The Smithfield Bargain (7 page)

“That I was wise to be sure I stayed alive. You have heard his tales of the war in America. He has spoken of nights as cold.”

“But you are no soldier. You are the granddaughter of a duke.” Grange covered her face with her gloved hands. “Oh, His Grace shall be heart-shattered to hear of this.”

Romayne glanced toward where James was listening in silence. As opinionated as he had been when they reached the byre, he seemed oddly quiet. She wished he would say something. Gamely she forged on alone. “Grange, you cannot suggest anything untoward might have happened when we were thinking only of fleeing from the highwaymen and finding shelter from the storm.”

“I suggest nothing except that you must marry him.”

“Marry him?” she gasped, but anything else she might have added was drowned out by a strange sound.

Romayne looked at James and realized he was laughing. Surely everyone was queer in the attic tonight! Or in the dawnlight, she corrected herself when she saw the silvery glow inching past the rickety door.

James took a step toward them, although the groom kept the gun aimed at his chest. “My dear lady—Miss Grange, is it?—you are sadly mistaken if you think I am going to rectify Lady Romayne's misjudgment in eloping to Scotland by leg-shackling myself to her.”

“How can she return to her grandfather when it becomes known that we found her sleeping in your arms?”

He started to shrug, then winced. “As Lady Romayne has just told you, sleeping thusly was nothing but a matter of extremity, for she might have frozen to death if she tried to flee from here to more suitable lodging, as she had wished. She had had a full day with all her dangerous adventures, and I fear we both found sleep too seductive to refuse.”

The gray-haired woman jabbed her finger in his direction. “Is that all you found too seductive?”

“Miss Grange, you will note that my right arm is useless,” he returned, his voice growing tight with frustration. Romayne wondered when anyone had last dared to argue with Major MacKinnon. “As lovely as your charge may be, I can assure you that this pain withers any thoughts from my head but finding relief from it.”

Grange folded her arms over her narrow shelf of bosom that was almost hidden beneath her thick cloak. “The facts are irrefutable, sir. She was discovered asleep in your arms. A most compromising pose.”

“Please, Grange, James, let us be done with this discussion,” urged Romayne. Wanting to apologize to both of them, she knew anything she said was bound to damage the situation more. “What good does it do? If we—”

“Silence!” James hissed. He drew his pistol from under his cloak. “There's someone outside. You, with the gun—”

Thatcher's face became as gray as Grange's hair as he told James his name.

“Thatcher, guard the ladies back there.”

“I don't know if—”

“Listen to him,” urged Romayne. “He knows these hills better than any of us.” Putting her hand on Grange's arm, she wished she could reveal the truth that James was a soldier, but a promise was a promise. She would not break it … not even to soothe the fright in Grange's eyes.

James smiled grimly as he moved into the shadows beside the door. How much more could go amiss tonight? He held his pistol at ready, his thumb on the hammer. Marry Romayne? Any man—and he suffered a pulse of sympathy for the late Bradley Montcrief—who willingly endured her willful nature was beef-headed.

Pain rippled up his arm, and he clenched his teeth. That man of Romayne's had best be a good shot, because James doubted if he could reload with just one hand.

The door opened. He raised his pistol and saw, from the corner of his eyes, Thatcher do the same. Something dark and thick was thrust at him.

“James, are you still within?”

“Cameron!” He heard Romayne call for Thatcher to lower his gun, and he put his own back beneath his cloak. “Are you determined to end this night with a ball in your head?”

Grinning, Sergeant Cameron dropped a mound of blankets. “Now would you be shooting the very man who brings you something to wrap around yourself to fight the cold?” His smile faded as he turned to see Romayne and her servants on the other side of the door. “I hope I brought enough.”

“How goes the storm?” James walked slowly to the door.

He saw Thatcher watching him uneasily, then lowering the gun barrel toward the floor. The lad wore a sheepish grin.

“The wind seems to be increasing again,” said Cameron. “Could not see farther than the tip of my nose.” He grinned. “Good thing it's of a grand length.”

“It's worse?” Grange asked. “It was moderating when we set out from Coldstream.”

James shook his head in disbelief. “You would have been wiser to stay there. What good would you have done Lady Romayne if you had frozen to death along one of these deserted roads?”

“We
did
find you,” Grange returned.

“Good fortune smiles on blind buzzards.” Not giving anyone a chance to retort to his insult, James went on, “The snow has stopped for the moment, although the wind is fierce. Yet I think you would agree that Lady Romayne is not dressed for an extended stay in this bourach—hut,” he amended when he saw confused expressions on the English faces.

Romayne recoiled from his emerald eyes, then raised her chin in defiance. She had proven to him, whether he wished to believe it or not, that she could survive the night in this horrid place. Turning to Thatcher, she asked, “How many horses do you have with you?”

“Three. We brought an extra for you, Lady Romayne.”

“I have two,” piped up Cameron. “But I have no boots for the lady. There was no time to find them.”

“It is of no importance,” Romayne said, although the cold gnawed at her feet. “We have enough horses. Let us be gone from this byre.”

“I agree,” James said. “We should be able to reach Struthcoille by midday if we start now.”

“Midday?” she asked weakly. It could not be much later than dawn. The idea of traveling that long through the cold, which seeped under the door, was appalling.

“It's no more than a league.”

Romayne smiled her thanks as Grange draped two of the blankets over her shoulders. Pulling them to her chin, she said, “I care little how far it is. Let us get there with all haste. I fear my bones will break with the cold if we don't find a warm hearth and hot water for a bath soon.”

He laughed, but she noted its brittle undercurrent. James must be suffering more pain than he wanted any of them to guess. “You are accustomed to the life of the granddaughter of a duke, but I suspect my aunt and her daughter will make you as comfortable as they can in their small house.”

“Aunt? Cousin?” Grange brightened. “I trust they are of good character?”

“It is not a school of Venus.” When the older woman flushed, he added, “The house is plain, but it offers a hearth where we all can warm ourselves after our cold night.” He motioned toward the door as if he was their host.

Romayne had forgotten in the few hours they had spent in the hut how viciously the cold burned her face with its icy caress. Hunching her shoulders, she hesitated as spurts of wind strove to knock her off her feet. She ignored Grange's injunction to hurry as she waited for James and his sergeant to come out of the stone building.

“Thatcher!” she called, straining to be heard over the bare branches rubbing against one another.

The groom appeared out of the whirling grayness as if released from a bottle of champagne. Nodding to her orders, he slipped his arm around James to help Cameron get him to the horses. James glanced at her, but she could not read his expression. Whether he appreciated the help or despised it, she did not care. She wanted to get out of the storm and did not wish to be delayed by James's show of worthless bravery.

Snow sifted into Romayne's slippers and clung to her toes, threatening to freeze them. She longed for the sparse comfort of her stockings, but said nothing. Grange would be furious if she learned that Romayne had bound James's arm with such intimate garments. In Grange's opinion, even an emergency did not change the strictures of behavior.

When Thatcher had tossed her up on her horse, Romayne held the reins lightly, keeping her arms as close to her body as she could. The wind slipped beneath her cloak, pulling it to flap behind her. The horse stirred nervously, exciting a cry of dismay from Grange.

Muttering under his breath, James lurched across the drifting snow. He grabbed the hem of her cloak and tucked it around Romayne as if she was still in her infancy. “Sit on it,” he ordered. “I have no need for Miss Grange to be deaving me.”

“What?”

He smiled before shouting over his shoulder as he went to the horse next to the one Thatcher had mounted. “Deaving. Make me hard of hearing.”

Romayne took a deep breath and released it slowly through her clenched teeth. She should have guessed that James would be no more gracious with the dawn than he had been during the night. His impertinent remarks were sure to make a hard day even more difficult.

Romayne heard her abigail's gasp of dismay and understood it as the path turned so she could see, through the snow that was falling steadily again, what waited in the valley ahead of them. Set between two rolling hills, the village could not have contained more than a dozen houses. Hints of a ruined castle or abbey were set higher on one of the hills. Snow blanketed the roofs, so she could not discern if they were thatched or shingled, but the walls were as rough as the hut where she and James had sought shelter.

“Struthcoille,” James said with a trace of pride and an arch of his snow-dusted eyebrows as if he dared Romayne to voice her thoughts.

It was the first time he had spoken to her since they left the byre. No one had said anything, but the rigid line of Grange's back had warned Romayne that she was due a scold when they reached their destination. She wanted to protest that having James ride at her side was not her doing.

“Thank goodness,” she answered in a clipped voice. “I fear that I am nearly zneesy.”

“Excuse me?”

Romayne simply smiled as Cameron led the way down the narrow path toward the village. If James did not recognize the word which meant no more than the fact that she was suffering from the cold, it was all to the good. He might come to understand her bafflement when he spoke his Scottish gibberish.

Nobody was on the town's single street. Curtains pulled back at windows, and Romayne knew their passage was not going unnoted. She guessed few visitors came to this small village, which was miles from the border with England.

Cameron stopped in front of a cottage that seemed no different from the others. Light glowed from its windows, and a dog barked a greeting. As they dismounted, stiff from the cold, James went to the door. It opened before he could put his hand on the latch.

“Jamie?” A wide-eyed young woman with hair that was a more fiery red than his looked past him, and she choked again, “Jamie? What are you doing back so soon? I thought you were going to be gone for a fortnight.”

“Ellen, step aside and let us in before Lady Romayne and her party think we are the rudest of hosts.”

The freckled girl nodded as she stood in a corner of the cramped foyer to watch strangers invade her home. As she wiped her hands on a soiled, muslin apron, her eyes were large in her face. Romayne could think of many words to reassure Ellen, but they refused to flow from her exhausted brain to her lips.

“Get some water on to heat,” James ordered. “We are weary with the cold.”

“Aye,” Ellen whispered, backing away, as if she could not bear to take her eyes away from the strangers.

“In there,” he continued, pointing to a door opening off the entry.

As Thatcher and Cameron excused themselves to tend to the horses, Romayne put her arm around James to help him into the other room. Grange's furious eyes pierced her back, but Romayne knew she owed James the duty of helping him after he had saved her life. When he settled his uninjured arm on her shoulder, his fingers slipped beneath the blankets to stroke her shoulder. She looked up at him, finding his face as close as it had been when she had slept in his arms.

A slow smile spread across his lips and climbed to glitter in his eyes. The voices around them evaporated in the sudden warmth that billowed over her. She did not know if the others had left or if she was deafened by the sound of her heart throbbing inside her. It did not matter; all that mattered was losing herself in the emerald depths of his eyes.

“Girl, help Lady Romayne!”

Grange's sharp command brought Romayne back to her senses. With a shudder, she pulled her gaze from James's. The sound of his low laugh reverberated through her, and she stiffened. He had every right to laugh when she was being a complete block.

With Ellen's help, Romayne steered James into the room beyond the door. The chamber was small and cramped. James's head nearly brushed the low rafters. A sitting room, she decided, for it contained a settee and several chairs around the wide hearth. Dusk clung to the corners. Rushes covered the stone floor, and they crunched with a shrill sound which hurt her aching head.

The furniture was simply made and the window covered only by the thinnest material, but the house was better than she had dared to hope. Narrow stairs climbed one wall. Several more rooms must open off this main chamber, for doors flanked the hearth and another was opposite the window.

“Gardyloo,” James muttered as she helped him to the settee.

“Would you speak English?”

“You're in Scotland now, my dear lady. You should learn that
gardyloo
means ‘take care.' Mayhap if you had learned to take care, you wouldn't be in this predicament now.”

He smiled, and she turned away. Their situation was abominable enough without his atrocious sense of humor. Shrugging off the blankets, she folded them over a chair as Grange lowered herself to a chair next to the hearth.