by Amanda Scott
Kirkhill nearly went after her but fought the urge, remembering similar dramatic moments with Nan and also Fiona’s admission that she had been much like Nan at the same age. He wondered if anyone had ever held her to account for her actions before. But even as the thought crossed his mind, he corrected it. He had seen clear signs since his arrival that Will Jardine—and Old Jardine, too—had taken her to task, and roughly. Still, she seemed to have developed little respect for either of them, and he could scarcely blame her for that.
He recalled Hod’s saying that “now” striking her was grounds for dismissal, as if it hadn’t been before. It had seemed an odd thing to say, but perhaps he had spoken only the truth in that the rules had changed with Jardine’s death. Mayhap the old man had actually let Hod strike her. If he could believe that of anyone, he could believe it of Jardine, so it was just as well that he’d sent Hod away. Had he learned first that the man had struck Fiona before, even at Jardine’s command, he’d have throttled him.
In any event, he could not sit thinking about Fiona all night, although she had been invading his thoughts more and more often of late. She continued to invade his dreams, too, although those were not to be thought of now… or lingered over.
His uncle and sister and the others were doubtless still waiting at the table, eager to hear what had happened. He would tell them nowt, but he could not ignore them, especially as he wanted to get rid of a few of them. Therefore, he put Fiona firmly out of his head and returned to the dais.
Before anyone could quiz him—although, surprisingly, no one seemed eager to be the first—he said quietly, “James, I’m going to have the infernal impudence to ask you to return to Kirkhill tomorrow with Nan. I am always glad to see you, but I need to concentrate on things here if I’m to have the place in order and the Jardine men trained for Archie when he calls us to arms. I depend on you to see that my men at Kirkhill and your own in Lothian are also ready. Also, I expect that by now my lady mother feels as if her entire family has abandoned her.”
His uncle’s eyes twinkled, but he said only, “I am yours to command, lad, as always. Nan, dear—”
“But I don’t want to go home,” Nan said. “I like Fiona, and I want to stay.”
“Nevertheless, you will go,” Kirkhill said in a tone that brooked no debate.
He got none from her, but Phaeline said quietly, “If it please you, my lord, I would be most grateful for Nan’s company at the Hall. She is welcome to stay until my daughter Mairi returns, and indeed, longer if she likes. We have plenty of room, and I am sure that she would much enjoy the Lammas Day festivities.”
“Oh, Dickon, prithee, say I may!”
“You would be doing me a great favor, my lord,” Phaeline said. “I have missed the company of my daughters. I promise you, I would welcome Nan’s.”
“Then there is no more to be said, madam,” he told her. “Your invitation clearly delights Nan, so I’d be a cruel fellow to deny you both. But, Nan, I beg you, save your gratitude and promise me instead that you will behave.”
“I’ll be utterly angelic, Dickon. You are the very best of brothers! But prithee, excuse me now. I must find someone to help me pack!”
He shot a rueful look at Phaeline. “She did not bring her woman with her, madam. I hope you can cope.”
“I am sure that we can, sir,” Phaeline said with one of her demure looks. “As you know, yourself, I did not bring my woman here, either. This place is too small to count on finding suitable accommodations for one’s servants.”
Kirkhill was not certain that Phaeline would be able to cope with Nan, but at least he would be nearer if Nan got into a scrape at Dunwythie Hall than he would if she were to go home to Kirkhill and get into one there.
As Nan left the great hall, he turned to his uncle and met Tony’s amused gaze just beyond. Ignoring Tony, he said to Sir James, “I doubt you will miss Nan, sir.”
“That’s a fact,” Sir James said. “She’s a handful, that one. Nobbut what her ladyship will manage her well enough. Still, the sooner you get the baggage married and off your hands, the better it will be. If Tony still wants her…”
“Tony is having second thoughts,” that gentleman said more loudly than was warranted and with a nod toward the doorway, where Nan had paused. “What that lass wants, Dickon, is a good sound… There, she’s gone, so I’m wasting my breath. But, speaking of just deserts, dare I ask what you have done with the lady Fiona?”
“Not if you want to stay at Spedlins,” Kirkhill said.
“Aye, sure, then I’m mum. Are you leaving us, too, madam?” he added, getting hastily to his feet when Phaeline stood.
“I must also pack, sir. Kirkhill will do much better, I’m thinking, with fewer guests. Mayhap Sir James will lend us his escort as far as the Hall.”
“It will be my pleasure, madam,” Sir James assured her, also standing.
Within moments, Kirkhill was alone with Tony at the high table. But if Tony hoped for further enlightenment, he got none.
Kirkhill, realizing that he had not finished his supper, ordered a fresh trencher and did so. However, keeping his thoughts off Fiona was not so easy.
Fiona flung open her bedchamber door and stopped at the threshold when she saw Flory with the baby in her lap, rocking it. She had been so full of her woes that she had not thought once about wee David since going downstairs. Guilt washed over her, and the hour or so that she had been away seemed suddenly ages long.
“Oh, Flory, is he hungry again already?”
“Nay, mistress, ye fed him afore ye went downstairs, and he’s been making noises to hisself and such. But he’s sleeping now. I’ll put him in the cradle, shall I?”
“Aye, do,” Fiona said on a surge of relief. “I’ve had a dreadful evening, and then he refused to accept my apology and sent me upstairs like a child.”
“Who did? His lordship?”
“Aye.” As she said it, Fiona wished she had kept silent about the episode.
For lack of anyone else to talk to, she had fallen into the habit of confiding everything to Flory, even private things about her life with Will and Old Jardine. However, talking so freely about Kirkhill seemed not only wrong but also something of a betrayal, although she was not certain why it should.
“Why did he send ye up here?”
“Oh, it was naught,” Fiona said, striving to sound casual. “I did a stupid thing, and he was displeased… as in troth he should have been,” she added with a sigh. “I don’t want to talk about it, although I should tell you that he dismissed Hod as our household steward.”
“Well, that be a good thing, that,” Flory said bluntly. “Bad cess to the man!”
“Aye, but I want to think, Flory, and then I need to sleep. Do you suppose that Jane’s sister Eliza would still be willing to act as wet nurse to David at night?”
“O’ course she would,” Flory said. “Sakes, but I could keep him wi’ me, and ye could ha’ this chamber all to yourself, mistress. I’ll just tell Eliza that I’ll carry the bairn down to her when he wakes, shall I?”
Fiona had become used to the baby’s soft sounds during the night, to hearing his quiet fussing before he demanded sustenance, and to cuddling him while he nursed. She knew she would miss him sorely, but she knew, too, that Kirkhill was right. It was time to take herself in hand.
So she said, “Aye, take him, Flory. I’ll help move the cradle to your room, and I’ll sit with him whilst you go down and tell Eliza.”
They moved the baby, and as Fiona sat with him, she recalled every word that Kirkhill had said to her. He had made her feel foolish, even reckless in her actions on young Davy’s behalf. She could not feel sorry about intervening, though. She knew only too well the sort of brutality of which Hod was capable. Still, Kirkhill was right to point out that she had had other means at hand to stop him.
Flory returned, saying, “Eliza will be pleased to have our David whenever he needs her. She has more milk than she needs, she says, so he be welcome to it.”
/> Thanking her, Fiona said, “I must apologize to you for being so curt of late, Flory. I know you say that such behavior is normal, but it does not feel normal to me. And you should not have to put up with it, not after all you have done for me.”
“Sakes, mistress, it were nowt,” Flory said, flushing deeply.
“Not to me, Flory,” Fiona said. And not to Kirkhill. The thought was strangely warm, considering all that he had said to her. But she knew that he had not just protected her from the brutish Hod; he was trying to protect her from herself, as well.
Leaving Flory with the baby, she returned to her own chamber and closed the door. Then, going to the bench in the window embrasure, she pushed the shutter wide and stared out at the setting sun, trying to imagine how she would make her apologies. It came to her quickly that apologizing to Sir James and Sir Antony would be relatively easy, and she did not think that Nan would be much harder.
Phaeline was another matter. The moment Kirkhill had said that she had to apologize, she had thought of Phaeline. The woman was her mother, and she hardly knew how to talk to her. How could she, when Phaeline had not cared enough to come and rescue her from the Jardines or arrange for someone else to do so?
A rap on the door was the only warning before it opened and Nan walked in.
“Are you alone?” she demanded. “Where is your baby?”
Fiona had barely explained when Nan said, “Well, I don’t care about all that. What I want to know is what Dickon did to you. Was he furious?”
“You know he was,” Fiona said. “What I did was outrageous.”
“Aye, it was,” Nan agreed with a grin. “But it was a pleasure to see the look on his face when you upended your trencher onto his. You are braver than I am, Fee, but I’ll wager that he did not use you as he would have used me.”
“He just told me what he thought of what I’d done,” Fiona said.
Nan winced. “I know how that can be, coldly logical and very long-winded. And then, just when you think he has finished at last, he says something that… well… that…” She shuddered dramatically.
“Aye, it was just like that,” Fiona admitted. “I must apologize to you, though, and to everyone else for creating such a scene. It was discourteous of me.”
“Aye, but you need not apologize to me. I’ve done worse, I’m sure.”
She bade Fiona goodnight soon afterward, and took herself off to the room she shared with Phaeline; whereupon, Fiona returned to her contemplations. She had already reduced by two the seemingly daunting number of apologies, but it occurred to her then that Phaeline’s would not be the most difficult one, after all.
Kirkhill had rejected her first attempt out of hand. At once, it became of the utmost importance that he accept her second one, but what could she say to him?
When another knock sounded at the door, she had a dreadful premonition that it would be Phaeline and did not even want to open the door.
Calling herself a coward, she marched over and opened it with a jerk.
Kirkhill stood on the landing.
Everything she had been feeling and thinking when she had rushed out of the inner chamber earlier returned in a wave of embarrassment and a sudden urge to slam the door and burst into tears. She could not think of a single thing to say.
“I came to make sure that you are all right,” he said quietly. “I was too hard on you, and I think I was mixing your behavior up with that of my sister.”
“I’m not your sister,” she said, staring at his broad chest.
“No.”
Something in the way he said the single word made her look up. As her gaze collided with his, she felt a rush of unfamiliar heat through her body and could not seem to look away. “I… I apologized to Flory, and… and to Nan.”
“So Nan was here, was she? Well, I’m not surprised. I warrant she gave you much unmerited sympathy. Did you tell her what a brute I was?”
“Nay, for you were no such thing. I did not tell her much at all.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Nay, that… that was just between you and me.”
“It was, aye,” he agreed. “But I was harsher than I should have been.”
“You were right, though,” she said with an unexpected little sob at the thought of his rightness. “And I’m truly sorry for dumping my trencher onto yours, sir. I do wish you would accept my apology, because, by my troth, I—”
But she said no more, for his arms had gone around her and pulled her close. She had feared she was about to cry, but instead, with a sigh, she rested her cheek against his hard, muscular chest. Then she put her arms around him, too.
Chapter 11
Kirkhill held Fiona, calling himself all sorts of a fool. She was in his care, so he had a responsibility to keep her safe, and that included keeping her safe from him. But the fleeting attraction he had felt on first meeting her, an attraction that he had thought at the time vanished in the face of her obvious pregnancy, had returned almost the moment he saw her again. His dreams had exacerbated the problem.
As a result, the attraction was stronger than ever.
Standing at her doorway, where anyone might see them as they held each other, he knew he cared for her more than he had let himself imagine. He did not want to harm her, and although his men would keep silent, any Jardine member of the household who saw them would likely speak widely of it.
Accordingly, he gave her a hug, set her gently at a slight distance, and said again, “I just wanted to know that you were all right and to tell you that Nan is going to stay at Dunwythie Hall with your mother for a time, mayhap until after the Lammas Day festivities there. Phaeline has invited us to take part in them, too.”
She looked up at him, her expression softer than he had yet seen it. “You… you still have not said whether you will accept…”
When she paused, he was still so full of his feelings for her and the resulting concerns that he nearly asked what she meant. Then it came to him, and he smiled reassuringly as he said, “I do accept your apology, lass. I shan’t offer one in return, because you did need to hear what I said to you. But I hope the fact that you have more apologies to make will not keep you awake all night.”
“It won’t,” she said. “Flory is keeping my wee David with her, and Jane’s sister Eliza will see to his night feedings for me. So I should sleep well tonight.”
“Good,” he said. He fell silent as he looked down at her, wishing he were not a man who took his duty so seriously. She stirred a hunger in him that was…
She licked her lips, looking wary, and he realized that he was frowning.
“Aw, lassie, don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I’m not angry, I swear. I’m just… oh, may God forgive me!” He caught her by the shoulders, pulled her close, and kissed her tantalizing lips.
She stiffened in surprise, but her lips softened against his, and she leaned into him, moaning as she responded with unexpected passion of her own.
Thinking he heard a noise on the stairs, he urged her farther inside without releasing her or ending the kiss, and eased the door nearly shut with his foot.
Then his customary good sense righted itself.
With a sigh, he pulled back and said, “I should not have done that.”
“No,” she said, gazing at him solemnly. “Nor should I. But—”
“Aye,” he said dryly. “But I wanted to, and I’ve imagined what it might be like from the day we met. ’Tis a harsh burden Old Jardine laid on me.”
“Is it?” she said, looking at him as if she were trying to decide just what he meant. “We should not have kissed. Indeed, I do not know why I did not resist you. Less than an hour ago, you made me feel so ashamed of myself that I was in tears, and now… By my troth, sir, I do not know what to think now!”
“Nor I, lass,” he said. “’Tis a dilemma, this overwhelming attraction I feel for you. But mayhap you should call me Richard now, or Dickon, if only because we have got to know each other better. I will stri
ve not to confuse you so again.”
“But I did not mean that it was your fault only, sir. I did not resist… or just at first, because I did not expect such a thing after you were so displeased with me. Also because I thought you did not like me much,” she added softly.
“I like you just fine,” he said gruffly. “My feelings… Sakes, lass, I could not get so angry—not the same way—with someone I did not care for, and care deeply.”
“I have never known anyone to get angry the way you do, so coldly,” she said. “You just kept talking and talking, and every word made me feel worse about what I had done and how daft I had been.”
“Not daft, Fiona, just thoughtless and gey reckless.”
“Well, don’t start again,” she begged. “I could not bear it now, after…” She looked up at him hopefully, but he shook his head.
“We must not let that happen again,” he said. “Certainly not until I learn what happened to Will Jardine.”
“He must be dead,” she said.
“I confess that I hope he is,” Kirkhill said ruefully. “He would not approve of my being in your bedchamber like this, let alone kissing you.”
She shuddered, and he added brusquely, “Sakes, I don’t approve of it myself, and I hope you will never tell Nan. She would fling this in my teeth every time I called her to account for her behavior. That would never do!”
“You’d deserve that she should fling it at you, but I won’t tell her.”
“I must go,” he said, still brusque for the simple reason that his behavior had astonished him even more than it had her. He had long taken pride in his ability to separate duty from personal feelings, but his behavior—taking base advantage of his position as her trustee—in his eyes, was unacceptable. None of it was her fault, but he had given her a weapon of sorts, whether she knew it or not.
“I felt so powerless,” she said abruptly.
“Just now?” Little did she know!
“Nay, before, and for the past two years, come to that. Men wield all the power in this world. Women have none.”
