Amanda Scott (21 page)

“Don’t be foolish,” he said harshly. “The most that would do is delay the matter. In any event, the weather could turn again at any moment, and you could easily be caught in a much worse storm than the last one.”

At the moment Mary had mentioned Perthshire, she realized that no thought of going away had occurred to her for several days. Knowing she did not really want to go, she said stubbornly nonetheless, “If a bad storm comes, any messenger I sent would be caught in it, too.”

“It is a messenger’s business to be caught, however.”

“Now, you are being obstinate simply because I will not take your advice.”

“I am never obstinate. Moreover, I give good advice.”

“Perhaps you do, but I have no money of my own, and I don’t like begging for more help when Rory has already been so generous to all of us. If Ewan forces me to go to court, I suppose I shall forget my scruples and send a plea for help at once, but I still find it hard to believe that Ewan will do any such thing.”

“You are being a fool, Mary Maclaine, but I understand your reluctance.”

Surprised at the last words, and the sigh that preceded them, she shot a glance at him, expecting to see mockery. But he was staring out at the loch, and his slight frown told her nothing. A minute later, he said evenly, “We had better go in. You will want to change your clothes for dinner, and so must I. We will say nothing further about this today, but when you hear from Breck again, be sure to let me know. Do not try to deal with him alone.”

“No, sir,” she said meekly. “I won’t.”

A short distance away, Ewan MacCrichton and Allan Breck, concealed behind trees in hillside woods east of Balcardane, looked down on the scene in disgust. Allan coughed, smothering the noise hastily into his handkerchief.

“A fine notion this was,” Ewan snapped.

“You don’t have to tell me. I’ve probably caught my death, but how was I to know Black Duncan would turn out the entire castle today to clear away the snow?”

“You gave your message to a herd, you said, so you knew at least that there would be men driving stock inside.”

“Aye, and what of it? None of them would have paid heed to the lass while she strolled up the hill on a sunny afternoon. We could have snatched her and been away before anyone did, I tell you.”

“Well, we can scarcely do it whilst she walks with Black Duncan,” Ewan retorted. “They
strolled
all the way to the loch, and we could not have touched them even if my men had been nearer at hand.”

“You haven’t got enough men to take Balcardane,” Breck said with a sneer, “so it’s just as well that they are not too near. Someone would be bound to see them. Look there’s the Ballachulish ferry coming,” he added, gesturing toward the east. “They’re going to lose that wagon in the loch if they don’t take care.”

Ewan grunted. “From what I hear, they lose something at least once a year there. It’s no concern of ours, though. You’d do better to keep your eyes on Black Duncan. I’ll wager the lass handed your message right over to him.”

Allan sneezed and blew his nose before he muttered, “I doubt that she told him anything, but even if she did, he will guess nothing from it.”

“Not about us, perhaps, but don’t forget how badly he wants you, my lad.”

“Oh, I’ve no intention of hanging about here long enough for him to catch me,” Breck said, tucking his handkerchief into his sleeve. “Not today, at all events.”

“We won’t get the lass this way,” Ewan grumbled. “She’s too well guarded here, and with Black Duncan at hand—”

“What you lack is a creative imagination. We cannot storm the castle walls, that’s true enough, but there is more than one way to influence those inside. We have the lovely Lady Serena Caddell on our side, for one.”

“We don’t have her at all,” Ewan retorted. “Just look at the pair of them now, will you? My Mary’s smiling at that villain as if she likes him.”

“Well, she don’t. You can take my word for that. As for the lovely Serena, you can take my word that she won’t like her smiling at Black Duncan any more than you do. I hear tell Serena don’t even like Mary being at Balcardane.”

“And just how the devil would you know that?”

Allan grinned. “I told you, my lad, I maintain my freedom by keeping eyes and ears all over Appin country. Is it so surprising that I’ve got one or two inside Balcardane?”

“You do?”

“I do,” Allan assured him as he stood and drew his companion silently back from their vantage point. “We’d best be on our way, just in case Black Duncan calls out his men. Mary won’t come out again today, but as I see it, you’ve got less than two months to find what you’ve lost, turn it into good coin of the realm, and pay your fine. With the weather against you, as it soon will be, that don’t give you much time to tame our precious seventh daughter, so you need to stir things up a bit.”

“Since you know so much, perhaps you can tell me what I should do.”

“That’s simple. If the lass remains obstinate, find yourself a tame magistrate and force her into court. That don’t mean we stop trying to get our hands on her, of course. Your best argument to any magistrate is already to have bedded her, and the fact that she promised to marry you will absolve you from a charge of rape.”

Inside the castle, Duncan parted from Mary in the great hall, and went into the library, glad to find it unoccupied for the moment. He wanted to think. If he could manage to set a trap for Allan Breck, he would certainly do so, but he thought the lass was right. Breck would be on the lookout for just such a trick. It would be better to lure him to Balcardane, if only he could think how to do it.

It was a pity, he thought, that she did not give him the note before they left the castle. He might have set his trap that very day, but he could not doubt now that Breck had been somewhere up there, watching the castle. Nor could he doubt that, having seen all the activity, the man was long gone.

Duncan tried to keep his thoughts on planning a trap, but they kept shifting to Mary instead. His reaction to the message had surprised him. His first thought, for once, had not been of capturing Breck. Like Mary, he had reacted first to MacCrichton’s intention to pursue his suit.

What, he wondered, could the man be thinking? He must know that such a marriage could not prosper. She would hate him for forcing her to marry against her will. MacCrichton must want something more from her, but what on earth did he think the lass could bring him? She had nothing of value, except herself.

MacCrichton must be mad for her, he decided, and the lass had simply underestimated his feelings. Nothing else would explain his persistence. The thought of her married to MacCrichton disturbed Duncan more than he had thought possible. He had heard long since that the man was courting her and had sneered at the news, thinking how quickly she had abandoned her pretense of loving Ian. Now that he knew her better, however, he believed she had cared deeply for his brother. Indeed, he was finding it hard to continue blaming her for her part in Ian’s death. In any case, no woman deserved such a marriage as the one MacCrichton promised.

He thought of the first time he had seen her with the laird, and his hands clenched in anger at the vision that leapt to his mind. He remembered the look of humiliation on her face when MacCrichton dumped her on the floor and she had turned and seen him standing there, watching them.

She had covered herself quickly, or as much of herself as she had been able to cover. Remembering how much of her body he had seen before that, he suddenly found himself wanting to smile. The wench was well formed, and no mistake.

He did not remember noticing that particular, interesting fact before that moment at Shian. Always before, when he had thought of her at all, he had thought only of her eyes and the entrancing serenity of her expression. That serenity had pricked at him whenever he thought of how she had bewitched his little brother. It was as if she had dismissed the danger into which she had beckoned Ian. Frequently he had wanted to shake her, to make her see that she was bewitching the lad, making him forget his duty to his clan, his loyalty to his family.

Now Duncan found himself far more aware of her clear, smooth skin, the slight dusting of freckles across her tip-tilted nose, the fullness of her lips, and the soft curves of her breasts and hips. He remembered lifting her from the saddle, his surprise at how small her waist was, how firm and supple her body. Shaking himself from a reverie he wanted to believe was pointless, he glanced at the clock on the desk and realized that he would have to make haste if he meant to change his clothes in time for dinner.

At the table, Mary noticed at once that Serena was in a brittle mood. They had no sooner taken their places than she had said archly to Duncan, “What can you and Mary have had to talk about down by the lake for so long, I wonder.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Perhaps you ought to have joined us, Serena. Doubtless Mary would have invited you to accompany her had she known that you, too, longed to take some air.”

Lady Balcardane said, “Oh, but Serena did not want to walk, Duncan! When I suggested that she join you—she saw the pair of you from the drawing room window whilst we were discussing food for Christmas Eve, you know—she said it was too cold and the ground far too muddy for anyone of sense to enjoy a walk.”

“Well, and so it was,” Serena said, growing pink. “That was why I wondered what you could be doing down there for so long. Why, it must be all one can do to keep one’s footing in all that muck and slush.”

“I see what it is, Duncan,” Balcardane said with a chuckle. “The poor lass is jealous. She don’t like seeing you walking about with another pretty female, and that’s understandable, damme if it ain’t!”

“Bless me,” Lady Balcardane said, looking with dawning comprehension at Serena, who was now staring down at the plate in front of her. “Why your cheeks are as red as fire, my dear. I do believe Balcardane has hit upon the truth of it after all. You know, Duncan,” she added cheerfully, turning her twinkling eyes on her son, “you could settle all this in a trice, merely by arranging for a formal betrothal between the pair of you and setting a date for the wedding.”

“What wedding? I have not offered for anyone, ma’am.”

“Oh, but it is just a matter of the details,” Lady Balcardane said, chuckling. “Why your father and Caddell had it set between them ages ago, and I am persuaded that dear Serena has expected these three or four years past that one day you would make her an offer. Bless me, sir, why else do you think your father agreed that she should come to us when she wrote me to say how dreadfully dull she felt at Inver House, with everyone in alt over her sister-in-law’s impending confinement?”

“Since I was not a party to that decision, ma’am, I gave it no thought at all,” Duncan said brutally.

Serena pouted. “Lud, sir, but you are being prodigiously cruel to me tonight. You must know that my papa and yours settled the issue of our marriage long ago.”

“In all fairness,” Balcardane said, “I must say that it was never, as you say,
settled
between us, my dear. Your papa and I talked about it, I grant you, but we signed no papers, you know. Still and all,” he added, looking sternly at his son, “if the lass has got it into her head that you’ve intended all along to marry her, I am not certain that plain courtesy don’t demand that you do just that, lad.”

Duncan shot him a look of acute dislike. “Are you trying to tell me, sir, that because you and Caddell indulged yourselves in a few air dreams, and because somehow Serena became aware of them, you now think I am somehow bound to marry her? You are being as absurd now as she is, I think.”

“Now there you’re wrong, lad, damme if you ain’t. Most folks would think just what I’m thinking now, and I won’t have a son of mine gaining a reputation for playing at ducks and drakes with a lady’s sensibilities, leading her to think you want to marry her and then leaving her in the lurch. Damme, Duncan, it just ain’t done!”

“I am not the one guilty of leading her astray,” Duncan pointed out with what Mary thought was more patience than anyone could have expected from him.

“Point is, though, that the lass herself has come to believe you will marry her,” Balcardane said. “Ain’t that right, Serena?”

“Why, yes, certainly, sir, and although I have never made any secret of my belief, not before I came to Balcardane or since, I am sure that he has never said anything to make me think I might be mistaken. Surely, if he did not intend to marry me, he ought to have said so long before now.”

“She has you there, lad.”

Lady Balcardane said thoughtfully, “You know, Duncan, that is quite true, and you must allow that it is, for I have myself heard Serena say in your hearing that she was going to be your countess. If you will recall, my dear, she said so just a few days ago, and you teased her, wanting to know if she meant to murder your father to gain you the title. A most improper thing to say, that was.”

Indignantly, Balcardane snapped, “It most certainly was. As if we have not had enough of that sort of thing in Appin during these past few years. You’re an unnatural son, Duncan, that’s what you are.”

Shoving back his chair and getting angrily to his feet, Duncan said, “If this is your notion of how to get an offer out of me, Serena, you have gone the wrong way to work. If I failed to scotch your notions outright, it is because I never took them seriously. They were no more important to me than the prattling of a foolish child.”

“How dare you, sir!”

“Oh, I dare. Since you seem to want the matter put plainly, I tell you here and now that I have no intention of marrying you, nor have I ever had any such intention. And if that does not make clear to you how very much I dislike the notion, let me put it this way: I would much rather marry Mary Maclaine!”

With that, he strode angrily from the room, leaving his astonished audience to stare blankly after him.

M
ARY DID NOT KNOW
which way to look after Duncan left the room, and she was certain that if she opened her mouth she would say something truly regrettable. Lady Balcardane recovered her powers of speech before anyone else.