The Knight's Temptress (Lairds of the Loch)

by Amanda Scott

  Lizzie made a rude sound. “All I can think about is what a fool I was to ride off as I did. Or else I think about Dougal MacPharlain and how strange he seems. I do still think he is the handsomest man I’ve ever seen, though.”

  “Put that thought out of your head,” Lina advised her. Hoping to change the subject, she added, “I could tell you one of Muriella’s tales, if you like.”

  “Perhaps later,” Lizzie said. “She knows many stories, does she not?”

  “She has a good memory,” Lina said. “I know some of them, too, though. I can tell you about the hero Tam Lin if you like.”

  “First, I want to ask you something. Do you not agree now that if we are kind and speak politely to Dougal, he will like us better and may agree to help us?”

  “No, Lizzie, I don’t.”

  “But you saw what happened when you spoke to him quietly. He listened to every word. And he had been ready to strike you, Lina. Even I could see that. But then, after you explained why you would not suit him as a wife, he left.”

  “Aye, he did, but we have still had naught to eat, Liz. If he liked us or had truly taken responsibility for us, would he not at least have ordered some supper?”

  “Men don’t think of such things,” Lizzie said. “Most of them think food just appears on the table when it is time to eat. I think Dougal is like that.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” Lina said, yawning.

  “I am. I also think he will order food for us if you just tell him we require some. You did influence him before, after all.”

  “If he heeded aught I said, it was because you told him who I am. Or mayhap because his father had suggested that Dougal should marry a MacFarlan.”

  “I didn’t mean to do that. He made me mad. But I do think you might—”

  “Lizzie, forgive me, but you would do better to think of Dougal as an ill-bred horse. The sort who might respond briefly to kindness but who is just itching for a chance to bite or kick you.”

  “We don’t keep ill-bred horses.”

  “Exactly,” Lina murmured.

  “Very well, then. Tell me about Tam Lin.”

  Although she would rather have slept, Lina complied. To her relief, Lizzie’s soft, even breathing soon told her that she slept. Letting her voice trail to silence, Lina also slept until sunlight crept in through their window Thursday morning and woke her. Getting up quietly, she relieved herself in the pail and went to look out the window.

  Clouds still drifted above, but the river looked blue instead of gray as it had the day before. Ahead in the distance, she could see just the top of a tower that she suspected was Dunglass Castle. When her mother had taken her and her sisters to visit kinsmen, they had sometimes stayed overnight there and ridden Colquhoun ponies to Glasgow or Stirlingshire.

  With a sigh, she shifted her view to the flatter, thickly forested land between Dumbarton’s great rock and Dunglass. She wondered if Ian was home and asleep.

  A rattle at the door made her turn sharply to see that Lizzie had wakened and was eyeing the door with trepidation.

  To Lina’s surprise, the same man entered who had come with Sir Ian the previous evening. Today he carried a pail. Beckoning behind him, he held the door open to let a rather grubby-looking boy enter, carrying a tray.

  “It be nae more than bread and dried meat wi’ a jug o’ ale, m’lady,” the man said. “MacPharlain tellt me tae bring up summat tae break your fast. Having small choice, I told the kitchen lad just tae put summat together.”

  “Thank you,” Lizzie said fervently. “We don’t care what it is as long as it is edible. I’m ravenous!”

  The man smiled, and the boy put the tray on the room’s only table, saying, “Ye can put the dried beef on yon bread, mistress. I do that m’self.”

  Lizzie rose and began to examine the tray’s contents with the lad’s aid.

  Taking advantage of the diversion, Lina said to the man, “I do not know your name, but we are truly grateful to you. We have not eaten since yestermorn.”

  Clicking his tongue in disapproval, the man said, “Ye can call me Gorry, m’lady. But if ye mention me tae MacPharlain, I’d liefer ye call me MacCowan. Sithee, he…” Pausing, he shook his head and added diffidently, “MacCowan’s enough for him, an it please ye.”

  “I’ll remember, Gorry. May I ask”—she glanced at Lizzie, still enrapt with the food—“did the… um… the peat man get home safely last night?”

  “Aye, sure,” he said. “Did he fail tae get there, we’d ha’ heard a hue and cry by now. Sithee, the laird be at Dun—” Breaking off, he shook his head at himself. “I’m a rattlepate and nae mistake. I had best be off, too, or someone will come tae fetch us, but we’ll bring your midday meal, too. MacPharlain said I was tae look after ye. I’m tae see that nae one else troubles ye like that Patrick Galbraith did.” To the boy, he added, “Take this pail now, lad, and exchange it for the used one. Be there aught else ye need, m’lady?”

  “Can you find us some tasks to occupy our time? I can sew,” Lina said. “We would also be grateful for blankets.”

  “I’ll see tae that,” he said, nodding as he shooed the lad out the door.

  “Why did you ask him about the peat man?” Lizzie asked when they had gone. “You might have asked him to bring more peat for a fire tonight.”

  “I’d rather have asked why Dougal sent him,” Lina said, having no wish to answer questions from Lizzie about the peat man.

  Lizzie sighed and said, “I’m telling you, Lina, Dougal likes you. And we would be daft not to take advantage of that.”

  Having reached Dunglass only an hour or so before sunrise, Ian had fallen onto his bed in the clothes he wore to Dumbarton and then into deep sleep. So he strongly resented the sudden, violent shaking a few hours later.

  “Stop it,” he grumbled.

  When the shaking continued, he sat bolt upright, ready to pulverize whoever had dared to disturb him.

  That worthy, however, having enjoyed long experience with his charge, had been ready to leap back at the first twitch of his eyelashes.

  “What the devil ails you, Hak?” Ian growled.

  Christened Hercules but never having lived up to the name, Hak was slight of build but quick of wit. Barely three years older than Ian, he had acted as his body servant from the age of thirteen and for some years now as his equerry.

  “It be nigh midday, sir,” Hak said. “The laird said that did ye no come down tae eat wi’ him and her ladyship, he’d roust ye hisself.”

  Suppressing an impulse to curse the laird and order the laird’s messenger to perdition, Ian satisfied himself with another growl.

  “I brung ale, sir.”

  “I don’t want ale.”

  “By the look o’ ye, ye must ha’ been in your cups,” Hak said. “Wherever else would ye come by such a pile o’ rags as them ye wore tae bed?”

  “I got them in exchange for my old breeks and one of your sarks,” Ian said, eyeing his man to see how he’d react to that news.

  He wasn’t disappointed.

  “My sark!”

  “Aye, so you are well paid for waking me betimes.”

  “Aye, then, I’ll go and tell the laird ye dinna want your dinner. Likely, he’ll just say good on ye and ha’ done wi’ it. But if ye’ve been up tae mischief again, as I’d warrant ye have, a-wearing o’ them rags—”

  “Enough about the rags,” Ian said, sitting up and sniffing. “Is that me?”

  “Aye, sure it is. Heaven kens it isna me, and there be only the two of us in here. Ye smell like a midden.”

  “Shout for a bath then. It’s these damned rags that reek. When you’ve shouted for the bath, help me get out of them. I’ll see that you get a new shirt.”

  An hour later, washed, brushed, and properly attired in a linen tunic and his favorite blue-and-gray plaid, Ian descended to the castle great hall. There he found his parents and his brother Adam at the dais table, with a stolid Rob MacAulay.

  Colquhoun’s
two favorite greyhounds lay under the table near his feet, as relaxed as if they had no interest in scraps.

  “ ’Tis good to see you, Rob,” Ian said, stepping onto the dais and extending his right hand as MacAulay got to his feet.

  Ian was taller by an inch, and lanky. Rob MacAulay was broader of torso and muscular from top to toe. He boasted a thick mop of yellowish brown hair, leaf-green eyes, and the sober but confident demeanor of a man who knew his worth.

  Ian knew him to be a strong, highly-skilled swordsman, a devil with a knife or dirk, a fine wrestler, and an enviable archer. If Rob agreed to join them against James Mòr, he would be a valuable ally.

  Shaking hands, Rob said, “ ’Tis good to see you, too, Ian. I’ll admit, though, I had expected you to be up earlier than this.”

  “He’s a damned lie-abed,” Adam Colquhoun said with a teasing look.

  “Just out late,” Ian said, avoiding his father’s gaze.

  “I see.” Rob cocked his head. “Is she a beauty?”

  “Enough of that, you three,” Colquhoun said. “Ladies present.”

  “Only one lady, my dear,” Lady Colquhoun said in her amiable way. “And none of these three will say aught to offend me.”

  “Not unless we want to see our heads in our laps, my lady,” Rob said. “When I was a stripling, you put me to shame more times than I care to recall. And you did it with nowt save a few well-chosen words.”

  “Did I?” she asked. “I do recall that you and Ian got up to mischief more than one would care to see. But I am sure I was the most tolerant of mothers.”

  “Sit down and eat, Ian,” Colquhoun said dryly. “I’ve nae doubt ye’ll have much to report afterward, will ye not?”

  “Not as much as I had hoped, sir. I did learn a few things, though.”

  “I’d hope so,” Colquhoun said brusquely. “Sit, sit, now, both of ye. They’re waiting to serve ye, Ian, and ye’re blocking their way.”

  Conversation was wide-ranging until Rob asked Colquhoun if the rebels at Dumbarton posed a threat to Dunglass.

  “Nay, nay; they ken fine that I’m a man of peace,” the laird said.

  “I’ll wager they’d rather have you with them, sir.”

  Colquhoun’s eyes twinkled. “Aye, they would. But I’ll have nowt to do with unseating a rightful king, lad. And knowing your sire as well as I do, I’ll wager he feels as I do.”

  “He does, sir. He also has some concern that, situated as we are at Ardincaple, guarding the entrance to the Gare Loch, we may pose a threat to James Mòr that he will seek to eliminate. That is why I asked about Dunglass. It sits in a similarly strategic place and could block his access to Glasgow.”

  “I expect it could,” Colquhoun said. “But it will not do so unless his grace orders it. If he does, I’d have to obey the royal command, would I not?”

  They chatted desultorily then until Lady Colquhoun departed with a graceful suggestion to Rob that if he tired of male company, he might visit her. “I would fain hear all the news of your mother and the rest of your family,” she added.

  He agreed with a smile, and the men stood until she had departed.

  Then, signing to a gillie to set the privacy screens, and dropping tidbits to his dogs, Colquhoun said to Ian, “Now, let’s hear it, lad… all of it, if ye please. Hak looked as if I had suggested hanging him when I said I’d wake ye myself if ye didna get down to eat. I half expected to find ye wearing bandages, or worse.”

  “It was not as bad as that, sir,” Ian said. “I just visited Dumbarton Castle to see how their lady captives were getting on.”

  The rest of Lina’s morning passed slowly, making her wonder what her captors expected them to do all day. She could occupy herself indefinitely with her thoughts. But she preferred to walk or sew while she thought, and at present her thoughts had an absurd tendency to drift to Ian Colquhoun if she let them.

  Lizzie loved to talk, but she talked mostly about herself or Dougal. If Lina tried to shift the topic, it too often returned to Dougal, and since her own thoughts seemed equally frivolous and contrary, she found it hard to stifle Lizzie.

  However, when it happened for the third time before MacCowan brought their midday meal, Lina said, “Prithee, Liz, can we not talk about someone else?”

  “But why do you not like him? He sent us breakfast, after all, and ordered our midday meal. And he told that MacCowan man not to let anyone trouble us, even Patrick, which I can tell you, did not disturb me in the least, although you may have feared that it would. Do you dislike Dougal as much as that, Lina?”

  “It is not a matter of how much I dislike him,” Lina said. “I have no reason to like him. Forbye, your brother Mag also dislikes Dougal. That should tell you all you need to know about the man, Liz. You respect Mag’s opinion, do you not?”

  “I just want to get out of here,” Lizzie said flatly.

  Chapter 4

  Colquhoun glared at Ian but kept his voice from traveling past the privacy screens that sheltered the dais from the lower hall when he said, “What the devil d’ye mean ye just visited Dumbarton? Have ye gone mad?”

  Pretending not to notice Rob’s wince, and grateful for Adam’s silence, Ian said, “I don’t think so, sir. We must get the ladies Lachina and Lizzie away from Dumbarton as fast as we can. No other female is there, and many rough men are.”

  “Are you talking about Lachina MacFarlan and Lizzie Galbraith?” Rob MacAulay demanded when Ian paused for breath.

  “I am.” He explained what had happened. Then, grimly, he added, “To say that captivity at Dumbarton is dangerous for them is to understate that situation by a long measure. I know you must agree with me, sir,” he said to Colquhoun.

  “Aye, sure, I do. Where I do not agree is with your thinking that going there alone was wise. Ye’ve admitted that the castle is impregnable. So the only way to win the release of those poor lassies is to approach James Mòr in a tactful way. Has it occurred to you that he may not even know they are there?”

  “It might not have occurred to me before I learned that Dougal MacPharlain led the rebels who captured them, sir,” Ian said quietly. Aware of their audience, he kept his temper under rigid control. But he could not resist adding, “We both ken fine that Dougal is a man whom anyone of sense would distrust.”

  “Pharlain’s whelp, eh?” Colquhoun frowned. “We also ken that he and his da supported Duke Murdoch, his sons, and the other rebels in their attempt to seize the throne five months ago. I was unaware of Dougal’s presence at Dumbarton, but has not everyone there sworn fealty to James Mòr?”

  “Aye, sure, including Patrick Galbraith, in whom Sir Arthur expressed such confidence yesterday before he left. Patrick entered their room whilst I was there.”

  “You were in their chamber?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Colquhoun’s brow furrowed, his jaw tightened, and his lips thinned, all familiar signs that warned Ian to tread lightly if he wanted to avoid igniting a paternal explosion. Knowing his father well, he waited.

  In the silence that followed and with surprising grace, considering its size, one of the greyhounds emerged from under the table and gently nudged Colquhoun’s arm with its smooth, elegant head.

  Absently patting the dog, Colquhoun drew a breath and said, “D’ye doubt that Patrick will protect Lizzie?”

  “He lacks the power to protect her,” Ian said. “I ken little of his courage. But it would take a vast amount to go against not only James Mòr but also those nobles who serve him, as Dougal seems to do.”

  “Dougal supports James Mòr because his father does. Both of Galbraith’s older sons chose for themselves to support Lennox and Murdoch, perhaps because their father makes a practice of keeping his political opinions to himself.”

  “Aye, but you should know that some who have sworn allegiance to James Mòr are members of our clan,” Ian said. “Gorry MacCowan and Jed Laing, to name two.” He watched Colquhoun’s expression change to shock and disappointment.

&
nbsp; “I’d never have expected to lose either of them,” Colquhoun said.

  “Nor have we, sir,” Ian said. “They remain loyal to us.”

  “But they swore an oath of fealty—”

  “It was the only way they could stay at Dumbarton and hope to survive long enough to wreak vengeance for Gregor Colquhoun’s murder, sir,” Ian explained.

  Rob said solemnly, “We heard about Gregor. Also that the villains killed Jamie’s uncle, Lord Burleigh. Fiendish acts, both.”

  Colquhoun was shaking his head. “I ken fine that we live in treacherous times,” he said. “But we’d all do better if we could speak honestly with each other.”

  Exchanging a look with Rob, Ian said, “If everyone were honest, that attempted coup would never have happened. In my experience—and, before you remind me, sir, I’ll admit that I’ve much to learn before mine equals yours. But if one side is always honest about its intentions and actions, and the other side is not, I should think a child could predict the outcome of any conflict between them.”

  “I dislike liars even when they lie in support of the King,” Colquhoun said. “I understand what you say, lad. And I’ll acknowledge that your reasoning has merit. But Dunglass is safe now only because James Mòr believes we are neutral. If you violate that neutrality by taking sides, you risk more, I think, than you know.”

  “I fail to see how rescuing two lassies abducted by a conniving scoundrel has aught to do with politics, my lord. Lizzie is scarcely more than a bairn.”

  “Ian, cease these ‘sirs’ and ‘my lords,’ ” Colquhoun said testily. “They tell me more of what ye’ve been up to than your words do. His grace ordered ye to reclaim that castle. Surely, ye canna be so naïve as to think James Mòr doesna ken that.”

  “Jamie spoke privately to me,” Ian said, mentally stomping on the impulse to add “sir.” He recognized it—now that his father had pointed it out—as a reflexive habit from childhood that, as he recalled, had not impressed Colquhoun then, either.

  “How privately?” Colquhoun asked.

  “We were alone except for Will Fletcher, who would never breathe a word of it without Jamie’s leave,” Ian said. “I have told only you, Mag Galbraith, Adam, and Sir Arthur. Now you have told Rob, and I’ll soon tell the men I’ve summoned here. However, we can act as if the abduction of Lina and Lizzie—maidens both, I’d remind you—is a separate matter from James Mòr’s occupation of Dumbarton. Galbraith expects Patrick to protect them. But I tell you he would not even if he could. He is entirely loyal to James Mòr, so we must depend on our own people.”