by Julia London
“I should very much like to hear about yer studies, Miss Crowley,” Douglas continued. “I’ve oft said that educating our women will bring this country forward, for it is only through education that reform and natural progress may be gained. Ye are to be commended.”
That was such rubbish that Mared caught a cry of disbelief in her throat that unfortunately sounded like an unladylike snort.
“I beg yer pardon, Miss Lockhart, did ye say something?” Payton asked with a hint of a smile.
Natalie mistook Mared’s snort of disbelief as one of pain and quickly and rather loudly said, “Miss Lockhart is educated, too! There are lots and lots of books at Talla Dileas!”
“I had no idea ye are so keen on educating girls, Payton,” Miss Douglas remarked as she directed Beckwith to pour tea.
“No? I am very much indeed. I canna abide ignorance in general, for no matter their sex, ignorant people will perpetuate the old ways and impede the natural progress of a nation.”
Of all the ridiculous—Mared could not remain silent, for progress to this man meant displacing people from their homes. Cottages were left standing empty all over the lochs as people left for Glasgow or points farther south in search of work. “I should think it quite depends upon what one calls progress, milord,” she said. “I suppose ye believe that progress is to push tenants from the land in favor of raising sheep, while the old ways are to raise cattle and croft the land so that everyone prospers, aye?”
“Prosper!” He laughed gaily, as if a child had uttered an amusing bit of nonsense. “I hardly call it prosperity when a family canna grow enough in the commons to put food on their table. No, Miss Lockhart,” he said congenially, “true progress is about the enlightenment of a people. When the old ways no longer provide, then we must find a new way to prosper. Together.”
“And she’s quite accomplished at the pianoforte, and she speaks French, too, with only a bit of an accent,” Natalie desperately avowed.
“Aye, yer auntie is well accomplished, lass,” Payton said with a smile.
Oh, how she wanted to box his bloody ears! “Really, milord, will ye bore Miss Crowley with all this empty talk of progress?” Mared asked cheerfully.
“Oh no!” Beitris quietly protested. “It’s really quite interesting.”
“Miss Crowley has had occasion to be abroad,” Mared continued determinedly, ignoring Beitris. “Did ye no’, Beitris?”
“Well, I…I did have occasion to travel to France.”
“France. I adore France,” Miss Douglas remarked, perking up. “Did ye enjoy yer visit there?”
“I canna say that I did,” Beitris said, putting aside her tea, inexplicably eager, all at once, to speak. “We had rough seas on our crossing, and I wasna fully recovered for the fortnight I was in Paris. And then there was the voyage home—I am still rather weak from it.”
Now she would make herself seem too weak for a man as virile as Payton Douglas. “Miss Crowley, ye are too modest,” Mared quickly interrupted. “Ye are the very picture of health.”
“Miss Lockhart has not taken ill a single day since she was as old as me,” Natalie avowed rather loudly.
“Quite remarkable,” Douglas said with a wink for Natalie. “But I believe yer auntie differs from us mere mortals in that her constitution is ironclad.”
“Oh no!” Mared exclaimed with a sweet laugh. “’Tis naugh’ but the Highland air! It is no’ befouled with factory smokes as is the air that comes from the sort of progress they enjoy in Glasgow.”
Payton gave a snort of laughter at that. “Touché,” he said, bowing over his teacup. “Well said. Here in the lochs, we can all rest assured that the lack of progress will, if nothing else, lend itself to our good health.”
Oooh, but she could feel her temper rising. The man was as stubborn as the Lockharts’ blasted mule! She suddenly put her tea aside and stood up. “Might I have yer leave, sir, to show Natalie a portrait of another deceased Douglas?” she asked sweetly, indicating a large portrait of his grandfather on the far end of the wall. “I hadna quite finished reciting our family histories.”
“As ye wish, Miss Lockhart,” he said pleasantly.
Mared gave the bloody mule a winsome smile and strode forward, her head high, with Natalie walking quickly to keep up.
As they reached the far end of the room, she heard him say, “Ye’ve no’ yet had the pleasure of viewing our gardens, Miss Crowley. Might I show them to ye?”
“Oh,” Beitris choked out. “Please!”
“Cousin Sarah, will ye join us?”
“No, thank ye, Payton. I’ve seen the gardens many times.”
Mared listened to the sound of his sure footsteps and Beitris’s soft gait until they could no longer be heard in the room. Mared put her hand on Natalie’s shoulder and silently indicated she should go sit with Miss Douglas.
Natalie, bless her, went immediately to her post. “Have you ever been to England?” she asked, and began to talk of London, while Mared pretended to be viewing the many portraits of what were really far too many Douglases while covertly moving to the window and peeking out at the garden through the thick lead glass.
Aha, there they were. Their figures were somewhat distorted, but Mared could see them, walking side by side, Beitris’s hand in the crook of Payton’s elbow—or perhaps that was her parasol?—and his head quite close to hers. They strolled languidly, and Beitris would look up to him, and Mared imagined her face glowing with his undivided attention. At the end of the long walk, which was too far away for Mared to see clearly, Payton Douglas dipped his head and kissed Beitris.
At least Mared thought that was what he did. They were at a distance so she couldn’t be entirely certain, but then again…no. She was certain. He’d kissed Beitris.
It was cause for celebration! Her plan was working beautifully—so why it should make her belly roil she hardly knew or cared. She turned abruptly from the window, her face a wreath of smiles, and went to join Natalie and Miss Douglas.
When at last Payton and Beitris returned—he wearing a broad smile, and Beitris wearing a furious blush—he and his cousin saw the three of them out.
He helped Beitris onto the narrow bench of the cart while the groom put the donkey to the cart, and Natalie climbed onto the back. Mared was the last to reach the cart—she’d had trouble donning her frilly bonnet, for she rarely wore the blasted thing—and as she walked to the right side of the cart, Payton met her there and gallantly offered her a hand up.
With a slight frown, Mared reluctantly put her hand in his, and he instantly closed his fingers around hers. Firmly. Possessively. A hot flood of warmth shot through her arm and her chest, and it unsettled her so badly that she quickly lifted up and pulled her hand free so that she could take the reins from the groomsman.
Only then did she dare to glance down at him. He was looking up at her, his gray eyes shimmering with something very deep and very alarming. “Good day, Miss Lockhart. And thank ye for bringing Miss Crowley and Miss Natalie to call. It’s been a very pleasurable afternoon.”
“Ye are quite welcome,” she said merrily while her heart pounded furiously. “And now, we must be on our way. Good day, then!” She cracked the reins against the donkey’s back, sending the beast into such a quick trot that Payton Douglas had no time to move. He was knocked down by the sudden movement of the cart; it was only his cousin’s shriek that alerted Mared to the accident.
Three
I n spite of Sarah’s protestations that he might have been killed, Payton wasn’t hurt. He’d had the wind and his pride knocked out of him, but he was otherwise quite all right.
He’d rather sternly suggested that perhaps Mared leave the driving of the donkey to someone with a wee bit more finesse of the reins.
But before he’d hobbled off with the aid of his cousin and his groom, he’d seen the glint of fear in Mared’s forest green eyes, the fear of that goddamn curse, and he had said sharply, “I know what ye’re thinking, lass, and ye’re wron
g to think it!”
His admonishment earned him a dark frown, and she had climbed back onto the wagon and driven off.
Payton slept badly that night, dreaming of ancient curses and horrible accidents and Mared’s green eyes.
But he was set to rights the next morning and resumed his attempts at courting her. Over the course of the next few days, he sent more flowers and laughed when he received her reply that the Highland ling had given her a curious rash. He sent an invitation to ride about Eilean Ros, but she declined, citing a freshly broken leg. And when he finally rode across Ben Cluaran and called at Talla Dileas, interrupting a family game of lawn bowling, in which Mared was playing on her miraculously healed broken leg, she deigned to obey her father and allow him to play beside her, then swore on her honor that she did not intentionally drop the heavy ball on the toe of his boot.
Aye, Payton did his damnedest to court the unruly lass, but he kept running into Miss Crowley—curiously, just about every time he turned around. And she was always in the company of Mared, who made a habit of leaving them—and quickly, too. He saw the two of them at the kirk, on the road, at a ceilidh, a gathering in Aberfoyle where people from the village and surrounding lochs shared music and drink and gossip.
He’d seen Miss Crowley and Mared most recently in the confectioner’s shop, where he always stopped when in Aberfoyle, for he had a rather irrepressible sweet tooth. At Mared’s urging for all and sundry to hear, he bought Miss Crowley a sweetmeat, but took great satisfaction in not purchasing one for Mared as well, the exasperating little wench.
He saw Miss Crowley the following day, too, when he returned to the smithy to fetch one of his bays. She was walking in the street with Mared, who, he remarked, was spending an awful lot of time in Aberfoyle of late.
“A happy coincidence, I assure ye,” Mared had said with a brilliant smile, and then suddenly, “Oh!” as she remembered the important errand that had brought her to Aberfoyle. She scurried away like a rat deserting a sinking ship, leaving Payton alone with Miss Crowley.
Payton liked Miss Crowley, actually. Once she stopped being afraid of him, he discovered she was really a very nice lass, and he enjoyed her company—but in a friendly sort of way. Not enough to wed her for all eternity, as Mared obviously wanted him to do. He had the sense that Miss Crowley felt much the same way about him. Frankly, she seemed far more interested in the smithy’s son than in him.
He thought that rather fortunate, for he’d not want to see Miss Crowley hurt by Mared’s silly games.
On a morning that dawned clear and blue after two days of heavy rain, a restless Payton saddled his big bay hunter, Murdoch, then whistled one of his best sheepdogs, Cailean, to his side, and set out to have a look at his sheep.
The ride was slow; Murdoch kicked up thick clumps of mud from a ground turned to bog as they moved slowly along the base of Ben Cluaran. Even Cailean ceased his running ahead and then behind Murdoch, as sheepdogs were wont to do, and walked wearily beside them. High above, on hills that stretched to the sky in shades of green and gold, Payton could see the tiny dots that were his sheep, grazing as high on the face of the hills as any creature could go.
In a week or two, they’d herd them down. The trick with sheep was to keep them moving so they did not graze to roots in any one spot.
When he reached the mouth of Glen Ard, Payton turned upstream, into a narrow split between hills, guiding Murdoch to a place where he could drink from the fast-running stream.
He found a grassy spot and dismounted and knelt beside his horse to drink himself.
As he did so, he heard a mysterious thud and then the ominous sound of something falling down the steep hillside behind him, crashing into trees and rocks. Still on his haunches, Payton looked over his shoulder and saw an enormous rock tumbling down toward him. Instantly he jumped to his feet, grabbed Murdoch’s reins and pulled him upstream. The rolling rock hit a tree and hopped a little to the right, then came crashing into the stream exactly where Payton had been drinking.
Cailean trotted over to have a sniff of the rock, but Payton couldn’t move, could only stare, his heart racing. The thing was as big as his largest ram. If he hadn’t moved so quickly, the bloody thing would have bowled into him and likely killed him.
“Mi Diah!”
The voice came from somewhere above him; Payton groaned, and with his hands on his hips, turned around.
“Are ye harmed?” Mared cried as she quickly picked her way down the sheep trail to him, her two dogs darting ahead of her. She had a basket in her hand, her green and blue wrap of plaid, her arisaidh, dragging behind her, and her long black hair unbound beneath an old straw hat.
She leapt off the last rock onto the path by the stream and paused for a moment to stare at the rock before turning to him with an awe-filled expression. “Are ye all right?”
“I am quite all right; it didna touch me!” he said gruffly. “What are ye about, pushing rocks that size down the hill? Ye might have killed me!”
“I did no’ push it!” she cried indignantly. “I donna know how it came to fall!”
Payton snorted.
“On my honor! The earth is quite wet—it must have come loose….” Her voice trailed off, and she frowned at his expression. “Really, if I’d attempted to slay ye, I’d have done so in such a slow and painful manner that there’d be no question it was me. I didna touch that blasted rock!”
He couldn’t help but believe her—Mared was an impertinent, irreverent, and exasperating woman, but she was not, in so far as he knew, a criminal. He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and stared at the rock as Cailean trotted over to Mared and stuck his head beneath her hand. She instantly stooped down, smiling and cooing to the dog as she stroked him, oblivious to the tongues and tails of her dogs lapping around her.
Frustrated, Payton watched her. She was such a beauty with her long black hair, wandering the hills above the lochs as she so often did, wearing a gown the color of heather cinched tightly below her bosom and embroidered at the neck and hem. And at her breast, she wore a tarnished luckenbooth—a brooch. It was a testament to the wealth the Lockharts had once possessed, its tarnish an indication of how much they’d lost.
“Bonny hat,” he said wryly.
With a laugh, Mared rose to her feet. “It was Father’s.” She squinted at the rock once more, then eyed him curiously. “Are ye harmed, then?”
He shook his head.
“’Tis the curse, ye know,” she said matter-of-factly. “Ye may think these are mere accidents.” She smiled. “But they are a warning to ye, lad—donna go through with this silly betrothal.”
He smiled. “There is no curse, Mared.” He eyed her basket. “What have ye there?” he asked, tapping his riding crop against his palm as he moved closer to have a look. “It wouldna be the berries from my bramble bushes again, would it?”
Mared put one in her mouth and nodded unabashedly.
“Ye shouldna pick berries on my land without asking, lass,” he said, and helped himself to several.
“I shan’t do so again, for they’re no’ as sweet as they’ve been in years past. Have ye done something to make them sour?” she asked, peering up at him from beneath the brim of her hat. “Cast yer smile upon them, perhaps?”
“If ye donna care for the berries ye pilfer on this side of the mountain, then perhaps ye might pick them on Sorley’s land,” he suggested genially, referring to Old Man Sorley, who ruled his glen with an iron fist and would not brook the theft of his berries, no matter how wild they grew or how beautiful the thief who picked them.
“Aye, but everyone knows Sorley’s berries are no’ as big as yers, laird,” she said, and popped another couple of berries into her mouth.
Payton cocked a brow at her boldness, but Mared calmly chewed the berries, her steady gaze challenging him. Impetuously, he lifted his crop, flipped a thick strand of long black hair over her shoulder. “And what has ye about on such a fine day? The unlawful chasing of Douglas s
heep? A wee bit of general mayhem?”
“Sheep! And what would I have to do with yer few puny sheep?” she demanded as a winsome smile curved the corners of her mouth and dimpled her cheeks. “If ye must know, I’ve come from Donalda.”
“Donalda!” Payton groaned. Donalda was an old crone who lived deep in the glen. Some claimed she had magical powers. Others said she was the best medicine woman in the Highlands. Still others, Payton among them, held the belief that she was nothing but an old hag. “Why? Have ye an illness that a trained physician canna cure?”
“I do.” She laughed as she handed him another handful of bramble berries. “’Tis called a troth.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “And how will Donalda dispel this terrible disease? Curse me, will she?”
“She gave me a phial,” Mared said, holding up the tiny bottle that was hanging around her neck and wriggling it at him. “I am to use it to open yer eyes to the truth when the time is right.”
“My eyes? Ah, but, lass, I see the truth and I always have. Never doubt it.”
With a small shrug, she dropped the phial and picked another berry. “If ye do indeed see the truth, then ye willna hold me to this ridiculous betrothal.”
“Ye agreed to the terms of the loan, Mared,” he calmly reminded her. “Three thousand pounds is quite a lot of money.”
“What choice did I have?” she asked, raising her gaze to his. “I’d no’ have agreed to such a thing, but my family needed it so badly.”
“So ye’ve said on more than one occasion. Nevertheless, ye did agree to it. And really, is what I offer so bad?”
She surprised him with a lovely smile. And she put down her basket and folded her arms across her belly, eyeing him closely. “’Tis no’ what ye offer, Payton, for it is more than I could ever hope to know,” she said, surprising him with the rare but pleasing sound of his given name on her lips. “But can ye change yer name? Or our mutual history?”
