by L. L. Muir
She was an odd lass, but he loved her.
The warmth from that realization pushed aside the feeling of foreboding he’d had, until she filled her mug with wine from an unfamiliar skin.
“Where did ye get the wine, Jillian?”
She huffed, corked the skin and set it aside.
“It came with the food,” she mumbled.
He picked up her mug and swirled the contents before smelling it, and even though he suspected poison, he winced when it smelled lightly of hemlock. His assassin must have been hoping the flavor of the food would hide the odor, but he’d been to the Muir’s cottage enough, chasing his sister to ground, that he was sure he might be able to identify the smell from across a room.
“Hemlock.” He looked at Jillian. Did she understand? All he could manage was to repeat it. “Hemlock.”
She understood. Her eyes flew wide and she stumbled to her feet, backing away from the table.
“Hemlock hemlock? Or some other kind of hemlock? Shakespeare’s hemlock? Poison?” She looked at her hands like they were on fire and ran to the hearth once more. “Come here!” she demanded.
She used hot water near to boiling to wash her own hands, then his, and then hers again. Like a wild woman she scurried to the table, snatched up the food and flung it into the fire.
“It was likely just in the wine, lass. The food was probably untainted.”
She turned on him. “You want to take that chance? Are you out of your mind?” She dropped both mugs in the pot of hot water, then tilted the pot to pour some on the now empty platters. “Don’t you understand? Someone is trying to kill you!”
Time stilled.
Not me, not us. She’d said you. This wonderful starving woman loved him in return, whether she realized it or not. And he’d be sure to spend the next two days making sure she kenned the truth of it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
That night, Jillian watched over him while he slept, as much as he was able to sleep with her tucking the blankets around him on a warm summer’s night mumbling her conviction that had she not come into his life, he’d live to the impossible age of seventy and four.
Every time he stirred, she asked what he needed, until finally he turned his back to her and wrapped a plaid around his ears. Only then had he taken a final deep breath and surrendered to Morpheus.
Jillian hadn’t slept at all. In the morning, he awakened to find dark shadows beneath her still-open eyes, and after allowing her some privacy, he tucked her in bed, shuttered the morning light from the window, and ordered her to sleep. When he came up the steps to check on her for the third time, she told him to get out, and she’d come down to the hall when she was bloody good and ready. She then wrapped the plaid around her own ears and slept an entire precious day away.
No one had seen anyone taking food to the hall the night before. With the excuse of wanting to thank the generous cook, he’d spent part of the morning asking about. Although he watched for a guilty glance, or the curious look from the gossips, he found only the clansmen he loved carrying on life as they always had.
Life did indeed go on outside the walls of his hall.
Inside that keep, however, he was left alone with his thoughts. Every now and again, he would stand at the foot of the stairwell, for he knew not how long, wishing for any sound of stirring from above. Once he was rewarded with the most unladylike snort, and one would think he’d been given the greatest of gifts. He smiled and whistled until he realized that in truth, he had been given the gift of Jillian’s love.
Or at least he would be as soon as they had a chance to discuss it.
It amazed him how a silly notion like love could change everything. Faeries and witchcraft, Curses and MacKays, sanity and the lack of it, even the threat of war with the Gordons were a list of worries he now felt strong enough to deal with. The one important thing was that he’d decided to keep Jillian. Everything else could be managed.
He grinned broader and whistled louder.
When Ewan walked in on his personal celebration, he shooed the man outside with a whisper. “I canna be responsible for sewing yer head back on yer shoulders if ye happen to wake the lass. She’s right mean when she hasn’t slept, ye ken.”
Ewan spun on his heal just outside the door and gave him a scowl. “Ye’re in there whistling loud enough to overtake a piper and ye’re afraid I’ll wake her?”
“Was I whistling, then?”
“Aye, ye were. Folks are gonna think ye barmy, Monty.”
He hadn’t whistled for years and now he didn’t know if he could stop, but he’d try.
“I’ll put a quit to the whistling. Just ye rummage up some fine food by suppertime, man.”
The pair of them eased to their usual place at the top of the keep steps, reinforcing the appearance that all was normal. They lowered their voices to share their own events of the day.
“Any idea who brought the meal and the wine?” Ewan asked.
The impulse to whistle whithered.
“No. I’ve none. Whoever wants me dead will show his face eventually. I only hope I’ll recognize that face as my enemy.”
Jillian woke at the gloaming and realized why Scotland would require a more romantic name for dusk. The sun had set, but the sky was still lit with low orange clouds, which in turn lit the tips of heather on the hillside with an ethereal glow as they bent to a gentle breeze.
When the breeze blew in her own small town, one either got the fumes from the stockyard, where livestock waited for an east or westbound train, or the smells from the sugar beet plant when it blew from the south. Worst of all was a north breeze when the garbage dump was warm and pungent.
The city planners had apparently never expected the city’s population to grow past a thousand, which meant the dump and stockyards were determined the day the railroad came through. No use moving them now when all they had to do was wait for a westbound wind which carried the lure of better, less offensive places to live.
Like Scotland.
Once she was home again, or rather, once she decided where her home would be, she’d have to harass the local florist into ordering heather for her. Scottish heather. She’d have a basket of it in every room.
In about two days, she’d at least be in her home century, if all went as expected. How many days after that would she be unlocking the apartment door...and eating her heart out?
Jillian smelled food, and not just roasted meat and vegetables. There were spices in the air and they tickled her nose like invisible fingers all the way down the stairs until she stumbled onto a lovely surprise.
Torches hung at intervals on every side of the hall. The fire was modest, the table pulled into the middle of the room, although she nearly didn’t recognize it with all its dressing. A pretty red cloth ran down the center with silver candelabras decked out in vines and leaves. The silver platters had been polished much better than she’d done the day before. And covered dishes were placed around one end of the table near the big Ross chair. Another red cloth was draped over the back of that, too.
Left of his chair was one other, a high-backed seat she recognized from a room upstairs. It, too, was draped in red, and behind it stood a man with his own bit of spit and polish.
Laird Ross, for what else could she call him decked out in his formal regalia, lifted his chin proudly above his decadent white ruffles. A brighter plaid than usual draped across his left shoulder where a huge gold broach held it in place.
He stepped back and pulled the chair out for her, showing off highly polished boots. The only flesh showing was on his face, his nearly ruffle-covered hands, and her very favorite set of knees.
She would have thought the man incapable of improving his looks with clothes, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. She’d gotten used to seeing his bare chest and arms, but this was just as impressive.
And although she’d taken full advantage of the bath she’d found waiting when she woke up, she was hardly dressed well enough to sit next
to this man.
“Excuse me.” She turned and fled toward the stairs. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She grinned when she heard Monty laughing.
Sadly, it took nearly a half an hour to get back to the hall again. She’d exhausting every trunk, but she’d finally felt half-worthy to go to dinner. She walked as Morna-like and composed as possible, considering the yardage around her ankles. But inside, she braced herself for a good lecture about making people wait.
Monty stood exactly where she’d left him, holding onto her chair, smiling nervously.
“Worth every minute, lass.” He cleared his throat. “Jillian.”
“Laird Ross.” She took a second to take it all in again before she moved his way, wanting to memorize the moment.
“Although ye’d look just as lovely without the gown.”
She pretended not to read too much into that, but his shaggy cousin barked with laughter as he emerged from the other doorway.
“Stop that, Ewan. I know exactly what he meant.”
Monty scooted her chair beneath her and bent close to her ear. Her neck rose with goose bumps when his warm breath fluttered across it.
“Are ye quite sure of that, Jillian?”
Holy crap.
Holy, holy crap.
“Here now.” Ewan looked around the edges of the table. “Where’s that stool was just here, then?”
Monty’s eyebrows rose, then puckered. “Oh, I believe it is outside, cousin.” He winked at Jillian. “In fact, I am certain it is. And I’m just as certain there is food on it as well. If there isn’t enough, mayhap ye could go a’ beggin’ from Mickey’s table, aye?”
Ewan frowned at Jillian, then back at Monty.
“What, do ye think I can be seduced by mere turnips?”
Jillian gasped, then bit her lips together.
Monty rolled his eyes. “No doubt the man has a cask ye can help him open.”
The men glared at each other, and she was sure her face was as red as the table banner, only they were angry—she was mortified.
“I’ll not open for just anyone, though, Monty, darlin’. Nor do I suggest it for anyone else.”
Holy crap. He couldn’t possibly mean—
He was looking right at her.
“Get out.” Monty still held the back of her chair with one hand, his knuckles white, and for a minute she thought he might throw it at his cousin—with or without her on it.
“I’ll go, cousin, but I’ll have a promise from ye first.”
“No promises, Ewan. This is none of yer concern.”
“Ah, but it is. I’ll have it from ye that no matter what our Jillian may do to anger ye, ye’ll not lose yer temper and harm the lass.”
Monty inhaled sharply. “Ewan? What are ye thinkin’? Ye think me a monster as weel?” In all his deflated glory, he wandered around to the end of the table, collapsed in his own chair, and stared over at the fire. “If ye believe me capable of harming a woman, then I must be that monster, mustn’t I?”
Jillian looked at Ewan and begged him, with her eyes, to take it back. The man would suffer too much as it was.
Ewan looked at her, then at Monty.
Say it, Ewan. Say it. Take it back and make him believe it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Monty. Monty, I was wrong to suggest it. I only wanted to make ye pay, ye see, for sending me out.”
Monty the Monster heard but felt nothing. He was numb. He’d been slapped about so much since the day Jillian arrived that at last he could feel no more.
But perhaps he’d needed slapping.
He thought about what he’d heard in the tunnels, how convincing Ivar and his sister had sounded, as if they truly believed he had offered Morna’s hand to the Gordons in a fit of anger and jealousy.
And for the first time since those days, so very long ago, he thought it all wanted examining.
He’d not harmed a lass in his life, and yet both his sisters had suffered the worst of heartaches. And sitting here, with a wondrous woman he may not be able to keep, he no longer believed heartache such a minor woman’s weakness.
He looked to Jillian. Was that more than pity in her eyes?
“Monty.” She took his hand. “Monty, you have to listen to Ewan. Mavournin’, please.”
His toes tingled. She’d called him Monty. She’d called him mavournin’. He knew, from his role as a dungeon rat, that she knew full well it was an endearment.
He smiled, wondering if he oughtn’t act the martyr more often if it granted him this kind of boon.
“Ye can’t take it back now.” He looked at his cousin. “Tell her she can’t take it back. She’s called me mavournin’ and one can never take that back. Tell her Ewan.”
“He’s right, lass.” Ewan grinned. “None can take back a mavournin’.” He cleared his throat. “And I can see all feelings are mutual and so I’m not needed here, by either of ye.” He reached for the door handle, then turned back. “But if ye should need a bit of help, Monty...” A dinner knife embedded in the door was answer enough and Ewan left without another word.
At his request, the lass began uncovering their meal and if her reaction was sincere, she was mightily pleased. She ate daintily, and he tried desperately not to laugh. When he failed, he tried to cover his lapse with a cough into his ruffled sleeve. She pretended not to notice.
They spoke of his childhood days with Ivar, his memories of his parents. He avoided speaking about his sisters as much as possible, since he missed them so terribly and suspected that to speak of them tonight would end with him greetin’ on Jillian’s shoulder.
She spoke sparingly of her grandmother, that she’d had no other family and had been trying to track down possible relatives when she’d met a couple of Muir twins. Bad luck, that. But she was glad she’d gotten to meet him, in spite of everything.
One by one the candles gutted, the torches failed, until only one still bore a flame. What food could be saved to break their fast she covered and set aside.
“We’ll clean this up on the morrow, lass. ‘Tis time for bed.”
Walking up the stairs, Jillian felt like she was marching to the guillotine. She tried not to drag her feet, and his steadying grasp on her arm was a bit too firm as she used both her hands to hold up her skirts.
She moved into the bedchamber and stood aside when he held the torch to her candle. He then handed her the light and knelt, in his finery, to lay a fire for her.
“No. That’s all right. I don’t need a fire tonight, I don’t think.”
“Ye’ve not been awake long, lass. I daresay you won’t find sleep for a while yet, and I won’t have you lying in the dark.”
He stood and took the torch from her, his fingers brushing hers for a moment before he turned away.
Holy crap. Maybe she could do this after all.
Fires flared—everywhere.
He hung the torch near the door and came back to her. “Goodnight, Jillian.”
His arm went around her, and he pulled her to him, cradling her between biceps that strained against his crisp white sleeves. She looked up into black sleepy eyes and could almost feel sleepy herself.
“Wish me a good night, Jillian.”
“Goodni—”
Okay then. Apparently “goodnight” means “kiss me.”
He pulled away way too soon, so she tested this vocabulary lesson and again said, “Goodnigh—”
It worked. Hallelujah, it worked. And he got the hint too, not pulling away nearly as quickly. His lips were firm and smooth, the kind you could kiss for hours and...
He pulled back again, stupid man.
“Goodnight.” She leaned forward and got only a kiss on the forehead and a chuckle.
“Goodnight.” Monty backed away from her. “I have to leave now, lass, or we’ll neither one be able to face my cousin on the morrow.”
Is he kidding? “Are you kidding?” She put her hands on her hips. “I thought you got over that.”
“Ye canna t
ake back knowledge, lass.”
Whatever the hell that meant. She was left standing alone watching the swing of his kilt disappear around the corner.
Jillian spent a very long night thinking of all kinds of ways to punish both men in the morning. She had two days left with her very own, although rented, Highlander—make that two days and one night—and she was determined to get her money’s worth, so to speak.
“I must leave ye tomorrow, Jillian.”
Monty heard her coming down the stairs, though without her boots. He’d also heard her stop at his words, so he turned to face her anger, but if she were frowning at him, he would never have noticed.
Ewan came in behind her and promptly dropped a mug of fresh milk.
Jillian stood before them swathed in a small length of plaid that covered only above her...well, below the pits of her arms to just below her...or rather quite far above her knees.
“That milk will sour if you don’t clean it up, Ewan.” She pointed to his spill. “Would you like me to do it?”
“Thank ye,” Ewan said at the same time Monty shouted, “No!”
He could just imagine how high that wool might go if she were to bend over to clean the floor.
He cleared his throat.
He cleared it again. “Uh, lass. Jillian. What kind of garment did ye suppose that was?” He blinked. And blinked again.
She looked down at the cloth she thankfully held tightly with one hand.
“I thought it was a towel. You see, I usually bathe every day and when I had that bath yesterday it felt so good I decided I can’t do without.” She walked to the hearth and dipped her fingers in a pot of water, but she’d bent over to do it and if either man had been standing to the right of the mantle... “Did you sleep well, Monty?”
“Sorry?”
“I asked if you slept well.” She turned a smile on Ewan. “You see, we didn’t sleep together, or do anything else together, just in case you were wondering.”
