by Gayle Callen
When he did nothing but watch them work, the two women eyed him, then went back to discussing measurements and embroidery.
“Mrs. Wallace,” he said suddenly, “I forgot to ask if ye had any trouble preparing for the council of gentlemen tomorrow. If ye need me to contact someone on your behalf . . .”
He trailed off because he saw Riona’s surprised expression before she ducked her head back to her sewing. Mrs. Wallace eyed Riona with her own surprise, then sent a frown Hugh’s way.
“Ye did not tell yer own betrothed about a feast in the great hall?” Mrs. Wallace asked, speaking as freely as a mother would.
He brazened it out. “I spoke to ye directly, Mrs. Wallace. I did not think it fair to bother my betrothed when she’s not yet the mistress of the household.” That sounded as if he’d given it some thought.
Riona snuck an amused glance at him that said she wasn’t believing a word out of his mouth.
Mrs. Wallace harrumphed. “Very well, I see that, Laird McCallum. But such an undertaking . . .” She mumbled the last part under her breath.
“I know you have everything well in hand, Mrs. Wallace,” Riona said, a hint of smugness in her voice that Hugh knew was directed at him.
“Ladies,” he said with a nod, and retreated.
But once he’d arrived in his study and seen the skepticism of his factor and the unyielding face of Dermot when he lectured on how agriculture was changing, he almost wished he was back with the women.
The men might be resistant, but in the end, his word was law, and it was time to try some new experiments on McCallum lands.
AFTER a morning spent with Mrs. Wallace, Riona was beginning to think Hugh had tried to save her by not informing her in advance of the council. Instead she was forced to follow Mrs. Wallace throughout the household so the housekeeper could show her how they prepared for all the guests and how the kitchens seemed to explode with extra servants, dozens upon dozens of plucked fowl, and enough pastry dough to line a path back to Stirling. When Riona was granted some relief, she hurried outdoors.
She slowed her pace upon receiving several curious stares. If this had been her household, she would have willingly done even more to prepare. But it seemed . . . cruel to have the staff, and especially Mrs. Wallace, become used to looking to her for guidance, only to learn the truth. They’d hate her soon enough for being the embodiment of monetary salvation, only to take it all away from them again.
But . . . she’d felt wanted, needed, and hadn’t been able to resist answering when asked her opinion. She had so little control over her own life that it felt good to make decisions, even small ones.
When she saw little Hamish tied up next to the stables, tongue lolling out beneath the flop of hair on top of his head, she felt her heart lighten just a bit. He barked when he saw her, but she simply sat down on an overturned pail beside him and gave him a frown.
“You aren’t in charge, little Hamish,” she said sternly. “I won’t let you chase me away.”
The barking stopped, and he tilted his head as if listening.
“Now if we’re going to be friends, you have to learn not to bark when you see me.”
She put out her hand again, and he did the same wary sniffing. When he looked away as if disinterested, she briefly ruffled the fur on his head.
She thought of the little dog’s owner, and how she’d been questioning Mrs. Wallace about him. It was good that Hugh hadn’t overheard that part of their conversation. Not that the old woman had been forthcoming. She didn’t have much to say except that Brendan’s grandmother was her particular friend, and that they had a much nicer cottage on a larger piece of land just past the village. This made Riona feel better, that even if Hugh didn’t acknowledge the boy, at least Brendan was being taken care of. But . . . was this how it should be handled, especially when all the residents of the castle watched disapprovingly every meeting between Brendan and Hugh?
Brendan stuck his head out of the wide stable doors, but the tension left his face when he saw her. “Afternoon, my lady.”
She smiled. “Hello, Brendan. I think Hamish is starting to like me.” She attempted to pet the dog again, but he ducked away. Ruefully, she added, “It looks like I have to take things slow.”
Wearing a crooked grin, Brendan wiped his forearm across his sweaty brow.
“Working hard?” she asked.
He nodded and spoke softly. “The marshal took the words of Himself seriously. Never have the stables been so clean.” He looked around as if making sure no one overheard them. “I’m little, but even I knew it was bein’ done wrong, but what could I say?”
“Of course,” she said solemnly, trying not to smile at how seriously he took his work.
“There’s another groom being trained,” Brendan said, his face reddening. “He’s younger than me, so when he didn’t do things the new way, our master got real mad at the thought of Himself seeing it. Well . . . I couldn’t let that happen. So I said it was my fault, thinking Himself might go easier on me than someone else.”
Riona’s eyes widened at those words. The boy was young and innocent, but . . . did he suspect the truth? He couldn’t be ignorant of how people looked at Hugh and him.
Brendan slowly grinned. “Seems I was wrong, and got punished just the same. I was fine with that.”
Did being treated like everyone else make him think his suspicions were wrong, and he wasn’t Hugh’s son? As she started to pet Hamish, who seemed to accept reluctantly, she realized that she could no longer live with this feeling of suspicion. She was going to have to discover the truth, and that was a decision that could have unpredictable results.
CHAPTER 14
Riona thought she had a plan for how to handle Hugh that night, but then he was there in her room, large as life, this time wearing only a black and red plaid belted loosely around his waist and nothing else. Plans faded right out of her mind. A new brick of peat had just caught fire, and it seemed to flicker across his damp skin. He’d obviously bathed again—she’d never met a man so focused on cleanliness, she thought, flustered, as she remembered how good he’d smelled when she’d been curled upon his lap. His black hair had been drawn back in a queue then, but now it swung freely to his shoulders, slightly curled with wetness.
What was wrong with her, that it had been so easy to relax into his arms last night, to listen to his voice, to forget that she didn’t belong here, that he’d stolen her away against her will? She was starting to forget her old life of calling upon ladies with Cat, spending hours every day with Bronwyn, or being the less appealing cousin during dinners and soirees in the evening. She had not been able to compete with Cat’s dowry. Of course, Cat’s dowry had already been promised to the McCallums the whole time . . . what had the earl been thinking by keeping silent about it?
And then she couldn’t distract herself anymore because Hugh was standing right before her, the rope in his hand. She arched her neck to look up at him. He didn’t say anything, just stared at her with those gray eyes that sometimes showed the anger of winter ice, and other times glittered silver with passion. They were silver now as if metal touched by fire.
She had to distract him, and hopefully herself. It felt like an urgent need, like she was drowning in a rising tide of desire that she was afraid she could no longer resist.
“I—I talked to Brendan today,” she said breathlessly.
He arched one dark brow, and his gaze began a slow path down her body.
“I have questions about him.” She sounded anything but determined.
“Ye’ve told me repeatedly that ye don’t want to be involved in my household, with my people. Until ye change your mind about that, he’s none of your concern.”
His searing gaze lingered at her mouth, her breasts, her thighs, until she felt the heat of a brand on those very places. She was sinking into a smoldering sensation, her body inflamed for his. Gooseflesh rippled across her arms, and her heart was beating erratically. But she couldn’t give up
so easily. She shook her head, trying to clear it of languor.
“You—you have so many scars.” She focused on a ragged one along his ribs. “Tell me how they happened.”
He wore a faint smile, just the twist of one corner of his lips—she shouldn’t even be looking there. And then he took her hand and touched her finger to the scar on his side. She was startled at the sensation.
“Sheriffmuir,” he murmured.
He gently traced her finger back and forth along the rough ridges of the scar, and she shivered at the heat of his skin.
“A redcoat tried to gut me with a bayonet. ’Twas almost a month before my fever abated and I could leave my bed.”
She licked her dry lips. “Your recovery surely took many months. What did the physician have you do?”
He ignored her. Still holding her hand, he dragged her finger across the hills of his chest and up to the scar like a cleft in his chin. “A dirk in practice with the men.” Next was his upper arm. “Musket ball grazed me when I was fourteen. We were stealing back cattle that belonged to us, and though I’d been ordered not to go, I went anyway.”
She had to come up with something to say, even as her gaze was fixed on the hard muscles of his arm. “So . . . who stole your cattle?”
Ignoring her question, he traced her finger down his body, and she gasped when he slid it just inside the folds of his plaid, tugging downward until his hipbone was revealed. She was trembling now, and knew he felt it—just as he had to know it wasn’t fear, not anymore, not after how she’d responded to his kisses and caresses these last few nights.
“A thief in Edinburgh tried to slice open my pocket and was too enthusiastic.”
And then he was moving her finger again, but on the outside of his plaid, over his hip and lower, to his thigh. He was bending low to manipulate her, leaning so close to her that his hair slid against her head.
When he made her feel the bare skin of his thigh, then began to move her hand higher against his hairy flesh, she gasped, “Hugh!”
He grinned. “Ye don’t want to know where the sword cut me?”
She couldn’t find words. He held her hand hard to his thigh, and then began to kiss his way down her neck. With a sigh of surrender she closed her eyes and just let herself feel the gentle moistness of his mouth. He parted her dressing gown to reach her collarbone and trace his tongue along it. Her head fell back and she found herself clutching his bare shoulder with one hand to keep from swooning at his feet. She suddenly realized he no longer held her hand in place beneath his plaid, but she hadn’t removed it. It was she who lingered there, enjoying his warm skin. She pulled back, and he laughed.
“Sit down, lass. I need to tie ye up before I try to talk ye out of it.”
She sank back on the bed, feeling dizzy and almost disappointed. Apparently, he could have talked her out of the rope quite easily but she bit her lip to keep from saying so. He tossed her skirts up to her knees to reveal her ankles, and when he was done, his head came up slowly, on the same level as her trembling knees.
“If ye part your thighs just a bit, I can see heaven,” he said softly.
As she pressed them quickly together, he gave another hoarse chuckle.
He didn’t rise up above her, but stayed crouched low, kissing his way from her ankles, along her calves, and to her knees. She quivered beneath such simple ministrations, having no idea her skin could burn with his every touch. He didn’t try to move her nightshift, but rubbed his cheek along her thigh above it, then lingered on the outside of her hip, before rising up above her and climbing on to the bed over her on all fours. This once would have frightened her, but now she relished feeling feminine and delicate and desired. Through her garment he pressed kisses on her hip and stomach, her rib cage and the very tip of one breast, where he lingered to torment her with light kisses until he gently bit her and she cried out.
She caught his head between her hands. “Hugh . . . please.” A mindless need had taken hold of her, made her uncaring about something so unimportant as propriety. She now existed somewhere beyond herself. If he would have untied her and sunk between her thighs, she would have let him, anything to stop this desperate ache.
But he didn’t untie her, just slid to one side and began to caress her. He took her mouth with a fierce possession she thrilled in, as she met his tongue with her own and explored his mouth just as greedily. His hands began to work magic on her body, fingers trailing across her breasts, teasing, plucking, caressing until she shuddered. Then he took those light touches farther down, and she willed him not to stop, although she couldn’t quite use the words. The tips of his fingers brushed between her thighs, and with a moan she parted them as much as the rope and her nightshift allowed her. Every stroke of his hand was a sharp pleasure-pain that only made her want more. She writhed and gasped, and when his mouth left hers to suckle her breast, her body hovered on the edge of oblivion. He’d awakened her to passion, and she felt she’d never be the same. She plummeted over that edge at last, shuddering as the pleasure consumed her.
Dazed, she opened her eyes. He was seated beside her, leaning over, one arm braced across her body as he watched her. She thought she wouldn’t be able to meet his gaze out of embarrassment, but that wasn’t so. They studied each other as if something had shifted between them, but really, it hadn’t; it couldn’t. And she felt a terrible sorrow well up inside her. She covered her face with both hands, forcing back tears as much as hiding them. Hugh said nothing, and she couldn’t explain this to him. Let him think she was just a stubborn girl who wanted to pick her own husband, who could continue these supposed lies out of spite. He didn’t know her, even if he knew what to do with her body.
He slid down to lie beside her, maneuvering her like a doll until he could spoon behind her and still hold her close. She felt his erection against her backside, but he didn’t do anything about it. He fell asleep before she did, and she could only watch the dying fire and wonder what she could do to stop herself from falling in love with her kidnapper, her cousin’s betrothed.
HUGH was distracted all the next day, when he should have been focusing on what needed to be prepared for the council of gentlemen. He had reports to read from his factor, treasurer, and quartermaster, but every time he tried to concentrate, his mind returned to Riona.
Riona, who’d gloried in a woman’s pleasure until it had moved her to tears. He’d known they weren’t happy tears, much as he’d wished it so. She was still struggling against her future, against him, and he was running out of ideas to make her accept what must happen. He wanted to call her stubborn, willful, even blinded by her need to decide her own destiny for perhaps the first time in her life.
She couldn’t change her future. Couldn’t she see that, although he was chief, this household would be hers to run? What more could a woman ask for?
And once she accepted her life, he could answer her questions about Brendan. That made his thoughts veer to the young groom, who’d bravely taken the mild punishment meant for another. Hugh had admired him even as he’d been exasperated. The boy’s grandmother had done an impressive job raising him.
But did Brendan know the truth about their relationship? And how was Hugh supposed to tell him?
Throughout the day, peddlers set up booths in the courtyard for the gentlemen and their wives visiting from other villages and estates. They displayed wine and fine fabrics, embroidery silks and jewelry. The atmosphere was as festive as a country fair, but after dinner at midday, the men settled into the great hall for the real work. Hugh heard reports from his tacksmen on the leases and sub-tenants of his properties, the taxes collected over the last few years, reports on recent harvests. And then he presented detailed explanations of the English farming methods he wanted to adopt, and just like in the nearby farms, there was a great outcry over leaving behind the old ways.
Riona stood at the back of the great hall and listened long after many of the other women had gone back to the peddlers, or gathered in the with
drawing room to sew and gossip. Most of the women’s conversation was in Gaelic, although they’d been kind enough to speak English in her presence. Their curiosity was great, and they asked many questions about growing up among Sassenachs, not realizing that her mother was English. And what could she tell them—the truth? No, that would garner suspicion. She was a Duff, and though they were kind, there was also a wariness and a skepticism over everything she said.
Donald was in the hall, since he was the tacksman of a small parcel of land with subleases beneath him. Riona made certain to ask about his mother, and was glad to hear her spirits had improved.
During the council, Riona listened to Hugh talk, understanding only the rare word here and there. It frustrated her to know Latin and French, but nothing of her own father’s language—how had she not seen that?
When Samuel walked past her, she called his name, asking, “Is there any news I should know? Are they as against Hugh’s ideas as they seem?”
Samuel stopped beside her and looked over the hall, where men talked fiercely in corners whenever Hugh paused. “’Tis going as expected. Nothing can change overnight, and he knows that. He’s begun a plan to work on several abandoned rigs of land, so that by this time next year, the gentlemen will see how much better the yield is.”
“Oh, well, that was smart of him,” she said reluctantly.
Samuel eyed her and shook his head. “Is that approval I hear?”
She stiffened. “I can approve of trying to better a harvest so people don’t starve, can I not? It does not mean I have to approve of Hugh.”
