Amanda Scott (34 page)

She was not comfortable. What food they received consisted of bread and tea, except for bowls of some sort of stew that MacKellar brought them the first evening. The second evening the water was rough, so they had only bread and some water from a jug. Thus, when MacKellar came to tell them they had arrived, both of them were more pleased to hear it than one might have expected.

On deck, Bridget looked around and said, “Well, at least I know where we are. That’s Dunbeither House on the hillside there, so this is Poll Beither Bay.”

Pinkie said, “How far are we from Balcardane?”

“I don’t know, but we are only about eleven miles from Kilmory by sea, and Kilmory is but six miles across the peninsula from Mingary. From Mingary, Michael told me that he went to Balcardane in a day by riding through Glen Tarbert to Loch Linnhe, then sailing across and hiring a horse at Kentallen Inn.”

“We’ll be going ashore straightaway,” Sir Renfrew said from behind them.

Wondering how much he had overheard, Pinkie made no reply. Twenty minutes later, they entered Dunbeither House. Like a tour guide, Sir Renfrew told them that he had had the huge, sprawling house built himself when he realized that the house on his mother’s estate near Arisaig was too small and too far north to let him keep close watch over his property.

When he began to tell them how he had imported the marble for the hall floor from Italy, Bridget interrupted him. “We don’t care about your stupid house, sir. We are tired, hungry, and filthy, and we want to go home.”

“Ye are home now, lassie,” he said. “This is your home. I’ll take ye upstairs to your bedchamber m’self, and MacIver there can get some lads to draw ye a bath. Ye’ll want to be clean and sweet-smelling for your wedding night.”

“I am
not
going to marry you,” Bridget snapped without glancing at the man near the stairway to whom Sir Renfrew had pointed.

“Aye, but ye are. I’ve sent MacKellar for the parson, and we canna waste him, after all. Would ye like me to carry ye upstairs, lass?”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, sir,” MacIver said hesitantly.

“What the devil do ye want?”

“It’s Gabhan MacGilp, sir, and his cow—the one ye ordered Mr. MacPhun to put yer brand on.”

“What about him?”

“MacGilp still hasna got the gelt to pay his shot, but he’s been stirring up trouble over the wee cow…”

Pinkie took advantage of the diversion to say in an undertone to Bridget, “You had better do as he says, I think, for now.”

Bridget shot her an angry look, but she did not argue.

“…and Mr. MacPhun says—”

“I’ll talk to MacPhun,” Sir Renfrew growled, “and I’ll put a flea in MacGilp’s ear, as well.” Dismissing MacIver, he turned back to the women. “Come along now, the pair o’ ye. I’m in no mood for more of your nonsense.”

They followed him upstairs to find that the bedchamber he had prepared for his bride was spacious, and since it faced west, the setting sun filled it with light. When they entered, a plump, middle-aged woman turned from smoothing the bedcovers to greet them.

“This is Mrs. MacIver,” Sir Renfrew said as the woman made her curtsy. “She’ll see to your needs and help ye bathe if ye’d like her to do so.”

Keeping her tone firm but quiet, Pinkie said, “I shall help Lady Bridget.”

“Do as ye like,” he said with a shrug. “I should ha’ thought maiding the lass would be beneath ye now ye’re a countess and all, but I willna stop ye. This is Lady Kintyre, Mrs. MacIver. She will be our guest yet a while.”

“Aye, sure, and welcome, m’lady,” Mrs. MacIver said, smiling and bobbing another curtsy.

“Just what am I supposed to wear after I’ve bathed?” Bridget demanded. “No one has brought up my portmanteau, so I do not even have a wrapping gown.”

“Someone will bring your box along, but ye dinna need it, lassie. My lads will bring ye a trunk wi’ clothes aplenty, for I took the liberty o’ purchasing a few things in London for my bride, ye see. I even had a wedding dress made up for ye.”

“I won’t wear it,” Bridget said. “It probably won’t fit anyway if your idiot seamstress tried to make it without so much as a single fitting on me.”

“Ye’ll wear it if I have to put it on ye m’self,” he said with a grim look. He said no more but left the room, whereupon Bridget dissolved in tears.

“How could Michael have let this happen?” she wailed.

“Stop that or I swear I will box your ears,” Pinkie said sharply. “This is not Michael’s fault It is no one’s fault but your own. Mrs. MacIver, unless you have other chores to see to here, you may leave us. I trust that bellpull by the fireplace will bring you back when I ring.”

“Aye, my lady.” Without another word, the woman left the room.

“Now, you may listen to me,” Pinkie said to the still sniffling Bridget. “You have behaved just about as badly as anyone could, and I don’t intend to listen to you snivel about it now. I did not say anything before, because I had no notion what we were in for and I could not imagine that berating you would accomplish any good. Now, however, it appears that this horrid man intends to marry you and to keep us both prisoner. I do not think any parson will agree to perform the ceremony, but just in case he has got one who will, we need to form a plan. So you can just stop feeling sorry for yourself and try to think sensibly instead.”

“But what can we do?”

“I don’t know, but we cannot have much time. If he has sent for the parson, he must mean to marry you quickly, although I should think he will wait until morning, at least, so as not to cast a bad light on his marriage. But that only gives us the one night, so we must both think as hard as ever we have. Here come the men with your bathwater now, I think,” she added, hearing noises outside the door.

Two men brought in a large tin bathtub, and two others carried a heavy trunk behind them. Setting these things down on the floor, all four left, only to return minutes later carrying buckets of hot water, with which they filled the tub. While they were working, Pinkie and Bridget opened the trunk.

“Faith,” Pinkie exclaimed, “he’s bought you a fortune in gowns!”

“Brussels lace,” Bridget said, fingering the bodice on top.

“Would you like to change your mind?” Pinkie asked dryly.

“Don’t be stupid. I want to go home.”

“Well, let’s bathe first. We can plan while we get rid of some of this filth, and then, if you don’t mind, perhaps I could also find something in that trunk to wear. It never occurred to me that I’d not run you to earth in an hour or so, and I have only the clothes I’m wearing.”

“Take whatever you want,” Bridget said. “Those things are as likely to fit you as they are to fit me, for all that you’re smaller than I am. Is there a screen for that tub? I don’t want that horrid man walking in on us.”

As she helped Bridget bathe, Pinkie found herself wishing that Michael really were her ghost, and could appear out of the thin air to help them. She knew that he would try to follow them, but even if he had somehow managed to do so, she knew he must be far behind. She had left messages for him and for Duncan wherever she and Mr. Conlan had stopped, but she knew that if the others stopped at every likely place along the road in hopes of finding such a message, their journey would take them twice as long as hers had.

“We still do not have any plan,” Bridget said a half hour later as she tied the sash of a wrapping gown around her waist. They had changed places, but she did not offer to help Pinkie bathe, moving instead to the dressing table, where she found a brush and began brushing her hair. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Pinkie said, scrubbing and enjoying the warm water despite their predicament. “I’ve thought and thought, and I cannot think of a thing except that we’ve got to find a way out of here before that parson arrives.”

“But even if we could get out of the house, there are people all over the place. How could we get away?”

“I saw small boats in the harbor,” Pinkie said. “I can sail one if I have to, if you know where we can go.”

“That’s easy. We’ll go to Mingary.”

“Do you have men-at-arms there? Can they protect us when he follows us?”

Bridget frowned. “Not many—not anymore—and they’re not men-at-arms exactly, only tenants, herds, and servants. Do you really think he would follow us?”

“Certainly he would, and he’d have an army with him. You saw how many men there were outside when we arrived, and most were wearing swords.”

Bridget sighed. “Then where can we go?”

“The first problem is how to get out of this house.” As she was emerging from the bath a few minutes later, a rap on the door announced Mrs. MacIver’s return. “I told you to wait until I rang for you,” Pinkie said.

“Aye, my lady, but the master said I were to come up and help the young lady dress, and I hope ye’ll no refuse to put on the wedding gown, miss—that’d be the blue one, he said—because he said he’ll be up himself in twenty minutes.”

Bridget exchanged a look with Pinkie but made no further complaint, and it was just as well, because it was nearer fifteen minutes than twenty when Sir Renfrew returned. By then, however, both young women were decently clad.

Pinkie wore a simple shell-pink silk bodice and skirt she had found in the trunk. By draping the skirt over her own demi-hoop, then rolling it at the waist and having Mrs. MacIver lace the vee-shaped stomacher bodice tightly, she believed she presented a respectable appearance.

Bridget wore Sir Renfrew’s exquisite wedding gown of aquamarine silk, trimmed with white Brussels lace over pannier hoops that swayed enticingly when she walked. If the bodice was tight across the low-cut bosom and a little loose in the waist, neither defect reduced the gown’s beauty, or hers.

Sir Renfrew nodded with approval. “Aye, sure, but ye’re a lovely lass,” he said. “Go now, Mrs. MacIver, and tell the parson we’ll be along shortly.”

“He’s here?” Bridget and Pinkie spoke as one.

“Aye, sure, he is. Ye’ll be a bride within the hour, my love, but first we are going to enjoy a wee chat.”

Pinkie said, “You cannot have found a parson willing to perform a ceremony with an unwilling bride, sir.”

“Have I not, then? The matter willna arise, in any event, because the lassie will be willing enough when the time comes to say her lines.”

“I won’t do it!”

“Then ye’ll be verra sorry, Bridget, for I mean to take ye as my wife before the night is done, with or without a parson saying the words. In the end, by good Scottish law, our joining will be as legal either way.”

Indignantly, Bridget said, “That is rape, sir!”

“Aye, sure, and I’d prefer a willing bride, as I’ve told ye, but willing or no, ye’ll be mine. Moreover, I’ll no have ye shaming me before the parson. I should dislike having to be harsh with ye, but I shall punish ye severely if ye give me cause. I mean to have my way, lass.”

“The parson will take me away from here if I tell him I don’t want to stay.”

“Nay, lass, he will not, for he kens well how many armed men I have, and he is but one man alone. We’ll do him no harm, but my lads will escort him home again, and it will be his word against mine and all of theirs as to what passed here. Ye might also give a thought to your brother, when all is said and done.”

“What about him?” Pinkie asked anxiously.

“I’m thinking he might come here to find you,” Sir Renfrew said, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling. “It would be a pity and all if some accident were to befall him, especially since he has not yet repaid his debt to me. Not only would all his lands come to me, but unless Lady Kintyre here is already with child, you would inherit a portion of the castle, and thus it would come to me, as well.”

Remembering how easily Sir Renfrew had raised his pistol to kill Cailean, Pinkie shivered at the thought that he might do the same to Michael.

Bridget said angrily, “If you hurt Michael, I would never speak to you again, and, I promise you, you will have to force me every time you want to couple!”

“I see ye are beginning to accept the inevitable, lass. Nothing will happen to Kintyre so long as ye go through the ceremony peaceably—and that goes for you, too, my lady. I believe my lass should have a woman to stand up with her, and folks would wonder why ye did not do so, since ye are here. Ye can do so willingly, or I can lock ye up till it’s done. If ye agree, I’ll expect ye to keep your word.”

Pinkie nodded, seeing nothing to be gained by pointing out that his word was not exactly dependable. Still, she could accomplish nothing if she were locked up somewhere, unable even to know what was happening. “I give you my word, sir.”

“That’s a good lass.”

He gave them no more time to think, let alone to talk privately, hustling the pair of them back along the corridor—lighted now by candles in wall sconces—then downstairs to the hall and into a room with a large fireplace, in which a fire roared. More candles lighted the room, an elegant French floral carpet covered much of its floor, and the furnishings made it clear that he used the room for many purposes. A dining table stood at the far end, and a desk at the near end. Chairs and sofas rested against the walls, ready to be drawn forward when needed.

MacKellar was there with an older man, who smiled at their entrance.

“This lovely creature must be your intended bride, Sir Renfrew.”

“Aye, Parson, and she is lovely, is she not? Shall we get on with it?”

“Have you not invited other guests, sir, perhaps her family?”

“This is her sister-in-law,” Sir Renfrew said smoothly. “She will stand up with the lass.”

“And what is the bride’s name?”

Sir Renfrew hesitated for the first time. “Bridget,” he said at last.

“I am Lady Bridget Mingary,” Bridget said, raising her chin.

“He requires only your given name, lass,” Sir Renfrew said.

Pinkie saw his hand tighten on Bridget’s arm, and held her breath when she saw the girl stiffen.

Bridget remained silent.

The parson said, “Lady Bridget Mingary? Then you must be Kintyre’s sister. This seems very strange to me. Surely there were settlement papers to sign, so I do not understand why your brother has not honored the occasion with his presence.”