The Laird Takes a Bride

by Lisa Berne

  “Hardly.”

  “A shame.”

  She only sniffed. And recoiled when he asked, casually:

  “Do you always wear nightgowns with necks up to your chin?”

  Involuntarily she drew the covers higher. “Yes.”

  “It’s not surprising, really. You’ve no fat on you, so I expect you get cold easily.”

  “I can’t help being thin. It’s how God made me.”

  “There’s no need to sound so wrathy.”

  “I detest personal remarks,” Fiona said, feeling that she had gained the safety of the high road, then promptly lost her footing when she added, “I would never criticize you, laird, for—as an example—that red hair of yours.”

  To her chagrin he only said, pensively, “Some people seem to find it attractive.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  “What color hair do you prefer?”

  This was dangerous, dangerous. She couldn’t help but think of someone else, another man, another time, a caressing voice and enveloping arms; and fire, sweet fire overtaking her. With a kind of desperation she blurted out, “Where did you go tonight?”

  “Why, madam, you did miss me. I’m touched.”

  “Never mind! It’s of no interest to me, I’m sure.”

  Alasdair turned onto his side (his good side) and looked over at her. He could see the ruffles of her absurd nightgown framing her chin like the white petals of a flower. A Fiona flower, he thought suddenly, ridiculously enjoying the consonance of the two Fs. A frilly Fiona flower. A frilly fine fearless Fiona flower. A frilly fine fearless familiar fetching forthright formidable fragrant Fiona flower …

  But then there came to him—penetrating the cheerful fog produced by the aged whisky Hewie had poured with such liberality —that earlier, that uneasy sense of his own behavior.

  He had, in fact, left his bride of less than forty-eight hours to preside over the Great Hall, alone. He’d spent several delightful hours with Hewie and his company, which included Hewie’s recently widowed sister-in-law, Nora, who seemed to rise above her affliction with remarkable resilience, giggling, flirting, pulling him to his feet to dance Strip the Willow when someone began sawing on a fiddle, even, at one point, plumping herself square onto his lap. How sorry she was, she’d confided with lips pressed close to his ear, that she had been ineligible to compete for the privilege of winning his hand in matrimony, for she would have tried so hard—and here her hand had boldly groped down past his waist—so very hard, but then again, people lost their spouses every day, didn’t they, and who knew what the future might hold?

  At the time, he’d been too distracted by the whisky, by that sweetly pandering hand, to take in the full meaning of Nora’s words. But now they returned, almost like a blow to his brain, and mild uneasiness jolted toward something else. No matter what he felt about his recalcitrant wife, such things ought not to be said, ought not to be listened to, and he should have dumped bonny, winsome Nora off his lap onto the cold stone floor.

  But he hadn’t.

  He had sat there, awash in the golden paralytic haze of whisky and mindless lust, held fast by a wet little tongue that had toyed with the rim of his ear and a sweet little voice saying evil words.

  But now shame—like a bucket of icy water dumped upon him—had broken the spell, and he lay in his own bed, warm and snug, and abruptly, utterly sober.

  He tried to tell himself that he could have wed little Mairi MacIntyre, she of the golden hair, the tiny waist, the tinkling laugh, the delicate fairy maiden who seemed to float rather than walk and who looked up worshipfully into one’s eyes as though one deserved it.

  He tried to tell himself that Fiona had brashly put herself forward. Had practically made him marry her.

  But he was having a difficult time convincing himself of that.

  Shame, and uneasiness, and a new feeling of uncertainty all got in the way.

  Yet—

  He summoned the memory of Uncle Duff saying blithely, What is a wife but a brood mare? You’ll pick one of the lasses, get her with child as many times as it takes to produce a son or two, and that’s the sum of it.

  Now that was the smartest tack to take.

  And luckily, tomorrow was another day.

  And he had somewhere to go.

  And if his wife had to eat alone for a while, no one would think twice of it again.

  “Well,” he now said out loud, as pleasantly as humanly possible, “good night, madam,” he said to her, and firmly shut his eyes.

  “Good night, laird,” answered Fiona, with heavy irony in her tone, and turned away from him. Memories, she thought to herself, were dangerously alluring, not unlike the apple in the old German fairy tale—that poisoned apple offered by the evil queen to her credulous stepdaughter: red, delicious-looking, tempting, and fatal.

  It was still dark when Alasdair shook his uncle out of a sound sleep.

  “What?” gasped Duff. “God’s toenails, what’s happening? Who died?”

  “Nobody,” Alasdair said. “Come on. We’re going to Crieff.”

  “What? Now? Bloody hell, lad, do you know what I was dreaming about when you rudely rousted me? I was rescuing an endangered maiden from a dragon—”

  “Wonderful.” Rapidly Alasdair picked up Duff’s clothes, which still lay in an untidy heap on the floor, and flung them onto his bed. “Let’s go.”

  Grumbling, Duff sat up. “Light a candle for me. Why are we going to Crieff?”

  “Cattle meet.”

  “So?”

  “So I want to go look at some cattle.”

  “Three days after you’re married?”

  “Aye. You’re putting your shirt on backward.”

  “Ach, so I am.” Duff laughed. “And you’re running away.”

  Alasdair frowned. “Nonsense.”

  “I’m not judging you, lad. A man must do what a man must do. Besides, we’ve had some good times in Crieff before, haven’t we?”

  “Aye. Hurry up.”

  “Not just running away, but sneaking away, eh?”

  “Shut up. Here are your boots.”

  Ten minutes later, they came down the last steps of the staircase into the still-dim Great Hall, heading for the side hallway which would take them outdoors and to the stables. Alasdair turned sharply left around the carved newel post, just as someone was quietly coming around it, and they collided.

  “Sorry—” they both began, stepping back, and then stared at each other.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Fiona, just as Alasdair said, as pain from his arm winged through him, “What the hell—” He gathered himself. There was absolutely no reason for him to feel guilty. He went on, “What are you doing, madam?”

  She glared up at him. “I might ask the same of you.”

  “I,” he said loftily, “live here.”

  “As do I, thanks to you.”

  “And isn’t it splendid. Were you following me?”

  “Of course not! I was hungry, so I went down to the kitchen for something to eat. Where are you going?”

  Duff chuckled. “So much for sneaking away.”

  “Sneaking away?” she echoed. She crossed her arms over her chest. Over her non-prodigious breasts. And added, in a rather snappish way, “Had enough of me already, laird?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” he answered, “but my uncle and I are going to Crieff.”

  “Why? Are there going to be some Roman-style bacchanals?”

  “Let’s hope,” said Duff, and Alasdair overrode him.

  “There’s a cattle meet, if you must know.”

  “I see. And were you planning to inform me of your departure, or was I just going to find out on my own?”

  “You’re not my keeper, madam.” No, there was no reason in the world for him to feel guilty. None at all. None, none, none. “I was going to have one of the grooms tell Lister, and Lister would, of course, tell you.”

  “Thereby, of course, keeping my dignity intact.
How thoughtful of you, laird.”

  “Oh, by the body of Christ, madam, go back to bed,” he said, also in a rather snappish way.

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “Fine! Do whatever you like. I couldn’t care less.”

  “Thank you for that! Go have fun in Crieff. Since fun is what you’re all about, isn’t it?”

  “I’m going to look at cattle, damn it!” he shouted.

  “And now you’re shouting at me. Excellent. I think I’ve had just about enough. Go, then! Stay as long as you want. The longer the better, as far as I’m concerned.” And Fiona stalked past him and then Duff, and went rapidly up the stairs, at a pace clearly intended to convey a strong desire to absent herself from him as soon as possible.

  When she was gone from sight, Duff chuckled again. “Well,” he said, “that went well.”

  “Shut up, Uncle,” growled Alasdair, and continued on his way to the stables.

  Fiona did, after all, go back to bed where, to her surprise, she managed to doze off for an hour or so. When she woke, it took her a few moments to realize where she was. And who she was; her right hand as if of its own accord went to her left hand, to feel the solidity of the gold ring upon it.

  Fiona looked over at the empty space next to her.

  It just so happened that she enjoyed going to cattle meets.

  But did anyone ask her if she wanted to go, too?

  No, nobody had.

  Not that she’d want to spend more time with him. And his awful uncle. Off, the two of them, to roister about Crieff.

  She’d do just fine without him. She’d do better without him.

  And what, exactly, would she be doing?

  Fiona remembered Duff’s remark about the laird’s late mother, that evening in the Great Drawing-room:

  She did so much here in the castle, during her day, there’ll be little for the laird’s new wife to do, beyond producing offspring, of course.

  Of course, there wasn’t much she could do about offspring. And wouldn’t it be delightful to lie around all day, eating chocolates and reading novels? Or buying new dishes, when there were already several very attractive sets lying around, not even used?

  God in heaven.

  Fiona got up, dressed, and went to the sunny breakfast-room. There she had a very nice bowl of porridge with cream and sugar and two cups of tea while she went over her list for the day. Then, briskly, she began addressing the items before her.

  It was wash day, and she spent a couple of hours overseeing the laundresses at their work. She walked through the kitchen garden with Monty, and after that they moved on to look, worriedly, at some of the beehives. She went for a ride on Gealag. She began the inventory of household linens, a daunting enterprise given the sheer quantity of them. She wrote letters to her mother and to her sisters. She went up to the attics, vast and cavernous, curious as to what they contained, and was stunned by how crowded they were with furniture (bedsteads, bureaus, sofas, tables and chairs of all description, tall mirrors, desks, and so on), piles of clothing and bedding seemingly beyond numbering, along with a staggering array of wooden boxes, crates, and trunks. As she went downstairs she bypassed the nursery (too soon, too soon), and found herself in the long gallery whose walls were filled with portraits.

  She paced slowly along, studying them. Before her was plainly evidence of a long and noble heritage dating back hundreds of years. Here was a little girl from James the Fourth’s time, dressed like a small adult in her quaint gable hood and heavy, mulberry-colored brocade gown with its wide fur-trimmed sleeves. Here was a medieval prince (with dark red hair!), very arrogant in his fine silk-trimmed tunic and cross-gartered leggings that displayed sturdy, muscular calves and thighs. Here was a beautiful middle-aged woman of the previous century in her lavishly pleated robe à la française; her face was white with powder, her lips deep red, and on her right cheek had been placed a tiny fashionable patch.

  Fiona came to a large painting with a more modern look, and paused. Two boys, one about five, the other a few years older. The smaller one with red hair and brilliant amber eyes, the taller one blond, with eyes of dark brown, and very handsome. They were in a sunlit glen, with thickly clustered woods in the background, and a shimmering blue loch in the far distance —surely, Fiona thought, the same one which lay beyond the castle. The two boys stood side by side, not touching, and each with a dog at his feet. The little red-haired one was looking at his wolfhound puppy, and on his countenance the painter had captured a charming expression suggestive of fun and mischief. The taller blond boy stared directly at the viewer, giving a distinct impression of proud authority, and paying no attention to the handsome sable and white Collie which sat gazing adoringly up at him.

  The red-haired boy had to be a young Alasdair. But who was the older boy? They shared some physical similarities in the shape of their heads, the lines of their jaws, even to the curve of dark eyebrows.

  It had to be his brother. Or perhaps a cousin?

  As she stood there, puzzled, Fiona realized just how little she knew about her new husband.

  Oh well, what did it matter.

  He didn’t like her, and she didn’t like him.

  Still, it could have been worse. She could’ve married Niall Birk. Ugh. And spent her life making sure he wasn’t creeping up behind her to shove her down the stairs. Or she might have been wed to the extremely stupid Walraig Tevis, or the spindly knife-wielding Ross Stratton who, now that she thought of it, reminded her in a very nasty way of a rat.

  Instead, she had married Alasdair Penhallow, who wasn’t stupid, who didn’t remind her of a rat, and who, she was sure, wasn’t going to shove her down the stairs.

  They just didn’t like each other, that’s all.

  She wished these prudent reflections would make her feel more cheerful, but there was no use in wringing one’s hands and bemoaning the state of things. She hated when people did that. Besides, to complain about her lot would be like feeling sorry for yourself when you’d been given a perfectly practical and serviceable pair of stockings for your birthday—and pining in a very immature way for, say, the moon. Luckily, there was always so much to do. Right now, for example, there was still time before dinner to ask Lister about the leak in a big copper tub one of the laundresses had mentioned, and to send a message to Dr. Colquhoun, asking him to check on a footman with a sprained ankle. If she hurried, she could go to the library and find a new book to read for later.

  Fiona turned away, and as she did she noticed that on the walls in this section of the gallery, there were very faint discolorations, nearly invisible to the casual eye of a passerby. She paused again.

  It seemed that the portraits had been rearranged.

  Yes, for now that she noticed it, the paintings here weren’t as densely set together as in other areas of the gallery.

  How curious.

  Then she went on and elsewhere, her mind filling up with other, more pressing things.

  After dinner, she and Isobel went to the Great Drawing-room. There, Isobel produced an intimidatingly large puzzle and Fiona, shrugging, helped her sort through the pieces and make a start on the perimeter. Having found the four corner pieces, Isobel announced both her satisfaction and her fatigue, and proceeded to doze in a chair next to the fire. Fiona sewed up a jagged rent in one of the chapel’s altar cloths—knowing that now that she was wed, working on baby garments for her sisters would evoke an irritating array of inquisitive reactions—and then turned to her new book, a collection of Walter Scott’s poetry. She was reading “Marmion,” and had just gotten to the lines Oh! What a tangled web we weave / When first we practise to deceive, when she gradually became aware of that odd creeping feeling of being stared at.

  She looked up from her book. Sure enough, little Sheila stood next to her chair—within three feet of it, in fact—and Fiona had to suppress a gasp. How on earth had the child gotten so close without her noticing it?

  One of those peculiar pale blue eyes was
fixed on herself, the other seemed to be resting thoughtfully on Isobel.

  “She dreams of the past and what could have been.”

  Fiona reached for the girl’s hand. “You’re a shrewd little lass. What brings you here, hinny?”

  “I came here, lady, because …” Sheila trailed off, looking down at their clasped hands. “Fences,” she murmured, sounding troubled, “high fences.” Then she pulled her hand free and glanced around the elegant room. “How can you breathe in here, lady?”

  Before Fiona could reply, someone said sharply, “Sheila! You ought not to be there!” A very old woman, bent over her stick, came stumping toward them, on her deeply wrinkled face disapproval written large.

  Sheila suddenly became simply a little girl who had been apprehended in an act of naughtiness, and stuck a rather dirty finger in her mouth, around which she spoke cajolingly. “Oh, but Granny, the lady doesn’t know that tomorrow is my birthday.”

  “So it is, but you’d no right to come disturb the mistress,” scolded the old woman. “I do apologize, lady, I was at my devotions and the lass slipped away from me like a kelpie.”

  There certainly was something unusual about the little girl, but hopefully she didn’t number shape-shifting among her talents. Fiona responded civilly: “There’s no need to apologize, I assure you. And you are … ?”

  The old woman dipped a creaky little curtsy. “I am Margery, lady.”

  Ancient might she be, but there was nothing vague or doddering about Dame Margery. A flash of inspiration came to Fiona and she asked, “Have you lived here all your life, madam?”

  “Aye, lady, that I have.”

  “Can you tell me aught of the laird’s family? There’s his uncle here, of course, and he once mentioned that the laird’s parents had passed away, but other than that I know nothing.”

  Dame Margery looked consideringly at Fiona. “That’s so, lady, both of the laird’s parents have gone on, and his older brother as well.”

  “How sad! Were these recent losses?”

  “Nay, madam, there was a single event, and that some fifteen years ago.”

  Fiona stared. “A single event?”

  “The loch,” Sheila remarked, in the tone of one passing along some mildly interesting information, “is deep, and a monster lives in it. It ate them all up.”