by Julia London
And occasionally, the dark-haired son of the smithy in Aberfoyle.
Now a few days had passed since Mared had seen Payton up in the hills. Days in which she had, at times, felt fevered and terribly restless. Nothing would ease her.
A letter from Beitris only made it worse. She dutifully reported that the laird Douglas had paid a gentlemanly call to her, and that her mother found him quite agreeable, and her father said he was a gentleman and a scholar.
Mared crumpled Beitris’s letter and threw it into the sad little fire in her chamber. It was just like a man, was it not, to kiss one woman like Payton had kissed her—a soul-searing, deeply passionate kiss—then wander off and call on another woman and present himself to her parents?
She slapped her palm against her vanity and angrily reminded herself she had succeeded. Her plan had worked. She would not marry Payton Douglas, for he would offer for Beitris, and her life would be quite untangled as a result.
And it would untangle right into one long nothing unless they found the beastie.
Aye, hers was a bleak existence by some measure, but a far better one than marriage to a Douglas, she reminded herself. At least she was free to do as she pleased at Talla Dileas, even if the old castle was falling down around them. Even if they were in danger of losing their land forever. But when she went to Edinburgh, she’d be treated with respect and courtesy. She’d meet men who were just as handsome as Payton but with a last name that did not strike such resentment in the heart of a Lockhart.
Aye, she’d find her way there, even if she had to walk.
Mared sighed wearily, tucked the phial down into her bodice, walked over to the thick glass-paned window and gazed out over the broken tiled roof of the observatory below her, to the crumbling stone fence, and the lush green land around Talla Dileas. She noticed through the heavy mist a dark shape taking form on the road. She squinted at it. Then frowned. It was a carriage, pulled by a team of two, and as it drew closer, Mared could make out the lanterns swinging atop the conveyance and the gilded markings on the door.
Him again. She tilted her head back and sighed heavenward, wishing he wouldn’t call on Talla Dileas so freely. Nevertheless, she hurried to her vanity to comb her hair and pinch some color into her cheeks before she went down to find out why he was calling today.
By the time she had marched through the maze of corridors and rooms of Talla Dileas, which was the result of centuries of Lockhart lairds putting their mark on an old castle, to the old great room that now served as their salon, she heard laughter within and rolled her eyes.
She pushed open one of the ancient thick oak doors and stepped inside.
The room was bright and cozy, a fire of peat blazing at the hearth. Inside were her sisters-in-law—Ellie, blonde and blue-eyed like her daughter, sitting prettily on the settee, and Anna, the dark-haired, brown-eyed beauty in an armchair, her hands protectively on her belly, which was beginning to show her pregnancy. The two women were laughing, which wasn’t unusual—they had become fast friends since Anna had arrived in Scotland. What was unusual was that they were laughing with Payton Douglas and his cousin.
In fact, the haughty Miss Douglas was actually smiling a little as she sipped tea from one of the few china teacups that had not been sold or broken in the last few years. And Payton…Mary, Queen of Scots, he was holding Liam and Ellie’s baby son, Duncan, in one arm.
Mared was marching forward before she realized it.
Ellie, who had traitorously handed her precious bairn to a Douglas, was the first to notice Mared’s arrival.
“Mared!” she cried happily, and everyone turned to look at her, including him, who smiled broadly, as if it was quite common for him to be in their salon, sipping their tea, holding their children.
“Oh, Mared! Look who’s come to call!” Anna said, moving to find her feet. Naturally, Payton was instantly at her side, the baby in one arm, his hand beneath Anna’s elbow, helping her up.
Mared halted in the middle of the room and dipped into a rather shabby curtsey and found a smile for Payton’s cousin. “How do ye do, Miss Douglas? Welcome to Talla Dileas.”
She nodded stiffly.
“Miss Lockhart, what a pleasure,” Payton said, bowing low as Duncan grabbed for his lapel. “The very sight of ye warms our hearts, it does,” he said, and as he rose up, he winked at her. Winked.
“How lovely,” Ellie murmured.
“How preposterous,” Mared muttered and frowned at her nephew, who was gurgling up at Payton. “What is this, milord? Do we owe ye our firstborn grandson as well?”
Payton chuckled and looked down at the baby and began to bounce him in his arms. “If I had my druthers, Miss Lockhart, I’d fill the whole of Eilean Ros with a dozen bairns just like this wee one.”
“Payton, really,” Miss Douglas laughed. “Ye are too bold.”
Bold, he was indeed, but curiously, it was the first time Mared had ever heard him express such a sentiment. For some reason, as she stood there watching him hold Duncan high above him and coo in Gaelic that Duncan was a wee fat lad, she could very well imagine him in a house full of wee fat lads, and the vision gave her a peculiar and warm little shiver.
“Lord Douglas has brought us tea, Mared,” Anna said, pointing to a box of it on a small end table. “Isn’t that lovely?”
“Tea?”
“Aye,” Payton said, as he handed Duncan back to his mother. “A wee bird told me that ye were in need of it. Sarah and I would share ours.”
“How…unusually thoughtful,” Mared said, taking a seat next to Anna. “Mother will be particularly grateful for it, for she’s no’ had a decent cup of tea in a fortnight.”
Payton politely inclined his head. “Ye are more than welcome.”
“Won’t you please be seated, my lord?” Ellie asked, having handed off Duncan to Lucy, the only ladies’ maid they could afford, and the only ladies’ maid who would agree to be Duncan’s nurse as well. Lucy tickled the baby’s belly as she took him from the room.
With a smooth flip of his tails, Payton seated himself directly across from Mared on a long divan that was in desperate need of reupholstering. The old piece of furniture contrasted sharply with the new divan at Eilean Ros.
“Will you be at Eilean Ros for a time yet, Miss Douglas?” Anna asked.
“Only as long as Cousin Payton needs me. We’ve searched rather hopelessly for a housekeeper since Mrs. Craig passed. Until we can find one with suitable credentials, I’ll stay on. I would not leave Eilean Ros without a feminine touch, for I fear he’d turn the house over to a hunting lodge.”
The ladies laughed politely. Mared snorted.
“A pity you’ve had no luck,” Anna sighed. “I’m certain there are women about in need of the work.”
“Most women in need of work have gone to Glasgow,” Mared said.
“And those that remain behind cannot be de-pended upon to manage a barnyard,” Miss Douglas added.
“How fortunate, then, that the laird doesna require more than that,” Mared suggested with an innocent little smile.
She had meant it to be witty, but Miss Douglas looked appalled, and Ellie and Anna turned twin looks of horror on her. Only Payton chuckled softly. “Miss Lockhart, I beg ye, donna spare us yer true feelings for Eilean Ros.”
Ellie and Anna tittered with polite relief, but glared at her nonetheless, and Mared wondered when they had gone over to the side of the enemy.
His cousin, however, was less forgiving in her demeanor.
“I do beg yer pardon, laird. Miss Douglas,” she said grudgingly, and bowed her head. “It was merely a jest, but apparently one quite lacking in wit.” And she smiled.
Miss Douglas sniffed, and Anna, the consummate hostess, quickly asked after Payton’s new crop of barley, planted just last year. The question obviously pleased him, for he began to talk with great enthusiasm about his crop. How difficult it had been to drain the field above the loch, how the crop had come in much stronger than he’d expec
ted. How he would use barley to stock the whiskey distillery he was intent on building, how barley-bree would be common in his neighbors’ homes. And last but not least, how his sheep could graze the fallow fields. It was obvious he thought himself clever—his eyes were quite radiant with it.
Much to Mared’s chagrin, Ellie and Anna ooh’d and aah’d along with him. It rankled her to no end, particularly because even she, the only true Lockhart within these four walls, could not help but be enthused by him, no matter how badly she tried not to be.
When he and his cousin took their leave, he bowed gallantly over Ellie’s and Anna’s hands. Her sisters-in-law were practically swooning with delight. That was the danger of having English women in the house, Mared thought as she watched them beaming at Douglas. They had no sense of history, no sense of how he, by virtue of having brought sheep into these hills, had changed the very course of all their lives. And by virtue of having lent them money, how he would change the course of her life. All they saw was a handsome, charming man.
“If I may,” he said politely as he escorted his cousin to the door of the salon behind the Lockhart butler, Dudley, “I would extend an invitation to all the Lockharts to be my guests at Eilean Ros on the evening of Friday next, for a ceilidh.”
Mared was instantly suspicious. She could not recall a time he had hosted a ceilidh. “Thank ye, but we canna possibly—” she started, but Ellie was quick to stop her by stepping in front of her and all but shouting, “How very kind!” Then she dipped a curtsey worthy of a duke, not a bloody Douglas, and said, beaming, “I’m certain our laird would be delighted by the invitation.”
“No, he—” Mared tried, but Anna eagerly chimed in, “Of course he would! He was just saying this very week how he’d like to go forth a bit more than he’s been able.”
Mared gave Anna a puzzled look. She could not imagine her father saying any such thing. He was usually far too occupied in fretting about the demise of Talla Dileas.
“Splendid,” Payton said. “I shall consider it a favorable reply, then. Good day, Mrs. Lockhart. Mrs. Lockhart,” he said, nodding to Ellie and Anna. He shifted his gaze to Mared. “Miss Lockhart.”
The two Lockhart traitors stood on either side of Mared and wished the Douglases a good day in their badly spoken Gaelic.
When Dudley had shut the door behind the departing Douglases, Mared whirled about, glaring at her sisters-in-law. “Have ye forgotten who the enemy is, then?”
Anna laughed, but Ellie sighed wearily. “Darling, calm yourself.” She linked her arm with Mared’s. “We are quite well aware of the enemy.”
“Certainly we are,” Anna said. “What woman could ignore him? He’s really quite appealing, isn’t he? There are times I find it very difficult to remember why he is the enemy. He’s so handsome—not at all like the fops in London.”
“Ye donna understand, Anna—”
“Yes, of course I do,” she said before Mared could begin cataloguing the Douglas laird’s many faults. “I’m being silly, that’s all. Payton Douglas is a blackguard and a traitor and something else quite odious that I cannot now recall. Wasn’t it lovely the way he fawned over Duncan?”
“Everyone fawns over Duncan, Anna. Apparently even ogres. If ye know he is the enemy, why, then, did ye pretend as if the prince regent himself had come to call?”
“Because we have heard the news,” Ellie said with a bright smile. “And we shan’t tip our hand to him.”
“What news?”
“This news,” Ellie said eagerly. “When Liam traveled to Glasgow in search of work, by chance he encountered Sir Malcolm, and Sir Malcolm told him that Hugh MacAlister’s sister, Mrs. Reed, has come from Aberdeen to visit her ailing mother. She’s supposedly near unto death.”
“So what news does Aileen bring?” Mared asked anxiously.
“We don’t know as of yet,” Ellie said. “Liam and Grif will set out on the morrow for the MacAlister estate to have a bit of a chat. Grif said that Hugh was rather close to his sister Aileen, and if anyone in the family might know of his whereabouts, it would be her. Not to mention his poor mother’s ill health, which would bring even the worst of scoundrels home.”
Mared caught a breath in her throat. Was it possible? Her nightmare would disappear if Hugh showed himself anywhere in Scotland with the beastie. Yet she was afraid to hope—her spirits had been dashed to pieces by two false sightings of that bloody rotten scoundrel, Hugh. And each time she heard his name, she could not help but think of the little flirtations he’d whispered in her ear before he and Grif had left for England. “I’ll come back to ye, Mared, for I canna see the sun but in yer eyes,” he’d said. And “A Scottish rose ye are. I will carry yer image forever in me heart, and it shall be me guiding light until I’ve returned.”
That, he’d said to her the night before his departure. On bended knee no less, as he’d attempted to coax a kiss from her. Mared had laughed at him, but she’d enjoyed his attention nonetheless, as well as the chaste little kiss she’d given him that very night. The bastard! He hadn’t an honorable bone in his body! “No…I daresay Hugh will be in America by now,” she said morosely, sitting beside Anna. “He’ll no’ come back to Scotland for fear of hanging, no’ even for his dying mother.”
“Perhaps. But where do dogs go when they’ve no place else to roam and they are hungry? My guess would be home, or as close to a home port as one might find in a storm,” Ellie opined.
“And what has any of that to do with Douglas? Why accept his invitation? The Lockharts have never sought invitations to Eilean Ros nor been particularly well received there.”
“But that is the beauty of it,” Ellie said quickly, exchanging a look with Anna. “We shall all be in attendance Friday evening when Liam and Grif return to give him the good news that he is to receive his payment in full, with interest. And not you. And we shall celebrate!” she said with a squeak of delight, and both of them looked at Mared as if they’d already discovered Hugh’s whereabouts and the beastie, too.
Mared smiled, but she could not feel quite so confident. “What if they donna find Hugh?”
Anna and Ellie exchanged another sly look. “Well then,” Ellie said, as she studied the sleeve of her gown, “it would only be natural, I suppose, that we would all attend a rather…well, a rather important event to get better acquainted with our…perhaps future…family…ah, member.”
Mared snorted. “He’ll no’ be a member of this family, Ellie! I’ll never consent to marry him!”
“But really, Mared, he’s quite—” Anna started, but Mared sprang to her feet and strode to the door.
“He’s quite any number of things, Anna, but I’ll no’ lower myself to marry a Douglas!” she said sternly and quit the room before they could extol the knave anymore.
Five
M ared’s instincts, as it turned out, were rather keen—just as she’d suspected, Ellie and Anna’s optimism was effectively doused when Grif and Liam returned from the MacAlister estate three days later, covered head to foot in the grime from the road, hungry, and empty-handed.
Not only was Hugh’s sister, Aileen, quite ignorant of his whereabouts, she was, at least according to Grif, genuinely surprised and distressed to learn of Hugh’s theft of the beastie. Liam was less charitable—he suspected a vile conspiracy in everything the MacAlisters did, and cited Mrs. MacAlister’s recovery from her deathbed as proof.
Mared suspected that were she privy to all that had gone on, Aileen would be surprised and distressed by many things her brother Hugh had done. And she chafed at the piteous looks from her family, argued that her attendance at the preposterous ceilidh was entirely unnecessary. When her father, tired of the battle, laid down the law and said that she would attend, she prepared for an interminable evening at Eilean Ros by sporting a very bad humor and donning her best evening gown, such as it was.
Her best gown was a heavy and rich purple brocade, fancifully embroidered along the sleeves and hem and bodice, and repaired in more tha
n one place. It was a winter gown, the color and fabric ill suited to the long summer nights in Scotland, but it was the only gown she had to wear to important social events. When one’s family fell upon hard times, pretty gowns and silk slippers were the first necessities to fall by the wayside.
Not that Mared minded too terribly—mostly, she stood to one side at large affairs such as this, as guests generally seemed vaguely fearful of her. And she hardly cared what Payton Douglas might think of her attire—after all, he’d seen this particular gown enough times in the last few years to form a very firm opinion of it. At a Christmas dance just last year, he’d casually fingered the sleeve of it and remarked, “I would that ye had clothing less somber than this.”
Mared had smiled as she moved her arm away from his fingers. “I do indeed, sir, but I intend to wear that gown to my audience with the king. It wouldna do to wear it before that occasion, aye?”
He’d smiled tenderly, blast him, and Mared had felt that smile filter down her spine, all the way to her groin. “One day,” he’d said, “ye’ll have no need to wear a gown more than once.” And he had walked on, leaving her to stand self-consciously against the wall, hating her gown and hating him.
She did concede to a bit of primping by allowing Ellie and Anna to put her hair up in a fashion they said was quite popular in London—a pile of dark ringlets pinned in back and a thin ribbon of silk, borrowed from Beitris, wrapped around her head in Grecian style. A pair of amethyst earrings dangled from her earlobes.
“Are ye certain this is the current fashion?” Mared asked, peering closely at herself in the mirror.
“Yes, of course! Ah, but how lovely you are, Mared,” Ellie avowed appreciatively, standing back to have a look at her handiwork.
“You’d be an Original were we in London,” Anna opined from her supine position on the bed. “Everyone adores a darkly exotic look just now.”
