“Non, I but twisted my ankle at Oakberry.” Jacques carried Fletcher’s possessions, including the mud-speckled satchel. After placing them atop the desk, he sank into the chair Ewan vacated.
“I’ve asked the doctor to take a look at your ankle when he finishes with Lady McTavish.” Trying to gauge the extent of his injury, Seonaid surreptitiously examined him.
He’d bathed, and he wore Hessians, so his ankle couldn’t be that badly swollen, else he wouldn’t have put the boot on again.
“That’s not necessary,” Jacques demurred. “But I thank you.”
She gave him a sharp look. Maybe he worried he’d have to pay the physician. Surely he realized Ewan would cover the fee. It wasn’t her place to insist, however.
Light from the tapers in the mantel’s silver candleholders reflected off his inky black hair, still wet from his bath, and his buff pantaloons and berry-toned coat accented his manly physique. Must he be so blasted attractive?
Her face battered and bruised, Seonaid felt about as appealing as a bald, toothless crone.
His warm perusal traveled over her, and his mouth bent into that rakish curve that caused her to blink like a hen-eyed simpleton.
Touching the side of his mustache his scar disappeared into, his lips slanted a trifle more.
Charming rakehell. He knew exactly what he did to her. How could she be so gullible?
Who did he think he was, regarding her like that? And in front of her brother. Well, Ewan couldn’t see Jacques’s face from where he stood, but still, the man overstepped the bounds.
A good dressing down was what he deserved.
Yes, he’d saved her from a horrid situation, deadly perhaps, but that didn’t mean he could engage his masculine charm, flash his perfect teeth, gaze at her through those alluring, hooded eyes, and pretend this morning hadn’t happened.
Beckoning every ounce of indignation she could muster—a pathetic sampling, to be sure—she chastised him with her affronted gaze, then lifted her nose and presented her profile. Who cared if Ewan deducted everything wasn’t wonderful between her and Jacques? Perhaps he’d be inclined to ask the suave, cocky Monsieur le baron to leave.
“Brandy? Or whisky? Devaux, you look like you could use a dram.” Lifting a tumbler, Ewan waited. “Ought to pour you a dab too, Seonaid, after what you’ve been through. You look done in.”
Wrinkling her nose, she shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ll have a spot of wine before I retire.”
“I’m fine as well.” Jacques’s regard never left Seonaid. “May I inquire how Lady McTavish fares?”
Stop staring.
A blush crept up Seonaid’s face, and she made a pretense of examining the ribbon edging her sleeve to hide her discomfit.
Ewan capped the decanter, the clink of the topper sliding home, but he didn’t join her and Jacques. She shifted in her chair. Glass in hand, Ewan swirled the umber liquid, a bemused gleam in his eye.
Oh, dear. Had she been so transparent in her gawping? She scrambled for something to distract him.
“What’s in that?” Seonaid pointed to Fletcher’s battered case.
“Yes, what is all this?” Ewan set his tumbler upon the desk, then scowling, picked up the lengths of rope and cross. “Fletcher had these with him?”
That finally drew Jacques’s attention away from her. He slapped his palms upon his thighs. “I believe the wretch intended to perform an exorcism.”
Jacques would’ve laughed as McTavish’s jaw sagged in disbelief, except nothing about this situation was humorous. A madman ran free, and Jacques didn’t think they’d seen the last of him.
Seonaid couldn’t be permitted to leave the keep without armed escorts. In fact, that was why he’d wanted to speak with McTavish. He hadn’t known she was in the study as well.
The swelling and discoloration on her beautiful face had worsened, yet she was even more precious to him. She must be protected.
Dropping the rope, McTavish clapped his mouth shut. “My God, he’s bloody insane.”
Jacques loudly cleared his throat as the Scot flipped the latch on the satchel.
McTavish hesitated long enough for Jacques to forestall him with a minute headshake. Seonaid shouldn’t see the contents.
“I think Miss Seonaid should tell you what transpired with Fletcher, and then she should retire. It’s been a trying day, non?”
Starting with his unpardonable treatment, but given her frosty looks, he’d succeeded in alienating her. It was for the best, but he would see her safe from Fletcher.
“Aye, Seonaid, tell me all.” McTavish rested his hip upon his desk, his arms folded.
Head bowed, and her hands clasped in her lap, she recounted the incident, her voice occasionally shaky around the edges. Raising tear-laden eyes to her brother, she whispered, “He would’ve killed me, because of my an dara shealladh. It’s not a gift, Ewan. It’s not. I don’t want it anymore.”
She broke then, covering her face and weeping quietly into her hands.
Only clenching his fists until his nails dug into his palms prevented Jacques from hurling caution, good sense, everything that had ever meant anything to him, to the dung heap and claiming Seonaid as his.
And chances were, face McTavish’s sword in short order as a result.
McTavish gathered her in his arms, pulling her close.
“Listen to me, Seonaid. I don’t know why you and your grandmother amongst all our family have ever had the second sight. But know this, I believe with all my heart, God gave you the ability. I confess, I didn’t realize the burden you carried, but you’ve saved many a life. Don’t forget the good you’ve done, and the good you will do.”
She snuffled into her brother’s coat, and Jacques passed her his handkerchief. The second one today. He had one left. Pressing the cloth to her eyes, she nodded and whispered a croaky, “Thank you.”
Jacques should leave; he felt an intruder, but he still needed to speak with McTavish. Alone.
Tilting her chin, McTavish gave Seonaid a tender smile. “Mother revealed that’s why you wanted to marry.” He wiped a tear from her nose with his thumb. “You might still have the second sight afterward. You understand that, don’t you? Is it worth rushing into marriage?”
A blow with Goliath’s cudgel wouldn’t have pained Jacques more. Non, bludgeoning him to a pulp would hurt less. That was why she asked him to take her virginity. She was that desperate.
She cut Jacques an embarrassed peek. “I’d rather not talk about that, if you don’t mind. It’s been a traumatic day. I should like to retire now.”
Her brother kissed the top of her head. “By all means. I don’t want you leaving the keep, though, until Fletcher’s caught. And make sure you let Doctor Paterson see to your face.”
He gave her another affectionate squeeze before setting her from him.
“Yes, of course. Good evening, Monsieur.” She dipped her head, but avoided Jacques’s gaze.
He bowed. “Sleep well, Miss Seonaid.”
And God grant you pleasant dreams, mon amour. You deserve them.
Neither man spoke until the door closed quietly behind her.
Sighing, Jacques faced McTavish. “If you have a few moments more, there’s something of import I’d like to discuss with you.”
“There’s something I’d like to discuss with you too.” He’d sunk into his chair, but rather than relaxed, McTavish looked poised to pounce, a shrewd—or was it predatory?—glimmer in his eyes. “Do you intend to tell Seonaid you’re in love with her?”
Chapter 21
After lying awake most of the night, flopping this way and that, fluffing her pillows only to smash them flat a few minutes later, Seonaid finally heaved a sigh and rose.
Amazing how many nocturnal noises crept into her chamber in the still, morning hours.
A cat’s irate yowl, a cow’s low moo; the wind carelessly ruffling pine branches or rattling her window. In the distance, an owl hooted, and she swore tiny, clawed feet
had scampered across the floor.
Better have Una thoroughly search my chamber for mice.
Equally astounding was how interminably protracted the night slogged on—the minutes slowed by an invisible force—when the monologue in her mind wouldn’t hush. When she kept reliving yesterday’s wretched events. When Jacques’s striking face wouldn’t stay under the pillow she plopped across, then pressed against her face.
And, truth to tell, her cheek and throat ached something fierce. However, she’d refused the laudanum Doctor Paterson prescribed. The one time she’d taken a dose, wool filled her head and cotton stuffed her mouth.
Wrapped in a thick tartan, she sat in a chair she dragged before the freshly stoked fire and tried escaping into the pages of a book. After she read the same passage several times, and had no idea whether the page contained a recipe for marmalade, advice about proper comportment, or how to treat carbuncles, she abandoned the frayed volume.
Another chilly hour passed with Seonaid curled in her third story window seat, her head pressed against the slightly blurry glass. The sky had cleared, and the stars and a full moon glowed brightly against night’s ebony backdrop. A lone stag, his antlers and head lifted reverently to the heavens, stood in the meadow past the stables.
The moon’s silvery radiance bathed the bailey and beyond in translucent beams. A light flared in a blacksmithy window, casting a slight glimmer on the building housing her pets. Someone else had awoken early too.
Paying a call on her pets might be the distraction she needed. After swiftly donning a gown and twisting her hair into a simple knot, she crept from her chamber, a pair of clean half-boots in hand. She paused for a fraction outside Jacques’s door.
Shoulders slumped, she bent her neck and hurried onward.
Dawn hadn’t roused her drowsy head before Seonaid slipped into the outbuilding housing her menagerie.
Whining, Chester nudged her knee. “Good morning. Let me light the lantern, and then I can give you a proper greeting.” Opting to leave her pelisse on as barrier against the early morn’s biting chill, she made quick work of the task, watched the whole while by sleepy-eyed animals.
Milly lifted her head, blinked groggily, and perhaps a mite accusatorily too, then went to sleep again. Freya lay curled ’round her litter and, other than partially opening one amber eye, didn’t stir.
“It was a trifle rude of me to awake you so early, but I couldn’t sleep, and needed company to divert me from my wayward musings.” As Seonaid went about preparing their feed, she continued speaking her thoughts. “You have no idea how fortunate you are to not have to fret about what others think of you.”
An indecipherable scratching interrupted her as she cuddled the kittens. Probably Douglas. He often dropped in before he started his day at the smithy.
“Come in.”
Despite his deafness, Chester’s ears perked up, and he cocked his head.
Still nestling the smallest kitten under her chin, she faced the door.
Jacques stood over the threshold, hat in hand, sadness and strain about his eyes and mouth.
A sensation, much like falling from a great height, assailed her. “You’re leaving.”
He didn’t have to tell her. She could feel his absence in her soul, see goodbye in his eyes, read farewell on his face. And the crushing ache that stabbed her heart and stole her breath sent a wave of paralyzing dizziness over her, so forceful, she thought she might swoon.
Breathe.
Brushing her cheek against the kitten’s soft fur, she hid her dismay. She ought to be glad, but despair’s sharp talons sank deep into soft flesh, shredding hope and drawing blood.
Stupid, fickle emotions.
“Oui. Not Scotland yet, but Craiglocky, so I can be closer to the mine.” His melodic baritone resounded hollowly, and his fingers played upon the hat’s brim, almost nervously.
“That’s prudent, I suppose.” But it didn’t make his going easier.
She’d become accustomed to seeing him, if only from afar. Even if there couldn’t be anything between them. Yes, she knew he must leave someday. Just not today. Or tomorrow. Or next week. Not until she’d had time to put him from her heart. That desire—to be his—had been dashed to smithereens.
Returning the kitten to her mother, Seonaid parted her lips and sucked in a bracing breath. She must be strong and brave.
Absolutely no waterworks. Not one tear.
“I intend to labor alongside my workers, and that is more easily done if I live nearer Oakberry Quarry, non?”
Yes. No. Yes, drat it all.
She marshalled her courage and faced him, hands folded before her, the picture of poised composure. “Will you attend the Valentine gathering?”
Despite her determination to remain unaffected, her voice quivered, as off balance as she, and Seonaid bit her lower lip.
Well, so much for poise and composure.
He shook his head, causing that stubborn, endearing lock to fall forward. His hungry gaze trailed over her face, as if for the last time. Finally he responded, “I think it best if I don’t, ma petite.”
“I see.” She couldn’t see a blasted thing from the moisture blinding her, but nonetheless, she painted a bright smile onto her face and resolutely blinked her tears away. “I bid you farewell then, Jacques. I wish you good health and prosperity.”
So polite. So formal.
When what she wanted to say, to beg, was stay.
Please stay. Forget about the mine. Forget about returning to France. Forget about le Manoir des Jardins and your dead family.
Stay here. With me.
“Adieu, Seonaid.”
He smiled at her then, that bone-melting curve of his firm mouth that heated her in unmentionable places and made her want to lunge into his strong arms and be held forevermore.
“Be happy, ma belle.” Tenderness and perhaps something more laced his voice. “And if you ever think of me, please know, I wish with all my being things could’ve been different between us.”
God. How could she ever be happy? She loved him. And he was leaving. And she wouldn’t ever see him again. And they’d both marry other people. And she would be utterly, wholly, forever miserable.
Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded as a single, plump droplet spilled onto her cheek.
He tracked the teardrop’s slow descent, and his lips parted as if to speak.
“Devaux.”
Ewan.
Blandness immediately replaced Jacques’s fond expression, and he dropped his gaze, his jaw tightening.
Stern-faced, his hair mussed, and barely decent in only his shirt, pantaloons, and boots, Ewan loomed behind Jacques.
His manner wasn’t altogether friendly either.
What? Had he sprung from his bed and sprinted after Jacques? Precisely what occurred after she left the study last night?
“I was merely saying adieu, McTavish.” With a final caressing look, a glance filled with all he hadn’t said, Jacques ducked out the entrance.
Only her brother, blocking the doorway, prevented Seonaid from running after Jacques and professing her love. However, something in Ewan’s bearing rooted her cold feet to the even colder floor.
Eyebrows scrunched, he watched Jacques leave, then stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. Chester trotted over and, after a cursory pat upon the dog’s head, Ewan folded his arms and leaned a hip against the table.
“Is that all he said to you? Farewell?”
“Yes. What else would there be?”
Certainly no undying avowals of love.
Anger at Ewan’s interference made her voice shrill. “I cannot say I think it your concern, and surely not urgent enough to have you rush outdoors partially dressed before the cock has even crowed.”
“What are you doing out here this early?” Suppressing a yawn, his bleary gaze traveled ’round the building.
What would he do if she claimed she and Jacques had an early morning dalliance? That they’d been sneak
ing out for private tête-a-têtes since he’d arrived?
No, that would be unfair to Jacques. Ewan would force him to marry her, and he’d lose his estate if the mine didn’t produce. Even if it did, how long would the ore last?
She harbored little mining knowledge, as much as Jacques did about birthings or blending herbal remedies, but she understood the industry was unpredictable at best.
“I thought you were exhausted,” Ewan said, “and I didn’t expect you to rise until late.”
His persistence poked her vexation, and she pressed her lips tight, shrugging and closing Freya’s pen.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Because of the man you practically chased from here. “My pets bring me comfort, so I sought them.”
Carriage wheels clacked and horses’ hooves clopped across the bailey’s frozen ground. Of its own volition, Seonaid’s attention strayed to the window. Jacques’s conveyance lumbered past, his shadowy outline barely identifiable through the window in the half-light.
He carried her mangled heart with him.
Would she truly never see him again?
Her future loomed desolate and interminable before her.
“I’d rather you not leave the keep alone,” Ewan said, stifling another wide yawn. “I believe I made that clear last night.”
Dejection’s vice-like grip riddling her, she sighed.
His head angled. A speculative expression lighting his face, Ewan regarded her.
Why must he intrude at this moment?
A few moments to come to grips with Jacques’s departure would’ve been welcome. An audience to her doldrums wasn’t. She couldn’t indulge in a good cry, and at the moment, she truly needed to vent her heartbreak.
She repressed the harsh retort thrumming against her teeth. Lack of sleep and Jacques’s parting had her short on patience. “Am I to understand I cannot venture here, to the stables, or anywhere outdoors without an escort?”
Scandal's Splendor (Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Book 4) Page 18
