The Knight's Temptress (Lairds of the Loch)

by Amanda Scott

  Colquhoun walked to the gate with equal disregard for the pelting rain and the men making way for him. He also set a pace fast enough to inform the gate guards that he would not take kindly to delay.

  Noting with relief that Jed Laing was one of the guards, Ian watched closely. But neither Jed nor Colquhoun as much as glanced at one another. Jed knew his danger. And Colquhoun, despite his notions of courtesy and enduring belief that every nobleman was open to civil discourse, was not a fool.

  As Ian passed Jed, their gazes met. Ian allowed himself a wink.

  He kept a close eye on Lina and Lizzie as they walked down the steep path. It was dangerously slippery and rutted, with rainwater turning every rut into a rill.

  Neither lass complained. Each moved as if she were used to such terrain.

  Looking up, he saw a man approaching the bottom of the path, wrapped in a heavy-looking, well-oiled leather cape.

  Head down to give his cape’s hood a chance to block the heavy rain, Dougal was thinking about his plan. Originally, he had thought he might take further advantage of Colquhoun’s visit to slip Lina out while Colquhoun met with James Mòr. But her flat refusal to go with him had rendered that option unfeasible.

  He could hardly force a reluctant woman all the way down from the southeast tower chamber and through the courtyard full of Colquhoun men and James Mòr’s watchers without someone attempting to interfere.

  However, he might be able to persuade her to be more cooperative later, when things were back to normal. Once she was in his power, of course, she would quickly learn to obey without question and abandon her damned insolence.

  He would enjoy teaching her to mind him.

  Hearing muffled footsteps above him on the muddy track, he glanced up and saw a score of oilskin-wrapped men coming down.

  “Sakes, Colquhoun is already leaving,” he murmured with relief.

  Watching more closely, unmindful now of the rain, he thought it might amuse him to see the laird’s defeated expression, and those of his men.

  Keeping an eye on the man approaching them, Ian moved up a little to screen Lina and Lizzie from his view. He had a good idea who the man would be.

  Lina glanced at him, her quizzical look telling him that she had also seen the man, now on the path and walking more quickly. His head was up, his face visible.

  It was, as he had expected, Dougal MacPharlain. Looking back at Lina, Ian saw that she had shifted her position as well, as if to shield Lizzie.

  Returning his attention to Dougal, he saw the man smile. He had just passed the head of their line, so he was amused to see Colquhoun leaving as he was, and doubtless thinking it was sooner than the laird liked and gloating about that.

  Lina had indeed seen and recognized Dougal. She had also seen that he was looking closely at the men ahead of them. Fearing that Lizzie might see him and inadvertently draw his attention, Lina eased closer but saw then that Liz was watching where she was putting her feet and following the men ahead of them.

  Glad they were not alone and even glad that their feet were as muddy as anyone else’s and therefore unlikely to draw notice despite their smaller size, she followed Lizzie’s example and kept her head down until they had passed Dougal.

  Pleasant though it would have been to teach Dougal better manners, Ian just hoped he was not counting Colquhoun’s tail. The rain was still heavy, though, and the next time he looked, Dougal had pulled his hood farther forward and was looking down.

  No one else paid them any heed then or as they trekked back across the rain-drenched river plain to the forest and the lads waiting with the horses.

  Having ridden near the rear of the tail without being last when they had come, Ian led his charges to take the same position again, expecting at any moment to hear someone comment on the two additional cloaked figures.

  When no one did, Ian realized that the men were all tension-tired. Their time in the yard had been mercifully short. But the reason for its brevity was only too obvious. Colquhoun’s mission had failed. The grim way he had marched from the keep to the gates had announced his mood loudly to them all, as well as to Dougal.

  Hurrying past the last of Colquhoun’s tail, Dougal shifted his hood back long enough for the sodden guard on the wall to recognize him and shout down to let him in. Then he hurried through the gateway.

  Crossing the yard, he saw that although men were still doing chores there, including the chap who looked after the women and the lad who always went with him, there were fewer now. As he headed for the door into the southeast tower, he hoped that his luck had changed and he’d be able to get Lina away sooner than the evening. Smiling, he took the stairs quickly and used his key to open the door.

  He stood in the doorway and stared, stunned, at the empty room.

  When his gaze alit on the scrap of vellum on the floor, he moved quickly to pick it up. Reading its message, seeing his own initial scrawled—as if he would ever sign anything so—he knew he could not linger. Shoving the scrap under his jack, he closed and relocked the door.

  Fury threatened to overcome him. They had escaped. But worse, Lady Lina had dared to try to make it look as if he had taken both of them, for surely it was she and not the much friendlier Lizzie who had scrawled the note. Thinking swiftly, noting that the upper stairs were clear, he descended again to the yard.

  He had taken what little he would need to the galley on his first trip. If he went down again at once, he would have witnesses to the fact that he had come in alone for just a short time and gone out again alone. Meantime, wherever Lady Lina might be, she would certainly head for home as soon as she could.

  The wretched lass might unwittingly have made everything easier for him.

  The heavy rain continued. The mood was somber, the riders quiet.

  Ian kept a close eye on his charges, but they kept silent and remembered to keep their heads down.

  If one or another of Rob’s lads gave Ian a quizzical look as they rode, he ignored it, his thoughts speeding ahead to Dunglass and his father’s likely reaction.

  The rest of the journey passed quickly… too quickly.

  Men on the walkway overlooking the landward approach to the castle had seen and recognized their party. The gate was open. The riders passed through the gateway to find gillies splashing across the yard to take their horses.

  The darkest clouds had passed. The rain had begun to ease its pelting.

  Dismounting and handing his reins to a gillie, Ian moved to help the lady Lina only to see her cast one breeks-clad leg adroitly over her pony’s rump and slide to the ground with a light splash. Lizzie, too, dismounted without aid.

  “I wish I could wear breeks all the time,” she confided in a low tone to Ian. “They are much better for riding.”

  Colquhoun’s voice sounded behind Ian, saying sternly, “Ian, bring those two lads and come with me. I want a word with ye inside.”

  Meeting his father’s gaze, Ian said only, “Aye, my lord.”

  A glance at Lina and Lizzie assured him that they knew Colquhoun referred to them. When they fell into step with Ian, he noted with relief that each continued to keep her head down as they followed in the laird’s wake.

  No one else looked at them, but Ian knew that any number of the Colquhoun men had at least an inkling of what he had done. And many of them, if not most, had faced Colquhoun’s wrath before, just as he had.

  He had no doubt that he was about to face it again.

  Lina’s heart was pounding, and she could tell that Lizzie’s tension had increased, too. The younger girl’s hands clutched each other, making Lina yearn to reach out and touch her, to ease her anxiety.

  She could not do that. Ian had made it as plain as anyone could that they were not to reveal their identities or even that they were female.

  Although she had to lengthen her stride as much as she could to keep up with Ian and his father, she knew better than to complain. She wished she could at least say something to thank Ian for what he had done o
r to assure him that Colquhoun was not as angry as he seemed to be.

  Rejecting that last thought as quickly as it had come, knowing it for a lie, she decided that she would be wiser to keep quiet and hoped that Lizzie would, too.

  So far, Liz had shown wisdom beyond what Lina had come to expect of her. But the tension she displayed now…

  Lina prayed that the Fates would aid them both. She prayed, too, that they would somehow reveal what, if anything, one might do or to say in the next few minutes to stem the tide of Colquhoun’s anger.

  That hope lingered briefly and faded.

  Who was she to imagine that she could do such a thing? She could not stem her own father’s rage when it erupted. And she did not know why Colquhoun was so angry. She just knew that he was.

  He had ordered Ian to bring them along. So he must know who they were.

  Was he angry that his son had rescued them? Had he ordered him not to?

  Common sense told her he was angry. And since his anger was likely to vent itself soon, she would do well to keep silent unless Ian or his father spoke to her.

  She had evidently grown accustomed to Ian’s presence, though. She could hear normally and she could think. Whatever force had affected her before when he was near her or disturbed her thoughts had evidently passed.

  At the entrance to the keep, Colquhoun led the way inside, then up four or five steps and across the great hall to the dais. Minions who scurried about, preparing for the evening meal, hastily made way for him. Stepping onto the dais, he continued toward a door at the rear of it.

  He had acknowledged no one in the hall. Nor had he spoken.

  A gillie setting a jug on the high table saw the laird coming and nearly upset the jug in his haste to open the door for him.

  With a brusque nod of thanks, Colquhoun strode into the room.

  Ian held up a hand to stop the departing gillie and gestured just as silently for Lina to follow his father. She did so and felt Ian lift the oilskin off her as she passed him. Glancing back to be sure that Lizzie was behind her, she saw him take Lizzie’s oilskin as well and hand both to the gillie.

  Turning back toward Colquhoun, Lina paused, remembering then that he used the inner chamber primarily for himself and the business of his estates, the way her father used a room across from his bedchamber. A dark, polished table extended from near the hooded fireplace on the hallside wall toward the center of the room. A low peat fire burned on the hearth. Myriad candles burned in sconces and in a chandelier overhead, giving Colquhoun’s chamber a warm glow.

  The chill she felt coming from the laird, however, banished all warmth.

  Lizzie stopped beside her as the door latch fell into place with a snap. Lina saw that although Liz still looked anxious, she no longer wrung her hands.

  Ian stepped past them to stand in front of them, facing Colquhoun.

  The laird had moved behind the table. A back-stool was there, but Colquhoun continued to stand. He gazed, sternly thoughtful, at his son.

  The silence grew, deepened, and stretched until it felt palpable.

  Ian stood quietly, apparently content to wait for his father to speak.

  Watching them, Lina felt her tension begin to ease.

  “Have you lost your senses?” Colquhoun asked in an icy tone that made the fine hairs of her nape stand on end and her tension surge back in tidal force.

  She heard Lizzie gasp beside her but dared not look at her.

  Ian remained silent for so long that Lina, too, wondered about his sanity.

  The color in Colquhoun’s cheeks deepened. “Have ye nowt to say?”

  “Aye, sure, I do, sir,” Ian said. “I’d prefer to keep this talk between the two of us, though, if you will permit that. These ladies—”

  “—are here thanks only to your lunacy,” Colquhoun interjected. “I ken fine that you would prefer to hear what I say alone. But where would you have me put them if not here with us?”

  “Surely, my lady mother—”

  “You have lost your senses. Your lady mother is not to know they were even here. Do you understand me?” He glared at his son. “That is a command, Ian. They cannot stay here, not tonight. Sakes, they cannot even come here again until we can somehow resolve this trouble with James Mòr. What you did today endangers not only our neutrality and any other chance I may have to treat with him but also the very safety of Dunglass. You are not stupid, Ian. You must see that.”

  A slight, impatient jerk of Ian’s right shoulder and what Lina could see of the set of his jaw swept him back into the nursery before her very eyes. As large as he was and respected—a knight of the realm—and despite the six years that she knew separated them in age, the recklessly daring Sir Ian Colquhoun turned for those brief seconds into a sensitive bairn too angry to hide his fury.

  Her heart went out to him. But she swiftly lowered her eyelids, lest Colquhoun or, worse, Ian himself somehow see her sympathy in her eyes.

  Ian said brusquely, “Where would you have had me take them, sir?”

  The door behind her opened without ceremony. That fact, and the rustle of silken skirts as the door shut again, told Lina who had entered before anyone spoke. She did not need the gesture from Colquhoun to ignore courtesy and keep still.

  Ian looked over his shoulder, and she saw that familiar gleam of unholy amusement leap to his eyes. Her protective instinct vanished, but when that still twinkling gaze shifted to her, she nearly smiled back at him.

  “My dear sir,” Lady Colquhoun said from behind Lina, “I understand that you have brought us two guests. Did you mean to hide them from me?”

  Ian was amused. But he wondered whether his plump, always comfortable-looking, quiet-spoken mother had just saved him from paternal annihilation or made things worse. Glancing at his father, he feared it would be the latter.

  But her ladyship had already helped. Her unexpected entrance had banished his own soaring fury with Colquhoun for taking him to task in Lina’s presence.

  Colquhoun looked briefly chagrined but rallied swiftly to say, “I had hoped to spare you worry, my lady. We do have guests. But Ian was wrong to bring them here. Especially with you in residence as you are, my love,” he added sternly.

  Ian knew that Colquhoun meant that tone for him, not her ladyship. But he had himself in hand again and retained his composure easily.

  “With respect, my lord,” Lady Colquhoun said in her amiable way, “prithee do not talk like a noddy. I have heard many rumors today. If the least of them is true, James Mòr Stewart seized two female hostages days ago and took them to Dumbarton. Then, this afternoon, you rode off without a word to me, Ian also vanished, and now you return with two guests. I am not a noddy, sir. I can piece together such items of information with ease. Who are they?”

  Colquhoun hesitated.

  Lina did not hesitate. She turned and made the best curtsy she could manage in the awkward costume she wore. The only thing resembling a skirt—unless she pulled her own too-long-worn skirts free of the breeks—was the dreadful blanket-cloak. It steamed now, embarrassingly redolent of damp, seldom-washed wool.

  Lady Colquhoun gaped at her. “Mercy! Lachina MacFarlan, is that you in those horrible clothes?”

  “I fear it is, my lady,” Lina said, rising and pushing back her makeshift hood. Politely indicating Lizzie, who had bobbed a semicurtsy and risen when Lina had, she added, “I think you also know the lady Elizabeth Galbraith.”

  “Mag’s youngest sister, of course,” Lady Colquhoun said, moving to greet them with a hand extended to each. “You are most welcome here, both of you.”

  “Nay, then, they are not,” Colquhoun said curtly. “Nae one must ken they are here, Arabella, especially James Mòr. He must go on thinking that we are neutral, or we will all be in danger. These lassies must go tonight, I say.”

  “But where?”

  “To Inch Galbraith, of course, under strong escort. Lizzie must want to get home. Forbye, Lina’s mother and sister will be near there if not on
the islet itself.”

  “Then they must go, of course, sir,” she said equably. “I do not question your decision. But they cannot go as they are. I doubt they have seen hot water in days. To send them out in such weather without properly warming them first would be cruel. They also need fresh clothing and a good hot meal.”

  “Now, Arabella…” Colquhoun hesitated when she shook her head.

  “In troth, my lord,” she added, “I can see that you are aching to ring a peal over Ian, who doubtless deserves it for wearing those noisome rags if for naught else. But you will both be more comfortable if I take these two off your hands until we sup. If you will order a tub and hot water carried to my dressing room, I shall whisk them up our privy stair at once and conceal them until the tub is full.”

  Lina returned her gaze to Colquhoun.

  He glowered for a moment at no one in particular and then nodded.

  Hearing a sigh from Lizzie that echoed her own relief, Lina followed their hostess out. She doubted, though, that their leaving made Ian any more comfortable.

  Ian doubted that the women were beyond earshot when Colquhoun said grimly, “If ye’ve aught to say to me, say it now.”

  Meeting his gaze, Ian said, “I did have reason for my actions, sir, and no time for debate if aught was to be done.”

  “I’m listening.”

  That was the best thing about Colquhoun, Ian thought. He would always listen. Ian hoped he would give his own sons, when he had them, the same respect. He did not think for a moment that his reason for acting as he had would spare him. But he knew that Colquhoun would at least try to understand why he had done it.

  “Gorry sent word to me, too, sir, when the messenger brought James Mòr’s invitation to you. The reason I resisted speaking before now in front of Lizzie and Lady Lachina was that Gorry had heard that Dougal MacPharlain meant to abduct Lina and leave Lizzie alone there. Just as Dougal had decided that Lizzie would be valuable to James Mòr because he could use her to pressure Galbraith, I believed—”