Her Highland Protector (Iron 0f The Highlands Series Book 2)

by Emilia Ferguson

  Irmengarde bit her lip. “True,” she said.

  That put a different mood between them – introspective and thoughtful. Irmengarde held onto the pommel of the saddle, feeling the rise and fall of the horse’s step, and wondered about her past, and where he might have come from.

  “If you…”

  “When we…”

  They spoke together again. She flushed.

  “You first,” she said.

  “I should wait for you,” he said. They had come to a halt, and he looked up into her eyes. His were a pale brown, the color of a jewelry box she owned, carved from chestnut wood. They had a softness about them, as if he truly cared about whatever he looked on – which, in this case, extended to her. She swallowed hard.

  “You needn’t,” she said.

  “I don’t want to…over exceed? That’s it. Over exceed my position.”

  She looked into his eyes and it felt as if a communication passed between them. She shook her head.

  “You may always speak frankly with me.”

  “Thank you, milady,” he said. “I am honored.”

  This time, when he looked away, she felt that his words were sincere. She swallowed hard, feeling a lump forming in her throat. Clearing it briskly, she continued.

  “If you have any progress – with your idea or anything – you will inform me. I would be interested to know it.”

  “I would be glad to tell you of it,” he said. “I would discuss it with you now, save that I reckon it might be daft, and I feel ashamed.”

  She held his gaze. Her throat felt tight. He was embarrassed? Because she might think ill of him? The thought made her smile.

  “I trust it’s good,” she said. “And I look forward to tales of its success.”

  He chuckled. “You make me nervous, milady. Now even if it does work, I’ll feel foolish – it’s no’ so grand a scheme.”

  She laughed. “I’m sure grand schemes happen in small steps.”

  “I’m sure they do.”

  They grinned at each other, and Irmengarde felt her heart thump.

  “When you…” she paused.

  “When I…what, milady?”

  She looked at her hands, tight on the reins. Rings sparked there, a ruby from the Far East winking in the light of day. She composed her thoughts.

  “When you were going to say something, earlier…what was it?”

  “Och, naught special.” He shrugged.

  “Mr. Covell…” She put a warning edge to her voice.

  He looked at the ground. “It wasn’t anything I should say, milady.” He sounded awkward, and she let the matter drop.

  “The rain is lessening.”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “it is.”

  The fortress was getting nearer, the stone walls, rain soaked, rearing up on the incline in the middle of the forest. She looked up at it, feeling her stomach twist in anxiousness.

  Mr. Covell held the reins, leading them steadily up the path way towards the gate. He kept up a commentary about the stables, and how he’d heard of plans to build channels for the horse muck, so that it could be brushed more swiftly out of the building. He himself thought it was a bad idea.

  Irmengarde listened disjointedly, her thoughts about the castle outweighing her interest in the topic – she was trying to plan how to avoid too much of Clovis.

  “And…milady? What I wanted to say…”

  Irmengarde blinked, the form of address asserting itself on her mind where nothing else had.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “What I wanted to say was, when we met, I thought it would be the grandest thing possible if I could work for you. I wanted to. Almost too shy to say, though.”

  “You were?” Irmengarde stared at him.

  “Yes,” he said. He was grinning up at her, those brown eyes lit with tenderness. Then, as abruptly as he’d said it, he looked at the ground.

  “We should go in,” he murmured.

  “Yes,” Irmengarde said softly. “We should.”

  She let him lead her horse through into the courtyard, and couldn’t get him out of her mind.

  A FRESH APPROACH

  The stables smelled of new hay and old brick dust. Brogan, standing at the top end of the path that ran down the middle of the building, gripped the hay fork and leaned on the tines, watching as his new invention was tested.

  In the fourth stall from the end, a jennet horse with a pale brown coat stuck his head cautiously over the edge of the stall. First glanced down the aisle towards him, he peered about cautiously. At the other side of the stable, Brogan held his breath, waiting to see what would happen.

  Then, totally outside his expectations, he nipped at the smooth round-edged plank, and then tested it with teeth.

  “No! You mad thing!” he yelled. He was laughing, though, and the horse showed him the whites of his eyes, then shifted in his stall, restless for a race.

  As Brogan went up to let him out into the yard for a run, he shook his head with amusement. Oddly, his first thought was he wished he could tell Lady Irmengarde about it. It would be wonderful to see what she said.

  “Come on, lad,” he said, walking at the horse’s flank as they headed out into the yard. Reaching the sunshine outdoors, he blinked and looked about, then stared.

  “Milady! What a surprise.”

  She saw him and turned towards him, looking like something he would have only expected to see in a fevered dream. With a dark brown dress and her long, ink black locks loose about her head, she was impossibly lovely. Her dark eyes stood out in her pale face, her lips a line of wine red.

  She didn’t smile, but gave him a quizzical look. “You are about early,” she said. “I would have expected you’d still be busy inside.” She jerked her head toward the barn behind them.

  “I started at first light.”

  “Early of you,” she said lightly.

  He chuckled. “My father would have tanned me if I’d been any later out o’ the bed.”

  Irmengarde grinned. “You have had an interesting life, it seems.”

  He chuckled. “Mayhap. If farming, traveling and working in stables is interesting, I reckon I’m an interesting lad.”

  She made a face. “You flatter yourself, I think.”

  He chuckled. “I’m an arrogant fool. My father always said it would be my downfall.”

  Beside him, Lady Irmengarde turned away, looking out over the yard. “A lovely day,” she said.

  Right here, with the light playing down the length of her loose black hair, her dress tight against her sweet curves, she looked more beautiful than anything he could imagine. The urge to reach out to her and touch her was too overwhelming.

  “It’s absolutely beautiful,” he whispered.

  Irmengarde just raised a brow. Her smile was full of secrets. He wished he could spend a hundred years staring at her.

  “What is it that you wanted to tell me?” she asked, frowning. “You seem to have very unusual methods of operating.”

  He swallowed hard, feeling her voice as a physical touch. He drew back his mind to the present moment. “Um…my methods? Yes. I just noticed that Snowstorm was chafing against the bar over the front of the stall. I decided to replace the flat bar with a rounded one. I think he likes it.”

  She raised a brow. “That was very observant of you. I have noticed that he often seems out of sorts.”

  “Well, he likes it rather too much.” He chuckled.

  “Oh?”

  “He was chewing it this morning.”

  The smile on Irmengarde’s face made his day beautiful. He stared at her and thought he might forget how to breathe. She raised a brow.

  “I can believe it. He’s a rascal.”

  He laughed. “I think he is. I am surprised that he even tolerates to be ridden.”

  “You think he does?”

  He chuckled. “You’re right, milady.”

  She just lifted a brow and turned away, leaning on the fence. He felt like his whol
e body was on fire. He had never seen a person – male or female – who had this effect on him. She was beautiful beyond belief, humorous and sharp-witted as well. He felt that, if he spent his entire life speaking to her, he would never find an end to wanting it.

  Out in the field, Snowstorm had forgotten his preoccupation with rubbing his face on the fence and was now running back and forward along the field. She watched him, and he saw on her face that she was enjoying the sight as much as he did. He moved to lean on the fence beside her, surreptitiously moving as close as he dared.

  She stayed where she was. He glanced at her while she watched the horse run, and he felt his heart twist as he noticed a tear roll down her cheek. His heart contracted.

  “Milady…? What happened? Did I say something?”

  She looked up at him, blinking her big dark eyes. “Oh, Covell…No. No, you said naught.”

  “Milady,” he said, looking away across the yard, sensing that she didn’t wish for him to pry. “If…if there is aught I could do, to ease your suffering, please tell me?”

  He thought he might have offended her, for she was silent for so long that he thought she might have forgotten he was there. After a long moment, she cleared her throat, though she didn’t turn to face him directly.

  “When I was a girl, I always thought that heaven would be a green field with horses, where they could run and run to their heart’s content. I wanted to have something like that for myself. I think what I wanted – what I ached for, what I still long for, when I see horses run as he does – is freedom.”

  He felt his heart stop. He felt the same way when he was young, when he watched the horses run in the field on the farm. He had never shared that insight with anyone. He had assumed that his uncle or his father would have laughed at his childishness. To hear those same words from another person was something he would never have expected to happen. To hear them from her, here, was the most beautiful thing he had ever experienced in his life. He swallowed hard.

  “Milady. I don’t know how to say this, but your words move me deeply. I never thought…never mind.” He sniffed. “I just…I never thought to know anyone who thought as I did.”

  She stared at him, her eyes holding his. It felt like her soul touched his. It was a fanciful way to think, he was sure, but it really did feel as if words or sensation passed between them.

  After a long moment, she looked away. “He will run himself exhausted before too long.”

  He nodded. “That is true, milady. I should bring him in.”

  She turned away and he went to fetch the horse. As he did so, he couldn’t stop thinking about what she said. He stroked a hand down the forehead of Snowstorm, listening as he snorted and bucked. She was right…he had spent the morning running and he was energized now.

  “I should take him riding.”

  “I would come out, but…I cannot today.”

  He heard the strange catch in her voice and wondered what it was. He looked up and saw that same distress that he had seen earlier in the morning, when he had noted her crying.

  I wonder what it is that distressed her so.

  He led the horse into the stall, contemplating the ride later. He could go up past the woodlands and onto the plains, though he did not plan to spend too long out, since it was going to rain.

  The thing he absolutely did not think of was the one thing that was central to his heart, and that was Lady Irmengarde and her sorrow.

  “There, now, feller,” he said, stroking a hand down his nose, “I reckon we should go later, eh…”

  He heard the horse walk in the stall, tossing his head back and forth. He dusted his hands down his trousers and went to the front of the stables. His mind was spinning, trying to ignore the massive anger that was welling up within. He knew that she yearned for freedom and that she was in pain and sorrow because of the baron.

  I wish I could face that man on even ground. I would teach him a lesson he would never forget.

  He felt his fists clench and tried to ignore the rising well of anger inside himself. He had no way of expressing his rage. He had no way of expressing his care. It was not his place. Like Snowstorm, he wasn’t able to speak for himself, to have his care and rage acknowledged.

  “I wish I could…Oh. Milady. I thought you had left.”

  She raised a brow, hearing him come back to the yard gateway. “Wish you could what?”

  He swallowed hard. “Nothing, milady. But…If you need aught, you know where I am.”

  She looked at him, but there was no scorn on her face, as he might have expected. There was only a deep understanding. As well as something that looked like surprise. “Thank you,” she said. “I am glad.”

  He wanted to say more, but she had already turned away.

  “Och, lad…stop being so daft. What do you think? Get back to work.” He walked back into the barn.

  The morning went past without his knowledge, spent hauling bales and barrels, cleaning the storeroom with a frenetic need to displace the energy that was building up inside him from his frustration and rage. He could not attack his lordship, making him answer for cruelties he had committed. However, he could clean the storeroom, and clean it he did. By the time the bells in the distant church had struck one hour past midday, the place was so spotless he could have eaten off the floor, the barrels were all moved to one side, and the tack on the other side. He was sweating and exhausted. It did little good to him, at least, for he still felt furious.

  “Bollocks,” he said.

  That was all he could say. He wanted to hold the fellow down and scream at him to treat his wife with more respect. He wanted to threaten to break every bone in him and then do it. Yet, what could he do?

  “I’m just a servant,” he muttered, heading into the tack room, where he hauled a vast saddle into place.

  “What’s that?” Keith, the stable hand, looked up from where he polished a bit of harness. “Mr. Covell? Did ye say something?”

  “I just said it’s cold out,” he replied in a low voice. He glanced round the tack room. The place was shipshape and tidy, everything neat and clean, save the one or two stray bits of tack that were already on his helper’s pile. There was nothing in here that demanded his energy.

  Taking a final glance round, he headed out into the cold wind outside. The courtyard was full of rain, the clouds blown up suddenly from the valley below. He dragged his cloak up over his head and strode, shivering, into the kitchens.

  “My goodness me!” the cook said, as he collapsed into the only chair by the fire. “You’re a right mess. Get yourself warm and take some broth. You’ll catch a death of fever, if you don’t.”

  “Probably,” he muttered, holding his hands out to the blaze. He knew he was being offensive, but he was so full of anger he could scarcely find it inside him to have manners. His rage was all for the baron, and, failing unleashing it on him, he carried it around within him, a scalding brew.

  “As if I do nae have enough to worry me, without people crowding all over my kitchen,” the cook said cuttingly. “What with his lordship hosting a party with no warning, to milady deciding to clean out the attic room…I’m run off me feet, I am.”

  “His lordship’s having a party?” Brogan frowned.

  “Aye!” she nodded. “You’d like as not get back to the stables as soon as possible, Mr. Overseer! The place will be packed with horses.”

  Brogan frowned. Somehow, he didn’t like the sound of his lordship having a spontaneous party. Nothing the baron did seemed satisfactory to him – he was a cruel, unpredictable man. If he was doing anything spontaneous, he was surely up to something.

  Shaking his head, he waited by the fireside until his cloak was dry. Then, donning a swathe of thick canvas over his shoulders, he struggled out again into the cold and rain. He would have more than his day’s work cut out, if his lordship meant to host guests. They would arrive on horseback, which meant, for Brogan, a hard day ahead and finding somewhere clean and dry to house another
twenty horses. At least, he thought, as the sound of hooves on the paving stones announced the arrival of the guests, it was something that would keep his mind off his anger. Just for a while.

  A FEAST DAY

  The great hall rocked with the sound of voices. A small room, the roof high and vaulted, it did not seem, to Irmengarde, to have been built to house twenty knights, their squires, and a local lord and retinue. All the same, they sat, packed in, on the benches, their voices filling the stone dressed space and making Irmengarde feel sick with anxiety.

  “Milady! You look out of sorts.”

  Irmengarde tensed as Clovis, face red with drink and revelry, turned to face her. His eyes, suspicious and black, were narrowing. He was dressed in a vast robe, and its bulk made him seem more threatening even than he normally did.

  “I feel ill,” she whispered.

  “Always ailing!” he leaned closer, his eyes narrowing as he studied her face. “You do not please me with this frailty, milady.”

  “I am not frail. It is the heat. The closeness…” she fanned herself. She was wearing a high-necked gown of black brocade, over a white linen petticoat. The sleeves lapped her hands and it was stifling. She was not acting, when she said she felt sick – though the effects of heat and the rich scents of the dinner were secondary to the presence of Clovis beside her.

  “Pish,” he dismissed her complaints, turning away. “You’re doing it to spite me. You and all your kind…no truth in you.”

  Irmengarde froze. Here he sat, speaking Lowland Scots, at a table of Scottish knights, and he thought to insult Scottish people, in no soft voice?

  “Apologies for my husband,” she whispered to the nobleman who sat across from her.

  “What’s that, milady?” Lord Dougal frowned. “I did nae hear ye.”

  “I said it’s hot in here,” she whispered, seeing how he turned to her husband, raising a pewter cup in salute to something the man had said.

  “I wish I could lie down.”

  “More water, milady?” A servant – Greer – asked from behind her place at the table. Always discreet, he was one of the few of the castle employees whom she trusted. He often slipped away with plates of food she couldn’t finish and, once, she’d noticed him add water to Clovis’ glass when he was overly sunk in wine.