The Secret Clan: The Complete Series

by Amanda Scott

  Bearing Mauri and Doreen company in the kitchen while they and a few women from Dornie village prepared supper the evening before the great day, Molly said, “I look forward to seeing what such a court is like. Mackinnon held them at Dunakin, of course, but he never allowed me to be present.”

  “Nor will the laird allow it,” Mauri said gently. “ ’Tis men’s business, mostly, these courts, unless some poor woman be accused o’ witchcraft, and Malcolm and Patrick ha’ both assured me there’ll be none o’ that tomorrow. The laird may ha’ to condemn someone to die, though, and ye’d no want to watch them drown a man or hang one, would ye?”

  “I would not,” Molly replied firmly, “but I doubt that he will hang anyone on the spot, and if I am going to make my home here until he finds me a husband, I should know who is friend and who is felon, should I not?”

  “Aye, sure,” Mauri agreed, “but ye’ll mostly bide wi’ us females, and we can tell ye everything there be to ken about other folks.”

  “But I want to see what happens tomorrow,” Molly insisted stubbornly.

  “Then ye must ask the laird, but I doubt he’ll agree to it.”

  Molly doubted it, too, but if she had learned anything about Kintail, it was that he was unpredictable. He had surprised her the day of her arrival when he had come as close as any man ever had to apologizing to her. Until then, she had thought of him only—or nearly so—as stern, humorless, and domineering.

  He was handsome enough, to be sure, and there was that odd tendency for her body to react when he smiled or when she met his gaze unexpectedly, but usually she thought of him as fearsomely large and irritatingly grim. His presence certainly filled any room he entered and drew every eye. And although his behavior since her first day at Eilean Donan had given her no cause to believe he had changed his ways, his apology then and the boyish smile that had followed provided a glimmer of hope that she could persuade him to let her watch the court proceedings.

  Her reaction to his smile and the twinkle that usually accompanied it had altered her first impression enough to make her spend much of the little time she had spent in his company since, covertly watching him. She did not expect to see that smile when she asked permission to view his court in progress, but it was not her nature to wish for something without making a strong push to achieve it.

  She certainly was no help to the women in the kitchen. Although she was accustomed to relaying Lady Mackinnon’s wishes and commands to servants at Dunakin, and to doing a number of other things capably that most women did not do at all, she had never had to attend to menial tasks like cooking and cleaning.

  Savoring the delicious odors of roasting meats and bubbling stew that wafted around them, she watched with near envy as Mauri deftly shoved a heavy pan into the oven in the fireplace wall, to keep warm, then whisked around Doreen—who was stirring a pot on the hob with a long spoon—to turn the birds on the spit. All the while, Mauri issued a stream of orders to the helpers scurrying around her.

  When she turned away from the fire at last and briskly crossed the room to supervise two women at a table laden with platters, baskets, and already-prepared side dishes, Molly said with a sigh, “I am useless to you.”

  From her place at the fire, Doreen looked over her shoulder and brushed a wisp of hair back under her cap with her free hand as she said, “Ye can stir this stew if ye like, mistress, but it be gey hot over here.”

  “Nay, then,” Mauri said, beginning to count bread trenchers from a large basket as she put them into a smaller one. “She’ll muss her gown an she does that.”

  “I can count those trenchers for you,” Molly suggested.

  “I’ve done them,” Mauri said, shouting for someone called Ian to come take the trenchers into the hall. She turned back with a smile and said, “Truly, mistress, there be nae need for ye to dirty your hands here. Much of this be for tomorrow, but there be little enough left to do that even Malcolm’s mam and sister, who arrived an hour ago, be taking their ease. Ye should do the same.”

  “But if I help you now, I’ll know better what I can do tomorrow when you will have so many more to feed and will need everyone’s help.”

  “Aye,” Mauri agreed. “We’ll ha’ as many as a hundred or more to dine. But, even then I’ll ha’ these women from the village to help, and in truth, mistress,” she added gently, “we’ll all be so busy that ye’d be more hindrance than help. I’ll gladly teach ye all I can in time, for I believe a woman should ken as much as her servants do about running a household, but I canna do it this evening or tomorrow when I’ve me hands full just showing Doreen her duties. Mayhap the laird be in the hall now. Ye should go and ask him if he’ll let ye attend his court.”

  Feeling sadly inadequate for the first time in her memory, Molly went away without argument.

  Kintail was not in the hall. A few men-at-arms were there, but not many, for before meals, they tended to congregate in the garrison hall below. One man stirred up the fire, while another dumped a stack of peat into a basket nearby. Two others were casting dice at one of several trestle tables where most members of the household would sit.

  “Be there aught we can do for ye, mistress?” the one stirring the fire asked.

  “The laird,” Molly said, “do you know where I might find him?”

  “Aye, he’s above,” the man said, gesturing with a thumb toward the ceiling. “Third level, door on the left.”

  Thanking him, she hurried to the stairs and up them, knowing that the bell would sound for supper at any moment and preferring to ask Kintail about watching the court proceedings without having to do so in front of the entire household. As she stepped through the archway onto the third landing, she heard a shout of masculine laughter from behind the arched oak door on the left.

  Believing that Kintail and Sir Patrick must be inside together, she grimaced at the thought of trying to persuade the former while the latter stood by and grinned mockingly at them or, worse, added his masculine—and doubtless disapproving—opinion to the conversation.

  She had learned that Sir Patrick was seldom serious. Moreover, he flirted with her outrageously. At first, she had wondered if he had notions of trying to persuade Kintail to allow him to marry her, but she had quickly seen that Sir Patrick flirted with anyone in skirts, even with his temperamental sister-in-law.

  The day after Molly’s arrival, Mauri had responded to his passing pat on her backside by throwing a wet rag at him, catching him full in the face with it. But the gesture had barely fazed Patrick. With a shout of delighted laughter, he had deftly caught the towel and flung it back at her, his aim as true as hers had been.

  These memories flashed through Molly’s mind in a blink as she rapped firmly on the door.

  “Enter.” There was lingering laughter in Kintail’s voice, and as she pushed the door, he added with a chuckle, “Just look at the wee fish I’ve caught, Patrick.”

  The shriek and the splash that accompanied his words stopped Molly in her tracks, but it was too late. She stared in shock at the scene she had interrupted.

  His hair full of suds, Kintail sat in a large tub in what clearly was his bedchamber, with a fully clothed, very wet young female sprawled atop him.

  The room was not much larger than Molly’s. A high, curtained bed took up the space along the far wall, and with the washstand flanking a window embrasure at her left, and chests and a wardrobe occupying the wall to her right, little room remained for the tub. It sat in front of the doorway a few feet from her, with puddles surrounding it and the large water pail beside it.

  Both occupants of the tub stared back at her in dismay, for although her entrance had caught the female with her back to the door, she had twisted about to look over a shoulder. She appeared to be at least two years younger than Molly, and at first glance seemed apprehensive, even frightened. But when she saw Molly, that apprehension turned to visible, albeit deeply blushing relief.

  “Who are you?” she asked faintly.

  At the sam
e time, Kintail snapped, “What the devil are you doing here? I thought you were Patrick, or I’d never have told you to come in.”

  Collecting her dignity with an effort, Molly said quietly, “I know that, sir, and I beg your pardon. It never occurred to me that he was sending me to your bedchamber, and not having a clear notion yet of which rooms are where, I—”

  “Patrick sent you here? By heaven, I’ll throttle him! Stay where you are, lass,” he added sharply, jerking the girl back as she tried to get out of the tub.

  “I have not seen Sir Patrick,” Molly said, taking a step back, wanting only to leave and never see either of them again. She was shocked, embarrassed, and rapidly growing angry.

  “Then who—?” He broke off, adding hastily, “Mind your hand, Bab, unless you want more of a ducking than you already got.”

  Molly’s temper flared then, but the girl chortled, giving him a slap on one bare shoulder as she said, “You mind your hands, Fin, or by heaven—”

  She broke off with a shriek and Kintail roared when Molly snatched up the water bucket by the tub and upended its contents over the pair of them.

  Without a word, she turned on her heel and stormed out of the room. Had anyone asked her how she dared do such a thing, she could not have answered sensibly. She was more than a little shocked at herself, and equally fearful of how Kintail would retaliate.

  The drenched pair in the tub remained silent for a long moment after the door shut behind Mistress Gordon before Fin gripped his companion firmly around her slim waist and lifted her off him.

  “Take care when I set you down, Bab,” he said. “The floor will be slippery.”

  “Don’t lean over so far!” Barbara MacRae exclaimed, her feet dangling above the stone floor. “You’ll have the whole tub over!”

  Setting her down, he said, “If I do have the tub over, I won’t wait for your brother to take a switch to you for this little prank. I’ll do it myself. I may do it, anyway.”

  Busy pulling her clinging, wet skirts away from her legs to wring them out, she paid no heed to his threat. “Who was that, Fin? Is that the Maid of Dunsithe? Does she frequently enter your bedchamber?”

  “I will take a switch to you,” he said grimly, putting both hands on the sides of the oblong tub and shifting his weight to get up.

  “Don’t get out!” she shrieked, backing away so quickly that she slipped in a puddle and nearly fell. Grabbing a bedpost to steady herself, she eyed him warily, but when he settled down into the tub again, she said, “What am I going to wear? At least she rinsed the soap from your hair, but I cannot return to my mother looking like this, let alone go down to supper!”

  “You should have thought about that before you decided to sneak in here and help with my bath,” he said unsympathetically. “Ask Mauri to lend you something, or ask the Maid. She brought enough clothing with her to outfit Dornie village, as well as any guests we might entertain for the next year or two.”

  “I am certainly not going to ask Mauri,” Barbara said. “She’ll only scold.” Coaxingly, she added, “You won’t really tell Patrick, will you? He may be the best of brothers, and he never cares when his behavior shocks people, but he frequently displays uncomfortable notions of propriety where I am concerned.”

  “Out,” he said, pointing toward the door. “There’s the bell for supper, and neither of us can go below until we’ve put on dry clothing.”

  “But—”

  He started to get up, whereupon she shut her mouth and fled.

  “The Maid’s room is below this one on the right,” he bellow after her, “but first find someone to tell Tam Matheson I want him!”

  Knowing that she had heard him but not certain she would obey, he got out of the tub and picked his way barefoot across the puddle-drenched floor to the washstand to get a towel. As he dried himself and sought clothing to wear, he recalled the look on the Maid’s face when he had demanded to know what she was doing there, and his ready sense of humor stirred. He subdued it easily, however.

  She could not have known she was entering his bedchamber, that much was clear. But why had she come? Her very presence teased him—nay, distracted him at every turn— and that, too, was something she could not know. Even in her fury, she was distractingly beautiful. Not a day passed without moments when he wanted to shake her, spank her, or kiss every lovely inch of her. Undeniably, James had done him a favor, but he was not certain that he would ever feel properly grateful.

  Molly, too, had heard the supper bell, but instead of continuing down to the hall, she darted into her bedchamber on the floor below Kintail’s. Shutting the door behind her, she leaned against it, breathing hard.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to regain control. What was wrong with her? It certainly was not the first time she had seen a man’s bare chest and shoulders, and thanks to the girl sprawled atop Kintail, that was all she had seen. Even if she had seen more, she supposed it would not have meant the end of the world. In even the finest houses—or so Lady Mackinnon had told her—it was not unusual for a daughter of the house to assist with a gentleman’s bath. But gentlemen, in general, did not bathe often, and no one at Dunakin had ever asked her to perform such a personal service.

  Still, she doubted that Kintail’s bareness alone had disturbed her so much.

  Drawing a deep breath, she considered the matter but could think of no excuse for her odd behavior other than that finding herself in his bedchamber, confronted by such a scene, had disordered her senses. As her breathing settled into a more normal rhythm, it occurred to her that perhaps her mischievous household spirits had had something to do with what had occurred.

  Narrowing her eyes, she searched the chamber—tidier now than it had been, for miraculously and just as Maggie Malloch had promised, she and Doreen had found places to put everything.

  “Maggie? Maggie, are you here? I need you.”

  Was that a swirling of the air yonder on the cushion below the window?

  A loud rap-rap on the door behind her startled her half out of her skin. Holding her breath, certain that a furious Kintail stood on the other side, she was still wondering at her unnatural, trembling cowardice when a voice that definitely was not his begged her to open the door.

  “Mistress Gordon, it is Barbara MacRae. If you are in there, please be so kind as to let me in—and quickly, I pray you!”

  Suspecting that her visitor was the girl who had been with Kintail, Molly did not want to open the door, but when she saw the latch move, she snatched it open, saying icily, “Go away. I have naught to say to such a brazen female.”

  But her annoyance quickly eased, for the girl on the landing, dripping water on the stones, looked utterly wretched. Dusky curls had escaped her headdress and hung in limp, damp strands to her shoulders, and her gown was soaked through.

  “Please, mistress, have pity,” she said urgently. “The supper bell has rung already, and I cannot go down looking like this. Oh, haste! Someone is coming up the stairs. If ’tis Patrick—!”

  The next moment she had whisked herself inside and shut the door behind her. Standing with her back against it, in much the same way that Molly had stood only moments before, she said, “Pray, Mistress Gordon, we are of size, and Fin told me that you have dresses to spare. Can you not find it in your heart—?”

  “Fin?” Molly had moved only because otherwise Barbara MacRae, in her haste, would have run into her.

  “Aye, Fin Mackenzie—Kintail.”

  Her temper stirred again. “Do you always address him so informally?”

  “We have known each other since childhood, mistress. I am Patrick MacRae’s sister. When our father died with the previous laird, my mother insisted on moving back to our home across the loch, so I went with her. But I grew up here in the castle just as Patrick did, earning my keep by helping Mauri with her chores.”

  “You speak very well for a servant,” Molly said. Barbara’s blue eyes twinkled, giving her a mischievous look similar to her brother’s. S
he said, “Although we MacRaes are sworn to serve the Mackenzies, mistress, we are not servants. Nor are we tenants, although it must seem to many that we are. My family owns land across the loch in Kintail. My brother went to university with Fin, and I was fortunate enough to learn to speak as they do.”

  “Did you share their lessons?” Molly asked, sensing a kindred spirit.

  “Alas, no, my father would not permit it. They did teach me to read enough to understand recipes and such, and to write some, but that is all. Oh, bless you!” This last was because Molly had turned to open a chest and extract a clean shift, skirt, and bodice from it.

  “Whatever were you doing in the tub with him?” Molly asked as she handed Barbara a towel and began to help her remove her wet clothing.

  “It certainly was not by choice,” Barbara replied with a laugh, adding while she did her best to dry herself, “I met Tam Matheson coming up the stairs with that bucket of water you poured over us. I took it from him and went into the chamber, meaning to surprise Fin, because he did not know that my mother and I had arrived to help Mauri and the others prepare for the court.”

  “Do you customarily just walk into his bedchamber?”

  Barbara blushed. “I did when we were children, but I suppose I should not do it anymore. In any event, Fin was bent over in the tub when I went in, soaping his hair. He assumed I was Tam and told me to pour water over his head. I was beside him by then, and since he had his eyes shut, I put the bucket down far enough away so that he couldn’t reach it himself and told him that I thought it would be better if I waited until he washed his mouth with soap for all the names he had called me when we were children. He came the laird over me then and ordered me to give him the bucket and get out, but I’m afraid I taunted him as I did years ago, saying I’d do it in my own good time. I forgot how long his arms are,” she added ruefully.

  “He grabbed you and pulled you into the tub,” Molly said.

  “Aye, just as you knocked at the door and dismayed us both. He said you were likely Patrick, since if Tam had given me that bucket, he’d know better than to show his face again anytime soon. I was terrified then, because I knew that Patrick would not like my being there at all, let alone with Fin in that tub.”