It was near the hottest part of the afternoon when at last I clopped into the busy streets, where no one seemed to care who I was. Father had often warned me against the evils of cities – “No one will look at you twice, even a lovely girl like you, because they’re all so wrapped up in their own business!” – but right now that sounded absolutely heavenly. Being my father’s daughter had never suited me terribly well back home, always catching the attention of one and all wherever I roamed, and true anonymity was something I had known only when I disguised myself as a boy. That, it occurred to me, would have been a great strategy for staying out of sight in Inverness. But I had no boys’ clothing and no means to bind my breasts, and as I blossomed forth into the crowded city streets, it took some time before I could be quite sure my anonymity now was real. But it was, and after ten minutes or so inside the city proper and no shouts of “My God, it’s Lady Brianna Douglas!” I was persuaded there would indeed be none.
Once my paranoia subsided, I realized I was quite desperately hungry. Once again I was bitterly disappointed that I had not brought my male disguise with me, for there was no question of a lady entering any of the pubs I saw along the high street. Under other circumstances I might well throw caution to the wind and at least try to get a pint, however small my chance of success, but I was wary of drawing such attention to myself when Ewan was likely on my trail. And so I wandered about, searching every side street for an eating house of some repute and also trying to spot places that might be in want of a new barmaid.
Just as I thought my hunger was to get the best of me, my eyes fell upon a lovely cottage squeezed between two large stone buildings, with gabled windows and a waft of smoke from the chimney that promised a late luncheon. With a sigh of relief, I tethered Honey and smoothed out my dress as best I could, and stepped inside. I shall never know whether or not I was aware of the lady of the house taking note of my arrival as I ambled up the path, but in the eye of my memory that is now how I always imagine it.
Whether I had noticed her or not beforehand, she was present and friendly when I entered the otherwise-empty dining room. “Welcome, madam!” she said. “A table for you?”
“If you please, yes. I am absolutely famished.”
“I shouldn’t wonder, at this time of day. Would you care to start with some scotch broth with lamb?”
“Why, that is my favourite soup!” I said, never thinking I was stepping into any sort of trap, undoubtedly because I was so very hungry.
“Very good, then, I shall have that for you shortly,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. Alone for the moment in the lush dining room, with all the tables set and ready for the dinner hour, I relaxed and let my guard down just far enough to have it bounce back up and smack me between the eyes. Was it too good to be true that the lady had offered me my favourite soup without even showing me a menu? Why, of course it was! But Ewan could hardly be behind any of this, I reasoned, and with that I resolved to enjoy my late lunch and be on my way.
Only then did I recall that I would also require work if I were to make it on my own in Inverness, and this looked like a lovely place to earn one’s keep. And so it was that when she reappeared with the soup a few minutes later, I straightened up in my seat and smiled as broadly as I could in my condition. “I say, madam, I intended to ask as well after your need for other ladies to work here?”
“Why yes, I do need a barmaid,” she said. “Perhaps you would like to discuss the opportunity with my lord.”
“I certainly would,” I said, also nodding thanks for the soup as she set it before me.
“Well, as luck would have it, here he is,” she said, pointing toward the door just behind me. Excited now at the fast turnaround in my fortunes, I turned to see the door open,and who should walk in but Ewan!
“Dear God,” I said, throwing my spoon down in resignation. “How?”
“I know many a shortcut into the city,” he said, sitting down across from me uninvited. “And I know you. Margaret here is an old family friend, and knowing you would not be able to disguise yourself as a man this time, the list of eating houses to which you would even have access was fairly short. Even if you did not appear this very afternoon, I had little doubt you would find your way here before long. So I paid Margaret a visit, and asked her to notify me if anyone should ask for scotch broth with lamb.” He gave me a knowing nod as I recalled all the many times I had requested that opener for our dinner when I was younger.
“I’m terribly sorry, Lady Douglas,” Margaret said. “But I assure you this is for your own good. A city like this is no place for a young woman who has never been on her own before.”
“I have been on my own for most of my life,” I grumbled. “That is the very problem!”
Ewan took his hat off; I could see from his face that he regretted the faux-pas of not doing so sooner. “Eat your soup, Brianna. You need it, and I know how you love it. I shall pay for it, but then we must be on our way.”
Margaret also brought us warm bread and a meat pie, and I was too hungry to object to any of it. I glared at Ewan with a knowing look in my eyes as to all we had shared last night, but even I was too much of a lady to speak of such things in public, even if the room was otherwise empty. He did at least have the decency to also look regretful as he ate. In spite of myself, I could not help but admire the ingenuity that had led him to me, and he looked just as lovely as ever in his rumpled riding coat. When we were finished and Ewan had paid for the meal, Margaret presented me with a small parcel. “Some cakes for the road,” she said. “Whatever you may be guilty of, my dear, I admire a woman with such spunk. Lord Galbraith, I do hope you appreciate the treasure you have here.”
“It would be mightily difficult not to, after what we’ve been through the past two days,” he agreed.
“Th…thank you,” I told her.
“You’re very welcome, dear. I hope you make peace with your fate soon; Lord Galbraith will make a wonderful husband whether you can see that now or not.”
“Excuse me?” I snapped to attention, looking at Ewan, who cringed.
“That’s enough of all that, my dear,” he said, putting an arm around me. “Thank you again, “Margaret, but we must be on our way!” Before I was entirely sure I had heard her correctly, he had hustled me out into the front yard.
“What exactly did she mean –?” I stammered.
“I’m afraid I had to tell her it was me you were marrying, rather than Gordan,” he said. “That gentleman does not have the best reputation in Inverness, and I couldn’t be sure she would have helped me had she known the truth.”
“Good Lord, Ewan!” I was outraged now, and felt my eyes burning with tears. “Not only do you know that man is no good, you even know others know it too! Ewan, how can you do this to me, especially after last night!”
“It is because of last night that I now must,” he growled. “If word of that ever got out, then…”
“Then what?” I demanded. “Then everyone would know we are two people who love one another and will be blissfully happy together for life! Just what is wrong with that?”
“Your father would never allow it!” Ewan hissed. “And as I told you last night, I am not at liberty to explain why. Now come along!” He gave me a gentle but firm push in the direction of our horses. Seeing no other option for the time being, I untethered Honey and swung up on her back.
“Surely you would agree that it is too late in the day for us to continue far beyond the city,” I said as soon as we were back in the precious anonymity of the busy street.
Ewan made no immediate response. I turned aside just in time to see his implacable scowl turn upwards just a bit. He knew just what I was thinking. But I didn’t care. Evidently he didn’t either. “Indeed,” he agreed. “Very well, then. I know an inn on the far edge of the city.” And we wended our way through the filthy streets in silence for the next hour or more.
The inn he knew was just as rustic as the previous one, situa
ted on a picturesque hill just where the trees and grass began to reassert themselves over the dust of the city. As he stepped down and tethered his horse, he looked thoughtfully up at me. “I know full well you have my shackles in your pack,” he said. “As a gesture of what I rather suspect is misguided trust, I shan’t put them on you at this time. Surely you understand by now that I shall find you if you try to run again.”
“Of course I do,” I admitted.
A matter of minutes later, Honey was tethered alongside Ewan’s horse and we found ourselves in a room much like the night before. “Home again,” I noted sardonically, setting my pack down beside the bed.
“I admire your sense of humour, Brianna,” he said. “Quite frankly, you’re going to need it in the coming months.”
“Months?!” I forced a smile. “You think it shall take me that long to escape from Gordan?”
“No,” he admitted. “But you shall need at least that long to find somewhere to hide and create a new life for yourself. I have no doubt at all that you can do it, Brianna, but it will not happen quickly.”
For the first time since he had arrived that afternoon, I felt my true feelings for him return. “That’s lovely, Ewan. I mean, not that I should have to go through the ordeal I know is before me, but that you understand I shall do what I need to do, and that I will not be a slave to Gordan the rest of my days.”
“I do understand, and I admire you all the more for it,” he said.
“You admire me so much you’re going to deliver me into the nightmare, then,” I said, “even as you know I shan’t stand for it for long in any event.”
“I have no choice in the matter, Brianna, I have told you that again and again.” He approached me gingerly and I let him hold me. “If there were any other option at my disposal…”
“So you tell me again and again,” I said bitterly. “You know, of course, if I must run off and hide somewhere, there is no chance of our ever being together!”
“If it is meant to be, I shall find you.”
“I cannot deny you are most adept at finding me,” I admitted.
Ewan laughed. “That’s my girl. Now then, supper time.” He took me by the hand, and I saw no point in resisting.
The eating house was even louder and more crowded than the one from the night before, no surprise given that we were in the city now. Ewan was well into his second pint of ale, and I nearly finished with my first, before we had a modicum of privacy at our table. “Thought they’d never leave,” he said with a drunken flair of relief as he watched a pair of burly men finally standing up from the other end of the table. “It’s past time we had some space to ourselves.”
“What difference does privacy make when you won’t touch me?” I demanded.
“Not that again!” he said, waving for another round for us both. “My dear, you shall never know how very badly I want to fulfil that request of yours. But I have told you, it can never be.”
“Of course not,” I said. “You are far too afraid of Gordan.”
“Brianna!”
“Oh, stop! It’s true and you know it. Lord Ewan Galbraith has nothing to fear from a contemptible pig like Gordan, at least not if half what you have insinuated about the man is true, yet you live in fear of…of I don’t even know what!”
“It is not so simple as all that,” he said, pausing to greet the barmaid as she set two full mugs before us. “Would that it were.”
“What difference would it make, then, if you still had every intention of delivering me into the devil’s jaws and wouldn’t even give me one night of joy to remember?”
Ewan looked up at me from his drink, which he set gently back on the table, and nodded ever so slightly.
“What is it, Ewan?”
“You are correct,” he said.
“Of course I am. Nothing makes you bend to Gordan but your own silly fears.”
“Not about that. I mean, perhaps you are right about me as well. But I meant you are right about what you have been saying all through this wretched journey. If I am going to inflict Gordan upon you, then you do indeed have a right to know the story of all that happened before you were born.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “Well, thank you!”
“Do not thank me until you have heard me out,” he warned. “You may well hate me once you know the truth.”
“I cannot imagine that,” I protested.
“Wait and see,” he said. “And finish your ale.”
Back in our room in a pleasantly drunken fog, we got a fire started and some water collected for a bath. While we waited for the water to warm up, Ewan undressed me slowly, reverently, as if unwrapping a delicate treasure. I could certainly bide my time waiting for a lifetime of such treatment, if only he would agree to come away with me! But I saw no point in trying to reason with him about all that yet again, especially not when he had finally agreed to open up to me about his past. “This is lovely,” was all I had to say for the moment.
“You are lovely,” he said. “You are the one good thing to come out of all the madness that ensued all those many years ago, and that makes it all the more difficult for me to tell you what you must by rights know.” He set my filthy dress by the privy screen and I curled up on the bed, enjoying the pleasant embarrassment of being nude in his clothed presence. “Whatever you may think of me when I have completed the story, Brianna, please recall how you loved me last night.”
“I have no doubt that I shall love you all the more for your candour,” I reassured him as I watched him pour the hot water into the waiting barrel.
“I wish I could be so sure of that,” he said as he stirred the water with his arm. “Come, the water is lovely and I want you to be as comfortable as possible for this.”
I did as he directed, sliding into the warm water and feeling the frustration of being caught again ebb away just a bit as I indulged in his obvious admiration for me. “Now then, Ewan, your tale of woe, please!”
“It is indeed that,” he said, kneeling beside me. “Very well, then. Brianna, you surely know that before I was Lord Galbraith, I was among your father’s men in the last great skirmish.”
“Your gallantry led to your becoming a lord, did it not?” I asked, having heard the story many times.
“That is the story your father and Gordan and I agreed upon,” Ewan said, “And it is the story anyone your age or younger believes to be true, I imagine. “But the truth is rather less noble than all that. You see, Brianna, Gordan was the big man among your father’s forces, his most trusted man – the sort you, Brianna, would have picked a fight with while disguised as a boy, as a matter of fact! Me, I was fresh from my father’s pastures, ambitious even then. I wanted more than anything to be like your father and Gordan, and I’m afraid they both knew it. ‘This Ewan Galbraith, he follows us around like a puppy, he does,’ was one way I once heard Gordan describe it when he did not know I could hear him. ‘But he’s got ambition, and Lord Douglas and I, we know just what to do with that!’ he said.
“My father certainly does know what to do with people who have ambition,” I acknowledged bitterly.
“You don’t know how right you are,” Ewan said. “So the two of them used me to wonderful effect, always getting their way and always letting me think I’d get my chance next time, but of course that never came to pass. I didn’t see it that way at the time, but I see it all too well now, and for the past twenty years and more! And then – I do apologize, Brianna, but the story must take a most lurid turn at this point, but you did say you wanted to know everything…”
“I do. Go on.”
“There was a woman. Isn’t there always in a story like this, though! A beautiful young red haired farm girl became a common sight in town when we were about, and Gordan and your father were most smitten in the most vulgar way. I know not what sort of language you may have heard from your father’s men, but it likely wasn’t nearly as bad as the way they used to discuss this lovely lass over their drink late in the eve
ning! One night, for instance, they got to debating openly whether she had red hair, well, you know, not on her head, if you will…”
“I understand completely,” I told him, a ball of rage now taking root inside me as I suspected I knew who the red haired girl was.
“Yes, well, the two of them were quite drunk – as usual, as you’ll understand – and got into this very distasteful argument over this poor girl’s body, and at long last I had finally had enough of them. They were being absolutely disgusting, and I told them as much, and I got up and left. The last thing I heard was Gordon saying, ‘Well, guess we know what he thinks of beautiful ladies, don’t we?’ and they enjoyed a laugh at my expense.”
“I would have expected nothing less of a gentleman like you,” I said, my anger receding slightly in the glow of admiration for Ewan.
“Thank you, Brianna. Now, there was something neither of them knew about myself and the red haired lass, but a few days later they learned it. You see, she found me a pleasant gentleman as well, and later that week we were enjoying one another’s company on a warm evening in town. Walking arm in arm down the lane, both of us feeling most delighted with our company, and undoubtedly looking it as well, and who should happen upon us but your father and Gordan, out for an evening’s grog of course? Naturally the boys were jealous! Even naïve little me in those days, I could see as much at first glance. Neither of them said anything, but then they hardly needed to, did they?”
“Indeed,” I agreed.
From that day on, suddenly they went about kissing up to me. I knew why – or suspected it at least – but so badly did I want to be big and important like the two of them, I didn’t even care. Arrogant idiot, I was! But of course I realized that far too late for it to be of any use. For the next few weeks, always buttering me up and making me feel like one of the big boys for a change, and of course they just wanted to get near my lovely lass, but what did I care? Now, I don’t know just what they had planned for me, but it didn’t come to pass in the end, because one day I made a big mistake. I told them the girl and I were engaged.”
To Catch a Highlander: A Highland Erotic Romance Page 5
