Wishing For a Highlander (7 page)

Well, that explained the general attitude toward English spies she’d encountered.

She’d volunteered to head the Scottish Immigrants’ exhibit at the museum to get in touch with her Scottish roots. Looks like she got more than a touch. Run over by a steamroller was more like it. A laugh bordering on hysterical bubbled out of her throat.

Muffled voices filtered through the closed door as Edmund greeted his wife. When less than a minute later, a very male groan accompanied the rhythmic creaking of a piece of furniture, she gaped. Not much for preliminaries, sixteenth century Scotsmen.

Ignoring the sharp grunts of a male engaged in intercourse and the unsurprising lack of happy female noises, she retreated to the farthest place in the cottage from that door, which happened to be the workbench and raised stone hearth that formed the kitchen. She wasn’t about to waste an opportunity to study a late-medieval Scottish cottage.

Just as she held up to the lantern light a sharp cleaver with a wooden handle polished from years of regular use, Darcy ducked in the front door. At the same time, Edmund shouted, “Aye! Christ, Fran, take my seed, lass. Take it. Aaarrghhhhh!” Then barely audible, “Glorious, woman. Ye’re glorious.”

Darcy paled as his wide eyes jumped from the closed bedroom door to her.

“If I had to listen to them go at it for another second, I was going to put myself out of my misery,” she quipped, wagging the cleaver. When his eyes went even wider, she said, “Joking, Darcy. I was joking.” She put down the cleaver and raised her hands.

His eyes relaxed and the corner of his mouth lifted. He came to the workbench and picked up the enormous blade. “Well, so long as ye arena using it, mayhap I’ll carve the roast.”

* * * *

Okay, so maybe she’d been a bit hasty in her dismissal of medieval Scottish fare. Edmund’s wife, an auburn-haired, generously-endowed, rosy cheeked tornado of a woman, had prepared for “her lads” a decadent meal of roasted mutton, a buttery round of bread she called bannock, and a stew of onions and seaweed boiled in spiced milk. The seasoning was perfect, and the meal was both satisfying and nutritious.

“Now, what are we going to do about a dress for you?” Fran asked as she busily cleared the table and set the dirty wooden trenchers near the still-full bath basin. “Ye canna meet the laird in these rags.” She pinched Melanie’s cashmere-encased arm and stopped dead in her tracks. Fingering the material, she commented, “Hmm, mayhap they werena rags to start with. This is a fine woolen, if an odd color, but ’tis no good now, what with all this Gunn blood on it. I’d lend ye one of mine,” she said as she guided Melanie to the basin and whipped her sweater over her head before Melanie realized what she was doing. “But ye’re inches shorter and I havena time to tack up a hem if ye wish to see the laird before midnight. I’m terribly slow at sewing. I wonder…”

Melanie seized on her distraction and snatched her sweater back to hold in front of her chest. “Um, the men are still here–”

Melanie’s protest died on her lips as she met Darcy’s eyes. He’d had his head bent in whispers with Edmund until her sweater had been removed. Now he stared at her and nodded absently at whatever Edmund was saying. His gaze caressed her bare shoulders, pausing at her satiny bra straps with their little plastic clips that must be completely foreign to him. A flush warmed her skin, and it wasn’t all from embarrassment.

Fran turned her energetic gaze on Darcy. “Do ye suppose your mother’s dresses might fit?” she asked, oblivious to the heat in his gaze and the unsettling effect it was having on Melanie. “Fetch ye one or two when ye run up to Fraineach. Well, what are ye waiting for?” she demanded. “Go on with ye. Ye canna go to the laird in bloodied plaid.” Fran snapped her fingers in front of Darcy’s face until he stopped staring. He towered over the woman, yet he let her herd him out the door like a bashful boy being kicked out of the kitchen for sneaking sweets before dinner.

Without missing a beat, Fran pinned her husband with her glare. “And shame on you, Edmund Alexander MacFirthen Keith, for bathing before offering the clean water to our guest.” Since ye’re fed and cleaned, make yourself useful. Go fetch some slippers from Hannah. She’s got wee feet like Melanie. Then go up to Fraineach and help Darcy.”

In the next heartbeat, Fran was bent at Melanie’s feet, slipping off her loafers. “Come, now. Let’s get ye out of these clothes and washed up. The laird won’t wait on ye all night.”

Melanie submitted to the woman’s efficient ministrations, because she didn’t have a death wish, and clearly to defy Fran was to court a painful death. Beyond raising her eyebrows at Melanie’s rounded belly when she’d peeled off the maternity-paneled skirt, she made no comment, much to Melanie’s relief. It was awkward enough standing nude in a basin of used, room-temperature bathwater with a stranger rinsing blood and mud off of her, without having to explain being single and pregnant to a sixteenth-century Scottish woman. Fran did not let her get away with being clean-shaven, however.

“Bare as a newborn babe ye are,” she said, crouching and frowning at Melanie’s shins. “Under your arms, too. Where did ye say ye were from?”

“Uh, I’m from across the sea,” she said.

“Ah, Hasburg, aye? The Netherlands?” she added at Melanie’s blank look. “Must be the Spanish influence. Odd, them Spaniards. I’ve always said so.”

“Sure, the Netherlands.” Why not? It was a lie, but it would be a lot easier to explain than the truth. Besides, she was shivering too much to expound, and Fran seemed content to make clucking noises and general disapproving remarks about impractical Spanish fashion. To distract herself from the chill, Melanie interrupted Fran. “So, it sounds like the laird is expecting me?” She made it a question.

Fran made a throaty sound that might have been the equivalent of a modern-day
Mm-hm
. “Steafan will have heard all about the skirmish, and it seems plenty of men laid eyes on you. The laird will ken about ye by now, and he’ll be expecting ye, all right.” A wary note crept into her brisk burr, reminding Melanie about her earlier conversation with Edmund.

“Is there anything I should be aware of before meeting the laird?” she asked. “I mean, besides the fact that he’s suspicious of outsiders and might punish Darcy if I do anything to harm the clan?”

Fran froze as she searched a drawer. “Punish Darcy?” She stood up straight, a startled look on her face. “He didna claim responsibility for ye before an elder, did he?”

“Is Aodhan an elder?”

“He is,” Fran said with a twinkle in her eye that Melanie didn’t understand. She draped a linen blanket around Melanie’s shoulders and flitted around the cabin, humming to herself.

Frowning at Fran, Melanie stepped out of the basin to dry herself before the fire. “Am I missing something?”

Fran jumped, as if Melanie’s question had pulled her from a private thought. “Dinna fash yourself.” She looked down at Melanie’s abdomen, which peeked through the folds of the blanket, and her face split into a broad smile. “All ye need ken is that Darcy willna abide your harm. Come, now.” With a spring in her step, she led Melanie into the bedroom where her baby dozed with his little fists up by his ears on the rumpled bed. “I’ve got a shift ye can use that I can trim the hem from, but we’ll have to wait on the men for a proper dress. Now, how shall we do your hair? Up, I think. With a crown of heather. Aye. Darcy likes heather.”

With Fran on a mission, Melanie had no choice but to follow her and weather the bustling wind of her energy. She dressed Melanie in a long cotton slip and began twisting and piling her hair into a graceful up-do. Laird Steafan might not be known for his hospitality, but Melanie could find nothing to complain about when it came to the generosity of his cottars. In fact, Fran seemed positively delighted to have Melanie disturbing what would likely otherwise be a peaceful night with her husband and baby.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” she said to Fran, meeting her eyes in the small bronze mirror on the chest of drawers. “I really appreciate everything you’re doing for me.”

“Nonsense,” Fran said, her smile dimpling her cheeks. “It’s not hospitality. We’re practically family.”

Chapter 5

Darcy had been punched in the gut plenty, but never had he been nearly doubled over by the mere sight of a woman. Malina came out of Edmund and Fran’s bedroom dressed in his mother’s finest gown, which he’d plucked from the wardrobe up at Fraineach after deciding with no small amount of self-flagellation that he’d go through with Aodhan’s plan. The gown draped her from shoulder to floor in forest-green velvet. Gold ribbon wrapped her just below her bosom in a high waistline that hid the gentle swell of her belly. Ivory silk covered her arms and graced her neckline, which was low and so tight her creamy bosom pressed at the silk as if impatient to burst free.

She cleared her throat and he realized he’d been staring at that low neckline and the bounty it tried in vain to conceal. He snapped his eyes up to hers. They blazed with emerald humor.

“I see I’m about the same height as your mother,” she said, poking out the toe of her borrowed slipper from under the hem.

Fran bustled around her, frowning at the poor gown’s straining neckline. “Aye, though ye’re a bit more–” She pressed her lips and made a motion with her hands in the general vicinity of her own bosom. “As am I, dear, as am I. ’Tis tight, but ’twill have to do. By the look on poor Darcy’s face, I dinna think he minds much.”

He scowled at his sister-in-law before giving Malina his full attention. “You are lovely,” he told her, his eyes catching on the heather crown perched amidst her silvery hair. “So lovely,” he whispered in awe.

Fran giggled.

Malina’s cheeks flushed. She said, “You clean up well, yourself. This uncle of yours must be quite the particular man for everyone to have to dress to the nines just to go say ‘hi’ to him.”

He understood only every fourth word that came out of her mouth, but he caught her meaning just the same, since she was eyeing his best shirt and the deep green, finely-woven plaid his uncle had ordered from Edinburgh. Steafan had given it to him last year in a ceremony to honor him as heir. “Ye’ll wear it the day ye wed and the day ye become laird if the Lord doesna see fit to give me more bairns,” his uncle had said.

His gut curdled with guilt. Malina still didn’t suspect she was about to be wed. He was surprised Fran hadn’t told her. He looked at the woman questioningly, but she turned to a pile of dirty pots by the kitchen hearth, leaving him to his own mess.

“Best be off with you,” Fran said, her back to them. “Steafan willna like to be kept waiting.”

Unable to meet his unwittingly-betrothed’s eyes, he turned to the door. “Come along, Malina. ’Twill be over soon.”

He heard her steps behind him and wished he had the courage to take her hand and have her walk at his side. They went up to the keep that way, her trailing behind him, and stopped before the broad oak door. A prickle on the back of his neck meant the hidden guards were watching their every move. But Steafan would be expecting them, so the guards wouldn’t stop them from going in. Likely they wouldn’t even bother to show themselves.

But they couldn’t go in without first meeting Edmund. Darcy had sent him to fetch a gift for Malina, one that he hoped would make up for his deception.

“The castle looks bigger when you’re standing right next to it,” she said.

He glanced at her upturned face, innocent and inquisitive as she took in the stark gray wall of Ackergill Keep. The torchlight made her eyes shine like polished gems. Her pale cheeks glowed with vitality. Almost too bonny she was with her straight teeth gleaming like pearls between her parted lips and her long, black eyelashes, like a woman double blessed by Cliodna. His heart squeezed with mingled pride and guilt.

“’Tis a fine manor,” he said as he returned to scanning the dark lane for Edmund’s form. “Not much to look at, but easy to defend. She’s served the Keith well for nigh on three centuries.”

“Wow, a genuine medieval castle. Why aren’t we going in?”

“Christ, Darcy, she looks like a faery princess,” Edmund said out of the darkness. He’d come around the side of the keep, giving him a start.

“Dinna be blaming me. ’Twas Fran’s doing. Did you get it?”

“Aye.” Edmund transferred a heavy velvet sack into Darcy’s hand. When their da had been little more than a lad, he’d mined some gold with their grandsire. Most of his take had gone to building Fraineach and the mills, but he’d given some of the raw, precious mineral to each of his sons, making them promise to keep it in Ackergill’s treasury in case of dire circumstances. The sack that settled like a lump of lead in his sporran would be worth a small fortune to Malina, and because it wasn’t currency, she wouldn’t be hindered in exchanging it for whatever she needed, no matter where she went.

The prospect of parting with the gift from his da compressed his heart with sadness, but he kent his da would have approved the reason. If he couldn’t be there to take care of his wife himself, he could at least ensure she and her bairn were provided for. If she was wise with the gold, and he suspected she would be, it could meet whatever needs she had for her whole life.

Surely she would forgive him once he gave it to her. That and her wee box, which sat in his desk up at Fraineach. And he would take Aodhan’s advice and safely escort her all the way to her home. He would do all he could for her, and they would part on good terms.

Then he could return to Ackergill and begin to forget her. He’d forget about her brave green eyes, her silvery blond hair that must feel like silk in a man’s hands, her lush curves that had so unexpectedly and trustingly molded to his hard planes as he’d carried her, the delicate way her fingers cupped her precious womb, the bonny vision she made in his mother’s dress.