Highlander in Love Page 10

  I t seemed like hours later that Miss Douglas’s many things were finally packed. The woman had more possessions than most families could possibly own.

  When all the trunks were at last carried down, Mared stayed behind to clean the room. By virtue of her family’s declining fortune, Mared and her mother had learned to clean and to do so efficiently, for old castles were rather hard to keep tidy. But she had no intention of truly cleaning a blooming thing in this house and tidied Miss Douglas’s room by tossing a few things here and there, behind chairs and under the bed. And then, feeling quite emotionally and physically exhausted, she lay down on Miss Douglas’s bed and had a bit of a nap.

  She awoke a half hour later, quite refreshed, and picked up the two discarded gowns Miss Douglas had left behind, wadded them like dirty linens, stuffed them under her arm, and took them to her room. She’d decide what to do with them later.

  In the first room on the third floor, which was bare save one wardrobe, she found the housekeeper’s uniform: black gown with long black sleeves, white apron, and a white cap with black trim that Mared, in silent defiance, refused to wear. But once she donned the uniform and peered at herself in the mirror she thought the uniform was not as bad as it might have been, and thought it really went rather well with her walking boots. It did not, however, fit her very well. It was too snug in the bosom and too wide at the hip. But Mared scarcely cared—she’d wear rags if she could.

  Dressed in the housekeeper’s gown, she determined she should meet the two chambermaids and make a proper introduction. She wandered the entire house, finally finding the two lassies on the basement floor, folding linens. Both curtsied quickly when Mared paused in the doorway.

  “Good day. I’m Mared,” she said, walking into the linen closet, her hand extended.

  The small, dark-haired girl introduced herself as Rodina. Una was the chubby lass with the red hair and apple cheeks. They both looked at her expectantly.

  “Well then!” Mared said brightly, clasping her hands together and rocking a bit on her feet. “I’m not entirely certain how this shall unfold, but if ye’ve any questions of me, please do ask.”

  Rodina and Una looked at one another. Una blurted, “Is it true, Miss Lockhart? Were ye to marry the laird?”

  That was most certainly not what Mared had thought they might ask, and it caught her off guard. “No,” she said, blushing furiously, damn it. “The Lockharts and Douglases are mortal enemies—that is why I’ve been enslaved here as his housekeeper.”

  “Enslaved?” Una echoed incredulously, and looked at Rodina.

  “Mortal enemies?” Rodina asked Mared, looking quite confused.

  “Enemies,” Mared insisted. “And quite firmly enslaved. So then! What are we to do?” she asked brightly in a frantic attempt to change the subject.

  The two lassies gaped at her. “Ye donna know?” Una asked.

  “I’ve no’ the slightest idea,” Mared cheerfully admitted.

  More confused than ever, the two girls haltingly told Mared they were to clean the dowager’s study after finishing the linens. When Mared confessed to being a wee bit surprised, as there was not now or had there ever been a dowager at Eilean Ros that she was aware of, the girls nodded.

  “Aye,” Una said, unabashedly rolling her eyes. “’Tis in the north wing that is seldom used. Miss Douglas required the cleaning of that wing every week.”

  Did she indeed? Mared knew from her experience at Talla Dileas that when one didn’t have the required number of servants to maintain a very large house, one shut off as many rooms as possible. If Miss Douglas wanted them open, she could bloody well come back from Edinburgh and clean them.

  She smiled genuinely for the first time that day, and asked, “Did Mrs. Craig keep furniture coverings about? I’m no’ of a mind to be dusting and cleaning a room that no one will see for a year, aye?”

  Rodina and Una blinked at her, then at one another, and then turned twin smiles to Mared. “Aye!” they agreed in unison.

  They spent the afternoon inspecting many of the rooms of Eilean Ros, during which time Mared could not help but be awed by the wealth of Douglas. Every room boasted expensive artwork and valuable knickknacks made of china, porcelain, or gold; fine Oriental rugs and French furniture; and frankly, Mared had never seen so many beeswax candles in her life. There was not a single paraffin candle in the lot of them, and there was a room below that held nothing but beeswax candles.

  The magnitude of wealth in this house took her breath away. It was, in a sense, unthinkable. When she’d been a young lass roaming the hills around Talla Dileas, she used to imagine she was someone else entirely—a lass with no curse, obviously. But rich, too. Born of the aristocracy. Worldly and well traveled and beautiful and clothed in silks from Paris. She would have imagined herself in a house just like this, too, surrounded by fawning men.

  Instead, she was watching Rodina and Una dust and cover the furniture. Their industrious nature was why she eventually rose from the armchair where she was resting and sat herself at a writing desk to pen a letter to the Dull and Stodgy laird.

  She had determined, with Rodina and Una’s help, that at least three-quarters of the rooms in the house were so seldom used that it made little sense to keep them open. She’d studiously made a list of those to be closed off—at Una’s insistence, for Una in particular seemed to think the laird’s permission was required.

  Mared was not going to ask, precisely. But she did feel it was her duty to inform. And so determined was she in her letter that she was surprised when Una begged her leave to attend supper.

  “Supper?” Mared said, looking at a Louis IV mantel clock. “He’s no’ yet rung for tea.”

  “He doesna take tea unless he has guests, miss,” Rodina said. “It’s only the laird, and he prefers an early supper. Early to bed, early to rise, he says.”

  “Seems perfectly tedious,” Mared opined. But Una explained that she set the servants’ dining table, and that they all dined together at six.

  “As early as that?” Mared exclaimed. “Little wonder there is no tea served in this house. What would be the point of it?”

  “Aye, miss,” Una said.

  Mared shrugged and turned back to her letter. “I suppose, then, I shall join ye promptly at six.” And indeed, a half hour later, Mared made her way to the servants’ dining room, stopping in the main foyer to lay the note for His Highness on a silver tray where she gathered Beckwith collected the post, and then onward, to the room where several of the other servants were gathered.

  The coachman was already seated and nodded politely to Mared. The cook, an elderly woman with gray hair and one good eye, bustled in with a large platter of what looked like lamb chops. She paid Mared little heed at all, except to tell her that they were in need of flour, and that for a couple of shillings and a tart, the gamekeeper’s boy would go to Aberfoyle on the morrow to fetch it.

  Rodina appeared with a platter of leeks behind a pale scullery maid who curtsied politely. “Ye may sit at the end of the table, miss, across from Mr. Beckwith,” Rodina said as she placed the platter of leeks on the table. And as Mared took her seat, Beckwith entered. On his heels were the three footmen. They were a collegial group, obviously, laughing and shoving playfully as they entered the room.

  “Is it to be all of us, then?” asked the footman who had introduced himself last night as Charlie.

  “Aye, all save Willie. The laird has no’ come in,” Beckwith said as he took his seat and nodded curtly at Mared.

  “Gone off with a lass, has he?” a tall, handsome footman asked and winked at Mared as he laughed with the other men, until a stern look from Beckwith made him move on, around the table, to his chair.

  “He’s sweet on Miss Crowley,” Rodina haughtily informed them as she wiped her hands on her apron. “I heard him say so this very morn.”

  “In his bed again, Rodina?” another footman asked, and Rodina slapped him on the back of his head, much to the delight of the other
footmen.

  “Miss Crowley, aye,” the tall footman said. “She’s a bonny one.” He made a crude outline of breasts against his chest, which provoked another round of hearty laughter from most everyone.

  Save Beckwith. “Alan!” he snapped. “I’ll thank ye to mind yer manners in the presence of the women! And here is our new housekeeper to witness ye behaving so badly!”

  Alan glanced at Mared, openly sizing her up as the others took their seats around the large table.

  “The new housekeeper is a far sight bonnier than the last,” Alan said, smiling at Mared.

  “Oh, Alan!” Una exclaimed, frowning. “And Mrs. Craig no’ yet cold in her grave!”

  “That is quite enough!” Beckwith admonished them. “May I present to ye Miss Lockhart of Talla Dileas. Ye will introduce yerselves according to yer rank,” he said and picked up a linen napkin, stuffed it into his collar, and nodded at Una to pass him the lamb.

  They went around the table. Charlie and Alan greeted her with big smiles and leering eyes, but Jamie, the third footman, seated on her right, looked at her skeptically and said little as the first course was served.

  The coachman, Mr. Haig, nodded politely and informed her that the young groom, William, did not, as a rule, dine with the others, lest there was a visitor. “And then again, the laird, he comes round late many nights,” he informed her.

  The cook, Mrs. Mackerell, and the scullery maid, Moreen, said little.

  It wasn’t until the main course of lamb chops and oatmeal bannocks was eaten that Jamie leaned back in his chair and studied Mared with a smirk. “Ye’re her, are ye no’? The accursed one?”

  That certainly brought the conversation to a grinding halt, and Mared slowly lowered her fork. “I beg yer pardon?”

  “Ye’re cursed by a’ diabhal, aye?” he asked, ignoring the gasps of the cook as he eyed her like a curiosity in the Glasgow circus.

  “Jamie!” Beckwith said sharply, but the footman was undeterred. “Beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Beckwith, but I heard all of it the night of the ceilidh,” he said, and leaned forward with a dark grin. “They say ye are a witch,” he challenged her.

  Mared couldn’t help but laugh. “A witch! Do they really say so? Then I’ve come up in the world, sir.”

  “Then ye confess to being a witch, Miss Lockhart?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  She laughed again. “If I were a witch, sir, do ye think I’d seek work as a housekeeper?”

  Everyone but Jamie laughed at that—but her levity did nothing to quell the sudden interest in her, and from Mrs. Mackerell, a look of horror and revulsion.

  This was the moment she despised, the moment when people around her realized there might be something horribly contemptible or frightening about her, and she could feel a cold, empty space suddenly surrounding her, forcing her apart from the rest of the world. It was a moment like a thousand other moments in her life that had long since settled into a distant hum, for she’d learned long ago, when she was just a child, that there was no point in sulking about it. She did what she always did—she smiled down the table and said with all confidence, “I’m no’ a witch.”

  “A sorceress, then,” Jamie insisted.

  “No, no’ a sorceress,” she scoffed playfully. “A troll.”

  Moreen tittered at that.

  “I live beneath the old bridge over the water in Glen Ketrich. Ye know the one, aye? I’ve a few wee goblins to tend the garden, but mostly, it’s just us trolls,” she said lightly.

  Alan, God bless him, laughed and said, “Aye, I know the bridge. I think the henwife lives there, too, does she no’?”

  “Aye!” Mared said brightly. “Why, she’s the housekeeper—who do ye think taught me, then?”

  Everyone laughed at that; even Mr. Beckwith smiled.

  “If ye’re no’ a witch,” Jamie doggedly pressed on, “then why are ye here? Ye are a Lockhart, aye? Quality, ye are. But ’tis the daughter of a Lockhart,” he said, turning excitedly to the others, “who is cursed until she looks in the eye of a’ diabhal—”

  “Belly,” Mared said with a smile, resigning herself to the notion that he might as well recite the curse correctly if he was to mention it at all.

  “Eh, what?” Jamie asked, startled.

  “The daughter of a Lockhart must look in the belly of the beast. No’ his eye.” At Jamie’s look of confusion, she sighed. “If ye are to tell my secrets, Jamie, I’d have ye tell them correctly. ’Tis said that the daughter of a Lockhart will no’ marry until she looks into the belly of the beast,” she informed them, “which ye may take to mean the devil, but for all I know, I should look in the belly of an old coo!”

  Alan laughed again, but none of the others laughed. They just looked at her curiously, their fascination plainly evident.

  “’Tis true, then,” Jamie said, his voice lower, his eyes fixed on her. “They say any man who comes round with the intent of offering marriage to her will lose his life…or she hers,” he said ominously and glanced around at the others. “Ye recall his lordship fell off the terrace the night of the ball? He was no’ alone on that terrace—’tis common knowledge. And it’s right odd that the balustrade would give way as it did that night.”

  “Odd, indeed,” Mared said and tapped him on the arm. “But ye forget one important fact, sir. The laird was no’ intent on offering for me.”

  “But…Miss Douglas said that he was!” Una whispered, wide-eyed.

  “That’s quite enough!” Beckwith said sharply, slapping his hand down on the table and startling them all. “I willna abide any tales of witches and fairies, and furthermore, the laird was no’ set to offer for any lass. If there is to be an offer, it will likely be for Miss Crowley, and ye—”

  He stopped, quickly raising a hand for everyone to remain silent. They all heard it then—the tingling of the bell. “He’s arrived,” Beckwith said, and stood abruptly. “Jamie,” he said. “Ye are with me.”

  Jamie did not hesitate to rise and toss his napkin aside and follow Beckwith out.

  The rest of them began gathering plates and serving platters. Mared did, too, but as she walked into the kitchen, she noticed Mrs. Mackerell quickly crossing herself.

  Eleven

  P ayton had ridden out with Sarah’s coach, then had kept on riding to get as far from Eilean Ros as possible. He could not imagine now what he’d been thinking when he’d conjured up this preposterous scheme. Oh, aye, he wanted some revenge, but he took no pleasure in Mared’s anger or her tears as he thought he would. And now she would bedevil him—inexplicably cheerful, entirely inept as a housekeeper, and even worse, those green eyes were now everywhere in his house.

  He rode about the vast acreage of his estate looking at sheep and calling on tenants, trying desperately to clear his mind. But as it was obvious those hearty souls had more important work to do than speculate with him about the date of the first frost, he’d gone on to Aberfoyle. After two generous drams of whiskey at the local tavern, he called to Finella, a serving wench he knew intimately, and proceeded upstairs with her.

  In the room, he locked the door at his back, turned to a smiling Finella, who was well accustomed to their couplings, and was already massaging her breast in anticipation of what was to come.

  “Undress,” he commanded her and stood there, his back to the door, watching her as she disrobed. It was something he enjoyed, watching a woman remove her clothing a piece at a time, but for once, Finella’s disrobing did not spark the least bit of interest in him.

  And again, when he sank between Finella’s fleshy thighs and put his mouth to her large breast, her body did not arouse his usual lusty response. It was, he thought indignantly, Mared he thought of, Mared he saw when he closed his eyes and plunged into Finella.

  And it was that abominably angry kiss he thought of, too—the moment he had lost control and taken her lips in anger.

  The memory made his tryst laborious—it seemed forever before he found his release, long after Finella had found
hers and lost interest. But he wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. It seemed a door-die mission, as if completing this single act would prove that Mared hadn’t effectively neutered him.

  When he at last found his pitiful release, Finella wiggled out from beneath him and began to gather up her clothing. “Beggin’ yer pardon, milord, but they’ll be looking for me below,” she said apologetically and slipped a foot into her stocking, which she rolled up her leg as her breasts swung from her chest.

  Lying naked on top of the linens, his head propped up on a stack of pillows, Payton reached for one breast and fingered the nipple absently.

  “If ye’ll pardon me saying, milord, you donna seem yerself today,” Finella observed as she moved to fetch her other stocking.

  It was true. He hadn’t been himself in more than a fortnight, since the ball. Worse, he’d never, not in his thirty-two years on this earth, not once thought of sex as tedious. He leaned over the bed, picked up his trousers, and fished a five-pound banknote from his pocket and wordlessly handed it to Finella.

  Her eyes grew round; she eagerly took it. “Ye’re right generous, milord.”

  “And ye are patient,” he said wearily.

  “I had a patron much like yerself once,” she said as she stuck the banknote in the top of her stockings and picked up her chemise. “A fancy lord, he was. Never gave me more than a few shillings,” she said as she wiggled into her chemise and picked up her dress. “But one day, nigh on Easter, he came to the inn and stayed all night, he did.”

  She paused, pulled her gown over her head, then whirled around, and sat on the edge of the bed so that he might button her. “Aye, and?” Payton asked lazily as he buttoned her gown.

  “The very next morn, he gave me three full pounds!” she exclaimed.

  “Ye did something quite memorable, I’d wager.”

  “Oh no,” she said, standing once Payton had finished buttoning her. “’Twas naugh’ but the usual bit of ruttin’. Yet he gave me the three pounds for it all the same, and I never saw him again.” With that, she stuffed the banknote Payton had given her into her bosom. “Will I no’ see ye again, milord?”