The ladies walked from man to man as Rose paused beside each of the five, asking basic questions, touching abrasions, feeling knots, testing sprains and doing a visual assessment to decide which needed care first. One gave a particularly pitiful moan when Rose barely touched a knot on his noggin.
Behind Rose’s back, Fee mouthed, “Less is more.”
Gillis, the pathetic patient, was altogether too caught up in his drama and besides, he was known for his brawn rather than his brain. After mouthing the phrase twice, Fee gave up and mouthed, “Stop.”
Poor Gillis couldn’t process that after his prior instructions from Art–Fee’s father. Yet Fee kept it up, repeating the word o’er and o’er, pausing only once when Rose glanced around. All the contrary notions battled in the vast unclaimed territory of Gillises’ brain, until he finally stopped moaning and wincing. He sat straight up, gestured at Fee and said, “Stop? I’m ta stop? That’s nae what your Da said, lassie.”
Her semi-conscious patient’s sudden recovery startled Rose into hopping backwards. She landed against something firm and soft, enveloping yet unyielding. Even if she hadn’t recognized him instantly, by touch alone, her body’s urgent response identified him as the tempting tormentor she’d been avoiding.
“Damnation,” she whispered, stiffening against the wicked rush he inspired. Rose needed to make a quick retreat. She could do that here, now, given the presence of others who restrained him and limited his options. Rose stepped forward, intending to escape.
But she’d underestimated him–again.
Ram stepped with her, wrapping both arms around her waist, halting her flight. He held her firmly, his arms wrapped snugly beneath her breasts, but he didn’t address her first. His first words were to Fee. “On some occasions trouble follows you, and on others you bring it along. I’m thinking that this time ‘twas the latter.”
Fee bit her lower lip while she wrung her hands. “Whatever could ye mean, laird?”
“What did you promise them, Fiona?” Ram asked.
“Nothing,” she said, praying to the Holy Mother that she’d not be damned, but brightening when she recalled that she wasn’t lying–exactly.
“Nothing?” Patient number two roared, hopping to his feet. “I was promised dinner tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night?” Number three asked, swinging his legs off the table and bounding to his feet. “I was promised tomorrow night.”
“Halt there, lads,” Number one said. “Dinna go making false claims. Tomorrow night is mine.”
In the blink of an eye, the five incapacitated men were on their feet and in each other’s faces, shouting that they’d been promised dinner the next night. Fee stood to the side, color draining from her face.
Rose tapped Ram’s enclosing arms. When he didn’t take the hint, she gestured towards her friend. “Do let me go, Laird Ramsay. Fee looks upset.”
“Fiona has reason to be upset,” Ramsay said, his narrowed gaze focused on the girl who stood, holding herself tight enough to shatter. “Lads,” he said, not raising his voice, for there was no need. The single, soft word silenced the men about to come to blows.
“I take it that Art promised you dinner with Fiona in exchange for your exaggerating your injuries to entice Rose to attend you?” Ram asked.
The men nodded, and Fee made a strained noise.
“And now you’ve discovered that Fee’s father gained your cooperation to this rather risky endeavor based upon a false premise, for what he intended to deliver was not a’tall what you’d understood you’d gain. Is that correct, gentlemen?” Ram asked.
“Aye, laird,” said one of the men. The others nodded.
“Fiona?” Ram asked the woman who’d tiptoed to the edge of the clearing. The question halted her flight.
Before the trembling girl could speak, Rose slapped Ram’s forearm. “You’re scaring her! Can’t you see that you’re scaring Fee? Stop that!”
Fee and the warriors gasped in the same instant, but amazingly enough, their laird looked amused rather than enraged. That single fact confirmed to all of them what they already suspected. It also did more to ease the warriors than anything else could have, for they’d seen naught but grimaces and scowls upon their laird’s face all day.
Ram buried his nose in her glorious, golden mane and took a deep breath, allowing the smell of roses and cinnamon to push away the clouds that had obscured the sun all the day long. ‘Twas setting in the sky, but just now rising for him. But wait–where was the musk? Ram tightened his arms around her waist, pressing her breasts upward and bent down to press his mouth against her ear, although he didn’t bother to lower his voice.
“Sweets, did ye just give me an order?” Ram asked, laughter and something richer, fuller, vibrating in his voice. Then he wrapped his arms even tighter, his folded hands cupping her breasts beneath the partial cover of his arms.
“Stop that,” she hissed, knowing as she said the words that he wouldn’t. She folded her arms atop his to increase the cover and do what she could to preserve her modesty. “Stop it now.”
“Another order?” Ram asked. “We’ll have to discuss that, lass. But first, Fiona I’ve a few words for you.”
“Aye, laird?” Fee asked, barely visible between two trees. She’d nearly escaped, would have except that the interplay between Rose and the laird fascinated her. It must have done the same to the warriors for they’d not moved an inch–unless their gaped jaws counted.
“I have many feelings about the results of the layers of deception ye practiced with your father. First off, I’d be a hypocrite if I dinna confess to enjoying your results–since I’m holding proof of your success in my arms. Regardless of that, I canna endorse you and your father breaking faith with my men. I shall advise your father of his penalty later, but yours is simple and straightforward–you must give these men what they thought they were getting. For the next five evenings, you will share dinner with one of these warriors.”
Fee would have sworn her voice didn’t squeak until she heard herself ask the question. “So, you’re saying that one man shall share my family’s dinner table each night?”
“No. I’m saying that you will share the private meal that your promise implied.”
Fee gasped as the men cheered. She saw her future flying by her eyes–a forced wedding to whichever of the five she dined with the first night. Considering that she and her Da targeted these men because they were known to be the most gullible, the prospect of wedding any of them was her darkest nightmare. “My dear lord,” she whispered, “help me.”
The trembling terror in the prayer tore at Rose’s tender heart so she tore right into Ram. “Is this you, leading by example?”
He went fully still behind her, so still that it passed beyond a lack of motion. ‘Twas as though his essence paused for the answer to the question torn from the man too motionless to allow a heartbeat. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know,” Rose said, in a voice as lacking in emotion as ‘twas in inflection.
But then, her tone need not be cutting. Her words sufficed well enough. They struck Ram like Damascus steel, aimed straight at his heart. Sorrow bowed his head and grief closed his eyes. Both echoed in his voice but neither emerged from his mouth. “I won’t lie,” Ram said, “so I can’t say I’m sorry. If I were a better man I would be regretful. I am, however repentant and acknowledge that I owe you amends.”
“Fiona,” Ram said.
“Yes, laird?” She answered in a voice nearly void of hope. The laird had spoken and pronounced her fate.
“Your actions and those of your father disrespected my men. While I do think that my original pronouncement would have been just, I owe a debt to my lad…, ahm, Rose, And for her, I moderate my decree, but I do it in a fashion that will require her consent.”
“You wily -,” Rose stopped herself. “How so, Laird Sutherland?”
“Fiona, you will dine with one of these men each night for the next five nights, as I said,�
�� Ram said, feeling Rose’s warm sympathy extending to embrace her friend, envying Fee that in a fashion most unlike the man who envied no one anything. “However, provided she agrees, Rose and I will dine with you each evening.”
Rose turned in Ram’s arms so quickly that he nearly groaned at the friction against the part of him reaching out for her. She’d have stepped out of his arms altogether, made one quick effort to do so, but declined to make an even bigger spectacle for Fee and the gawking warriors. The Scots were nosy by nature and considered everything that happened to anyone their business.
“My lord,” she snapped, “surely it would be more appropriate for you and your betrothed to chaperone.”
He put both hands around her neck, grabbed a fistful of golden hair in each and tugged on it until she tilted her face upwards. “Address me formally again and I’ll presume your memory is failing. ‘Twill force me to remind you, each time we meet, in unmistakable fashion, that our relationship is far from formal.”
“Force?” She asked, half sputtering and half choking on the word.
“I’m making the amends I owe you–or at least I’m making an effort to do so,” Ram said. “But your attitude makes me think that perhaps my original pronouncement was the better course.”
“Rose, please,” Fee begged from across the way. “Five dinners with a lovely laird isn’t too much to ask of a friend, is it?”
“You’ve no notion,” Rose replied. “But for my new friend,” she said, “it’s not quite too much. Dinner is not quite too much.”
Rose cast a challenging glance at Ram and stepped away from him. He let her go. He had a lot more to say to her but he was too smart a strategist to push her now. Not when he had the next five evenings in her company. For that he’d violated a basic rule drilled into every future Highland laird from the time he could sit a horse: ‘Tis better to be wrong than weak.
He’d gone back on his word to secure this time with Rose and he couldn’t even regret it. But there was something he truly regretted. No, not regret. That wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t strong enough. The thing he’d done, done to her–to this woman who meant more to him than he could calculate–it tortured him, tore at him. He had to tell her that, for whatever ‘twas worth. Perhaps he’d even have to apologize-yes, of course he’d have to apologize.
He would be bad at it. Ram suspected that he would botch it up and make the veriest malodorous mess of the whole business. It made him want to do things he damned well knew that he wouldn’t botch up, things like training his men and keeping them disciplined. He’d been focusing on that, doing too much, driving his men too hard–but what choice did he have?
If he didn’t keep himself occupied, he’d spend every second recalling what he’d done to Rose and what that act made him. Oh, he’d also drugged her and abducted her, but the former hadn’t hurt her and the latter was part of his Highland heritage. He took her so they could talk privately only once he got her alone, he couldn’t keep his hands off of her.
And he’d had to have her–so he took her–regardless of his public commitment to another woman, regardless of her morals and wishes and mostly–regardless of the fact that she said no and never said yes. Rose tried to leave, wanted to escape. The press of that fought his hot, nearly mindless need and his intense, possessive jealousy. It all combined to turn him into a man he barely recognized, one capable of committing the worst violation a man could commit.
Even knowing all that, knowing he should never have touched her until he’d first wed her, he couldn’t regret making love with her any more than he could envision a future where he didn’t make love with her or–worse–one where another man did. He couldn’t keep her and he couldn’t lose her but most of all, he couldn’t take her against her will.
A loud wave of coughing jerked him out of his thoughts, made him realize he was standing still and staring like a whipped puppy after the woman who’d scampered away. Ram allowed himself a single deep sigh before he turned to the warriors who weren’t coughing anymore and announced another round of training.
Then ‘twas the warriors turn to sigh.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ram was overjoyed that Rose left her wagon the next morning, came to breakfast and nibbled. He kept battling the urge to stride over, scoop her on his lap and feed her like a bairn. He might even have done it, save for the fact that Flora would’ve followed and demanded her share of his lap.
Her share of his lap? ‘Twas the same as her share of his life–none.
Now Ram faced his trap again in a clearing halfway between the temporary corral and the Sutherland camp. Flora lay in wait when he returned from checking on a sick mare, stepping into his path when he tried to nod and pass without getting ensnared in a dispute that would hurt her worse. Faith, Flora was like his little sister–or at least she’d been that all his life. Now, he was working his damndest not to hate her, but he was close to giving up the effort. Given how much pain she’d inflicted on him a’purpose with this forced betrothal, he was just going to have to stop sparing her feelings.
To date, he’d been brusque verging on rude, ignoring her existence as often as he could and giving her part of the truth when he could ignore her no longer. He hadn’t yet been brutally honest enough to throw the truth in her face. If she thought she loved him, being forced to face his real feelings about her might be enough to make her do something drastic. Flora tended to the dramatic.
Ram felt the confrontation he so wanted to avoid heading straight for him when she stepped into his path, with her hands propped on her hips, her chin tilted in the air and her redheaded temper running hot. That alone nearly pushed him over the ledge of truth. Then she shoved him that last inch. She pointed her finger, wagged it at him, mind you, gave him an order, and insulted Rose.
“Five dinners with Rose to preserve the virtue of a village girl who has like as not been spreading her legs since she could walk?”
Ram told himself ‘twas wicked of him to think how much he’d enjoy breaking the finger she wagged. His little almost-sister might have grown into an evil bitch, but she was still a woman. And he couldn’t break a woman’s finger, even if she was now wagging it in front of his face, and she’d stepped onto a boulder to get high enough to do that.
“I’ll not have it!” Flora squealed. “I order you to reinstate your original decree, the one that made sense. I’m sure whichever man dines with the villager will take her and then the other dinners will never take place. You’ll be rid of the problem and you’ll not shame me further by cavorting with the English witch for she’s already worked her black magic by casting a spell on you!”
Ram tried to retain control, at first saying only, “You overstep yourself, Flora. My orders are matters of my will which controls my clan and now controls you as well.”
“Ha!” Flora said, bouncing on the bolder with her finger pointed and extended above her head. “Ha, I say. ‘Tis the talk of all the clans traveling with us–that Rose’s ‘rose’ has ensorcelled Laird Sutherland into doing her bidding. Well–no more. If you wish to play in a flower bed you shall play only in mine and the only orders you’ll obey shall be mine as well.”
Ram stepped back two paces to put himself out of arms reach of the lass bouncing and pointing like a witless oaf. “I’ve no interest in your flower bed and will perform my husbandly obligation once, on our wedding night. I’ll nae touch you before or after that. As for Rose, if you insist, I’ll tell you how she rules my thoughts and controls my will. I’ll even give you leave to spread it to the world–but you’ll not do that. You’ll hide it, ignore it, deny it and nae repeat it to a living soul.”
Flora’s finger fell and her face fell with it. She stopped bouncing, despondent at his refusal of her favors and incredulous at his admission of what she’d been confident he’d deny. But she’d not back down from his challenge. “Tell me then.”
Her stance on the rock, tilted chin, stiff spine and clenched fists, decried her trembling lower lip and the moi
sture she’d never allow to spill from her bright green eyes. It so reminded him of the child she’d been–vulnerability so well cloaked by bone deep stubbornness that it rarely made an appearance. He almost couldn’t do it, couldn’t slay her with the truth. Then he recalled her discussing Rose’s private parts with an ease that suggested she started the gossip. And he knew he could do it. This gutter wench wasn’t the wee lass with the red braid and the sassy disposition.
“I’m in love with Rose,” Ram said, “deeply, totally and eternally in love. That gives her a great deal of power over my thoughts and attitudes. She, alone, will e’er have that power.”
The words tossed Flora on the shoals of torment. They shattered her confidence and cracked her will–but they didn’t break it nor convince her to abandon the inner truth she’d built her world around: the belief that she and Ram were destined for each other. His delusion over the English bitch would end when the girl returned to her world and left Flora to this one. But still, he’d hurt her terribly and she was Highland enough to return his insult in kind, calling him the thing that was anathema to any laird.
“You’re pathetic,” Flora said.
Those were fighting words. Ram should be shouting a denial, returning a worse insult. He tried to work up the fury to do that, but he still had the picture of that little tot in his head. And he knew that little girl had grown up to be a woman still holding on to a little girl’s first crush. He’d hurt her enough.
“Your words are rash and unseemly. I told you at the time of our arrangement,” Ram said in a fully level tone, “of the only involvement I shall have with you. I’ll take no orders from you nor will I modify my plans to suit your wishes or whims. I suggest that you return to your camp this eve for you’ve no place in mine.”
Flora jumped off the rock and stomped off towards the MacKenzie camp. She turned back once, to shout, “You’ll nae follow through with this absurd plan. I’ll see to that.”
‘Twas a meaningless threat, Ram thought, as he headed off towards the Sutherland camp with a spring in his step and a wish that he could skip all the hours between this one and dinner tomorrow night.
Romancing the Rose Page 16
