Diah help her and Lizzie—they were ruined. Irrevocably ruined.
Chapter Eight
At the end of a very long day, Jack and Lizzie were escorted back to the their little room at the top of the turret.
Jack was still very angry. When Carson had suggested he display his fencing ability that afternoon in one of their so-called games, Jack had been almost relieved to have something to do other than sit about and watch members of the Beal clan drink more ale. He’d never dreamed that his opponent would wield a claymore, the traditional broadsword of the Highlander. Jack knew of claymores—his grandfather had one hanging in his great room that was almost as long as Jack was tall.
But Jack had never actually held a claymore, much less tried to parry with one. He realized, when the broadsword was presented to him, that Carson had done it as a sort of jest. He’d purposely put Jack at a distinct disadvantage against a Highlander and he’d been beaten quite soundly, to the delight of all the Beals in the lower bailey.
It was really not very sporting of Carson.
“Your uncle,” he said sourly as he tossed his coat onto a chair, “lacks the true qualities of a gentleman. I donna care for a man who makes sport of an uneven match.” He yanked impatiently at the ends of his neckcloth, undoing the knot. “I should like him to meet me in the lower bailey with a pair of épées, I would. Then I would see how he laughs.” He began to unwind the neckcloth.
A moment passed before Jack realized that he was being met with silence, which, in the short time he and Lizzie had been thrust together, he’d learned was highly unusual.
He glanced curiously over his shoulder.
Lizzie was standing with her back to the door, her arms folded across her middle, staring morosely at the floor.
“Aye?” he said impatiently. “Now what has you upset?”
Lizzie bit her lower lip and shook her head. Jack squinted at her. She did not meet his eye, but her chin began to tremble. “Diah,” he muttered. “Come now, lass—”
“You are fretting over a silly game, while I am ruined,” she said, and abruptly turned around, putting her back to him and her face to the door. “There was no’ a person in the glen who did no’ see me paraded about in this awful gown and with you!” she said, as if he were a troll. “Is there no way out of this nightmare? Even if Mr. Gordon were so inclined to ignore Carson’s attempt to ruin me, his family can no’ possibly ignore it, and he will never offer now!” A strange sound, sort of a sob and a hiccup at once, escaped her.
“Lizzie,” Jack said, trying to soothe her. It had been a trying day for her. “You are no’ ruined,” he insisted, despite knowing full well that she was quite ruined. “Your Mr. Gordon is in Crieff, aye? He’ll no’ hear of it.” For a few days, anyway.
“Now you’re only being kind to a poor spinster,” she said weakly. “I know very well what this has done. Charlotte and I shall never leave Thorntree, and it hardly matters that I esteem Mr. Gordon, for it is quite likely he shall never speak to me again.” She made the sound again.
Jack winced. He was not very good at this sort of thing, feminine tears and whatnot. He’d never been able to comfort his mother and the Lord knew she’d cried rivers of tears. He started toward Lizzie once, then hesitated. But when he saw her shoulders sag, he briefly looked heavenward for strength, then crossed the room and very carefully put his hands on her shoulders. “Lizzie, you must no’ fret—”
“I am ruined!” she exclaimed. “I have no idea of what I shall do now!”
Jack fished a handkerchief out of the pocket of his waistcoat, turned her around, and handed it to her.
Lizzie took it, dabbed at her eyes, blew her nose, then thrust it back at him. “Thank you,” she said, as Jack gingerly took the handkerchief and tossed it aside. “What distresses me most is that I donna know how I will tell Charlotte. She’s been so worried, and she feels she is such a burden as it is.” She looked up at Jack with crystal blue eyes swimming in tears of worry. “And I canna bear to disappoint her.”
“I donna think you could possibly disappoint her,” he said sincerely, but Lizzie was not listening.
“There is nothing that can be done for it, for here I am with you, locked in this wretched room.” She rubbed her hands vigorously on her arms as if she were rubbing herself back to life, and walked to the small window.
“I’d like a wee bit of warning if you intend to jump,” Jack said.
She smiled weakly. “I’ll no’ jump…but I intend to escape at the first opportunity.”
“Donna do anything rash, Lizzie,” Jack said. “In a day or two, this will all be over.”
“That’s rather easy for you to say,” Lizzie said angrily, the tears gone now. “You may walk away when Carson has done what he will, but I must return to Thorntree and attempt to make some sort of life for myself and my sister. You will no’ be marked by this, but I certainly will!”
Frankly, he could not argue that. It was true. He remained wisely silent…or so he thought. Lizzie shot him a look over her shoulder; Jack shrugged a little sheepishly. But his tacit agreement annoyed her, and she snapped, “There is no end to the burdens men put upon women!”
He hardly knew what she meant by that.
With a groan of exasperation, Lizzie looked down at the old blue gown she wore. She squirmed as if the gown was chafing her. With a glare at Jack, she abruptly yanked the bed curtains down so that his view was blocked. He heard her rummaging about, heard what he thought were skirts rustling, and then some very loud and impatient sighs.
He clasped his hands behind his back. “May I help you?”
“No! You’ve helped me quite enough already, have you no’?”
“Now just a moment, Lizzie,” he said sternly. “It was no’ I who put you in this predicament.”
“Perhaps no’, but you’ve hardly endeavored to improve the situation in the least, have you!”
“I beg your pardon?” he exclaimed, throwing his arms wide in disbelief. “Pray tell, what might I possibly have done to improve this debacle? You may have noticed that things are scarcely within my control either!”
“Aye, but you might have at least pretended to find the whole thing entirely insupportable! But no, you lolled about half the day looking as if you rather enjoyed the games and the feast and eyeing all the women!”
“Oh, now, I am to be damned if I do and damned if I do no’,” Jack groused irritably. “Had I shown my true feelings about this situation, you would have faulted me for making it seem as if you were unworthy of being handfasted to me!”
“Me unworthy?” She laughed wildly. “I think the whole of Glenalmond must at least own that if either of us is unworthy, it is you, Jack! You are a wanted man, and you are a…a rake!”
All right, there was only so much Jack would take. He’d done nothing but try to cooperate for both their sakes, and he was to be maligned for it? Incensed, he grabbed a hold of the curtain and yanked it back. Behind it, in the middle of removing the offensive blue bombazine, Lizzie squealed with surprise and hastily wrapped her arms around her body to keep the bodice from falling.
“And how would you, Elizabeth Drummond Beal, perfect lass that you are, know a rake if you were to see one?” he demanded roughly.
She swallowed. “I…I…I just know. There is an air about you,” she said. “And I saw you with the chambermaid.”
“At your behest!” he cried incredulously.
“I merely meant for you to inquire! No’ to seduce her!”
“What is it, Lizzie?” he asked as he impatiently gestured for her to turn around. Her eyes widened even more, as if she expected him to throw her on the bed and take her there—an idea that was not entirely without merit. “Were you envious of Brigit?” he asked and put his hand on her bare shoulder…the smooth, pale skin of her bare shoulder…and forced her around.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
“Helping you!” he exclaimed brusquely, and began to unbutton the gown. “I believe I h
ave made myself quite plain: I will no’ ravish you until you beg for it, and I hardly care that you are envious of a chambermaid.”
“I am no’ envious! Oh my, it is entirely clear why the prince wants to see you hanged!”
“He doesna want to hang me,” Jack scoffed, although not with complete conviction. “He’s merely confused.”
Lizzie snorted. “Is that what you call it?”
“Hush now, woman,” he said gruffly and finished unbuttoning her, letting his gaze wander her bare back as he did, and focusing, without intention, on the tantalizing gap where the bodice of the gown met the skirt, just where her back curved into her hip. “Before you go round calling a man a rake, you’d best know of what you speak.”
He could see her skin through the gauzy shift she wore, and in a moment that he could not himself understand, he touched her back with a finger through the gap of her gown.
Lizzie cried out and whirled around, backing up so quickly that she banged into the nightstand. “Get out,” she said, clinging to her gown with one hand, pointing to the end of the bed with the other. The gown was slipping off her shoulder.
“Leave me!” she cried. “If you donna want to be thought the rake, then you should no’ act like one!”
“I am no’ a rake,” he said low. “But if I were a rake, I’d no’ allow this moment to pass without…” He paused there, his gaze flicking over her body. Myriad ideas rushed through his mind, all of them carnal. He was just beginning to appreciate how lush Lizzie’s body was beneath that awful blue bombazine, and his mind wandered to those things that men are physically incapable of ignoring when viewing a woman.
Lizzie’s thoughts were likewise wandering to the unthinkable. When a man as physically appealing as Lambourne—eyes the color of smoke, and full, dark lips—looked at her as if she were something to be devoured, her heart raced at an unnatural clip. She did not permit herself to fully acknowledge that perhaps a small part of her wanted to be devoured, and grabbed up the candlestick on the bedside table, ignoring the unlit candle that toppled to the floor. She raised it above her head, prepared to strike if it came to that.
Jack responded with a sultry smile and stepped back, to the foot of the bed. With one more leisurely look at her, he stepped around the end of the bed, so that the bed curtain obstructed his view of her once more.
Lizzie lowered the candlestick and swallowed hard. Her heart was still racing. “Bloody rooster,” she muttered breathlessly.
“I can hear you, Lizzie,” he said calmly from somewhere nearby, startling her. She clamped her mouth shut and quickly dropped the awful bombazine. Standing there in her chemise, she turned to the chair where she’d left her own soiled gown—and found it empty.
Lizzie gasped. “No,” she whispered.
“Pardon?”
She whirled around to face the curtain, her arms crossed over her body. “Where is my gown?” she demanded. “I left it just here! Where is it, what have you done with it?”
“I’ve no’ touched it,” he insisted. “Shall I help you look?”
“No!” she cried. “No, no stay where you are!”
“I suppose that means I’ll no’ be treated to the sight of you en déshabillé, aye?” he said, his disembodied voice somewhere near the table.
Diah! She looked at the bombazine and slowly sank to her knees next to the bed, her arms braced on the bed. They’d taken her gown. Carson, a maid, she had no idea, but someone had taken her gown. “I…I’ve no’ a thing to wear but this blue gown,” she said, her voice betraying her dismay.
There was a long pause on the other side of the curtain. Lizzie sighed and stood back up, dragging the bombazine with her. “All right, then, donna panic,” Jack said.
Lizzie froze; she heard him moving around, chairs scraping the floor, something being dragged. A moment later, the sound of his confident footfall moved toward the bed. Lizzie grabbed up the bombazine and held it up against her.
The first thing that appeared around the end of the curtain was a pair of wool trousers. That was followed by a lawn shirt, which slid on the floor until it hit Lizzie’s feet. Still clutching the bombazine to her chest, Lizzie slowly crouched down and picked up the lawn shirt. “I donna understand,” she said. “These are your clothes.”
“Aye, it is my clothing—but I assure you the garments are no’ the least bit contagious.”
“I canna wear these!”
“Suit yourself, then. You may wear the blue gown and look the part of the spinster while you suffocate, or you might continue to titillate the glen by donning my clothes…at least until the morrow, when we might persuade Dougal to return your gown, aye?”
He had a point. And honestly, Lizzie had a pair of old buckskins that had belonged to her father. She wore them to fish. Trying to pull a carp from the loch in a gown was impractical at best, and generally impossible, and, well…She slipped the lawn shirt over her head.
It fell to her knees. The trousers were worse, the cuffs dragging on the ground. Lizzie stuffed the bottom of her chemise into the trousers and held them gathered at her waist with one hand.
“You’ll no’ keep me in suspense, will you?” Jack said, his voice jovial.
He found it all so amusing, while she, on the other hand, was beginning to feel the weight of the last twenty-four hours, and it was almost impossible to bear. She’d been humiliated in every way.
She must have sighed very loudly, for he said, a bit more gently, “Come on, then, Lizzie.”
“Donna laugh,” she said weakly.
“You have my word.”
She self-consciously stepped out from behind the bed curtain and peeked up at Jack.
He’d discarded the kilt in favor of buckskins. His shirt-tail was out and the neck open; his feet were bare. He was looking at her, but he did not laugh. No, his reaction was something quite the opposite of a laugh. His eyes were darkly alive, as if something inside him had been awakened. His gaze was so intense, so penetrating, that Lizzie felt a rapid flush spreading through her as he slowly rose from his seat at the table. She nervously pushed a thick lock of hair from her face; his gaze followed her movement, then settled on the bit of flesh he could see through the open neck of the shirt she wore.
“No’ a perfect fit, I’ll grant you,” he said, “but it seems more comfortable than the alternative, aye?” In two casual strides, he closed the distance between them.
His gaze wandered down her frame, his body seemingly as tense as Lizzie felt. He was standing too close, too close—she drew a startled breath when he laid his hand on her waist.
Jack looked up, his eyes the deepest gray color of a winter sky. But the cool color belied the heat she saw in them. “I—I need a belt,” she stammered.
He slid his hand around to her back and pushed her forward, closer to him, but Lizzie resisted. “What are you doing?”
He did not answer at first but continued to look at her with that thing burning in his eyes. “Determining the size of your waist,” he said tightly.
She cocked a brow.
“You need a belt,” he reminded her as he continued to caress her waist with his hand.
“Anything will do,” she said quickly, trying hard to ignore the feel of his hand on her waist. “A neckcloth, a piece of twine. Something, for I fear they might fall.”
“Ah. We canna have that, can we?” he asked in a manner that suggested they could have precisely that. He reached behind her at the same moment Lizzie tried to lean away from him. He caught her with his arm, locking it around her waist, and held up the sash from the bed curtain. “Will this do?”
Lizzie grabbed for it, but he yanked it out of her reach. When she turned back to him, her gaze landed on his mouth, and for a moment, one long, terrifyingly hopeful moment, she thought he would kiss her, would press his mouth to hers, would put his hands on her skin.
Before she could want it, before she could do something that she would regret the rest of her life, Lizzie grabbed the sash. But he was
quick, and rolled it up in his fist, so that their fingers tangled for an electrifying moment.
Lizzie’s heart was skipping wildly about in her chest. “Let go,” she whispered.
Jack smiled like a wolf and deliberately let the sash go, holding it loosely in his hand as she yanked it free. She whirled away from him, gulped for air at the same time she lifted the shirt a bit and threaded the sash around the waist of the trousers and belted them to her. She knotted the hem of the lawn shirt just below her waist and turned round, her hands on her hips.
Jack had seated himself and was sipping wine. He gestured to the chair across from him. With a pointedly wary look at him, Lizzie took the chair. He watched her pull one leg up to her chest and roll up the leg of his trousers, then the other. When she’d finished, she sat with her legs crossed, her arms folded self-consciously around her. “You’re staring.”
“No’ at all,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m…admiring.” He poured wine and slid it across the table to her. “I will insist that Dougal return your gown on the morrow.”
The very thought of another day spent in this circus sobered her. “On the morrow,” Lizzie repeated with a weary sigh. “I donna think I can bear the morrow.”
Jack absently fingered the stem of his wineglass as he studied her. “I can no’ begin to guess why your uncle has gone to such lengths, but you’ve endured quite a lot of ill treatment at his hand. Why would he do this to you?”
If only she knew. Certainly Carson did not care for the way she and Charlotte made their own decisions, but this…this was indescribably cruel. Lizzie glanced down at her attire and felt the tears of exhaustion and frustration filling in behind her eyes. “I want to go home,” she said softly.
Jack nodded.
“On the grave of my father, I donna deserve this. He’s ruined me. I canna imagine how we shall survive. I want to go home,” she repeated tearfully.
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