Of course, she knew.
Gone was the precocious lad usually into mischief, and in his place was a polite, self-assured gentleman. Since when had he ceased speaking with his usual heavy brogue? Did he think it necessary for university? Sadness bathed her, adding to despondency. Even Dugall was different. So much change.
For everyone but her.
Offering a budding smile, she half-shrugged. “I’m truly remorseful, but I had to leave London. My an dara shealladh became an issue. I’d rather not discuss it now though, especially with Fletcher around.”
She didn’t miss the peevish turn of the vicar’s mouth.
Did he truly think he should be privy to their reunion and private conversation? Where had he been during the scuffle? Cowering under a bush? Up a tree? Behind a boulder. Or mayhap using a baby squirrel for a shield?
Brushing several tendrils off her face, she lowered her voice. “There’s something troubling, off-putting about him. I’m not sure what exactly, but he unnerves me in a way I’ve not experienced before.”
“He does, does he?” Mouth tipped in amusement, Dugall wiggled his big fingers at the gawping reverend while whispering out the side of his mouth. “Och, do ye want me to pummel him fer ye, lass?”
There was the familiar Dugall.
“Nae, ye big oaf.” A grin teased her mouth. Actually, she’d like to see Fletcher get his comeuppance. “Please, how does Father fare?”
“Hugh’s leg is broken, and he has a few bruised ribs.” Grinning, Ewan scratched his nose. “He’s a rather horrid patient. Mother threatened to chain him to the bed if he left it once more before Doctor Paterson gave permission.”
“Sounds like our bullheaded father, all right.” A watery chuckle escaped Seonaid as she dabbed at her eyes. “What happened? What caused the fire?”
“We can’t be certain, but Duncan suspects arson.” Consternation crinkled Ewan’s forehead and the corners of his eyes. “Why are you traveling alone, Seonaid, and in December too? When your letter arrived yesterday, Mother was frantic with worry and insisted we leave at once to intercept you.”
“Circumstances became intolerable, Ewan, and I was desperate to leave London.” Casting her attention to her mud-splattered half-boots and pelisse’s hem, she breathed out a poignant sigh. How could she make him understand her dread? Her fear of the future with her fey? Without it, too?
Squaring her shoulders, she met his concerned gaze directly. “I’ll explain once we’re home, but I hesitate to reveal too much with Fletcher nearby.”
Ewan speared the cleric a contemplative glance, and made a sound in the back of his throat.
Wending his way to the coach—from which a completely befuddled Mrs. Wetherby poked her head, her bonnet hanging askew—Reverend Fletcher talked to himself once more.
Ewan raked a hand through his hair. “Very well. We’ll discuss everything at Craiglocky. We can be there by nightfall if the weather holds.” His eyes widened, and a crooked, boyish grin skewed his mouth. “Devaux.”
His hand extended, Jacques strode in their direction. “McTavish.” After clasping palms with Ewan and Dugall, Jacques speared a swift glance to the dead highwaymen sprawled over the horses.
“I think I’ll introduce myself to the vicar. Or mayhap save him from Una. She looks ready to slay the man.” Mischief shading his words, Dugall pecked Seonaid’s cheek before striding to the coach.
Reverend Fletcher dove into the coach with a vermin’s timidity and speed.
Probably trying to hide in the seat’s secret compartment.
Roaring with laughter, Dugall threw back his head but didn’t slow his pace.
“How came you to be traveling with my sister? I’ll admit to being rather shocked.” Buttoning his coat, humor glinted in Ewan’s turquoise eyes. “Forgive me, but you weren’t exactly on the most genial of terms when you last met.”
“Oui, well, mon ami, when I realized Mademoiselle Ferguson and I were stranded at the same posting house, and that she journeyed with only female companions, I felt it my duty to assign myself her protector and deliver her home safely.”
Duty? Was that truly all the past three days had been?
What about the kisses?
Perchance he’d merely been chivalrous offering her comfort, and she’d imagined it as something more. Her first kiss, from him of all men, and the experience meant nothing.
Well, naturally, it hadn’t.
It couldn’t.
Foolish to expect it would. And Seonaid was not a fool.
While other women might be led by their hearts, she’d learned to rely upon logic, despite her unwanted visions. Love was well and good, and her family had been uncommonly blessed with love matches, but her reasons for marrying had nothing to do with sentimental claptrap. Eliminating her second sight motivated her.
Furthermore, if she married and her an dara shealladh remained, she might have to become a recluse, and if she loved her husband, how could she leave him?
“I didn’t anticipate highwaymen waylaying us, although, I’ll admit, that was shortsighted of me.” Smoothing his mustache with his uninjured hand, Jacques lifted a shoulder and swept his enigmatic dark gaze over Seonaid.
Anything else you want to say? Why don’t you tell Ewan you kissed me? Again.
Why she was piqued, she couldn’t say, didn’t truly want to examine. The sooner she reached Craiglocky, the sooner she could seriously plan the most practical means of acquiring a husband.
And he couldn’t ever be Monsieur le baron.
Ewan regarded Jacques’s bandaged hand. “Did that happen just now?”
“Non, last night when thieves decided they’d taken a liking to the horseflesh at our inn.” Lifting his hand, he flashed her one of those smiles that caused her stomach to go wobbly. “Mademoiselle Ferguson’s quite an accomplished nurse.”
“Aye, she’s always had uncommon healing skills. With animals too. Even wild creatures allow her to treat their wounds.” Admiration shone in Ewan’s eyes.
Her visions, on the other hand, he didn’t understand entirely. No one did. How could they? The second sight wasn’t that unusual in Scotland, or unheard of in their family.
Nonetheless, the anomaly fell far beyond what most people, even the Kirk, considered ordinary.
“Zut, I’m most grateful for your timely arrival, McTavish. The highwaymen intended to ransom your sister. Thanks to Fletcher blabbing the mademoiselle’s identity.” Jacques’s handsome face folded in contempt. “He offered to deliver the ransom note himself. A magnanimous chap, non?”
“The devil he did.” The scorching look Ewan shot the chaise promised the matter was far from settled. “I presume he’s Reverend Wallace’s replacement until the good rector returns?”
“You didn’t select Fletcher?” Thank God. Maybe he could be given his congé. How did things of that nature work within the Kirk? Seonaid twisted her loose hair before securing the strand with a pin. “Attempting to garner preferential treatment, he used your name and position rather loosely.”
Ewan frowned. “Vicar Wallace’s mother is dying, and he asked to take a prolonged leave. He assured me he’d written the bishop and asked him to send a worthy man.”
“Non, worthy isn’t a word we’d use to describe him, eh, ma petite?” Jacques gave Seonaid a devilish wink, and like an imbecile, she basked in his esteem.
Ewan’s eyes narrowed a degree.
“Certainly not. His sort blackens honorable clerics’ names and the profession as a whole.” After retying her bonnet ribbons, she shivered and searched her pelisse’s pockets for her gloves. Though sunbeams streamed through the gathering clouds, the air had cooled dramatically.
Given the horizon’s pinkish-grey tint, more snow portended. They’d best get on the road. No more posting houses with snug fires and warm toddies awaited them before reaching Craiglocky.
Reverend Fletcher stuck his head out the coach door, reminding Seonaid of a wary mouse. After a moment’s hesitation, he jump
ed to the ground. His conversation with Dugall had been strikingly short, and afterward, guardedness had replaced Dugall’s usual jovial countenance.
She must ask him what had transpired.
Taking a moment to smooth his bedraggled coat and adjust his equally crumpled hat, Fletcher’s calculating gaze flitted between Ewan, Jacques, and Seonaid. Marching across the distance, he studiously avoided meeting Dugall’s and the other Highlanders’ curious scrutiny.
One foot sank into a mud hole, and arms flailing, Fletcher nearly toppled onto his face before regaining his balance.
Seonaid swore he choked off a vulgar curse, and he continued to mutter as he scowled and attempted to scrape the mud from his boot by dragging the sole in a spot of grass bordering the road.
What was his tale?
What caused him to become bitter and suspicious? Or was his attitude an ingrained character flaw? Whyever had he chosen the Kirk as his profession then?
Perhaps he had no choice.
If so, Seonaid understood his position slightly better, his frustration and anger, too. She’d absolutely no choice regarding her visions, and the older she grew, the more they molded her future.
Except, she had enough of them controlling her life. Either she speedily found a husband, or she’d take herself off to a quiet, remote cottage where, at least, she’d not have witnesses to her episodes.
Well, she could toss morals and good sense to the foaming sea and be freed of her virginity. The right herbs would prevent pregnancy, but how many couplings might it take to determine if the fey had stopped?
One, two, a dozen? More?
And how did she choose the man? Rather awkward, that.
You see, my good fellow, I require you to lie with me until I’m rid of my second sight. Are you at all interested? The process might take some time and repetition.
What if she took the risk and her gamble didn’t pay off? She still possessed the sight of a seer? Then where would she be?
Traipsing off to a dank mountain cave to live out her days in disgrace with the bats? Feared by many who didn’t understand the nature of her gift? Perhaps even hated?
Moments such as these, the dual yokes of anger and resentment overcame her, and she was hard-pressed not to rail her frustration.
Except until now, Seonaid hadn’t railed. Hadn’t complained. She’d meekly accepted her fate, mistakenly thinking she had no other option.
Nudging Ewan, she notched her chin. “The vicar comes this way. Please permit me to ride, rather than endure his company in the chaise the remaining journey.”
“Non, he should ride, although I’m not sure he can sit a saddle.” Jacques’s dry observation earned him a conspiratorially raised brow from Ewan.
“Aye, I confess, the same thought crossed my mind.” One hand resting on his hip, the other at his nape, Ewan considered the horses. “That mare might do, but honestly, with the weather turning bitter again, I don’t think we can afford to have a plodding rider.”
Fletcher stopped before Ewan, and bowed his head differentially. “I presume I be havin’ the honor of addressin’ Laird McTavish hisself?”
At Ewan’s casual chin lift, the reverend swallowed and cut Seonaid an indecipherable glance.
Opening her eyes wide, she arched a mocking brow.
Well?
“Yer lairdship, my Godly duty compels me to tell ye that Miss Ferguson engaged in public affection with this Frenchman. I saw her kiss him. Twice.”
Chapter 9
Rotten, missish tattlemongering frig pig.
Seonaid clamped her jaw else she tell him to toss off, and then have to explain to Ewan how she’d come by such an uncouth expression.
Above their strong noses, Jacques’s and Ewan’s midnight brows collided at the same moment. Their identical, flabbergasted expressions might have been comical another time.
If Fletcher had lied and claimed she’d danced naked as a robin atop the tables at the Hare’s Foot, she didn’t think they’d be any more astounded. Right now, however, she yearned for a parasol to smack the rector.
Twice.
Hard.
“Non, Vicar, you’re gravely mistaken.” Jacques’s gaze, inflexible and dark as jet, bored into the gulping rector. “You saw me consoling a distraught, homesick woman, upset because she was stranded and compelled to wait out the storm. And as I told you then, I was previously acquainted with Mademoiselle Ferguson.”
An innocent sounding partial truth. Wise to have left off that courting balderdash. Outlandish thing to have contrived in the first place. Ewan mightn’t understand, and given the reverend’s penchant for dramatics, he’d demand a wedding ceremony as soon as they reached Craigcutty.
Or mayhap, one this instant.
They were in Scotland after all, where marrying proved easier than learning to properly pour tea. No banns. No licenses. One didn’t need a cleric, truth to tell. Agreeing to enter a union before witnesses sufficed.
Marry Jacques, indeed. A more ludicrous notion never occurred to her. Oh fine, a few had, but she’d not admit to the ideas. His kisses might devastate her composure, but until a few days ago, she couldn’t abide the man.
Is that the real truth?
Yes.
No.
Honestly, that kiss in Paris had seared clear to her satin slippers too. As well it should. After all, he was an experienced libertine, no doubt highly practiced in the skill.
She firmly stamped her maddening thought beneath her mental heel.
At Ewan’s penetrating, expectant stare, Seonaid sighed. “Nothing untoward occurred, Ewan.”
Another partial truth. She’d not deem the kiss something vile or ugly. Improper, yes, but she wouldn’t regret it. Jacques introduced her to something wondrous, given her a glimpse of hope.
His arms crossed, everything in Jacques’s bearing dared the rector to contradict either of them.
“I ken what I saw, and it be more than comfortin’ goin’ on, I tell ye. She be actin’ mighty fast, even if Devaux be courtin’ her.”
Ach, the gossipy knave.
“Courting her? Ah, it’s come to that, has it?” A mixture of disbelief and amusement tipped Ewan’s mouth.
Fletcher couldn’t have seen what transpired between her and Jacques from his position. Unless he could stretch his neck several feet or he’d tiptoed across the room to catch them unawares. The latter she wouldn’t put past the crafty cull.
He sidled closer to Ewan. “And, she kens thin’s afore they happen. That not be Godly, ye have to admit.”
Ewan’s expression hardened, as rigid and inflexible as granite.
But Fletcher, seemingly oblivious, prattled on, reveling in his tale bearing like gossipy Lady Clutterbuck. “I’ve seen the likes afore, I have.” Eyes narrowed to triumphant slits, Reverend Fletcher moistened his already wet lower lip. “There be ways of purifyin’ her kind, though.”
A fierce, revulsion-borne shudder shook Seonaid, so intense, Ewan wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders, and Jacques took a threatening step forward.
“Misérable tas de merde.”
Miserable piece of excrement, indeed.
Either Ewan would call Jacques out for compromising her or cork the cleric for disparaging her.
She’d cheer the latter.
“Ewan.” Duncan, wrapping his gray and vermilion knitted scarf more snugly about his neck as his long strides ate up the ground, pointed to the formidable horizon. “We’d best be movin’ if we be outpacin’ that.”
Searching the horizon, Ewan took Seonaid’s elbow. “Devaux and Fletcher, you will both ride, and expect to ride hard. Those clouds carry another angry winter storm, and there’s no shelter between here and Craigcutty.”
Shuffling his feet, the vicar noisily cleared his throat and rubbed his hands on the front of his shabby coat. “I prefer the chaise if’n ye dinna—”
“But I do mind. Very much.” Ewan towered above the quaking rector. “After what you dared imply about my sister,
count yourself fortunate I don’t plant you a facer. Or worse—man of God or not. That I even permit you to continue on with us is only due to my immense respect for Reverend Wallace.”
Lethal with a blade, Ewan’s tongue punctured equally sharp when his temper was aroused.
Seonaid could’ve no more prevented her lips from arcing than have stopped the storm bearing down upon them.
Jacques laughed outright, a delicious mirthful timbre deep in his chest, earning him a loathing-filled glower from the gloriously mute rector.
After pivoting her to face the chaise, Ewan gave a slight shove. “Go, and tell the other women to brace themselves for a jarring journey. If they need a moment’s privacy, this is the time to take it. We won’t be stopping.”
A repeat of a few days ago. Splendid. She’d best sit on the chaise’s opposite side so she could sport bruises evenly on her person.
Pulling her pelisse aside, Seonaid hurried across the soggy ground. Halfway to the conveyance, Reverend Fletcher’s furious words pulled her up short.
“M’laird, I intend to write the bishop myself and inform him of yer sister’s heretic ways. It be my duty. I be sure he’ll be verra interested in why Wallace kept her soothsayin’ and sorcery a secret—”
His voice ended on a strangled gasp.
“You do that, Fletcher, and it will be my duty to run you through, oui?”
Rustling, followed by a stifled squawk, filled the unnerving quietness.
Her heart beating somewhere in her wobbly knees’ vicinity, Seonaid slowly pivoted.
Jacques’s large hand encircled Fletcher’s skinny throat.
“I would think as a man of the cloth, you would’ve learned when to speak and when to hold your tongue. And that it’s never, and I do mean never, acceptable for you to speak of Mademoiselle Ferguson with such irreverence and contempt.”
Ewan made no move to intervene, but simply observed dispassionately as the rector, his face radish-red and eyes bulging like a toad caught in a predator’s mouth, clawed in vain at Jacques’s hand.
Scandal's Splendor (Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Book 4) Page 8
