They stared at each other from inches apart. “Cozy,” he said.
“What the devil are you doing here?” she hissed.
“The same could be asked-” he began, but in that instant, she slapped her hand over his mouth.
“So all is well with you and yours?” said the marquis.
The sound of the door was distinct, rather like the final closing of a stone casket.
“Aye, well enough,” said Sir Charles and continued to tell about his father’s father who lived in Newbury.
Pressed up against MacGowan like an ardent hound, Rhona held her breath and watched his eyes. The dialogue droned on.
“More wine?” asked the marquis.
Rhona could only assume the answer was affirmative, for in a moment they heard the clink of glass against metal.
“And what of you, my lord?” asked Charles. “I trust you and yours are doing well.”
The conversation continued with talk of taxes and rents and news of ever increasing wealth.
Rhona shifted her weight carefully to her opposite foot and forced herself to ignore the feel of MacGowan’s biceps against her breast, though they felt as hard as living granite. Neither did she fail to notice when his fingers skimmed her hair.
”The harvest is bountiful.”
His lips brushed her ear. Against her will her eyes fell closed.
”Aye. The weather has been favorable.”
Lachlan slipped his hand behind her neck. Beneath his fingers, magic sparked. His lips found hers. Her knees felt weak.
A scrape of noise alerted her. MacGowan jerked away. Footfalls drew closer. She held her breath. They shuffled off. Against her breast, she felt Lachlan ‘s hard body relax marginally.
”And your daughters, they are doing well?” asked Charles.
The marquis didn’t respond immediately, and when he did his voice was slurred. “Young Lady Rhona of Nettlepath arrived to care for them.”
“Lady Rhona?” The knight sounded interested in a bored sort of fashion. “I don’t believe I’ve met her. Is she fair?”
“She is a strange lass,” mused the marquis. “To your liking then.”
“She wears a silver shell I plan to add to my collection.”
“Just one of many then? Or shall I be expecting Claronfell to have an heir soon?”
“Don’t speak to me of heirs!” rasped Lord Robert.
The rustling sound was more labored now, and Rhona knew it was the marquis who had found his feet. He roamed about the room as she held her breath.
“My apologies,” said Charles. “But you do have two bonny daughters.”
“To hell with my daughters and Lama as well!” hissed the marquis, and they could hear him pivot about. His footsteps faltered.
“I did not mean to offend, my lord,” said Charles. “Leave me be,” said the marquis. He was not a charming drunk. “I ask only one thing of you.”
Sir Charles drank and sighed. “‘Tis a fine wine,” he said. “Is it from your own vineyards?”
“Damn you and this senseless prattle,” said the marquis. ”Are the plans set or nay?”
“Aye, they are set, but I have been reconsidering the price,”
“I have already paid you well.”
“But you have asked a large…” Charles drank again.
There was a shrug in his tone. “Shall I call it a favor?”
“Call it whatever you like. Just see that the job is done.”
“It shall be. For a bit more coin.”
“More!” the marquis growled. Someone paced the room. Rhona’s arm felt cramped against MacGowan’s side, but she dare not ease it. “We had an agreement.”
“That was before I learned more of the situation.”
“Frightened, Charles?”
The other laughed. It sounded no more sober than his companion. “Let me just say that I am not a fool.”
“How much more do you want?”
“Double the amount.” The marquis swore.
“I will need it to pay the others,” Charles explained. ”They can be trusted?”
”They too were wronged, it seems, and though they have the perfect opportunity, none will expect trouble from that front. You know how he cherishes his bonny Highland rabble.”
Glass clinked against metal again. There was the sound of drinking, then pacing. Rhona held her breath as the footfalls came closer.
“Very well,” said the marquis. He was very close, just on the far side of the wall. “But I want to see it with my own eyes.”
”‘There will be a puppet show and a man dressed in naught but rags. I suggest you stay close to the puppeteer.”
“A puppeteer,” said the marquis, and laughed. His footfalls sounded closer, and suddenly he was there, gazing at the books. In a moment, a fragment of a second, he would turn and see them. But in that instant, MacGowan reached out. Quick as a serpent, he was. Grabbing the marquis by the back of his skull, he slammed the man’s head against the bookshelf. Before Rhona could stop him, he’d stepped into the open, but one glance told him Charles was still turned away. Lachlan was back in hiding before the marquis’s back struck the floor.
There was a moment of absolute silence, during which Rhona dared not breathe.
“Damn,” drawled Charles. “A coward and a drunkard.” There was the sound of a satisfied sigh as he finished up his drink and left the room.
The footsteps had no more than disappeared when MacGowan stepped out of hiding. Taking one glance into the chamber, he snatched up Rhona’s hand and dragged her out with him.
She scrambled over the marquis and rushed to the door. In an instant they were in the hallway and only a few moments later Lachlan had closeted them away in her room.
The door shut with a click behind them, and then he turned to her.
“Explain,” he said.
She lifted her chin and held his gaze as her mind raced round and round like a carousel gone mad. A puppeteer. A man in rags. “Explain what?” she asked.
He smiled, but the expression was hard. “What were you doing in the library?”
“I went to borrow a book.” None will expect it from that front. What front? Who?
“Truly?”
“Aye.”
“You lie,” he said.
She shrugged. “You may believe whatever you wish to believe.”
“Whatever I wish!” He slammed his palm against the wall beside her head. “I’ll tell you what I want to believe,” he growled. “I want to believe that you have come to Claronfell to care for those wee lassies. I want to believe that you have not lied to them, that you are not lying to me, but I tell you true, warrior, I am having a bit of trouble with that.”
”Then try harder, champion,” she gritted, and moved to slip away from the wall.
He caught her arm and pulled her back. “What are your plans, woman?”
“Plans?”
“Why are you truly here?”
Her mind spun like a wooden top. Surely she could trust him with the truth. Indeed, she longed to, for she needed help to untangle the clues. But she must do what she must and that meant danger, and though he seemed willing, nay, almost eager to risk himself, he was adverse to the idea of any danger for her. The thought sent a strange, melancholy feeling sweeping through her, and for a moment she was almost tempted to reach out and touch his face, to feel the hard planes of his strength against her palm. But she had not survived so long by being either foolish or soft, and she would not be so now.
“Tell me, champion,” she said and carefully steadied her emotions. “What are your feelings for me?”
“Feelings?” His grip loosened on her arm, and he leaned back the slightest degree as if wary of standing too close.
“Aye,” she said, and pressed on, though her heart was pounding like a charger’s hooves. “Do you cherish me?”
He glared at her. A muscle jumped in his lean jaw, but finally he spoke. “You are like ale,” he said. ”The more I have of you the more I want, and yet, I think, you are not good for me.”
It was difficult to breathe, but she forced herself to go on. “If I were in danger…” She paused, searching for words.
He narrowed his eyes and upon her arm his grip tightened a bit. “What kind of danger?” he asked.
“It matters not. If my life were at risk what would you-”
“‘Tis the marquis, isn’t it?” His free hand was clenched, his face intense. “What has he done?”
She drew a careful breath as she watched him. Aye, there may be bonnier men, but never would there be one who embodied ferocity and tenderness to such a breathtaking degree.
“What has he done?” His voice was a low growl. “MacGowan,” she said, steeling her voice. “He has done nothing, I only-”
“You may as well tell me, lass, for I’ll kill him either way, whether you admit the truth or nay.”
Perhaps she should have been scandalized, or angry, or at least frightened, but somehow she was only flattered. Who else had there been in the entirety of her life who would risk himself for her? “Lord Robert is the Saxon king’s second cousin,” she said evenly. “The punishment would be death.”
His expression changed not the least. “Tell me what he has done so that I may do what I must.”
She watched him as a wild, indefinable range of emotions rushed through her, but when the chaos cleared all that remained was a tightening tinge of something that felt frightfully like happiness.
She bundled all the emotions up and set them aside. A warrior had no place for emotion.
“I am not for the likes of you,” she whispered. “And why is that?”
She shook her head, her mind racing. “You know nothing of me, MacGowan.”
“hen enlighten me.”
“Suffice it to say that your kind do not marry mine.”
“Mayhap you know little of me own kind.”
”There you are wrong.”
“We MacGowans do not wed your average maid.” “Mayhap not average,” she said. “But at least your brothers’ wives are maids, while I-”
”Their mother was accused of witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft?” She felt herself go pale, felt her stomach chum as the memory of the tale came burning back to her mind.
“Aye,” he said. “Some think the birth of twins ungodly. Others said the lady of Evermyst had an unnatural attraction for the sea. As for the elder Munro, he accused her of killing his father. Thus she was condemned to death even though the king himself owed her,” he said.
“Owed her?”
“Aye,” he said. “Long ago one of His Majesty’s ships was endangered. She made certain it returned safely to shore.”
They too were wronged!
He scowled at her. “Did you know her?”
“None came forth to save her?”
“What?”
“No one stood by her?” she said. “Not even King James?”
“Our king was occupied with troubles of his own.” Puzzle pieces fell together like the clang of an iron cell. ‘Tis said the king himself will be there. There was a plot against the king. There will be a man dressed in naught but rags. He would be in disguise, dressed like a commoner as he oft was when visiting his subjects. I suggest you stay close to the puppeteer. He would be near the puppet master. And though they have the perfect opportunity, none will expect it from that front. You know how he cherishes his bonny Highland rabble. It was Anora and Isobel Fraser who planned the king’s murder, for James had forgotten his debt and abandoned their mother to death.
She felt sick to her stomach, dizzy and weak. “Rhona. What is amiss?”
She raised her chin, fighting the panic. His brothers’ beloved wives planned treason, and she must expose them or let the king perish.
“Peaceable yet powerful he must be. Cunning but kind to thee and me,” she muttered.
“What are you talking about?”
“Return to your father’s keep, MacGowan,” she said.
“Find a maid who appreciates such qualities.”
“I dunna know what you speak of.”
“Aye you do,” she said. “You may be powerful, but you are also peaceable. Cunning you have, but not in such a great degree as kindness.”
He was scowling again.
“’Tis not the same with me,” she said. “Kindness is not my path. I will make the choices that need making, and damn those who suffer for it.”
“Aye,” he scoffed. “It’s a demon, you are.”
“Perhaps,” she said and steeling herself, spoke again.
“For I do not cherish you.”
He said nothing. Indeed, she thought he had ceased to breathe.
She tried to speak again and finally succeeded. “Lord Robert is neither peaceable nor kind nor loving. But he is a marquis.”
“You cannot stay with him.” He gritted the words. ”Aye, I can and I shall.”
“He is deviant and he is cruel.”
“Aye,” she said. “‘Tis a match made in heaven.”
“Damn you, Rhona,” he growled. “I’ll not leave you. Not to him.”
Her stomach clenched. Love, it appeared, was not a gentle suitor as she’d suspected, but a damned knave that twisted your gut and strangled your breath.
“Listen now,” she said, “for I tell you the truth.” It was difficult to force out the words, to breathe past the lie, to keep living. “I do not cherish you, MacGowan, and I never shall. Do not shame yourself further by pursuing me.”
An eternity passed between them. Not another word was spoken. His fists clenched, his body tightened, and then he turned and silently left the room.
She did not sleep that night, and by morning, he was gone. Sir Charles left shortly after.
Rhona sat in silence at the breakfast table, her mind numb, her stomach sick. The marquis appeared, looking no better. His face was a peculiar shade of green. Upon his brow was a swelling the size of a swan’s royal egg.
”Troubles, my lord?” she asked, and tried to put some feeling into it. But worry was a raw ache inside her. He planned murder and there was no way to stop it but to punish the Evermyst maids.
“Aye,” he said, and put his hand to his brow. “I am in dire need of a tonic. Where is that blasted Welshman when I need him?”