introduced. Surely I must have met her if she lives near here.”
Lewis smiled at his father mischievously. “She was here, Father,” he answered, “but she was not a guest, and you met each other. You took a drink from her.” He nodded in satisfaction as his father looked at him, horrified.
“You mean she is a servant?” His voice was almost a squeak. “You do not fancy yourself in love with a servant?”
Something of his father’s anger must have penetrated through Lewis’s alcoholic haze. David’s face was a shifting blur, but the growl of fury and disbelief was not.
“Yes," he replied, “she is a housemaid. Wha’ d’you have to say about that?” His tone was challenging, but the amount of whisky he had drunk rendered the threat ludicrous. He wanted to defend Crissy by beating his father to a pulp, but his body would not obey him.
He tried to sit up but had to flop back down on the bed again, and his head began to throb with pain. He knew he was drunk, because he had been drunk before, but this particular episode was taking on all the qualities of a nightmare. He was furious, drunk, and in pain, and could do nothing about any of them.
“I say that when you recover your senses in the morning,” David replied grittily. “You will have forgotten about this silly fancy and realize it for the drunken dream that it is!”
With a great effort Lewis managed to prop himself up on his elbows. “Crissy is
not a dream!” he roared. “She is a real woman and I love her with all my heart! And I am goin’ to marry her!”
Every word he said added to David’s anger, but he kept calm. “You will not,” he declared. “You will marry out of duty to your family and clan, not out of love, especially not some fanciful infatuation for a servant girl. You may dally with housemaids, even lie with them if you can find nothing better to amuse yourself with, but you do not marry them. Our family name will be ruined.”
“I will marry her!” Lewis shouted, but his voice was becoming weaker.
David’s voice became silky and menacing. “You will marry a housemaid over my dead body,” he said, thrusting his face into his son’s. “We will speak of this in the morning, when you are sober.”
Lewis watched as his father stalked out of the room, and then winced as the crash of the slamming door assaulted his ears. He closed his eyes. He had wanted to indulge himself thinking about Crissy for a while, but despite the throbbing of his head, he fell asleep at once.
David strode along the passage to his bedroom and opened the door so forcefully that it almost hit the wall.
Laura, sitting at the dressing table unbraiding her hair, looked at him in astonishment. His face was scarlet with rage and his brows were drawn down low over his eyes in a grimace of rage. Alarmed, she got up and wrapped her arms around him.
“What is it, my pet?” she asked anxiously. “What has upset you so much?”
David drew her onto the bed and lay down beside her, trying to calm down.
“Lewis,” he answered grimly. “He wants to marry a housemaid.”
“Is that all?” Laura asked, laughing. “I thought it was something serious! How drunk is he?”
“Very drunk,” David replied. “Unable to stand upright.”
Laura leaned on one elbow and looked down at him. “So you are taking the word of a man who is falling down drunk as the gospel truth?” she asked in disbelief. “I am surprised at you, David. He likely saw a pretty servant girl and wove her into one of his fantasies. You know what his imagination is like, and it is much worse when he is drunk. Let me talk to him in the morning.”
“No, I will,” David replied, smiling at her and running his fingers down her silver-streaked auburn hair. “You are always so sensible, my dear. What would I do without you?”
“You would survive,” she replied, kissing him. “Now get to sleep, precious. You will need all the strength you can get for tomorrow!”
In the morning Lewis woke up wishing he was dead. His head was pounding and as soon as he sat up the room began to revolve around him, making him so nauseous that he had to leap to the privy to vomit before he was sick on the bed. He sent for some strong willow bark tea and lay back on the bed to wait for it to take effect.
Whisky should be banned, he thought mutinously as he put his arm over his eyes, shading them from the piercing morning light.
Eventually he sat up very slowly and found that his headache had abated somewhat. He ordered a tankard of watered-down ale and was disappointed that Crissy had not brought it. After lying in the scented water of a bath for a while he felt better, so that when his manservant Colin came to dress him he was almost back to normal.
There was a knock at the door and Colin answered it, coming back with a note from his father summoning to his office. Lewis noticed that the words “AT ONCE” had been underlined, so he dressed slowly and carefully, wasting as much time as he could, since he could vaguely remember having an argument with his father the night before. Apart from that a few vague impressions of the Great Hall and a faint recollection of dancing, he could remember nothing. He sighed; whatever the meeting was about, he wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. He was in no mood for an interrogation today.
When he went in both his mother and his father were sitting behind his father’s big mahogany desk. Lewis raised his eyebrows at the sight of his mother, but went to kiss her without comment. His father was sitting looking at him, calm but tense as Lewis sat down opposite him.
“How can I help you, Father?” Lewis asked politely.
“Do you remember about our conversation last night, Lewis?” David’s tone was pleasant enough, but he kept his eyes lowered to hide the anger in them.
“I remember very little at all about last night, Father,” Lewis confessed, laughing. “What did I do?”
“Apart from embarrassing the entire family by asking a guest to apologize to a chambermaid?”
Suddenly the scene came flashing back to him. “Yes, it was Crissy,” he answered, “and I asked Rina Donald to apologize to her because she was in the wrong. She bumped into Crissy, but the girl apologized even though she was not at fault. Rina was about to strike her when I intervened. That was when I asked her to say sorry or leave. Fortunately she elected to apologize, and I think much better of her for doing that.”
“But you made a scene in front of all our friends!” David went on.
“In order to see that justice was done,” Lewis replied. “I am sure you can tell the difference between right and wrong, Father.”
“I can, but I can also tell the difference between servant and master,” David said evenly. “You said you were going to marry a housemaid—the same one who had the argument with our guest. Tell me you were raving in some nightmare.”
Lewis stiffened, and tried to remember exactly what had been said the night before. He could remember Ewan being there, and he could remember his father’s angry face, but nothing about their conversation. Except Over my dead body and he realized that he must have blurted the secret out during his drunken ramblings.
He sat up straight in his chair. “No, Father, it was no dream.” His tone was firm and sure. “I am going to marry Crissy and no one will stop me. If I cannot marry the woman I love then I will not marry anyone.”
“Then you leave me no choice.” David glared at him from under his brows. “From this moment you are disinherited.”
“Wait,” Laura said in her soft voice. “My dear dear son, we have lost your brother. Tell me we will not lose you too.”
Lewis took her hand across the desk and smiled at her. “You will never lose me. As long as you do not physically deny me entry to the castle I will always come and see you, but only if Crissy comes with me. If she is not welcome then neither am I. I accept your decision, Father. From this moment on I am plain Lewis Crawford of no rank at all, engaged to be married to Crissy Munro.”
David gazed at him in amazement. This was not the reaction he had expected. The two men stared at each other unblinkingly for a moment, but the laird was the first to drop his gaze.
Lewis stood up to leave, but Laura got up too and wrapped her arms around him, weeping piteously.
“Do not leave Lewis, please,” she sobbed. “Let us have one son at least.” She looked back at David. “He loves her—let him marry her even if they sleep in the servants’ quarters, David, please!”
“You see what you have done?” David’s face was dark with anger. “Get out before I throw you out!”
“I will be back, Mother,” Lewis whispered. “I will find a way for us to be together as a family. I swear.”
Then he gently disengaged himself from her embrace, turned around quickly, and left. He felt like weeping too.
9
Breaking Point
Fortunately it was a dry day, but Crissy knew that the bitter cold nights could kill her, so she took every precaution she could, which meant walking slowly and searching the ground in front of her for wet and muddy spots that would soak her feet and turn them to ice at night. She was going at a snail’s pace, but at least she was making progress. Her only worry was that Lewis would try to follow her when he found out that she was missing, but she plodded on. He would not know her route, of course, but the only logical one was to Auchterlinn, then Aberdeen, then the Lowlands, but she doubted he would follow her as far as that.
Her footsteps had settled into a mechanical rhythm, so it was easy fo
r her to drop in and out of daydreams as she went along. One was so vivid that for a while she thought it was actually happening.
When she heard the crashing of horse’s hooves through the foliage under the pine trees, she ducked behind one of the thick trunks, hoping the cover would be enough. Then she saw him. He looked magnificent riding his big warhorse, even though he was only wearing a thick pair of hose and a tunic. He was calling her name over and over again; the expression on his face was desperate.
“Crissy! Crissy!” he called. “Come and talk to me! Please!” He stopped and listened for a moment, looking around himself, seeking for the slightest sign of her. He called her name one more time. She felt like crying. She had to physically stop herself from stepping into his path, because she knew what would happen.
He took one incredulous look at her, then leapt off the big horse and ran to her, half-crying with relief and joy. “Oh God Crissy,” he breathed as he folded his arms around her. “I thought I had lost you forever.” He kissed her neck and she embraced him with all her strength, which was so little compared to his. He held her as if he would never let her go and she breathed in the familiar musky smell of his body, which she would know anywhere. She was a prisoner in his arms. They were holding her so tightly that she could not have escaped even if she wanted to, but she found that she did not. She wanted to stay there forever.
“I am so glad ye came for me, Lewis,” she whispered. “I will never ever leave ye again.”
“Good” he whispered, smiling. “Because I will never let you go.”
Then he kissed her, and it was the most thrilling, magical kiss they had ever shared. She felt her body melting into his so that for a moment they seemed to be one flesh, then a feeling of total bliss stole over her, a sensation that she knew he was feeling too. She clung to him while his hands wandered gently, lovingly over her body, then, gradually the feeling faded away, and with it the daydream.
Seduced By The Noble Highlander: A Steamy Scottish Medieval Historical Romance Page 5