Amanda Scott (19 page)

“Do you agree with that?” Hector demanded of the younger man, a lad scarcely out of his teens.

Looking wretched, the youngster glanced at his compatriot and then nodded. “Aye, laird. I’d be wroth m’self did the like happen t’ me sister just ’cause two dunderclunks what ought t’ ha’ known better chased her into the arms o’ that filthy Mackinnon lot.”

Hector nodded. “You know that you deserve a round dozen for this, but since it is clear to me that you have learned a lesson, I’ll give you only three each,” he said. “However, I’ll also demand a fine of five merks from each of you, and I’ll expect to have no more trouble from you. You’ll become two of the best men at Lochbuie if you want to avoid my wrath in the future, for I promise you that if I have to speak this way to either of you again, you will be sorrier than you know.”

“Aye, laird, thank ye kindly. We’ll be nae more trouble t’ ye at all,” the older one said, grabbing the younger one’s arm and giving it a shake. “Ye’ll be thanking the laird yourself, Jem, and be earnest about it, lad.”

Reluctantly, as if he were not so sure the lesser sentence was any more to his liking than what the laird had said he deserved, the lad obeyed.

“Pull off your shirts then and take a post,” Hector said.

When he had finished, the two went to help tend the horses, the older one stoic, the younger sobbing, although he had not screamed; and Hector strolled back to the castle, wondering if he had done the right thing or was a fool.

His unwanted wife seemed to be exerting an expected influence, and he told himself that it would be ironic, not to mention damned annoying, if the mistake in his marriage resulted in his becoming known as Hector the Mild, or worse.

Chapter
10

C
ristina found herself listening for men’s screams from the barn. Her father had ordered two men flogged once, and although he had not done the flogging himself, she remembered the men’s screams as clearly as if the incident had happened recently instead of five or six years before. But she reached the hall without hearing anything other than the normal sounds of a busy castle.

A cow mooed, chickens clucked, and horses whinnied or stamped feet. Two men honing their swordplay in the yard provided ringing clashes of steel against steel that punctuated the steady bleating of a flock of sheep moving to a meadow on the hillside above the castle. The tongue clicks, whistles, and occasional words of their shepherd accompanied them. A blacksmith forging something in the smithy added the heavy clanging of his hammer on the red-hot iron as secondary percussion to the symphony of sounds. Not a single discordant note interrupted.

Entering the hall, she found her sisters chatting with Lady Euphemia as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

“I am displeased with you both,” she said without preamble. “I told you plainly what Hector’s orders were, and you ignored them as if I had never spoken.”

“We’re sorry, Cristina,” Isobel said contritely.

“Faith, child, speak for yourself,” Mariota said. “I do not know why you should take us to task,” she added to Cristina. “Hector said naught to me of displeasure, his own or anyone else’s. He understands that it was not our responsibility to provide a proper escort but yours as our hostess. We expected you to ride with us, after all, and to deal with such details if necessary. But you chose not to do so. To blame us for your failing is dreadfully unfair, and I do not intend to stand for it, so do not be trying to censure me, Cristina. What did you expect us to do when you decided not to accompany us and did not even bother to send us word? You could scarcely have been surprised that we rode on without you.”

“You told the gillies to put my horse away,” Cristina reminded her.

“I did no such thing. It is no business of mine to deal with your horse.”

“You did tell them that Cristina had changed her mind,” Isobel pointed out.

Mariota shrugged. “We thought she
had
changed her mind. Even so, it certainly is not my fault that they chose to take that belief to mean they should put her horse away. Nor can she blame them for thinking they should, however.”

“Well, but—”

“That will do, Isobel,” Cristina said, knowing from experience that debating such points with Mariota was useless. She saw only what she wanted to see and ignored everything else. Trying to argue with her was like trying to pick up water in a sieve. One could never persuade her that she was wrong, so it was no use trying.

Isobel persisted nonetheless. “I told her we should wait for you, but she said as soon as you left that you were not coming. That is what she told the gillies, too.”

“I said that will do,” Cristina said more firmly. “I want you to go to your bedchamber now and choose what you will wear to eat your midday meal. I know you will not want to sit down in that dress. It is much too rumpled and untidy.”

Isobel gave a shrug much like Mariota’s. “I couldn’t help that,” she said. “When I tried to keep that man from tearing Mariota’s dress, he pushed me down.”

Feeling her temper stir again, but knowing that the man responsible for assaulting the child was probably already dead, Cristina was about to insist that Isobel do as she was bid when the command came instead from behind her.

“Do as your sister bade you, lassie,” Hector said curtly. “You have already tried my patience—and doubtless hers as well—far beyond what I will tolerate. You run along and change your gown, too, Lady Mariota. I know you do not want to appear at dinner looking as if you’d been dragged through a bush backward.”

“Bless me, sir, is that how you think I look?”

Lady Euphemia said, “Dear me, my love, you should never ask a gentleman if he thinks you look a sight, particularly when you must know that you do. Instead, you must thank him prettily for the compliment he has paid you by assuming that you wish to tidy yourself, for I am persuaded that you can want nothing more, looking as untidy as you do. And indeed, if I am not mistaken, we have scarcely enough time as it is, without your standing there chattering instead of obeying Cristina as you should. You come with me now, the pair of you, for I must certainly refresh myself as well, and I warrant that Lord Hector desires to have a private word with Cristina. So, come now, do, and quickly.”

She reminded Cristina of one of the shepherds’ dogs, darting to and fro, nipping at the heels of its charges. She nearly smiled before she realized that Hector’s stern gaze had shifted to her.

“Did you wish to speak with me, sir?”

“Aye, I do, but I think we’ll seek a more private place,” he said, drawing her right hand into the crook of his arm and holding it there.

Trying to ignore the fluttering in her stomach as she strove to imagine what could have happened in the past ten minutes to make him speak so abruptly to her, she let him take her from the hall and upstairs to his chamber.

“What is it?” she asked. “Have I done something more to vex you?”

“Nay,” he said. “I know that you were concerned about those two men, and I wanted to set your mind at rest.”

“Indeed, sir, in what way?”

“You were right about that. To blame them, and only them, for what occurred with your sisters would have been unfair. The Mackinnons are another matter, of course, and because I was angry about what they did, I think I laid more responsibility than I should have on my lads.”

She looked up at him hopefully. “So you did not flog them after all?”

He grimaced. “They expected flogging, lass, and I do not want my men imagining that I will no longer punish them severely for wrongdoing. They showed disrespect to my guests—indeed, to my kinswomen—and they knew well what they deserved. Had your sisters’ disobedience not initiated the entire affair, they’d have suffered a dozen strokes for their behavior.”

She remained silent, seeing naught to gain by wondering aloud what he thought Mariota and Isobel deserved.

“I gave them each three stripes and laid them on lightly,” he said. “I also fined them both and put the fear of God into them. They recognize my leniency, Cristina. I hope you will agree that I was not too harsh.”

The thought of a heavy whip against bare skin made her shudder, but she knew the punishment was common and realized that he had indeed been merciful. “I think you did the right thing, sir. It is my belief that one should reserve harsh punishment for grave misdeeds, and they did redeem themselves considerably by flying to your aid. I own, though, I wanted to slap Mariota. I think she—”

“Sakes, then I think you are being overly harsh with her,” he interjected. “She seems honestly to have thought you’d changed your mind about going with them, and we cannot expect her to have ordered her own escort.”

Relief changed to irritation as Cristina tried to think of how to explain Mariota to him. But knowing that he was disposed to believe everything her lovely sister said, all she could think to say was, “I know her better than you do, sir.”

“Aye, well, I know you both well enough now to understand that you are envious of her beauty and the admiration she draws from every man she meets.”

An indignant snort outside the doorway turned instantly into muffled coughs.

Cristina clapped a hand to her mouth, but Hector strode to the half-open door and jerked it wide to reveal Isobel just outside, her face cherry red from coughing.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded furiously.

Looking scared, she said, “I was afraid you would scold Cristina, or worse, and indeed, sir, she is not jealous, and it was not her fault, no matter what Mariota told you. Cristina did tell us never to ride out alone, but Mariota—”

“Enough!” he roared. “If you do not want to feel my hand on your backside, my lass, you will take yourself straight to your bedchamber and change your dress, as your sister told you to do. I warned you before that I do not tolerate defiant women, so let me see no more of this disobedience.”

“But—”

Grabbing her by a shoulder, he spun her around and gave her a hard smack on her backside. When she shrieked, he snapped, “If you do not want more of that, don’t say another word. After we dine, you will put on a dress that you do not mind mussing and hie yourself to the kitchen, where I warrant Alma Galbraith can tell you which of the lads can use someone to help them stack the wood they are chopping now for the ovens. Do you understand me, Isobel?”

“You want me to stack wood?”

“Do you mean to tell me you do not know how?”

“Of course I know how, for I have often helped Cristina, but—”

“Then there is no more to be said about it,” he interjected. “And if I ever catch you listening at doors again, I will put you straight across my knee and give you what you truly deserve without offering you an alternative. Is that clear?”

“Aye, sir,” she said hastily. “I’m sorry.”

“I do not want your sorrow; I want your obedience. Now, go!”

Redder of face than ever, Isobel fled.

Cristina said, “You should not take out your frustration on her, sir. She is only a child.”

“By heaven, do not lecture me, lass, or Isobel will not be the only one who goes across my knee. I have put up with too much today already. I do not intend to put up with any more, so if you don’t want to find yourself stacking wood alongside your little sister, I’d suggest you keep your tongue firmly behind your teeth.”

Cristina said no more, excusing herself instead to change for dinner.

The meal proved a relatively quiet one at the high table, although Mariota kept up a stream of conversation by asking Hector questions about Lochbuie and Mull. In this endeavor she was ably assisted by Lady Euphemia, although the latter’s contributions tended to be wandering memories of her own childhood and the differences between her family home and Hector’s descriptions of Lochbuie.

Cristina, looking from one to another as if she were listening but feeling disconnected from the conversation, decided that Hector was not listening either, but was only watching Mariota when she talked. He heeded her words enough to answer questions or make polite comments, but his attention seemed riveted to her face rather than to her thought processes. That was just as well, Cristina decided, since Mariota seemed not to notice when she contradicted things she herself had said, in order to agree with nearly everything that Hector said.

The phenomenon was one that Cristina had noted before in her, and one that made it impossible to have an ordinary disagreement with her, let alone a full-blown argument. If one pressed Mariota, pointing out that she had just said the opposite thing to something she had said only moments before, she would insist firmly that she had never said any such thing.

Cristina’s thoughtful gaze rested for a few moments on Hector. A ray of sun beaming down on the table near him made his eyes seem more startlingly blue than ever. His lips parted slightly as he watched Mariota, and he seemed oblivious to the others at the table.

Mariota, she knew, was perfectly aware of the impact she was having on him and delighted in it. She leaned forward so that her plump bosom was nearly spilling from her low-cut bodice, met his gaze boldly, and ran her little pink tongue over her lower lip as if she were inviting him to kiss her.

Cristina’s stomach clenched, and she was aware that her hands had curled to claws. She wished she could order her sister from the table, scold her as Hector had scolded Isobel. Instead, she felt obliged to sit quietly and conceal her frustration. He had never wanted to marry her, so she could not accuse him of anything other than thoughtless, rather cruel behavior. But with his comments about just desserts still ringing in her ears, she could not help wondering if she deserved any less for her part in the marriage that her father had foisted on him.

But as sad as such thoughtlessness made her, the thought that she would eventually have to leave Lochbuie was becoming unbearable to contemplate.

“How can you say your favorite color is scarlet when you just said a few moments ago, when he was talking about heather, that it was purple?” Isobel demanded, breaking the spell of Mariota’s flirtation and drawing instant censure.