His Tarnished Ruby

by Kelsey McKnight

  Conner yelled something out to the gathering, but his words sounded muffled, far away. She couldn’t guess what he said, but whatever it was sent the spectators back to their meals and hushed conversations. She could guess that conversations wouldn’t be about the Martinmas events, but about her and the two men who would shed blood on the morrow.

  A pair of strong, sturdy arms suddenly raised her up. They looped beneath her knees and behind her back. She looked up to see Andrew staring straight ahead, bearing her out of the hall. Flora waited for him to speak, but he said nothing, merely carrying her through the halls. His tarnished load to bear.

  When they were almost at her room, and far away from any other person, she dared to open her mouth. “Andrew?”

  He didn’t respond. He opened her bedroom door and carried her over the threshold. Flora thought they made the saddest bridal-looking party in history. She thought it darkly amusing that she had hoped, in the deepest parts of her heart, that they would one day make that same journey as man and wife, but as ruined woman and hurt lover, it was far less romantic.

  He gently set her down on her bed and pulled the folded quilt slowly over her legs. “Do you need anything?” he asked her in a tired voice. “I can have someone bring you tea or something to eat.”

  Flora was shocked anew. She had been revealed to be a harlot, yet he questioned if she required anything, as if she merely suffered from a common cold. His concern floored her. He had just been shamed before half the clan by association with her but her comfort and wellness was still his greatest concern. And he could die because of it.

  She couldn’t let him fight Jasper. Even in duels that claimed to end at the first drawing of blood, it was common for someone to be killed, no matter their opponent’s intentions. And she wouldn’t put it past Jasper to cheat, slicing an artery to bleed Andrew out, or spearing him clear though, claiming a slip of the wrist. What chance did a mild-mannered gentleman have against a seasoned warrior?

  “Andrew…please…don’t do it,” she croaked, feeling hot tears begin their descent down her face.

  “Do what?” He peered down at her, not in hatred or disgust, but something akin to sheer exhaustion.

  “Fight Jasper.”

  “I must.”

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t. Just call it off.”

  “I can’t do that, Flora. I’m the one who called the duel.”

  “Please, just don’t.”

  Andrew exhaled slowly then sat on the edge of her bed, taking her hand in his. “I must and I will. I need to defend your honor against such vile treatment.”

  Flora didn’t know such a thing was possible, but she could feel her heart break at his confidence in her purity. It was like the slow, creaking lurch in her chest. She didn’t deserve his pity. She only deserved his scorn and him leaving her for good, more for his own sake than hers.

  “Andrew.” Her voice cracked. “Andrew, Jasper didn’t dishonor me.”

  “Of course he did. We all heard those awful things he said about you.”

  She drew her knees to her chest, hiding her face in the blankets. The words she knew she should say were fighting to stay behind her teeth and she had to force them out. “He couldn’t dishonor me because what he said was true.”

  Flora waited for Andrew to yell, to scream, to call her all those terrible things she called herself in her darkest moments. But he didn’t do any of those things. He simply said two quiet words in the saddest voice she had ever heard.

  “I see…”

  Knowing whatever they had was over for good, she ripped her hand from his grasp and tore off the blankets. She thought she should tell Andrew goodbye, but couldn’t bear the thought of saying those final words. In a terrible twist of fate, that was the moment her legs decided to cooperate. She leaped from the bed and scrambled from her bedchamber, letting her tears of sorrow and shame fall freely.

  Flora didn’t know where to go. Her family and the Martinmas guests milled through most of the castle…except Conner’s library.

  It was mercifully empty. Still, she couldn’t risk the chance of begin found by a wandering guest or maid. If no one had been talking about her before, they certainly would have then. She climbed the stairs to the second floor of the library and sat down beside a case of ancient books, desperate to have a good, long, and interrupted cry into her skirts. But her moment of quiet was short lasting.

  “Flora?” Andrew called out in the main library below. “Please, are you in here?”

  She put her hands over mouth to stifle her tears, but one small sniff escaped.

  “Flora, is that you? Are you up on the second floor?”

  There was no way she could sneak past him to the main castle. Luckily there was another way she could make her grand escape. She pushed open the door that led to a narrow corridor. Ahead was the exit to the balcony and to her right was a set of stairs. She turned for the stairs, but saw a coupled pair halfway down, their bodies unnaturally intertwined. She couldn’t risk going by them either, as they were quite engaged and it was far too narrow to sneak past them. So Flora did the only thing she felt she could.

  The veranda was three stories up, overlooking the keep’s courtyard. The rain had lessened to a pitiful smattering of frigid drops, but the wind gusted, pressing her rapidly soaking gown to her body. Flora didn’t feel the cold. She was already numb from the inside out.

  She gripped the waist-high stone that kept her from falling to the courtyard below. Her tears blended in with the rain and the gale masked the sounds of her sorrowful crying. She was sorry she didn’t think to immediately run outside. It was the perfect place to fall apart.

  “Flora?”

  She spun on her heel. Andrew stood on the balcony beside the door, his hair soaked and plastered to his face.

  “Andrew.” Flora wiped her face with her damp sleeve, not noticing how futile the motion was.

  He stepped forward until he was right before her. “Flora, come inside. You’ll catch your death out here.”

  “I hope I do,” she replied, half thinking of leaping from their perch. “Just leave, Andrew. Leave me and go live a good, clean life!”

  “I can’t live a good life without you in it,” he shouted over the wind.

  “All those things Jasper said about me are true,” she admitted again, hoping to convince him to leave, for his own sake. “Every nasty thing!”

  Andrew put one arm around her middle, his free hand cupping her cheek. “I don’t give a bloody damn about that.”

  She was most startled to hear him curse than she was to feel his mercifully warm palm upon her face. “What did you say?”

  “Flora, I don’t care what you did before me. I don’t care whom you were with or who you were. I don’t care about Jasper. I don’t care about scandal. I only care about who you are now and the life we can have together. I love you, Flora MacLeod. I love you more than some antiquated notion of purity, more than my studies, more than that bloody law practice with all those bloody boring men. You’re the fire that keeps me sane and warm and I won’t let you run from it, Flora. I won’t let you stand here in the rain, extinguishing the flame that makes you you.”

  “Andrew—”

  “Please, don’t stop me now. I’m trying to make an impression on you and I can’t have your dramatics spoiling it.”

  Flora went to speak, to tell him what she felt, but he brushed his thumb over her lips, silencing her.

  “If you want to live in Scotland and be a sheep farmer’s wife, then get me a staff. If you desire a home in London in the fashionable side and a new hat every Sunday for church, you shall have it. I’ll live where you want, how you want…I’ll be who you want—”

  “I want you!” Flora shouted at him. “I want you as you are, you stupid, stupid, stupid man.” She laughed, the sound barely audible over the wind. “I want you today, tomorrow, forever.”

  Andrew drew his face close enough for Flora to see the beads of rainwater that collected on his l
ong, dark lashes. Then he pressed his lips to hers and Flora poured all that she had into their kiss, running her hands over the soaked fabric of his shirt and holding onto their embrace as if she would fall to pieces without it.

  Andrew’s lips parted and he whispered, “Then I will give you forever.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Flora sat in bed with Gwen and Charlie both perched by her feet. Gwen looked positively shocked and Charlie kept murmuring about stabbing Jasper in his sleep. Flora and Andrew had gone to their respective rooms after their embrace in the rain and now she was bundled in several blankets, barely able to keep from sobbing.

  “I can’t believe Conner is allowing this,” Gwen said quietly, toying with a loose string on the hem of her dress.

  “He doesn’t have a choice,” Flora told her firmly. “Andrew called the duel and Conner can’t stop it now, especially with so many witnesses.”

  “Bollocks,” Charlie spat. “Isn’t he some kind of king? Can’t he just chop Jacob’s head off or have him drawn and quartered?”

  “Jasper,” Gwen corrected.

  “Yes, Conner should chop Janice’s head off and be done with it,” Charlie affirmed.

  Flora pulled her furs up to her chin. “He can’t do that either. Charlotte had him agree to stop executions in favor of humane punishment, especially as an execution has to be overseen by the courts of Great Britain. Then my follies would be fully public knowledge.”

  “We should poison him,” Charlie suggested in a hushed voice. “Aren’t there supposed to be all manners of witches in Scotland? Surely you have some sort of old crone you can call?”

  Gwen shoved him lightly. “We can’t kill people. Charlotte says it’s not allowed.”

  “Which is why we poison him…no murder weapon. Honestly, Gwendolyn, what do they teach you in those fancy finishing schools for ladies?”

  “Less about poison than you would think.” Gwen turned back to the matter at hand. “But I do think we must do something. Jasper is very experienced with the blade and I wouldn’t put it past him to fight dirty.”

  Flora felt her throat tighten. “That’s exactly what I fear most. Should I, perhaps, talk to Jasper?”

  “Conner has him under guard,” Gwen told her, taking her hand. “The moment you go to the dungeon, Conner will hear about it in an instant.”

  “Surely Andy will listen to reason. He wouldn’t wish to upset you.” Charlie’s voice was unnaturally soft, something that Flora found eerie.

  “I think I’d like to rest now,” she announced, turning on her side.

  Gwen hopped off the bed. “Of course. Do you need anything?”

  Flora shook her head.

  Charlie was much slower to leave, but finally patted her on the leg and said, “I’ll go see to Andy…as long as you’re positive that we cannot have Jasper poisoned?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She waited until the bedroom door was firmly shut behind them before rising from bed. The floor was cold beneath her bare feet and she wrapped a robe around her as she paced before the fire. She usually found the sound of soft crackling comforting, but when the man she loved was less than twenty hours away from being slaughtered by the person she hated most, nothing on earth could ease her troubled mind.

  Flora wasn’t sure how to feel. She hadn’t known Andrew that long, but she felt as if she was losing her life partner, making her a widow before she had a chance to be a bride. It wasn’t fair. Andrew didn’t deserve to die for her stupid misdeeds. And that thought made her furious. He was so determined, willing to die for her reputation instead of quietly slipping away to London, bringing her with him like she wished.

  “Damn you, Andrew, you stubborn fool,” she whispered, batting away the tears of frustration that dampened her already soaked cheeks.

  She crossed to the foot of her bed, where her dowry trunk had sat since she was born. Every MacLeod girl had the same heavy, oak trunk and every year, their mother put something new inside for when they married. A set of silver baby spoons, ivory sewing needles, a book on maintaining a household…all lovingly selected for the future wives and mothers they’d been born and bred to be.

  The lid was heavier than she remembered, and she struggled to ease it open. The trunk was nearly full, packed tight with fine items. She sat on the floor and began pulling things out, inspecting each one and tossing it aside. It was therapeutic, in a way, to say goodbye to the gifts that were meant to be used in her marriage, for Flora knew once Andrew was gone, she would never love again. The finery was as good as trash.

  One of the final things she pulled out was a series of packages wrapped in paper. Flora felt her cheeks heat. While most girls of her station would receive high-necked nightgowns for their wedding night, the grand Lady MacLeod held different standards and found the usual bridal garments to be bulky and unrefined. She prided in her collection of fine Irish lace from her homeland and she had ordered nightgowns and wrappers to be specially made for all her girls.

  Flora carefully unwrapped both packets. The first held a fine silk robe in a luxurious cream. Delicate lace trimmed the edges and blue ribbon piped through the embroidery on the sleeves. The second package revealed a nightgown in the sheerest of chiffon with a daring lace neckline. As she fingered the two garments, she wryly thought it was a pity she would never wear them…that Andrew would never see her wear them.

  “Wait a moment, Flora Fiona MacLeod,” she muttered aloud, rising to her feet. “You are just as Charlie always says, a delicate bloody flower! If you want Andrew to see you in this sinful gown, then he will. And then he can try to tell you he’d give up being your husband to prove a bloody point!”

  She began to laugh as she clutched the silks and lace to her chest. It was no secret to her that Andrew found her arousing. She had felt it herself as they kissed on the first day of the Martinmas celebrations. All she needed to do was seduce him into leaving Scotland for London and marry her at once. As soon as he beheld her form, he wouldn’t dare dream of throwing her away in order to fight Jasper. She’d give him a reason to live, even if it was just her body. Then they would have a charming wedding in England and he’d be too busy with her in bed to think about ever drawing a sword again.

  Smiling smugly, she dashed into her bathroom to begin her toilette. If she were to save Andrew’s life, then she’d need to be perfectly irresistible.

  ***

  The castle was silent when Flora stepped into the corridor, wrapped heavily in a cloak over her bridle negligee. A bag of coins was clutched tightly in her hands to use as a bribe for the guards outside his door. She had left her slippers behind, knowing she was quieter in her bare feet, and scurried through the halls. But she didn’t meet anyone on her way and the men she thought she might meet outside his chambers where nowhere to be seen.

  Once she was outside his door, Flora paused a moment to catch her breath and ensure her loose hair wasn’t overly mussed by her cloak. It was strange that she should feel so nervous; it was not as if she was an untouched virgin and completely ignorant of the inner workings of the marital bed. But she thought that maybe her pounding heart had less to do with her purity—or lack thereof—and more to do with the fact that her actions might have the power to keep him from dueling. It was a lot of pressure.

  She tapped lightly on the door, hoping that Charlie couldn’t hear from his own chambers. This was one secret she didn’t wish to share. After several louder knocks, she started to fear he wasn’t in his rooms at all. That maybe, perhaps, he had taken her words to heart and fled for England. But that would mean he left her behind.

  Feeling her heart begin to flutter painfully in her chest, Flora pounded on the door, mumbling, “That dratted man better not have gone and—”

  The door swung open and there stood Andrew, a towel slung around his hips and his hair sopping wet. He initially looked rather vexed, but his expression softened when his eyes met Flora’s in the dim light. Andrew looked down either end of the hall and then pulled her
inside, locking the door behind her.

  “Flora, what are you doing here?” he asked, brushing the wet locks from his eyes. “If your bother finds you here, then you needn’t worry about my dueling, for he will spear me through.”

  She tried to find the words to answer him, but was left speechless by his naked torso. Of course she had been raised alongside bare-chested Scottish warriors, but seeing Andrew so exposed made her neck and cheeks hot. She couldn’t look away. She had felt his form during their few, heated embraces, but now that every dip and curve of his muscular stomach and chest were so visible, she felt the urge to touch him. And as her eyes drifted downward, seeing the deep “v” that disappeared into his towel, she—

  “Flora, can you at least pretend to be interested in what I’m saying?” Andrew was grinning rather broadly, obviously amused by her uncharacteristic speechlessness, but too polite to point it out.

  She swallowed and averted her eyes. “I’m sorry, do continue.”

  He picked another towel off his bed and began drying his hair. “And I’m sorry for answering the door in such a state. With all that banging, I thought there was maybe a fire or some manner of emergency.”

  “No…just me…”

  “Have you come to speak to me about tomorrow?” Andrew was at his wardrobe then, pulling out some clothes.

  “Actually, I am.” Her fingers worked away the clasp at her neck, dropping her cloak to the floor and baring her bridal robe.

  He turned at the sound of fabric hitting the ground and nearly dropped his towel when he saw what she wore. “Flora…what are you doing?”

  “Andrew, don’t fight tomorrow,” she said softly, taking several short steps toward him. “We can leave now and ride for the border. We’ll be gone before the sun rises.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You must.” She took a deep breath, trying to steady her voice. “Jasper is known to fight dirty. He isn’t even allowed to spar and gamble in the surrounding villages anymore. Once, a few years ago, he accidentally stabbed a man in the heart during a blood duel. Do you know how difficult it is to slip your blade directly into someone’s heart when you’re trying? It’s almost impossible to plunge through a set of ribs by accident. He won’t fight fair.”