Moon Dreams (44 page)

Alyson favored him with a look of annoyance. “I’m certain it
will, but then I would have missed all the entertainment, wouldn’t I?”

The earl unbent slightly as he observed this byplay. “I
remember her mother as being much more even-tempered. I suspect Alyson takes
after her grandmother,” the earl mused out loud, apropos of nothing at all.

At Alyson’s eager look, Rory surrendered the battle without
a fight. “Perhaps that’s so, but to my mind, Alyson is one of a kind. I would
have her no other way.”

Alyson sent him a surprised look. He used loving words when
they were alone and he wished to woo her, but never had Rory said such a thing
in public. Could he truly mean it?

The earl continued to test the waters. “How did you know me,
Alyson? You look enough like your mother that I could recognize you anywhere,
but you have no such advantage.”

Trapped by a familiar face but a stranger’s understanding,
Alyson smiled absently and dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand. “You
are very much like your portrait, sir. How do you come here? Where have you
been? Will you tell us your story?”

With determination, he tried again. “If I remember rightly,
that portrait was done when I was little more than a boy. I wore one of those
deuced wigs that made the head scratch infernally, and I proudly sported a
ridiculous hat with enough gold braid to match the king’s crown. Do I still
look so foolish, then?”

Alyson had never had difficulty escaping these situations
before, but this was her father, and she could not dismiss him lightly. Rory
understood her, but he always had, trusting without question and accepting her
oddities for what they were. She had no desire to alienate her father by
speaking of ghosts and visions he would not understand, but she had no ability
to lie.

Distraught but revealing none of it, she smiled dreamily and
rose to take away the empty tankard. “I loved that portrait, sir, and memorized
every line of it. Let me refill your drink.”

Her father stopped her hand, holding it in his own. “You
said you saw me at your wedding. How was it that you did not make yourself
known?”

Alyson threw Rory an anxious plea, but his imperturbable
gaze was focused on her father. Their battle of wills had found a new target,
and she was it. Throwing up her hands in disgust at this discovery, Alyson
returned to her seat, picking up her embroidery as she did so.

“Perhaps Rory would care to explain about our wedding,
Father. And then you might explain why you were alive and in Barbados all these
years we thought you dead.”

Rory grinned and lifted his tankard in toast to this neat
delivery of the hot potato to new hands. Alyson gave him a wicked scowl in
return.

The earl lifted a languid brow in Rory’s direction. “Yes, I
think I would like to hear about the wedding. As I understand the tale, my heir
scoured the islands after your head. You smuggled in your ill-gotten goods
behind his back, were forced into making an honest woman of my daughter, and
fled in a pirate ship before my heir could return. Would you care to elaborate?”

“It will be my word against Hampton’s, sir. I removed Alyson
from an intolerable situation created by your heir, only to embroil her in a
worse one, admittedly, but I will not allow it to be claimed that I was forced
to marry her.”

Rory hesitated, apparently unwilling to reveal Alyson’s reluctance.
Taking a deep breath, he proceeded, “There was some misunderstanding of my
intentions, but they have ever been honorable toward Alyson. Now that you have
returned, perhaps the misunderstanding can be remedied. I want Alyson, not her
wealth. If you can prove your claim to the estate and the title, then you are
entitled to your father’s inheritance also.” Rory met the earl’s eyes squarely.
“Just leave me Alyson.”

Alyson blinked, speechless, unable to grasp the vastness of
this declaration.

Without blinking an eyelash, her father replied, “Well said,
Maclean, but not convincing. I don’t need my father’s wealth. He meant Alyson
to have it. What I want is what is best for my daughter. I cannot believe an
impoverished, fortune-hunting Jacobite is the solution.”

Seeing Rory’s hands clench in frustration, Alyson smiled at
her father. “Being declared a bastard in front of the whole world probably wasn’t
very good for me, either, but I survived.” Laying aside her embroidery, she
looked to Rory. “Your son is growing restless, my dear, and I find I am
overtired, after all. This discussion would be better held after a good night’s
rest, would it not? Let us show my father to his chamber, and we can all talk
again on the morrow.”

The earl’s lined face paled at mention of a child, and when
he and Rory rose with her, his glance went to her middle. His furious gaze flew
to Rory’s impassive face.

“You wasted no time, did you?”

Still holding Rory’s arm, Alyson reached up to kiss her father
on the cheek. “If you had wasted any time, I would not be here today. Good
night, Father. I’ll have the steward show you to a spare chamber.”

She felt the irate exchange of looks over her head, but
Alyson smiled. Neither man might love her as boundlessly as her grandparents
had, but she loved them, and for now, that was enough.

They were at it hammer and tongs over breakfast when
Alyson reached the breakfast table. A bemused Dougall and Myra sat at the far
end of the table, staying out of the line of fire, as Rory and her father
politely—and sometimes not so politely—stabbed at each other with words.

She kissed both men on the cheek and sat beside Rory. The maid
hastily set a bowl of oatmeal in front of her. Smiling, she inquired, “Have you
figured out yet how to buy back Rory’s estate to put an end to this feud?”

Dougall choked and hastily covered his mouth with a napkin.

“I have decided it would be preferable if you returned to
Cornwall with me, Alyson.” The earl threw his host an indignant look. “I will
need to track down my heir and come to terms with him, I suppose, but the
estate is entailed. There is little he can do to stop me from taking back my
home and title. I had meant to bring your mother there. It is your home now.”

“I believe you will find our cousin with Rory’s, not far
from here, Father. Shall you go to see him before you return to Cornwall?”

Rory stared at her in shock. Before he could voice his
concerns, the earl’s face lit with a mixture of anticipation and anger.

“Alex is here? They told me he was hunting in Scotland, but
this is rather late in the season, is it not? I certainly shall go to see him.
I do not at all approve of the way he is ignoring the management of his estate.”
He set aside his napkin with a finality that indicated immediate departure.

Rory caught his father-in-law’s arm, ignoring his indignant
expression. “Were it just myself, I would let you leap blindly into the fire,
but for Alyson’s sake, I give you warning. My cousin Drummond has taken the
lives and the lands of my family and mistreated the innocent ever since he had
the power to do so. That your heir is in the company of such as he does not
bode well for me or mine. He has already attempted Alyson’s rape and abduction.
Just the other day, someone shot at her. If you wish to visit that nest of
vipers, it is upon your head. I will not come to your rescue.”

Stunned by Rory’s vehemence, the earl returned to his seat.
Slowly he turned his gaze to Alyson, who did her best to hide her thoughts.

“Is this so, Alyson? I heard no such tale from any other.”

“Because there is only my word to speak it, Father,” she
answered quietly. “How many besides Rory would take my word over the Earl of
Cranville’s?”

The earl drew in a sharp breath. His fingers dug into the
lion’s-paw arms of the ancient dining-hall chair. “You might not bear the
title, but you had my name and my father’s protection. Why should you not be
heard?”

Alyson lifted her eyebrows. “Your name? Had it been so,
perhaps some would have listened with righteous indignation. As it was, all
society would have thought your heir did me a favor by making me his mistress.
A bastard has no rights, Father.”

An ashen pallor replaced the earl’s healthy color. “You are
no bastard, child. Your mother and I were legally and truly wedded, although I
swore her to secrecy until I had time to tell my father. Why did she not tell
you this?”

“She died when I was just a babe, but I do not think my
grandparents would have hidden the truth. I asked once, and they said my mother
believed she was married, but as she had no papers or witnesses, they thought
her confused. I can see now that they most likely thought you had led her
astray with promises. Apparently your reputation was not of the highest.”
Alyson delivered this speech with no condemnation while she laced her oatmeal
with milk and broke off a piece of brown sugar to sweeten it.

“Bigawd, the deuce they did! Astray! Of all the . . .”
The earl broke into mutters. Gathering his ruffled dignity, he glared at his
son-in-law. “I wedded her on board ship, with all the officers as witness. If
you know anything of your own laws, you know no other license or church was
needed. I carried the papers with me to present to my father when I returned. Alyson
is no bastard, but my daughter. She belongs in society, not in this desolate
ruin. I am taking her back with me to Cornwall.”

Alyson buttered her bannock. “How interesting. Are you
planning to abduct me too?” She lifted laughing eyes to the company, her joy at
knowing she was not born in shame making her lighthearted.

Rory chewed his bread, obviously working out the
consequences. She feared he would be returning to his foolish beliefs that a
man like him would never have been allowed to touch the hem of her gown. Her father
would have had every right to forbid Rory from the door. But he came from a
lineage older and more aristocratic than her father’s, even if good King George
had tried to strip him of it.

With relief, she watched as he finished the bread and met the
earl’s gaze with equanimity. “We’re married under English law and in the eyes
of the church. That is my child she carries. I would have every right to kill
you if you tried to take her away. The choice to leave is Alyson’s. I have
never held her against her will.”

Alyson smiled approvingly and offered her father more tea
with a gesture of the pot. “I can see that it is most important that someone
return to Cornwall, but it won’t be me. I have too much to do here. Rory, my
love, you will spill that cup all over the table if you don’t watch what you’re
doing.”

The earl narrowed his eyes at Alyson’s casual dismissal of her
heritage and addressed her husband. “You’ve already admitted that this feud has
someone shooting at her. How can you in all conscience keep her here?”

A muscle in Rory’s jaw jumped. “I cannot imagine what anyone
would hope to gain by shooting at Alyson, but my cousin’s hatred of me and mine
is irrational.”

Alyson sent him an anxious look. It had never occurred to
her that he would send her away, but that was because she was so blindly in
love that she could not see the nose on her face. But the veil had lifted. Rory
had never claimed to love her. He had married her for expediency, but she had
ever been a nuisance to him. Now that her body was growing unwieldy, he might
find reason to send her away. She didn’t think she could bear it.

She hid her fears behind her usual complacence. “Myra tells
me the child will most likely come in April. I could not possibly travel before
then, so you have plenty of time to argue.” She set aside her uneaten bannock
and addressed her father. “When will you tell us where you have been all these
years? I’m certain it will make a fascinating story on a day like this, when no
one wishes to brave the winds.”

Rory generously extended his holiday cheer to his father-in-law.
“It is Christmas Day, lass. Give your father some peace and let us open our
gifts. I, for one, cannot wait to see what is in that wicked assortment of
packages Mary was smuggling into the hall this morning. And there is one in
there that must weigh two stone, at least. I have been waiting for days to find
out what is in that one.”

Alyson flashed him a mischievous grin. “You have been
shaking those packages all week! You’re worse than any child. Next year I will
know to fill them with sticks and stones so you’ll not guess.”

“Do that and see what you receive in return,” Rory murmured
against her ear as he pulled her chair back from the table.

His breath blew intimately against her cheek, sending
shivers of pleasure through her as she accepted his arm. Next year. That did
not sound as if he planned to send her away, but she had learned not to let her
hopes run away with her.

Not only the entire household but also tenants close enough
to brave the weather gathered in the hall in time-honored fashion for this
festive day. The small kirk had no minister, but several of the men took turns
reading from the Bible, and Rory led the final prayer, offering fervent
thanksgiving for what they shared this day. Alyson had tears in her eyes when
his gaze sought hers after he finished. She had felt his passion all the way to
her soul.

The merriment began after that. Rory’s ship had carried many
of the items Alyson had requested without Rory’s knowledge. There were sweets
for the children, bundles of coffee and tea for the adults, bolts of warm wool
for everyone, and enough leather to build brogues for every man, woman, and
child on the estate. None of the gifts was lavish, but the practicality also
brought pleasure.

Alyson had no gift for her father, but in the early-morning
hours she had thought of one thing she possessed that he might enjoy. In the
trunks she had taken from Cornwall had been one precious memento that she had
never thought to part with. But on this day she would gladly trade an image of
what had been for the reality of what was now. She had wrapped the locket in a
silk handkerchief and saved it for the proper moment.