Pleasured (4 page)

Glancing up, she saw her cottage at the end of the path in front of her, and she realized that she had been so deep in thought she had forgotten to check her beehive on her way back as she had intended. She let out a sigh. Well, it would just have to wait until tomorrow. She had baskets of plums waiting for her in the kitchen, newly picked, and she must start making her cordial and preserves.

She worked steadily all through the afternoon and even managed to keep her mind off the Earl of Mardoun—at least most of the time. She was still stirring the pots in her kitchen late in the evening, the air of her cottage filled with the sweet scent of plums, when she heard a rattle and a thump at the back of the house. Startled, Meg poked her head around the corner of the small alcove that was her kitchen and work
room just in time to see a man crawling through the open back window.

“Well,” she said sternly, crossing her arms. “So now you’ve taken to climbing in windows, I see.”

“Aye, I have—though I wish your window were not so wee,” her brother, Coll, answered imperturbably, contorting his long frame to pull it through the small, open square.

“I’m sure our great-great-gran would have made it larger if she’d known you’d be wanting to use it for a door,” Meg retorted. “Would you care to tell me why you are doing so?”

“Donald MacRae is watching the path to your door.” Coll came toward her, tall and wide-shouldered, his shaggy blond hair catching the low light in the cottage.

“Oh, Coll, what have you gotten yourself into now?”

“Sorry. I would not have pulled you into it, but it’s Young Dougal; he has a wound needs tending.” As Meg reached back to untie her apron, Coll held up a staying hand. “Nae, you need not come. He has a burn, the fool, nothing you can do except give me some ointment to soothe it—and maybe a tonic for the pain.”

Meg sighed and went over to her cabinets, pulling out mortar and pestle and several packets of herbs. “How bad is it? My ointment will help, but if the burn is severe . . .”

“It’s all down one arm. But they put it out quickly.” Coll followed her into the small workroom, ducking his head with the ease of long practice to walk through the low doorway.

“I’ll send something for infection as well, just in case.” Meg handed him a long wooden spoon turned dark from the simmering plums. “Here, stir that while I make this.”

“Smells good.” He sniffed the air appreciatively. “Will I be getting some plum preserves then?”

“Aye, you might. And plum wine as well, if you’ve a mind to it.” Meg’s fingers flew as she ground and stirred, filling a small pot with a thick ointment. “What have you done—no, I don’t want to know. I wish you would stop all these things you’ve been doing. I understand; I laughed, too, when Mardoun’s lackey got tossed into the lochan. No one can blame the lads who tried to block MacRae’s men from pulling Mrs. Sinclair from her cottage. But it dinna stop them, did it? And some of the things that have happened lately—stopping Jack on the road and robbing him, breaking into the granary—what does that have to do with fighting the Clearances? You’re going to get caught!” She stabbed her forefinger at him. “What if you get transported? Or hanged?”

“We dinna know it was Kensington till after we stopped him, and we let him go.” Coll held up his hands in an exculpatory gesture as she drew breath to argue. “I know, I know. You’re right. The lads have gone too far. I told them we are not reivers. It’s that Will Ross. I knew he would be trouble from the first. He’s hotheaded and none too honest. The way I see it, he joined more to get into mischief than anything else.” Coll shook his head. “I wasna there; I told them the idea was foolish. But Ross got in their ear this afternoon and convinced them I was too cautious. They only came to me afterwards because they need your help.”

“Well, they’ll not be getting my help ever again if they land you in gaol!”

“Ah, my fierce Meg.” Coll grinned at her, his blue eyes dancing. “What a terror you are.”

“You’d do well to remember it.” She gave him a sharp nod and turned to pull down a burlap bag hanging from a hook on the wall.

A loud
thud
,
thud
,
thud
sounded, and they froze, their eyes darting to the barred door.

3

M
acRae,” Meg breathed, and glanced
toward her brother.

The door handle rattled and a hand banged against the stout wooden door again. “Meg Munro! Open up!”

Coll ground his teeth and started forward, but Meg caught his arm and motioned him back. “Nae, stay here. I’ll get rid of him.”

She crossed the floor to the front window and peered out. As she expected, the narrow form of Donald MacRae was on her doorstep. “It’s late to be paying visits, Mr. MacRae.”

He turned toward the window. “Open the door, Meg.”

“I’m not in the habit of opening the door to men at this hour,” she told him, crossing her arms.

“You know you need not fear me, Meg. ’Tis only affection I have for you.”

“Affection? Is that what you call it now?” Meg snorted.

“Aye.” He stepped closer. “You could have whatever you wanted, you ken, if you’d say the word.”

“The word would choke me.” Meg regarded him stonily.

His mouth tightened. “You’ll change your tune one day. It’ll be your ill luck if I don’t want you any longer.”

“Why are you here, MacRae?”

“Someone set fire to the storehouse tonight.”

“Well, it was not I.”

“I did not think it was.” He smiled thinly. “I am looking for your brother.”

“My brother? What does Coll have to do with your storehouse catching fire? Are you needing his help to put it out?”

“The only help I need from your brother is to find out who set the fire.”

“I don’t know if you’re mad or a fool, MacRae, but I—”

“Leave off, Meg,” her brother interrupted. She whipped around to see him stride past her and shove up the wooden bar on the door. He yanked the door open and stood towering over the other man.

MacRae gaped at him, and Meg turned away to hide her smile. Coll looked ludicrous. He had pulled one of her aprons, liberally splattered with plum juice, over his head. The garment was far too short and too small, the sash barely meeting behind his broad back. In one huge fist, he carried a wooden spoon, which he now pointed at MacRae as if it were a dagger. “What do you mean, MacRae, hanging about my sister’s cottage this late?”

The estate manager straightened, trying to recover his air of authority. “I was looking for you, Munro.”

“And you found me.” The two men glared at one another.

“Well, then,” Meg said crisply, “if all you wanted is to look at Coll, I’d say you’ve accomplished your goal.” She put her hand on the door as if to close it.

MacRae threw up his hand to block the door and turned his sharp gaze on Meg. “You expect me to believe he’s been here all evening?”

“I don’t waste my time contemplating your beliefs on anything. Coll is helping me make my plum preserves. If it’s proof you need, you have only to look in my kitchen.”

MacRae shoved past them, stalking into the kitchen. Meg followed him, casting a quick glance at the worktable. She saw that Coll had shoved jars of preserves, bottles of various tonics, and empty containers around the things she’d prepared for Dougal, effectively concealing them. The cramped room was hot and thick with the scent of stewing plums, the pot bubbling away merrily on the fire.

“Satisfied?” Meg asked scornfully, planting her fists on her hips. “Now, I’ll thank you to take your suspicious mind elsewhere.”

MacRae turned a look filled with frustration and anger on her, then strode back into the main room of the cottage. Turning slowly, he cast his eyes over the entire room. His gaze lingered for a moment on Meg’s bed, tucked into a corner of the room and partially hidden by a wooden screen, and Meg’s skin crawled.

“Time for you to leave, MacRae.” Coll clamped his hand around the other man’s bony arm and steered him toward the front door.

MacRae jerked his arm away. “I intend to find the men who started the fire tonight.”

“Aye? I guess you’d best be about it, then, hadn’t you?”

“You can hide behind your sister’s skirts all you want, Munro,” MacRae sneered. “But I know you’re involved.”

“Don’t be a fool.” Coll loomed over him. “I never touched your storehouse. But you’ll have the devil’s own work finding the man who did. There’s no friend to Mardoun in this glen, only those who work for him and those whom he’s beggared for the sake of his profits. Now get out of my sister’s house, and if I learn you’ve been back here bothering her, I can promise you, you won’t be finding those men or anything else ever again. Now go!”

Coll closed the door on MacRae’s retreating figure, then slammed the bar back into place. Coll turned to her, scowling. “Has MacRae been bedeviling you? Does he dare to come here?”

“Pffft.” Meg made a dismissive gesture. “MacRae is a worm.”

“More like a snake, I’d say.” His hand clenched around the spoon so tightly it snapped.

“Och, Coll . . . now look what you’ve done.” Meg plucked the pieces of the spoon from his hand, shaking her head.

“It’s what I’ll do to him if I find him nosing around you again.”

“Fine. But I would like to keep my utensils in one piece, if you don’t mind. I’ve a great more fondness for them than I do for MacRae.” Her lips twitched. “And take off that apron. You look ridiculous.”

He grinned back at her. “Nothing convinces people of the truth like making yourself look a fool.”

“Ah, no wonder everyone thinks you’re sae honest,” Meg shot back, and reached out to pinch his arm. “Stop scaring me like this, Coll, I mean it. I could not bear to lose you.”

“I know.” He sighed. “It’s just—what will happen to the men? I worry what mad thing they’ll get into if I am not there to persuade them otherwise.”

“It doesn’t sound as if you kept them from doing it tonight.”

“Nae, you’re right.” He ran his hand back through his hair. “I wish there was some other way to help them. I feel guilty, you ken, safe and secure, working at Baillannan, while they are getting run out of their homes.”

“I know. But it isn’t your fault; it’s MacRae’s doing. And Mardoun’s,” she added darkly. That was just one more reason she needed to stop thinking about the man.

It was a good idea, but easier said than done, Meg found. She awoke the next morning from a delicious and disturbing dream about the tall, dark-eyed earl. To make it even worse, her mind kept returning to the dream throughout the morning.

In an effort to distract herself, Meg took her hat and gloves and went to tend the beehive. When finished, she strolled back through the dappled woods in a more peaceful frame of mind, but as she drew close to her cottage, she was brought up short by the sight of a stranger standing at her cottage door.

The man was dressed in severe black and white, like the minister of a kirk, and his pale face looked as if emotions were foreign to it. As Meg watched from the edge of the clearing, the man knocked on the door again, then began to walk around, craning his neck around the corner of the house, even shading his eyes to peer into her window.

“Good morning to you, sir.” Meg had the satisfaction of seeing him jump and whirl around at her words.

But the face he presented gave little away, and he nodded to her without any seeming dismay at being caught snooping. “Good morning. Margaret Munro, I presume?” His crisp British accent identified him immediately as one of Mardoun’s entourage.

“Aye. And you are?”

“Blandings, miss. I have been entrusted by the Earl of Mardoun with delivering this to you.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, extending it to her.

Meg’s brows rose and she came forward to take the note from him. The paper was sealed across the fold with a blob of red wax, stamped with something that looked rather like a lion standing on its back legs. She looked at it, then back up at the man. “Mardoun wrote me?”

“Yes, miss. His lordship instructed me to read it to you if you were un—that is to say, if you wished it.”

“No doubt it will surprise
his lordship
that even though I was raised this far from civilization, I can manage to bumble my way through a few lines of script.” Meg snapped open the seal and unfolded the note.

My dearest Miss Munro,

I pray you will allow me to further our acquaintance by granting me the pleasure of your company this evening for a late supper in the south tower.

Yrs,

Mardoun

The paper trembled slightly in Meg’s hand as fury flooded her. How dare the man! He had already scheduled an assignation for them and sent a servant to inform her of it? Nothing could have told her more clearly what the earl thought of her.

“I shall be pleased to return to escort you to the castle this evening,” the man went on.

Meg’s head snapped up and she fixed the earl’s servant with so daggerlike a look that the man took a startled step backward. “I dinna need the flunky of some Englishman to lead me about my own woods any more than I need some arrogant lecher’s summons to his bed.” Meg’s accent thickened with her anger. “Mayhap the English lasses dinna mind being treated like one of the muslin company, but not I.” Meg raised the note and ripped it in half, then tore the halves again. “Here is my answer to the earl.”

Blandings’s jaw dropped. “Miss! You cannot mean—it is an insult!”

“Insult, is it? And what do you call this?” She shook the torn invitation at him, then shoved the pieces into his hand.

“Any woman would be flattered—he is the Earl of Mardoun!”

“Well, I am not any woman. And I dinna care if he is the Prince of Wales. Now be gone with you. And tell Mardoun that he can choke on his ‘flattery.’ ”