Highlander in Love

by Julia London

  The family exchanged another look; Ellie hid a smile behind a dainty cough.

  “I’ll get the cart,” Liam said and left the table. Mared could feel her mother’s eyes on her and glanced at her from the corner of her eye. Aye, her mother was smiling in that way she had that made Mared feel completely exposed. This time was different only in that she wasn’t certain of what, exactly, she was exposing. So she abruptly downed her port, stood up, and began her good-byes.

  They all saw her out, and her mother, the last to hug her, tightened Mared’s arisaidh at her throat and smiled. “Mind ye have a care, daughter,” she said and hugged Mared once more, whispering, “Be kind to him, lass. He’ll return it tenfold.” And she let go, smiled knowingly at Mared’s look of surprise, and gestured to the carriage. “There is yer brother now.”

  Thank the saints! Mared gave her mother a tight smile and hurried to Liam.

  The night was still and beautiful, a full late summer moon lighting their way, no sound but the creaking of their old, battered cart and the occasional braying of one of their two donkeys.

  When they came over Ben Cluaran, and Eilean Ros could be seen clearly below them in the moonlight, Liam brought the donkeys to a halt and gazed down on it. “He’s done well,” he said simply. “No one can deny he’s made a pearl of it.”

  Mared looked down at the massive estate. “Do ye think I chose the proper course, Liam?” she blurted.

  Her question obviously surprised her brother. He blinked, then cleared his throat. Then once more. “The proper course?” he repeated after a long moment.

  “Aye…refusing to accept his offer, that is.”

  Liam frowned thoughtfully. “I canna rightly say, Mared. I suppose there was a time we might have sent ye to Edinburra to escape yer fate, but as we canna do even that for ye…”

  “Escape my fate?”

  “Aye, aye, the curse. ’Tis absurd, but the fact remains that there are many around the lochs who put some stock in it. Ye’d never have a proper offer of marriage here, and we might have sent ye to Edinburra, where yer chances of a good match would have been a far sight better, I should think. But we couldna do so. Therefore, I suppose Douglas’s offer seemed rather generous.”

  “But he’s a Douglas,” she reminded him.

  “Aye, a Douglas,” Liam said and sighed. “Much has gone on between Douglas and Lockhart for nigh on four hundred years—enough to hate the Douglases for all eternity. But if we are to live by principle and measure a man by his actions, then this man, in spite of his bloody name, can only be said to be a good man.”

  His answer surprised Mared. She expected him to be the first to say she’d done the only thing she could do. “Ye think I should have accepted his offer?”

  Liam sighed and shrugged uneasily. “I donna know, Mared. ’Tis hard to ignore what has gone on between Lockhart and Douglas. But when I look at ye, and I see the beauty and the spirit in ye, I could rest easy knowing a good man held ye fast to his heart and protected ye from harm…even if he were a Douglas.”

  Held her fast to his heart.…Mared looked down at Eilean Ros again.

  “There, then, that’s enough of my prattling,” Liam said and flicked the reins against the backs of the donkeys and started them trotting down the winding road to Eilean Ros.

  Sixteen

  A n hour or so before Liam deposited Mared at the front door of Eilean Ros, Payton had ridden Murdoch into the drive and handed him over to wee William for stabling.

  As he walked inside, he recalled that Sarah had once accused him of being just like his late mother in that he was plagued with the Celtic curse, what with his dark moods. His mother had indeed been plagued with dark moods, but he’d only had the one in Sarah’s presence, an evening after one too many barley-brees. His mood had been black because of Sarah’s carping. He’d told her, in no uncertain terms, that he was master of Eilean Ros, and if it pleased him to drink too many barley-brees, then by God, he’d drink them.

  At the moment, he wished he’d not been so pleased to have quite as many tots of the barley-bree this afternoon, for his legs felt entirely too heavy to lift, and his belly was protesting so loudly that he was beginning to fear he had partaken of a particularly green batch. It was certainly possible—the barley wash had been made using water from the Ben Cluaran stream a few weeks ago, and the distilling of one small keg had been accelerated so that he and the master brewer might sample it.

  In fact, Payton had insisted on testing it, even knowing that it had not been fully distilled.

  Whatever the cause, he was feeling so poorly that he went straight to his chambers, and a wee bit unsteadily at that. Inside his master suite of rooms, he made his way to the bed, stared blurry eyed at it with the vague thought that perhaps he ought to remove his clothing first, but fell onto his back on the soft goose-down mattress, looked up at the embroidering of the canopy, and made a mental note to speak with his master brewer about the water.

  He closed his eyes, and the image of oak barrels of whiskey danced around his mind’s eye. Yet he felt as if he’d not even closed them for a moment when he heard her voice.

  “Ye’ll no’ rouse him like that,” he thought she said, which he thought rather odd, since he did not need to be roused at all. Someone grabbed his boot and roughly twisted his foot until he yelped. Incensed, Payton came up quickly, and dizzily noted that the room was spinning. When his vision cleared, he was vaguely surprised to see before him a worried Beckwith—in his nightshirt, no less—and Mared, who was still wearing the purple gown she’d been wearing this morning.

  He thought it all very strange and meant to ask the time, but he couldn’t speak because of a sudden and blinding rush of pain to his head.

  “There, do ye see?” Mared asked, apparently of Beckwith, as Payton rubbed his forehead. “It takes a wee bit of force to arouse a man from a drunken stupor.”

  “Miss Lockhart!” Beckwith gasped.

  With what little strength he had, Payton lifted his head and bestowed a frown on her. Mared was clearly amused, so Payton shifted his frown to Beckwith. “I closed my eyes for only a moment,” he said thickly.

  Beckwith and Mared exchanged a look. “Beggin’ yer pardon, milord, but ye’ve been lying here for more than an hour,” Beckwith said carefully.

  Payton blinked up at his butler and shook his head, wincing at the pain it caused him. “No, no, only a moment. I closed my eyes, that’s all…there’s something no’ quite right with the barley-bree,” he tried to explain.

  Mared snorted; Beckwith leaned over him. “Shall I help ye to undress, milord?”

  “Diah, no!” Payton wearily exclaimed and put his hand over his eyes. “No, thank ye, Beckwith. Just…just turn down the bed, will ye?”

  “Aye, of course. The man canna sleep without his bed turned down,” Mared said blithely. “I’ll do it, Mr. Beckwith. I’m sorry that I roused ye from yer bed.”

  “Are ye certain?” Beckwith asked, but whatever Mared might have returned was lost on Payton, for the lightheaded feeling suddenly dipped to his belly, and he felt as if he would be ill and bowed his head again, forcing the illness down.

  He heard whispering and the sound of a door opening and closing, and when the feeling finally passed, he opened his achy eyes and looked up.

  Mared was bent over him, peering closely. She slowly straightened, folded her arms, and frowned down at him. “Aye, ye’ve that look, ye do.”

  “What look?”

  “The look of a man who canna hold his barley-bree.”

  “Ach,” he said gruffly, falling back onto the bed and closing his eyes. “I can drink barley-bree as well as any man in these hills. But no’ green barley-bree.”

  She made a clucking sound, and he heard her move around to the other side of the bed, felt her turn down the linens there. In a moment, she had come back around to where he was half lying, half hanging off his bed.

  “Do ye intend to sleep in such a manner?”

  “What difference wi
ll it make?” he asked and rolled over onto his stomach, clawed his way to the top of the bed, so that his head was resting on a pillow, and closed his eyes at another lurch of his belly. “It was green whiskey,” he said again.

  “Mo chreach,” she said softly and put her hands on his foot.

  “What are ye doing?” he protested weakly.

  “Removing yer boots, lad, what do ye think? Ye canna sleep like a rapscallion.” She tugged at his boot. It finally slipped off with a bit of grunting on her part, and she repeated the process on the other leg. He heard the boots drop, one by one, onto the floor, then could sense her moving closer to him, could smell the faint scent of lilacs as she leaned over him and put her hand on his shoulder.

  He wanted to move, but he couldn’t; the pain in his head was making him ill.

  She shoved a little, and when he did not respond, she leaned over; her braid dropped from her shoulder to tickle his cheek. “Payton,” she whispered, “ye must roll over now.”

  He smiled inwardly at the sound of her gentled voice and managed to roll over, onto his back. He felt her hands at his neck, the fluttering of her fingers as she deftly untied the knot and unwound it from his neck. When he felt the last of it pull free, he opened his eyes, caught her hand. “Mared,” he whispered earnestly. “I think I’m dying.”

  She laughed and gave him a charmingly dimpled smile. “That’s impossible, for if ye were to die, who would torment me? Ye’ve been felled by drink, sir, nothing more.”

  “Are ye certain?” he asked, hearing the tinge of desperation in his voice.

  “I am quite certain. Ach, and to think all this time I believed ye to be quite invincible,” she said softly. “Had I known ye might be brought down with a mere tot of yer own barley-bree, I would have brought round a full dram long ago.”

  She thought him invincible. His eyes closed again and he smiled dreamily.

  He had no idea how long he slept. It might have been a moment, perhaps hours. His stomach was rumbling fiercely, and his bowels cramping painfully. But he was awakened by a hand on his face and the soothing scent of lilacs.

  “Diah, Payton, what is wrong with ye?” Mared exclaimed in a whisper. “Mo chreach, ye are burning with fever!”

  “I’m a wee bit under the weather, that’s all,” he said and slowly realized Mared had already left him. “Wait!” he cried weakly. “Where do ye go?”

  “To fetch Beckwith,” Mared said. “I’ll have him send for a physician straightaway.”

  Mared hurried down the ground-floor corridor, frantically looking in one room after another for Beckwith. When she’d arrived to clean Payton’s chamber that morning, she’d been surprised to see him still atop the coverlet, still fully clothed, the cold cloth she’d pressed to his head flung to one side of the massive bed. She’d even chuckled to herself as she thought of the rather disagreeable day he’d have after that sort of drinking. But then he’d not roused when she drew the drapes, or when she shook him.

  It wasn’t until she was sitting beside him and felt his fever that he opened his eyes, and a deep shiver of fear ran through her. The man was quite desperately ill.

  Mared found Beckwith in the study. “He’s terribly ill,” she said. “He’s possessed of a raging fever.”

  Beckwith’s eyes went round, and he quickly stepped back from Mared. “Fever?”

  “Aye, fever!” she said impatiently. “Ye must send someone for a physician at once, Mr. Beckwith!”

  “Aye,” he said, nodding. “Aye, straightaway.”

  “And ye must help me undress him and put him to bed. He still wears the clothing from yesterday.”

  “I’ll send Charlie—”

  “No, Mr. Beckwith! We donna know what sort of fever possesses him! What if it bears contagion? We canna risk the health of the others.”

  “Contagion?” Beckwith uttered, and the blood drained from his narrow face. Mared knew what he was thinking, for she was thinking the same thing: Killiebattan. It was a village on the northern edge of Loch Chon. All seventy some odd residents had died from a mysterious fever that emanated from their bowels and spread from house to house, taking innocents to their deaths. Locals said the wild dog that allegedly lived at the bottom of Loch Chon had bitten a fisherman. Whatever the true cause, it had been devastating.

  Beckwith cleared his throat, straightened his waistcoat, and nodded. “Aye. I’ll send the gamekeeper’s lad to fetch the physician. Meet me in his chambers, then.”

  Mared found Rodina and Una and bade them stay away from her and the master’s chambers.

  “Is he very ill?” Rodina asked, wringing her hands.

  “We willna know until the physician comes,” Mared said, fetching clean linens from the linen closet.

  “A bad fever took all of them at Killiebattan,” Una whispered.

  “No!” Mared said sharply, startling the two girls. “I’ll no’ allow ye to spread fear! This is nothing more than an ague, so go on about yer work!”

  They dipped curtseys at her dark frown and scurried off. She hadn’t meant to be so sharp with them, but the mention of Killiebattan sent another shiver of fear through her heart. She’d known more than one soul in her life who’d been consumed by a mysterious wasting sickness and perished, but the devastation of Killiebattan had happened so quickly.

  The thought sent her running.

  When she reached Payton’s room, she was overwhelmed by the stench. A grim Beckwith appeared from the dressing room with a nightshirt draped over his arm. He nodded at Mared and walked to the bed and lightly shoved a sleeping Payton.

  “Ach, what are ye doing?” Payton groused from the bed.

  “We must change yer clothing, milord,” he said smartly and snatched up Payton’s boots and handed them to Mared.

  “Why? It’s the bloody crack of dawn!” he complained, and she heard the creak of the bed as he sat up, looking very green.

  “’Tis no’ the crack of dawn, milord. ’Tis nigh on eleven o’clock in the morning.”

  He blinked up at Beckwith. “Is it?”

  Beckwith nodded.

  “Bloody hell,” Payton muttered and suddenly stood, but swayed, and grabbed onto one of the four posts of his bed for support. “I’m to be sick again,” he said and lurched toward the privy.

  Mared quickly stripped the bed and laid fresh linens. When Payton emerged from the privy, he looked as green as the lichen moss that grew on one side of Ben Cluaran and unsteadily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Are ye quite all right, milord?” Beckwith asked and got a hooded look in response. Honestly, Payton didn’t seem capable of answering and made his way to the basin, put both hands in the ice cold water, and splashed it on his face.

  Mared and Beckwith watched him warily as he did it again, then grasped the edge of the bureau and held on tightly. “Is he here, then?” he asked.

  “Who, milord?” Beckwith asked.

  “Who! Padraig.”

  Beckwith and Mared looked at one another—Padraig was Payton’s brother who’d gone off to seek his fortune in America. When neither of them answered, Payton jerked a bloodshot gaze to Mared. “Is he?” he demanded.

  “Padraig is in America, milord.”

  He blinked; her answer seemed to confuse him. Mared cautiously moved toward him. “Might we have yer waistcoat?” she asked gently.

  He glanced down, swaying a little, and fumbled with the buttons, but lost his balance and lurched toward Mared. She caught him by the arm and righted him, then quickly undid the buttons of his waistcoat, and lifting his arms, one by one, managed to slide it off his body.

  “Mared,” Payton said, grasping weakly at her hand. “Mared! Ye’ll no’ launder it, aye?” he asked desperately.

  Mared reared back. “No, milord!” She gestured for Beckwith to help her, and between the two of them, they managed to remove his shirt, too. But as they did so, Mared noted with some alarm that Payton stopped protesting and seemed far too weak to care what they did to him. He s
poke only once, and that was to inquire if it was true that Padraig was in America.

  They had him on the bed again, on his back, but still in his trousers. Beckwith insisted she leave the room. “I’ll no’ have ye ogling his lordship’s privates,” he whispered hotly. “Go and wait for the physician, aye?”

  Mared reluctantly agreed and hurried downstairs to wait. A cold rain had begun to fall, however, and it seemed that the physician took his sweet time in coming. It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon when he arrived at last.

  “I thought ye’d no’ come, Dr. Thomson,” Mared said impatiently as she helped him in the door and took his hat and gloves.

  “I beg yer pardon, but Mrs. Walker’s bairn was determined to make his arrival this soggy morning.” He shook off his coat and handed it to Charlie, who had come running at the sound of Mared’s bell.

  “Where is Beckwith?” he asked.

  “With the laird in his chambers.”

  The physician looked curiously at Mared. “And what brings ye here, Miss Lockhart? Surely ye did no’ come across Ben Cluaran on such a wet morn?”

  With Charlie’s curious gaze on her, Mared said simply, “He sent for me. This way, please.”

  Dr. Thomson picked up his bag and followed her up. When they walked into the room, Mared was relieved to see Beckwith had successfully undressed then dressed Peyton again—he was lying in bed, his face remarkably gray. Dr. Thomson frowned. “I’ll have a moment alone with him,” he said, and Beckwith hurried to shut the door before Mared could come in.

  She stood staring at the door for a moment, struggling to hear what was being said. When it became apparent that she’d not hear anything, she sighed with frustration and went downstairs, determined to do something useful with herself while they waited.

  She thought to finish her inventory of the stores, but her work was careless, and she finally shoved it aside, distracted by a singularly ugly and desperate thought—what if he died?

  She could not imagine the lochs without Payton Douglas. He seemed as much a part of these hills as the trees and birds and cattle, and all right, the sheep as well. And how strange, she thought, but he seemed as much a part of her life as the glens and the lochs and the people around Aberfoyle. She’d never known a time when he was not nearby.