When the Laird Returns (13 page)

Alisdair wordlessly followed the older woman out of the room, no doubt to assist her down the stairs. Worrying about a cabin boy’s footing or an aged woman’s health or her own injury made him the most unusual man Iseabal had ever known. A man who was so certain of his strength and power that he was not afraid to be seen as caring. Alisdair MacRae would never punish a woman because he was annoyed with her, or terrorize a child because it amused him to do so.

Iseabal didn’t want to know more about him, didn’t seek to measure the depths of his character. Otherwise, she would feel a greater sense of loss than she felt right at this moment.

Because, Iseabal realized, forcing her smile to remain in place as she stood staring at the portrait, he was the husband of her dreams.

T
he chamber Iseabal had been given was lovely, but not as lavishly decorated as the public rooms of Brandidge Hall.

Directly opposite the four-poster bed swathed in yellow silk was the focal point of the room, a large mullioned window stretching from floor to ceiling.

Iseabal stood staring out at the view of rolling hills and lush green grass. There was nothing about the vista before her that was out of place. No sheep marred the thick meadows; the trees were large and majestic. A faint haze appeared in the distance as if God Himself had placed a foggy blanket over England so that she might sleep secure.

She didn’t belong here, a feeling accentuated by the torpid descent of twilight. In Scotland, night came with a protest, wild slashes of orange and red appearing against the darkening sky as if the sun feared it would never come again.

In Scotland, vows were made and honored.

Turning away from the window, Iseabal walked back to the bed. The first time in a week she would have a solitary place in which to sleep, unburdened by the presence of another. For the first time in a week, Alisdair would not be forced to sleep on the floor.

Her hand slid over the counterpane, noting the fine quality of the fabric. A great deal of expense had gone into making the residents of Brandidge Hall comfortable. Not like her own home, in which repairs were grudgingly made and sparingly done.

The maid had spread her clothing on the bed, as if she had a selection from which to choose. Undressing, Iseabal gently folded each garment and placed it back in her trunk.

After washing, she dressed again, this time in a petticoat of tan with a pale blue ribbon hem. Topping it were her blue jacket and a necklace of stones graduated in color and in size, strung together with a thin gold wire. She had found the necklace among the ruins of Gilmuir and considered it her greatest treasure.

Her fingers trailed from stone to stone, each one of them in a shade of blue from the color of Scotland’s skies to the exact tint of the MacRae’s eyes.

Glancing at herself quickly in the mirror, Iseabal noted the paleness of her cheeks. Her eyes looked too large for her face, and her lips almost bloodless.

A knock on the door was an imperious summons to dinner.

There was no footman on the other side of the door to escort her downstairs. Nor was it Alisdair standing there. Instead, the Countess of Sherbourne tapped at the bottom of the door impatiently with the tip of her cane.

Iseabal stood back and watched as Patricia entered, along
with five servants, each bearing an object of clothing or a small chest.

“We’ve come to ready you for dinner, my dear,” she said, smiling brightly. Her glance surveyed Iseabal, leaving her with the feeling that the countess disapproved of her attire.

Patricia sat on one of the chairs beside the large window, tapping her cane in a wordless signal. Two maids came forward, each intent on unfastening an article of Iseabal’s clothing.

She brushed them away, and they glanced back at Patricia, who nodded in another signal, this one, evidently, to continue.

Iseabal stepped back against the wall, trapped between the armoire and the bed table, hands crossed over her chest.

“Your attire is quite lovely,” Patricia said, “but not appropriate for the bride of the Earl of Sherbourne, my dear.”

Iseabal stared at the older woman, uncertain as to what to say.

For a moment Patricia studied her, then raised the tip of her cane. Evidently, Iseabal thought almost frantically, each of her gestures was part of some secret language.

A woman of middle years came forward, a stack of clothing folded over one arm.

“The green one, I think, Jenny,” Patricia said.

The garments were placed on the bed and again the two maids approached her. When one of the maids began to pull up her petticoat, Iseabal slapped her hand away and jerked the garment out of her reach.

“No,” she said. “I appreciate your kindness, but I truly wish to wear my own clothing.”

Again that silent nod. The door opened, and the maids slipped out of the room, leaving Patricia and Iseabal alone.

“Did I misunderstand, Iseabal?” Patricia asked, her voice taking on a cool tone. “Do you truly wish your marriage to be dissolved?”

“No,” Iseabal admitted quietly.

“Then why have you done nothing to convince Alisdair otherwise? Pride is a foolish emotion, Iseabal. I spent a great many years being miserable, my dear. I was married to a man I desperately loved, yet was afraid to tell him so. Or,” she said reflectively, “to demand the same of him.”

Patricia smiled at Iseabal’s silence. “Do you deny you feel affection for my grandson?”

What she felt was stronger than yearning, deeper than curiosity, yet Iseabal couldn’t define it exactly. Perhaps it was affection, or something more.

“It is not a question of pride,” she replied quietly. “Alisdair wants this annulment. He feels forced into our marriage.”

“Was he?” Patricia asked, her gaze never leaving Iseabal’s face.

“Yes,” Iseabal answered simply. “He wanted Gilmuir; my father wanted a fortune.”

Patricia’s eyebrows rose. “And what did you want?”

“Does that matter?” Iseabal asked, unexpectedly amused. “My wishes are not capable of swaying either man.”

“A man’s pride is a brittle thing, my dear,” Patricia said gently. “It breaks rather than bends. I am not surprised that Alisdair got his feathers ruffled at being forced to marry.”

Iseabal doubted it was as simple a matter as his pride.

Patricia made an impatient sound. “Sometimes people are mismatched and refuse to admit it, or they’re perfect for each other and cannot recognize that fact.” She tapped her cane on the floor as if to accentuate her point.

Then she glanced over at Iseabal, her eyes twinkling.
“There are simply times when a woman must take a man’s hand and lead him where she wishes. Get his attention, at least.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Iseabal said truthfully.

“I know you don’t, my dear. But if you’ll call the others inside, we’ll show you,” Patricia said, waving toward the door.

Over the next hour, Iseabal was prodded and pushed, her hair curled into absurd ringlets that were pinned at the crown of her head in an elaborate style. But the greatest indignity, Iseabal thought, was when her clothing was stripped from her as if they were rags and tossed to the bed, replaced by a garment from the countess’s closet.

“I will agree it is not the latest fashion, my dear,” Patricia said as Iseabal stared, dismayed, at the dipping bodice. “But it reveals a woman’s figure.”

The dress was of a deep emerald shade, the skirt draping in large swags over an underskirt of a lighter shade of green. But what material was used in the skirt was startlingly lacking above the waist.

The bodice of the dress fit tightly, leaving no room for her stays.

“What is that?” Patricia asked, pointing to her wrapping.

“A bandage,” Iseabal answered, telling the other woman of her fall into the foundations.

“Very well,” Patricia said, frowning, “I suppose it will have to remain. But your shift ruins the lines of the dress.”

“I’ll be naked,” Iseabal said, beginning to panic. She couldn’t appear at dinner with only the wrapping between the dress and her skin.

Patricia ignored her.

A tall, narrow-faced woman approached Iseabal, jerked down on the bodice until the tops of her breasts appeared
like two round eggs sitting on a nest. She stared at herself in horror.

“I think we’ll leave her hair unpowdered,” Patricia said, waving away another woman bearing a box of powder and a paper cone. “But perhaps the smallest tint of rouge to her cheeks and her lips would not be amiss.”

Iseabal shook her head, but her protest was disregarded.

Stepping forward, a maid opened the small mahogany chest she held, revealing a selection of jewels sparkling in the candlelight.

Wide-eyed, Iseabal turned to her hostess. “I can’t wear any of these,” she protested.

Patricia nodded. “Perhaps you’re right, my dear. Your bosom will serve as a point of interest.”

Finally she was done and being turned in the direction of a pier glass. Startled, Iseabal gazed at the woman reflected there.

Not Iseabal Drummond, modest and neat, but another female with ivory skin and an overflowing bosom even now turning pink with embarrassment. Her coloring seemed too vivid against the emerald fabric, her lips red, her eyes too deep a green.

And her hair. What had they done to her hair? Riotous curls were tucked into a torturous style, held aloft by pins that gouged her scalp. Even the slippers she wore, sewn around her feet by one maid as another burned her hair into place with smoldering tongs, seemed too tight and uncomfortable to wear.

The room fell silent as they waited for her reaction. No doubt they expected rapturous delight and overflowing thanks, Iseabal thought, unable to look away from the spectacle of herself.

“I’m without words,” she said, speaking candidly. But it seemed to please them, because she was suddenly overwhelmed by the chatter of six women, all of whom were congratulating themselves on the success of her transformation.

She wanted herself back. Not the Iseabal who had stood before her father biting back words, nor the one who had silently married a stranger. Nor did she want to be the woman she had been on the voyage here. Instead, she wished for the girl who escaped from Fernleigh when she could, who conspired with a stable boy for freedom. The Iseabal who explored Gilmuir and dreamed of past glories, or of creating a masterpiece from stone.

Not this woman, laced and curled and painted to resemble someone else. Her hair was stiff with pomade, her face felt dry and powdery, but the Countess of Sherbourne smiled at her in approval.

“Let us go down to dinner, my dear,” Patricia urged.

One last, disbelieving look toward the mirror made Iseabal recognize one simple truth. She had never been good enough for anyone. Not for her father, not for the Countess of Sherbourne, and certainly not for Alisdair MacRae.

There in the mirror stood a caricature, neither the woman she wanted to be nor the silent and acquiescent person she’d always shown the world.

Iseabal had never been as miserable as she felt at this moment. Or as angry.

T
his sartorial splendor was hardly necessary, Alisdair thought, glancing at himself in the mirror. Whom exactly, was he trying to impress? His grandmother, perhaps. Certainly not the woman who had seen him at his worst. Grumpy, irritable, near sleepless as he lay beside her on the floor night after night.

He’d been placed in his grandfather’s room, Gerald’s chamber proving to be comfortable and welcoming. But as he closed the door behind him, Alisdair glanced at the bed, wondering why the thought of sleeping in comfort for the first time in more than a week was unappealing.

Two footmen at either side of the door stood like statues, their gaze fixed above him. Inscrutable and ever-present, Alisdair reflected, and as ubiquitous as the Sherbourne crest.

He entered the sitting room for the second time that day.
Walking to one of the long windows, he stood looking out at the night-darkened landscape.

Tomorrow, Alisdair decided, he would surrender all of this, but it was a sacrifice easily made. He had no connection to this land, no strange feeling of being pulled toward it as he had felt at Gilmuir.

The night was a silent one; there were no small cottages, no huddled dwellings lit brightly against an early dusk. Here, there were only the sounds of crickets and the plaintive bark of a fox hiding amidst the shadows.

In the darkness, the grass looked as black as the ocean at night. The great trees on the property appeared like shrouded giants.

The door opened and he turned to see a man enter. He was short, with a head of curling brown hair. His nose, hawklike and narrow, was accompanied by a thin mouth, giving him an appearance of an aesthetic who rarely saw humor in anything.

“Landers?” the other man said, inclining his head.

Legally, he supposed it was his name. Alisdair nodded cautiously. “And you are?” he asked.

“Robert Ames,” the other man said, pleasantly enough. “Your grandmother’s solicitor.” The look he gave Alisdair was a sweeping one, ending with a tight little smile.

“I didn’t realize you were to be here this evening,” Alisdair replied, moving to the fireplace. New logs had been added and the fire burned bright and hot. A concession to Patricia’s health, he thought.

“I’ve been in residence for weeks,” the solicitor explained. “Waiting for this very moment. Your grandmother is very pleased you were able to arrive so soon. She isn’t well, you know.”

“Yes,” Alisdair said shortly, the earlier visit to the second floor proving that. Her lips had been nearly blue when he’d escorted her to her chamber.

“You’re a sea captain, I was told,” Ames said, sitting in the wing chair with such ease that Alisdair suspected he’d done so many times before.

“I am,” Alisdair said, gripping his hands behind his back.

“I was given to understand that the Orient is familiar to you. I take it, then, that you were engaged in the opium trade.” The pleasantness of Ames’s tone was not sufficient to offset the insult of his remark.

“I was not,” Alisdair said tightly. “The English choose that trade, but I’ve no wish to carry death in my ship.”

The solicitor’s eyebrow arched, and his mouth turned down as if he doubted Alisdair’s words.

“And what trade were you involved in?” Ames asked, the veneer of politeness falling from his voice one word at a time.

“Is it any of your concern?” Alisdair returned calmly.

“Everything to do with the Sherbourne estates is my business,” Ames said curtly.

He should, Alisdair thought, simply tell Ames he’d no intention of assuming the Sherbourne title, and that the solicitor could take his questions and go to perdition. But Alisdair remained silent only because he was suddenly certain the information would please the other man.

“I was involved in mercantile trade, cloth and tea, in the East. I trust that satisfies your curiosity.”

“And now you’ve come into quite an inheritance,” Ames said. “How beneficial for you. A long-lost Lander’s heir.”

The door opened before Alisdair could respond, words stripped from him by the sight of Iseabal.

She looked like a different woman, one he might have noticed in a strange port, but only as a warning to his crew. Her ivory skin had been powdered, her cheeks and lips rouged, and if he wasn’t mistaken, her eyebrows and lashes had been darkened.

Where was the woman who’d sat in the stern of the
Fortitude
, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the block of ebony marble?

Patricia removed Iseabal’s shawl and for a moment Alisdair couldn’t swallow. That dress was entirely too revealing, he told himself. No wife of his…the thought stuttered to a halt. Iseabal of the guarded glance and a world of emotions in her eyes was not going to be his to champion or guard.

Why the hell had he ever decided on an annulment?

Glancing at Ames, Alisdair decided to seek other counsel in the matter of his marriage. The less the solicitor knew of his business, the better.

Patricia held out her hand, leaving Alisdair no choice but to extend his arm to her while Ames escorted Iseabal to dinner behind them.

“How exquisitely lovely you are,” Ames said, further irritating Alisdair. “If I may say so.”

Iseabal should have smiled shyly, as she did with him. Instead, she spoke, her voice low and resonant. “I’m afraid I don’t feel like myself,” she confessed.

She didn’t look like herself, either, Alisdair thought. Gone was the woman whose natural beauty was evident even when she stood drenched and shivering. In her place was a creature who looked as if she could cheerfully give a man the pox.

Unexpectedly, she laughed at something Ames said. Alisdair turned and glared at them both. Patricia patted his arm in
a grandmotherly gesture, but her smile, he noted, broadened with his frown.

Iseabal had never laughed with him.

Most of the dinner was pleasant enough, the conversation desultory, concerning Patricia’s health, the taste of various dishes, and the rebellious nature of the colonies.

During the meal, in which Ames uttered sycophantic pleasantries and never ceased in his visual admiration of Iseabal’s most noticeable attributes, Alisdair decided that he disliked the solicitor intently. The man was a toady, one of those breed who make their living currying the favor of the wealthy.

He sat back in his chair, resting his fingers on the edge of the table, and began tapping an impatient tattoo. Would this meal never be finished?

“I am in the presence of a famous man,” Ames remarked, suddenly turning his attention to him. Raising his wineglass, he toasted Alisdair with a sardonic smile. “I neglected to congratulate you earlier on your exploits,” he added.

Alisdair said nothing, waiting for Ames to continue.

“Are you famous, Alisdair?” Patricia asked, her smile determined.

“Did you not know that your grandson is renown in seafaring circles?” Ames asked, turning to his hostess. “Have you ever heard of Antarctica?”

Alisdair remained silent, every nerve attuned to Ames.

Ames’s smile broadened. “You stumbled upon a new continent.”

“Other men found Antarctica, not me,” Alisdair said, his composure never slipping despite his annoyance at the solicitor’s remarks and the tone in which they were uttered. Alis
dair wished, however, that the two of them were alone. He would be happy to divest Ames of that pleased little smile.

“But the notations in your log made it possible for them to do so. You saw something, didn’t you? An island, I believe. Or was it a peninsula?”

For all the distances it covered, the sailing community was a small one and renown for its accurate news gathering. Two ships could meet in mid-ocean and before they separated, their crews would be more informed than the residents of adjoining towns.

Alisdair couldn’t help but wonder, however, exactly how the solicitor had known of this little trick of his. Unless, he mused irritably, Ames had had him investigated. If that were the case, what else had he discovered? The fact that his father was still alive?

He took a sip of his wine, mentally cursing Ames. His irritation at the solicitor, however, was nothing compared to his sudden annoyance at Iseabal. Not only was she so exposed in that dress that he was amazed her breasts hadn’t landed in the soup, but she was now looking at him as if he were a stranger.

The moment stretched out between them as Alisdair patiently waited, much as he did for the first hesitant puffs of dawn wind. She said nothing, trapped in her eternal silence.

Finally he inclined his head toward her. “I have an ability to see far distances,” he explained. “That is all.”

“Perhaps we should call you Argus,” Ames said. “The Greek monster with a hundred eyes,” he added, studying Alisdair for a moment. “Although, I confess, I see but two.”

“What amazes me,” Patricia interjected, smiling, “is that you have an affinity for the sea at all. As I recall, your father did not.”

Alisdair smiled, but didn’t answer. He didn’t trust Ames, preferring not to discuss his father in front of him.

“The
Fortitude
is a beautiful ship,” Iseabal said suddenly, addressing her remarks to Patricia. “And when she’s under full sail, she feels like the wind itself.”

“How poetic of you,” Ames said, glancing at her with a thin-lipped smile. Alisdair sat back in his chair, suffused with a sudden wish to throttle the man and a longing to place his coat over Iseabal’s bodice, sparing her one more leering glance.

“Do you enjoy poetry, Ames?” Alisdair asked, smiling. “If so, then there are many seafaring ditties you might enjoy. Shall I recite them to you in the privacy of the library? And while we’re there,” he said, standing, “perhaps you might tell me where you obtained all your information about me.”
And just exactly what else you know.

Patricia stood, leaning heavily on her cane. “The two of you will meet soon enough tomorrow,” she said. “I think we should adjourn to the parlor. Only, however,” she added, fixing a stern gaze on the two of them, “if you can promise to be amiable.”

One of the footmen helped Iseabal with her chair, and she stood and joined Patricia, turning back to look at Ames.

He was once again, Alisdair suddenly realized, being dismissed.

Patricia led them to a chamber surpassing the luxury of the other public rooms Iseabal had seen.

The walls were covered in crimson damask, matching silk drapery framing both tall windows set into the longer wall. Like the corridor on the second floor, the ceiling was filled with rectangular panels, each one adorned with plaster fres
coes. The floor beneath her feet was comprised of shining mahogany boards and covered with a pale ivory rug. At the shorter end of the rectangular room was a fireplace, surrounded by a wooden mantel heavily carved with trailing vines and flowers.

Patricia walked heavily to a settee placed opposite the blazing fire. She looked tired, Iseabal thought, but then, this day had been an exciting one for her.

Iseabal would have joined the older woman, had her attention not been captured just then by an object standing in the corner of the room. Alone in an alcove that looked to have been created especially for it was the most beautiful work of art she’d ever seen. In a room crowded with antiques, ancestral portraits, and indications of the Sherbourne wealth, the statue of a young man was quietly magnificent.

She heard the door clicking shut behind her, the muted voices of the others fading as she walked closer to the figure. Easily taller than the MacRae, the likeness was carved in a blue-white marble, the rust-colored veins of the stone revealing it to be of some age.

In his right hand the young man held a ball tucked beneath his chin. His left arm was stretched outward as if to help him balance, one foot drawn up at the exact moment of turning. Placing her hand on his knee, Iseabal could almost feel the joint move beneath her fingers.

Tiny ringlets of hair framed his face, accentuated the aquiline nose and a mouth thinned in grim determination. Eyes, sightless and blank, nevertheless seemed to stare out at the world, a mute witness to the centuries.

Her thumb fingered the detail of the short toga the young man wore. Somehow, the artist had managed to shape the
stone over thickly muscled thighs and buttocks, yet still give the impression of a diaphanous garment.

Sliding her hand down the back of one knee, Iseabal marveled at the smoothness of the stone. Polishing often took longer than carving, requiring a dedication to detail and infinite patience. But perhaps the artist who had carved this work of art so brilliantly had had apprentices to perform this chore.

For a moment she stood in wistful silence, realizing that she would never have the talent to create something so exquisite. But she could learn, Iseabal told herself, hone her skills until she reached the pinnacle of what talent had been given her.

Turning, she almost bumped into the MacRae, his face as grim in purpose as this ancient boy’s.

“You’re falling out of your dress,” he observed brusquely.

Iseabal told herself that the sudden warmth she felt at his look was from irritation, not embarrassment. Truthfully, however, she felt more uncomfortable than alluring. The dress was too tight, and there was too much of her showing. But she was not in the mood to agree with the MacRae and further shame herself with the truth.

“It was your grandmother’s idea,” she said curtly. “Offer your complaints to her,” she added, her tone matching his.

“You shouldn’t be laced so tightly,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You might do injury to yourself.”

“I’m not wearing my stays,” she said, wondering at the sudden flush on his cheeks.

Patricia was speaking to a footman, and Ames was examining a small bronze on the mantel. Neither seemed to notice her and the MacRae.

His face was once again closely shaven, his lips unsmiling as he faced her. His gaze slid between her and the statue, a muscle in his cheek flexing as if he held back his words.

“Besides, why should you care, MacRae?” she asked, tipping her head up to meet his gaze, wishing that he were not as tall or that she did not feel so insignificant beside him.