Highlander in Love

by Julia London

  “But ye do,” Grif said softly, and it felt as if her blood began to empty from her veins. She gaped at Douglas and his villainous smile. He was, she understood, triumphant. She’d refused him and now he’d seek his revenge by humiliating her.

  Mared abruptly twisted in Grif’s arms, away from that cold, hateful smile, and pressed her cheek to her brother’s shoulder. “No, Grif!” she pleaded on a sob. “No, no, please donna do this—he means to humiliate me.”

  Grif sighed sadly and put his hand to her head, holding her against him. “Listen to me now, Mared. Ye refused his suit and reneged on our debt, so now it is for Douglas to say what he will have. And he would have our cattle, or…” His voice trailed off, and he suddenly moved, grabbed Mared by the shoulders and pushed her back so that he could look in her eye. “He would have our cattle, which we need to survive, or he will have ye as his housekeeper for one year to satisfy the debt.”

  It was worse than she could have imagined. “No!” she shrieked, but Grif’s hands held her steady. “Ye canna agree!” she cried out. “It’s preposterous! Absurd! Let him whip me in the old bailey, but donna do this, Grif, please!”

  “We gambled—ye gambled—and we lost, Mared! But we are Lockharts, and Lockharts pay their debts. If ye willna honor yer own agreement, then ye will honor this for us all. Ye will do as he demands!”

  Mared caught a sob in her throat and dropped her forehead to Grif’s shoulder. “I’ll walk through the fiery pits of hell before I’d serve him even a moment,” she muttered miserably.

  “That is no’ an option,” Beelzebub said at her back. “Ye may have one hour to gather yer things and make yer good-byes.”

  His stone cold voice infuriated her, and she abruptly pushed away from Grif, twisting about to glare at him. “Donna think ye will order me about as if I were a bloody chambermaid!”

  “I will order ye about as I see fit. And when ye address me, lass,” he said, walking forward so that she could see the icy glint in his eye and the set of his jaw, “ye will address me as yer laird.”

  Mared opened her mouth, but Liam caught her by the arm, spun her around, and gave her a healthy push toward Ellie. “Take her from here. Help her pack her things,” he said gruffly and turned a murderous look to Payton.

  “Ye’ll no’ silence me! I’ve scarcely begun to say what I think!” Mared cried as Ellie took firm hand of her, yanking her from the room, with her mother and Anna right behind. But before she could speak, before she could tell him what a bastard he was, she was pulled out of the study and into the corridor, and the door was shut soundly behind them.

  That was when she began to sob uncontrollably.

  Eight

  M ared sobbed as her mother packed for her and Ellie and Anna desperately urged her to try a different tack with Douglas.

  “What tack?” she groaned miserably.

  “A softer hand,” Anna said. “It’s something Grif taught me. It is possible to slay a man with kindness.”

  That only made Mared wail more loudly, and she continued to sob through her farewell to her family—and particularly when Douglas assured her mother that she’d be free, just as all his servants were free on Sunday afternoons, to leave Eilean Ros and call on whomever she pleased.

  Her mother hugged her, whispered in her ear to go, and Mared followed him out onto the drive, where the black coach painted with the crest of Eilean Ros waited.

  The footman took her old portmanteau, and Mared hastily wiped the tears from her eyes with the corner of her plaid as she waited for the footman to open the coach door.

  But when he opened the coach door, Payton stepped in front of her, and said gruffly over his shoulder, “Ye’ll ride atop, with the coachman,” and stepped into the luxurious interior of the coach.

  The footman shut the door behind him and looked at Mared. When she didn’t move, he motioned to the driver’s bench and pulled his coat more closely around his throat. “Aye, there’s a lass,” he said kindly. “’Tis too bloody wet to dally. Come on then, step lively.” And he retreated to the back of the coach.

  She was mortified and wounded by the sudden and sharp turn in her situation, but Mared was too proud to let the bastard see it. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed onto the iron handles and pulled herself up to the driver’s bench and gave the elderly coachman a halfhearted smile. “Looks as if it might rain, aye?”

  “That it does. Ho, walk on!” he shouted at the team and sent them out of the drive at a trot.

  Mared pulled her arisaidh over her head and stared straight ahead, refusing to look back. One day, when she had means, she would hunt Hugh MacAlister down and squeeze the very life from him.

  The mist had thickened to soup by the time they drove the windy roads to Eilean Ros, and when they arrived at that grand estate, Mared was soaked through to her drawers. Payton stepped out, dry and neat, and strode purposefully to the house, his cape flapping about his ankles as he jogged up the steps and disappeared inside.

  The footman—Charlie, he said his name was—helped her down from the driver’s bench and handed her the portmanteau. “Just in there,” he said, then jumped on the runner of the coach and slapped the side of it, indicating the coachman should move on.

  As the coach rolled out of the drive, Mared looked at the door of the Douglas mansion, swallowed the lump of dread in her throat, and forced herself to walk, struggling with the heavy baggage, resorting to dragging it up the fourteen steps to the oak doors.

  Beckwith, the butler, met her in the foyer. He was a small, thin man with a face that seemed permanently pinched with displeasure, and he looked at her stoically as he announced, “Ye are to wait here, Miss Lockhart.” With a quick once-over, he turned on his heel and disappeared into the corridor to the right.

  “Wait as if I were riffraff,” she muttered and dropped her portmanteau with a thud, pushed the arisaidh from her head, and folded her arms petulantly.

  Payton had her as his servant—was there really a need to treat her poorly? She glared at the grand staircase before her, each step made of stone, rising up to the first floor and an enormous candelabra, then up again, to the second. At the top of the second story was a full-length portrait of a long-dead Douglas woman, resplendent in her court dress and jaunty plaid Scots bonnet. She was smiling down at Mared, almost as if she mocked her. “Foolish lass! Ye might have walked up these stairs a lady, but now ye’ll walk up a servant.”

  Mared snorted, looked down at her feet. Diah, how long would she be made to stand here like some forgotten piece of furniture?

  Her answer came shortly thereafter with the sound of his footfall in the right corridor. She would recognize that stride anywhere—long and lean and determined. She lowered her arms, clenched her fists.

  He appeared informally, another signal that her status in his eyes had changed. He wore his waistcoat and the tails of his neckcloth dangling down his chest. He hardly spared her a glance as he entered the foyer and walked to the grand staircase and began his ascent. “Just this way, Miss Lockhart,” he called over his shoulder.

  Mared looked at her portmanteau, then at him, jogging easily up the steps to the first landing, where he paused to turn around and look at her. “Is there a problem?”

  “Aye,” she said, her hands on her hips. “The luggage is a wee bit heavy.”

  He glanced at the bag at her feet, then at her. “Ye appear to be a strong lass and quite capable of carrying it. Come then, ye are wasting my time.”

  Mared gaped at him, but Payton had already turned and continued upward. She muttered her true opinion of him under her breath and leaned down, picked up the heavy bag, and started upward, wincing each time the bag banged against her leg.

  When she reached the second landing, she had to pause to catch her breath and drag the back of her hand across her forehead. He made a sound of disapproval above her, and she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He was standing on the third landing, one leg on the stairs that narrowed and went up to the servants�
� quarters, his arms folded sternly and impatiently across his chest.

  And he was frowning. “Ye keep me waiting.”

  “Can ye no’ have a wee bit of pity, then?” she snapped as she tried to catch her breath.

  “No,” he said instantly and sharply. “I’ve no more pity left for ye, no’ even a wee bit. If ye will please hurry along, then.”

  “Bloody pig,” she whispered under her breath. She picked up her portmanteau and struggled with it to the top floor.

  When she reached the last floor, where the unadorned corridor narrowed, Payton was waiting again. He could wait for an eternity for all she cared, and she put the portmanteau down and wiped her forehead once more. He grunted, and suddenly walked back to where she stood, took the portmanteau from her hands as if it weighed nothing, and carried it to the last door on the right, where he disappeared inside. With an irritable sigh, Mared followed him.

  He had brought her to a small, whitewashed square room, its only pleasing feature a small dormer window that she assumed overlooked the loch. A single bed was pushed up against one wall, covered with a worn cotton coverlet. On the opposite wall stood a plain, three-drawer bureau in need of paint. The top of the bureau was graced with a chipped ewer and a basin for washing. A very small mirror was nailed to the wall, and Mared could see from where she stood that it was distorted.

  There was no hearth, only a small charcoal brazier beneath the window. There was one wooden chair, a small floor mat made of sea grass, and a night table next to the bed. On that nightstand, there were a half dozen tapered candles stacked neatly and a single, tarnished candlestick.

  The room was positively Spartan and stifling, and the notion that she must live within these walls for a full year made Mared blanch. It was the very opposite of her chamber at Talla Dileas, with its old sitting hearth and the thick rugs, and the old, enormous sleigh bed. The poverty of Talla Dileas was at least comfortable—the poverty of this room made her ill. So ill, in fact, that she leaned against the bureau for support and stared blindly at the floor.

  Payton moved her portmanteau aside and pointed to another, small door. “There’s a privy in there.”

  A closet with a chamber pot was hardly a privy, but Mared said nothing.

  He walked to the door of the room, put his hand on the old brass door handle, and glanced back at her. “I’ll receive ye in the library at promptly half past ten in the morning. I’ll outline yer duties then.”

  She could feel the tears welling in her eyes, the acidity of her frustration and helplessness churning in her belly.

  “If ye require anything, ye may call on Beckwith,” he said. “Good night.”

  She didn’t look at him—she couldn’t, for she felt on the verge of flinging herself at him and clawing his eyes out. She heard him walk through the door and close it, and in a moment of absolute despair and hatred, she snatched up the chipped ewer and hurled it at the door behind him. It shattered in a loud burst as pieces and chips of pottery fell to the floor. “Bloody bastard!” she shrieked.

  The door flew open so hard that it banged against the wall as Payton stormed in, striding across the shards of clay, reaching Mared before she could react.

  He grabbed her by the arm and pushed her against the wall, then steadied her with his body and a hand to her face.

  He was breathing so hard that she could see the flare of his nostrils, feel his hot breath on her skin. His gray eyes glinted with unfathomable wrath. He was a man she’d never known, an angry, fire-breathing man.

  “Ye have extended yer debt to a year and a day, aye?” he said hoarsely, his voice trembling with his rage. “And for every outburst such as this, I’ll add another day, and another, and another, until ye have no hope of ever going back to yer bloody Lockharts!”

  Mared caught a sob in her throat; her eyes filled so quickly with hot tears that she could barely see him. “Unhand me,” she said, through gritted teeth, trying to twist out of his grasp.

  “Unhand ye?” He chuckled wickedly, tipped his head forward, so that his lips were against her temple, his breath warm on her cheek. “I donna think ye understand yet, leannan. I’ll bloody well take ye in hand whenever and however I please. I own ye now, for ye’d no’ have it any other way. Ye have no one to thank but yerself for this folly, and ye’ll receive no’ a wit of sympathy from me. I’ve lost all regard for ye. I care nothing about ye, other than how ye manage my house. And if ye think to destroy my property, I will exact payment from ye as I do now…with yer servitude.”

  “I. Will. Never. Be yer servant!” she hissed.

  “No?” He moved his head, so that his lips were just a moment from hers, and Mared was instantly and regrettably reminded of another kiss that had almost dropped her to her knees.

  “But ye already are, lass. Yer father has kept his bloody cows and given his daughter to me. Aye, ye’ll serve me, Mared,” he said, and licked the salty tears from her lips. “Ye’ll do as I say, when I say it. I’ll take ye in hand when I please,” he said, and brushed his lips against hers, so lightly, so airily, that her skin tingled savagely. “I’ll have ye in my bed if I so desire. Or perhaps,” he said, pausing to flick his tongue against her lips, “I’ll forget ye even exist.” And then he silenced any protest with his mouth.

  He kissed her. His tongue swept inside her mouth as if he owned it, his hand found her breast. Mared hated him then, hated him with everything she had. Her heart pounded against her chest and she struggled fiercely beneath his hold on her, finally wrenching her face free. “It will be a cold day in hell before I come near yer bloody bed,” she spat.

  Payton abruptly let go and pushed away from her, as if he was disgusted by her.

  “I hate ye, Payton Douglas,” she said shakily, her chest heaving. “I will always hate ye.”

  His eyes darkened. “Aye. Ye’ve made that perfectly clear,” he said, and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. “But I damn well donna care any longer.” He pivoted away from her and strode from the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

  Mared stood there a moment, her hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming, and listened to his footfall move away from her door. When she could hear it no longer, she released her sobbing, and clutching her arms tightly around her body, she slid down the wall onto her haunches and sobbed like a bairn.

  How long she sobbed, she really didn’t know, for there was no timepiece in her possession, but the coals in the brazier had gone cold when she was finally spent from the sobbing and stopped. She wiped her nose and her eyes and put her hand in her pocket and pulled out the small phial Donalda had given her.

  Nine

  P ayton did not sleep well.

  He hated that he’d reacted with such anger, hated even worse that he still could not seem to keep his hands from her…especially now that she was under his protection. His emotions, he realized, were so close to the surface that they were bubbling through—anger, desire—it made for a rather toxic combination.

  This was, he was realizing well too late, a fatuous, thick-witted plan. It was imperative therefore, he reasoned, that he keep his distance from her.

  But Mared startled him when he entered the library the next morning at a quarter past ten, for she was already there, standing at the bookshelves. She was perusing the many books his family had collected over the centuries, her hands clasped behind her back, a long braid of hair reaching almost to her waist, and wearing an old gown the color of a Scottish sunset he’d seen her wear many times.

  He instantly suspected chicanery.

  She’d have a bloody bad time of enacting her scheme, whatever it was, for this morning his mood was all the more sour, his patience thin, and he prepared to do battle as he strode across the room.

  But much to his great astonishment, she turned when she heard him enter and smiled. A full and glorious smile, complete with sunny dimples and the very same sparkling green eyes that came to him in his dreams from time to time. “Maduinn math, milord. Good mornin
g.”

  Payton stopped dead in his tracks and eyed her suspiciously. “Good morning.” She nodded; Payton glared at her a moment longer. She smiled again.

  No. Whatever the chit was about, he’d not be so easily lured into her trap. He stalked on to the library desk and sat. “Thank ye for being prompt. I hardly expected it. Please be seated,” he said, indicating a chair directly across the desk from him.

  She did not so much as frown, but crossed the room and sat, her spine straight, her hands in her lap, her smile bright. “Ye’ve a lot of books,” she lightly remarked. “It’s quite an extensive library ye have.”

  He said nothing, just observed her skeptically as she calmly returned his gaze. Quite a change in demeanor from the banshee of last evening. Oh, aye, she was up to something, he was certain of it.

  “My cousin Sarah shall take her leave of Eilean Ros today. Ye shall attend her,” he began, watching Mared closely for any sign of mutiny.

  “Very well,” she said pleasantly.

  Very well his arse. Payton’s frown went deeper, and he steepled his fingers, openly studying her. “Miss Douglas will give ye the keys to the stores. I shall expect a competent handling of the household accounts.”

  One of her brows rose above the other, but Mared smiled and nodded.

  “Ye are to wear the black-and-white uniform Mrs. Craig wore. Miss Douglas will instruct ye as to where they are kept, aye?”

  “Aye. A uniform,” she said with a resolute nod.

  “Now, as to yer duties,” he said, and abruptly leaned forward, propping his arms on the desk, his gaze narrowed on hers. “I am a practical laird, Miss Lockhart. I’ve no need for squads of servants. We’ve the usual groundsmen and livestock handlers. In addition, I’ve Beckwith, with whom ye are acquainted, and under him, there are three footmen, a coachman, a groom, and a gamekeeper. We’ve a cook, and she has the help of a scullery maid. In addition to yerself, there are two chambermaids. Ye will oversee their work in the performance of yer everyday duties.”