by Connie Mason
“Fiona’s room,” she said softly.
“Nay, this room belonged to the laird’s lady mother. Young Lady MacLaren and the laird were no’ married long, ye ken. She bided with him in his chamber. Verra fond, they were.” When she saw the words pained Elspeth Stewart, she felt obliged to repeat and embellish them. “Verra fond beyond the common.”
***
Later, Mrs. Beaton was checking the store of apples in the cellar, making sure none had gone bad. Only one with a soft spot was all it took to ruin a whole barrel.
“Auntie?” Her niece’s voice echoed down into the stone vault.
“Aye, come and ye can help me, Margot. Mind the steps.”
Margot was pretty enough, but she needed directions to pull on her own stockings.
The lass came down, her comely face drawn into a frown. “Did ye ken the laird brought her back here?”
“Aye, I settled her in her room, did I no’?”
Margot’s green eyes flared. “Oh! Did ye hear what one of the girls who helped her at her bath said?”
“Nay, I didna.”
“Something verra odd,” Margot said. “It was Nessa who told me.”
“I dinna care who it was who said it.” Honestly, the girl’s head was full of nothing but husks. “What did she say?”
“She says Elspeth Stewart has a particularly odd wound on her thigh,” Margot’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Up fair high too.”
“Hmph! I kenned she was limping, but it struck me as a way to gain attention,” Mrs. Beaton said under her breath. “A wound, ye say. What sort of wound?”
“Well, it’s on both sides of her leg, as if something went clean through it. Just as big coming out as going in, Nessa says.”
Margot picked up an apple and crunched into it with her strong young teeth. Mrs. Beaton slanted a disgusted glance at the girl. It wasn’t because she didn’t have enough teeth left in her head to strain sauced apples. It was because so many gifts were wasted on the young, who didn’t have sense to appreciate them.
“Was the flesh around the wound dark? Any red streaks perchance?” Mrs. Beaton asked. That’d fix matters right proper.
“Why?”
“I thought perhaps the wound had gone bad. They do sometimes, ye know.”
“Nessa didna say anything about that. What d’ye suppose would make a such wound?” Margot wondered aloud.
Mrs. Beaton had tended men who suffered such wounds in battle from swords or arrows. But she’d never seen the like on a woman. An idea struck her.
“A pitchfork run clear through would make such a mark.”
Margot nodded. “I suppose it might do. Just one tine, o’ course. But she’s a lady and no’ likely to be spending her time in a stable. How d’ye think Elspeth Stewart got a pitchfork through her leg?”
“Well, there’s a simple explanation, if ye think on it.” Mrs. Beaton pursed her lips in satisfaction. “I dinna know for a fact, ye ken, but I’ll warrant the devil marks those he traffics with. What better way than with his pitchfork?”
“Elspeth Stewart is in league with the devil?” Margot’s eyes grew wide. “D’ye think?”
“Aye, ’tis most likely,” Mrs. Beaton said. “Ask Nessa. See what she makes of it.”
Margot turned to go, but Mrs. Beaton stopped her with a hand to her arm. “Wear yer best gown to the supper this night. The blue one, aye? And make sure ye tune yer harp. I’m thinkin’ ye should sing a bit.”
Margot might have the brain of a peewit, but she sang like a lark. A man could forgive a girl for being a bit simple if she had lovely tits and a presentable talent or two. Margot was amply blessed in tits and talent.
As the girl scurried off, Mrs. Beaton pulled a wormy apple out of the barrel. “Ye’ll no’ be spoiling what I’ve laid by so careful-like,” she muttered.
And Elspeth Stewart wouldn’t trouble Caisteal Dubh for long either. Given a few days and a few juicy tidbits in the right ears, and Mrs. Beaton would have the entire castle clamoring to send her away.
If they didn’t decide to burn her themselves.
Chapter 26
The brocade was stiff and smelled of camphor and heather. The style of the gown was woefully old-fashioned, but it was pronounced a good fit by the lady’s maids Mrs. Beaton had sent up to attend Elspeth. The tunic and kirtle had belonged to Rob’s mother, they told her.
“Lady MacLaren, our laird’s lady mother, ye ken, was of a size with ye,” the older woman named Aileen told Elspeth. Nessa, the young one who’d helped her with her bath, had skittered out afterward, taking a single bucket of wash water and sending Aileen and Kate to take her place tidying up and seeing Elspeth made ready for supper. “A wee bird of a woman, she was. Not tall and buxom like his wife, the young Lady MacLaren. Now there was a fine figure of a woman. What a pair they made!”
Elspeth wondered if Aileen was aware young Lady MacLaren had taken her own life by leaping to her death from a tower room just like the one they were in now. If she were, she didn’t seem disposed to speak of it.
Aileen and Kate chattered quietly as they shook out other garments from the trunk. Elspeth ignored them and turned sideways to look at herself in the long sheet of burnished copper.
Her reflection was wavering and distorted, but she didn’t think she resembled a bird in the slightest. A copper-and-agate-studded snood gathered her heavy hair in a neat bunch at her nape, and the tunic and kirtle were at least clean and of good quality. She was clearly a lady of rank, albeit in borrowed and old-fashioned finery. It would serve for now.
Eventually, she’d send for her own things.
For she fully intended to stay in Caisteal Dubh, no matter how unwelcome Rob’s housekeeper or the serving women tried to make her. There was no going home to her parents after this scandal. She wouldn’t bring shame to their doorstep.
Elspeth couldn’t return to Edinburgh either. She’d be laughed out of Queen Mary’s court, sniggered at, and studied covertly with sidelong glances. Or worse, be slapped with a light-heeled reputation no amount of subsequent proper behavior would erase.
And there was certainly no way she’d submit to a loveless marriage with Lachlan Drummond after giving herself heart and body to Rob MacLaren.
There was only one way forward.
Rob hadn’t asked her yet, but he’d come to it soon. They must marry. It was the only thing that would serve.
Installing her in the chatelaine’s chamber was a good beginning, though it pained her not to share a bed with him. At first, she chafed at not being taken to his chamber, but once she thought the matter through, she saw the right of it. By demanding she be treated with deference, by placing her in his mother’s room, Rob had protected her good name. His people might wonder what had passed between them on the long journey from the kirk where she was abducted to Caisteal Dubh, but they’d have no hard evidence she wasn’t still a pure maid.
It would be best for all concerned if they decided to believe her so.
It was the same sort of outward show of respectability that enabled the English to accept and enjoy the fantasy that their Elizabeth was a virgin queen. At least, that was the tale for the masses.
Privately, her courtiers told a different story. According to the lordlings from England who visited her Scottish cousin Mary’s court, Queen Elizabeth had a new favorite so often it was hard to tell who was in and who was out of her special favor without keeping a running tally.
Though they never said so unless they were deep in their cups, and even then, not very loudly.
If Elspeth could maintain a virginal image here in Rob’s home, it would make matters less embarrassing for her parents. And easier for his people to accept her as their respected chatelaine once they married.
Because they must marry. That was all there was to it.
Surely he’d see that.
There was a rap on the door, and the serving women who grumbled as they took turns hauling her bathwater away, set down their buckets and stood at rapt attention.
“Come,” Elspeth called.
The door opened, and Rob was framed by the opening. Her heart fluttered like a caged bird beating its wings against the wire.
Rob had obviously had a bath and shaved off the stubble of his beard. He was a handsome enough man to turn feminine heads if he were dressed in rags. He’d been a raging madman painted with woad the first time Elspeth saw him, and he still made her breath hitch. Now he was every inch a laird. In full Highland regalia, Rob MacLaren was a sight to tempt even a nun to debauchery.
He smiled at Elspeth, and her insides trembled. The rest of the world faded away in his blinding brightness.
Then she remembered the serving women were hanging on every moment, so she dipped in a formal curtsey. “My lord.”
“My lady, will ye honor me by dining at my side this night?” His eyes shone at her.
“Aye, with pleasure.”
He offered her his arm. She rested her palm on it lightly and let him escort her from the room. The heat of his body sizzled through the fine lawn of his shirt and into her hand. She tried to give no outward sign, but she was near to bursting into flames from wanting him so.
It felt different, being with him here in his home. As if he were a whole other person, one who still looked like the Rob MacLaren, who fought a wolf pack for her and stole her heart, but this Rob was suddenly weighed down by the cares of his station. He was courtly and correct. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he began spouting poetry.
As they walked down the corridor to the stairs, she leaned toward him. “Do ye suppose we’ll have barley bannocks and a rind of cheese?”
He laughed at the memory of the first meal he’d offered her. The correct and courtly laird fell by the way, and he was just Rob again. “We’re under siege, ye ken, but I think we can do better than that.”
Once Rob and Elspeth took their places at a raised table in the Great Hall, he introduced Elspeth with a no-nonsense announcement that she was his honored guest. A ripple of murmurs circled the hall, and none of the faces turned toward her brightened with a smile of welcome.
“My disagreement is with Elspeth Stewart’s bridegroom, no’ the lady herself. I’ll have more than words for any who show her the slightest discourtesy,” he said sharply, and the murmurs ceased.
Then he raised his glass, and the people of the Clan MacLaren joined him in a toast to themselves. After a long draught, they all sat down to their trenchers and fell to with a will to welcome home their wandering laird.
But the unfriendly glances in Elspeth’s direction didn’t cease. They were merely quicker and more stealthy, lest Rob catch one of them at it. Elspeth decided the best course of action was to study her own trencher.
The cooks at Caisteal Dubh certainly did better than barley bannocks and a cheese rind.
Elspeth lost count of the courses. There was a cock-a-leekie soup, smoked salmon, savory venison, and haggis. The Forfar bridies, a cunning pasty, must have been one of Rob’s favorites, because he wolfed down three of them in quick succession. And lastly, they were presented with a delicious crannachan, a concoction of raspberries, honey, oats, and whisky, mixing the sweet with an alcoholic tang.
The menu would have done credit to Queen Mary’s table.
But Rob didn’t speak to her more than necessary, and then with stilted courtesy. Instead, he leaned toward his friend Hamish, who was seated on his right, and spoke freely.
“I appreciate the welcome,” Rob said. “Our larder’s been thin during our travels, ye ken, but this seems a bit much seeing as how we’ve an army at the gate. I’d best have a word with the steward, so we dinna have a repeat on the morrow, or we’ll be in want by Hogmanay.”
“Och, let yer people rejoice,” Hamish said as he refilled his and Rob’s drinking horns with some of the oldest and smoothest whisky in Caisteal Dubh’s cellar. “They’ve been thrifty up till yer coming. We’ve had naught but parritch and barley bread and mutton stew. And mighty thin stew at that! But ye’re home now. Ye’ll end this trouble right enough.”
Elspeth tried to attend to her trencher, but she cocked an ear toward Rob’s conversation. How was he going to end the hostilities?
“I appreciate your confidence, Hamish, but since I willna meet their demand for my head, I dinna see how I can end the siege quickly.”
Hamish nearly spewed drink out his nose. “Och, Rob, I didna mean ye should offer them yer head. But ye’ve made yer point with Lord Drummond. ’Tis obvious ye’ve treated the lass well—something Drummond canna claim when he took yer lady. Ye’ve shamed the bastard. Just return the Lady Elspeth now, and all will be well.”
Elspeth stared into her soup bowl as if her future floated there among the leeks and bits of chicken.
“No, I willna,” Rob said. “I’ll no’ release her to the likes of Lachlan Drummond.”
Elspeth’s heart sang, but from the corner of her eye, she could tell Hamish wasn’t as happy as she with Rob’s words.
“If ye dinna, there’ll be war.”
“No, I’ll call for single combat to settle the matter. It’s come two years late, but it’s come now and welcome,” Rob said. “Drummond’s days are numbered. He’ll no’ be able to walk away from a challenge. Perhaps Fiona will rest easier once the deed’s done.”
Elspeth’s heart plummeted. He still intended to kill Lachlan. None of their time together had changed a thing. This was just about revenge for his dead wife.
A young girl with a cascade of golden curls spilling down her back took up a harp and began to sing. Rob seemed to enjoy the music as much as anyone, but Elspeth didn’t miss the sly looks the girl cast in his direction when the lyrics spoke of love.
Her song of longing was directed at Rob. Only a blind man would miss it. Elspeth couldn’t bear to remain in the hall for another moment. At the end of the third tune, she stood and asked to be excused.
“Ye dinna wish to retire yet.” Rob stood and took one of her hands. “The night is young. Margot Beaton is a talented singer, and she knows a hundred songs. Each of them lovelier than the last. I’m certain she’d take a request, if ye have a favorite.”
Elspeth didn’t think the girl would take a request from anyone but Rob. “I’ve no ear for music this night.”
His brow furrowed. “Are ye unwell?”
“No,” she said. “Just verra tired.”
He nodded and signaled one of his men. “Light the Lady Elspeth to her chamber, Albus.”
Her belly spiraled slowly downward. Rob wasn’t going to escort her to her room.
“And stand watch over her door till ye are relieved,” he added. The next song was beginning, and Rob’s gaze flicked to the pretty minstrel. “See that none enter the Lady Elspeth’s chamber…or leave.”
If Rob had slapped her, she’d have been less surprised. She wasn’t manacled and chained to a wall, but she was definitely his prisoner. It was as if the last few days hadn’t happened at all. The air seemed to flee from the hall, and her vision tunneled for a moment. Then she forced herself to breathe, and Rob’s face came back into focus.
“Good night, my lady,” he said and sketched a courtly bow.
She narrowly resisted the urge to kick his bowed head into next week. If she did, the people of Caisteal Dubh would probably tear her to pieces. Instead, she dropped a curtsey. “My lord.”
Then she followed Albus and his torch out of the hall and through the dark corridors to her very gilded cage.
Chapter 27
After Albus lit a candle for her outside her chamber, he ushered her in and closed the door. The latch dropped into place behind her with finality.
Elspeth refused help from a serving woman, so Albus called none to aid her. It was better to be alone with her thoughts than be the object of a lady’s maid’s speculations. The room was cold despite the lit braziers. She could see her breath.
She wiggled quickly out of the borrowed finery and draped it with care on the ornately carved trunk to which it would be returned. Shivering, she slipped on the fresh chemise that Aileen had left draped across the foot of the bed next to a warm bed shawl.
The linen was frail and the lace at the bodice yellowed with age, but it would serve.
She had no desire to climb into the thick feather tick yet, though it looked inviting. The room smelled much sweeter since the linens had been changed and the mattress aired. The window was still propped open slightly, but the glowing braziers weren’t keeping up with the cold that rushed in with the fresh air.
Elspeth wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, walked over to the window, and looked out, hugging herself against the breath of winter. Fires from her father’s encampment dotted the plain beyond the curtain wall, hundreds of men intent on freeing her from Rob’s imprisonment.
Of course, some of the men were Lachlan’s, but she wasn’t sure why he was even here. He couldn’t claim to love her. He didn’t even know her. Drummond could have arrayed his fighting men against Rob only out of a sense of insult to his own honor, not hers.
But even after all that had happened, her father was here because he loved her. She was surer of that than of the beating of her own heart. Her longing to see someone she was certain loved her made her chest ache.
Even if Albus would allow her to leave her room, she wondered if she’d be brave enough to slip into the chapel, pry up the flooring under the altar, and steal out through the secret entrance to Caisteal Dubh all alone.
Hamish was right. The only way to resolve this crisis short of bloodshed was for her to leave.
Which was why Rob put her under guard, she realized. Just in case she should decide to flee. He wanted the coming fight, and he wouldn’t be denied. There wasn’t a pinch of forgiveness in him.
