Just in Time for a Highlander (13 page)

The
clack clack
of Abby’s boot heels echoed down the stairs. Grendel gave Duncan an accusatory look and followed his mistress.

Duncan knew the brunt of Abby’s anger was directed toward her father, but he felt complicit too. He’d never irritated a woman in quite so many ways before. His experience of women, apparently more limited than he’d imagined, was that they
adored
him. They loved his hair, his accent, his stories, his height, the way he smiled. Their clothes melted off them; they invested their money in his firm; they waved him onto the bus without exact change. Yet there appeared to be no part of his personality that didn’t drive Abby crazy.

Indeed, he’d bedded her—if you can call that three-megaton explosion by the chapel bedding—but he’d hardly breached the gates of the fortress known as Abby Kerr. He didn’t know what she liked to eat. He didn’t know if she’d ever been to Rome. And while Nab had told him she was to be married, the word “betrothed” had never passed her lips. Nor had “I’m in love,” “There’s someone else,” or even, “I think we should proceed with caution.” No, no caution for that girl.

Duncan sighed. He would eventually find the pitch on which she wanted to play, but until then, he was getting a very hard lesson in the rules of the game.

Lachlan, oblivious to the fury he had excited, was struggling to cut another piece of meat. Duncan thought of Abby emerging from the tower door last night in tears. Daughter, successor, caretaker—the very act of juggling those balls would be challenging enough, but with a man like Lachlan Kerr?
Och
.

Lachlan let out a frustrated growl as the chicken slid from under his knife.

“Perhaps,” Duncan said with a disgusted shake of his head, “you shouldn’t have driven your wee daughter from the room.”

The man dug in harder, sawing wildly. The plate was creeping toward the edge of the bedside table.

“Oh, for the love of—
Stop!
” Duncan grabbed the plate just before it fell. “Has anyone ever told you for a man who depends on the kindness of others, you don’t exactly engender goodwill?”

“Fouck ye.”

“Oh, verra nice.” Duncan seated himself on the stool with a sigh. “Despite your evident displeasure with my company, I intend to see that you have your dinner. We can spare your daughter that much, can we not?”

The heat in Lachlan’s short Gaelic response gave Duncan a pretty clear idea of the man’s thoughts even if the words were beyond his understanding.

“Is that an ‘aye’ then?”

Before the man could summon another stream of invective, Duncan nimbly swiped the knife from his hand, grabbed the fork, and cut the meat into a half a dozen pieces. He held out the plate, swept his arm around his back, and said in his best French accent, “The dining room proudly presents…your dinner.”

Lachlan, evidently not a fan of
Beauty
and
the
Beast
, was unmoved. This did not deter Duncan, who had earned money his last year of secondary school babysitting his six-year-old neighbor and watched
Beauty
and
the
Beast
so many times he could sing every part, including Belle’s and that of Gaston’s chorus of buxom admirers. He forked a piece of chicken, twirled it in the air as if it were Lumiere’s flaming candle, and brought it before the man’s mouth.

“Be our guest.”

Lachlan narrowed his eyes. But the chicken, moist and dark, was too tempting to pass up. He took it and chewed.

Duncan reached for the man’s lips, to close them as he’d seen Abby do. Lachlan jerked away and brought his better, opposite fist to hold it closed.

“Fair enough,” Duncan said.

“Where’s Molly?” Lachlan demanded, as sullen as a child.

“Molly?” Duncan frowned, trying to place the name. “The wee dimpled nurse? Oh, aye, I can see where you’d prefer her to me. Unfortunately, Molly needs a rest from ye as well.”

“Molly,” Lachlan said firmly.

“Duncan,” he replied. He held out another piece of chicken and quietly sung Lumiere’s song. Duncan was no singer, but the tune was as enticing as the chicken, and Lachlan eventually opened his mouth.

They continued on in this way until the chicken was gone. Duncan returned the plate to the table and leaned forward to straighten the man’s covers.

“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Lachlan grabbed the front of Duncan’s sark and jerked his face close to his.

“Get out of my home,” he said, each word drenched in venom. “I can smell a man after my daughter’s money and quim as far away as Edinburgh. Ye stink of it.”

Duncan peeled the man’s fingers off his sark, stifling an urge to break them as he did it. “I have more than enough money of my own, old man. I have no need of your daughter’s.”

“Then I guess I know what you
are
here for.”

Lachlan swung his fist and Duncan caught his wrist.

“Listen, you filthy old reprobate. You’re wrong about your daughter and you’re wrong about me. She would have made you proud today. She stood before those men a leader. They respect her—not because she’s stronger than they are, but because she’s smarter.”

Lachlan’s eyes burned blue fire, and Duncan saw where Abby got her spirit.

“And as far as your daughter’s money and quim are concerned,” he said through clenched teeth, “she can do with them what she pleases. Should she choose to give both to every man between here and the gates of York, it’d be no more your business than it is mine. And if you ever, ever make her cry again, I’ll come in here while you’re sleeping and hold that wee pillow over your head until you bother her nae more. Do you understand me?”

Lachlan’s scowl tightened. Then all of a sudden he barked a great, whooping laugh. “Only a fool would say such a thing—or a verra canny man. Let us hope you know which you are. Now get me my Molly. I need to piss.”

Duncan let go of Lachlan’s wrist. He was a force to be reckoned with—even in his dementia. Duncan wondered how poor Molly managed it. But as he had no desire to be handling the man’s cock, he rose from the stool, knowing he would bend to Lachlan’s will, just as he had to Abby’s. Six hundred years of power brought something to the Kerr chiefs the titans of Wall Street could only dream about.

It dawned on Duncan as he gathered the dishes he had no idea where the kitchen was or how to find Molly or the cook, and he was just about to ask Lachlan when he spotted Abby in the archway at the top of the stairs. He wondered how long she’d been standing there.

“Leave them,” she said, indicating the dishes. “Molly will get them.”

“He may have found his niche at the castle,” Lachlan said. “Dinna rob him of it.”

“Da.”

“He wants Molly,” Duncan said, replacing the tray.

“She’s coming. And she’ll have your spun sugar,” Abby added to her father. “But if ye make a bit of trouble before she comes, I’ll tell her to dump it right out that window, do ye hear?”

Duncan met Lachlan’s eyes. He fluffed a pillow meaningfully and placed it behind the man’s head before nodding his good night.

“Come, MacHarg,” Abby said. “I should like to have a word with you before you retire.”

They emerged from the stairwell into the inky blackness of the hall, and she stopped. He had hoped the conversation would be conducted in her room and couldn’t help stealing a longing look at her door.

“I thank you for your help up there,” she said. “I had nae patience for it tonight. And you were…” She bowed her head, searching for words. Gratitude did not come easy to a clan chief.

“It was nothing, Abby. I’ve spent my life around”—he almost said “arseholes” but thought better of it—“men who are challenging. At least your father has an excuse for it.”

“‘Challenging,’ is it?”

He could hear the smile in her words, though the soft planes of her face were no more than patches of gray in the darkness. The window that had lit the hall the night before showed only a vast expanse of twinkling black now. The moon would not rise for another hour, at least.

“I dinna ken how you do it,” he said. “How do you lead with him second-guessing you? How do you keep the men attending to you, not him? And how in God’s name did ye become the chief? I mean I know your brother died and Lachlan fell ill, but even then?”

She sighed. He could feel the urge to share the story with him welling up like a rising stream against a dam. But he could also feel her fighting it.

Break
, he thought.
Break. Pour yourself into my dry bed. I will hold you safely
.

“’Tis such a complicated story,” she said.

“I have all night.”

Her longing was palpable, and his was too. They were like two magnets, held apart by nothing more than the friction of the rug and the fear of letting go. If she made the slightest move, the slightest sound to show him what she wanted…

“Duncan—”

The squeak of a door made them jump. Nab’s slim back, lit by a single candle, appeared in the doorway to Duncan’s room. He held the candle high, as if checking his work in the room, and backed out. He smiled when he spotted Duncan and trotted down the hall.

“I was wondering where ye had gotten yourself off to,” Nab said, giving Grendel a vigorous rub. “I dropped off some supper and hot water. Undine said you might need some. Have ye finished making your report?”

Duncan wondered what the penalty was for infanticide in 1706. “Aye.”

“Then let me lead you back. I was to return the candle to Undine if I didn’t find you, but here ye are.”

“Aye. Here I am.”

“May I take Grendel for a bit?” Nab asked Abby.

“I’m certain he would enjoy it,” she said. “Good night, MacHarg. Good night, Nab. No, Grendel,” she said, making her way toward her room, “you stay with them.”

Duncan swore he felt the brush of her hand when she’d passed.

The door of her bedchamber closed behind her. “Oh God.”

“Tired, are ye?” Nab asked.

“And in mind of murder, aye.”

“Oh?” Nab stopped scratching Grendel’s ears. “Is it the sort of thing that when ye do it once, ye want to do it agin and agin?”

“It is,” Duncan said. “Though I dinna mean actual murder, ye wee wicked louse.”

They trooped to his room, and Duncan shut the door, collapsing against it. “Ye have the worst timing of any man, woman, or beast I have ever kent. You are too young to know better, but Lady Kerr and I were about to…well, that is to say, it was possible that she might have—might have, ye hear—a gentleman never assumes, and in any case—”

“Oh, I ken what you were about. That’s why I stopped ye. Rosston put a sentry on Lady Kerr. The man’s been crouching behind a door down the hall since dusk, peering through a crack, watching her comings and goings.”

Duncan straightened. “You’re serious?”

“Aye. And once I leave here, I intend to point Grendel directly at him. Knock the bastard on his fat arse.”

The dog wagged his tail eagerly.

“And you’re sure Rosston’s behind it?” Duncan skimmed off his soiled sark and wondered if perhaps his hiding place in the chapel had not been as hidden as he’d thought.

“Well, the man is one of his. Brutish fool too. Solomon is his name—surely a sign of someone’s love of a jest. No man could be more thickheaded.”

Duncan’s ego plumped a bit at the fact Rosston was worried about him. “Perhaps it will do the man good to know he has a rival?”

“Rosston, do ye mean? Or you? I feel certain ’twill be no blessing for Lady Kerr.”

Duncan’s sense of triumph disappeared. “You are quite correct.” He slipped his hands in the warm water Nab had delivered and doused his face and arms. “Today has not been the best of days. Leave the man, though. I should like Rosston to think his ruse has been undetected.” Duncan reached for a towel and gave himself a vigorous rub. He could feel Nab studying him.

“I heard about Harry,” the boy said.

Duncan had almost forgotten today’s failure. “How? I only just told Lady Kerr.”

“He stole a horse in Thrum’s Ferry. The men were talking about it outside.”

Abby was right to say he’d complicated things for her. “I am not much of a strong arm, it seems.” He grabbed another clean sark from Bran’s closet, conscious once again of his utter dependence on the generosity of Abby Kerr to survive in this world. “He isn’t heading back here, I hope.”

Nab shrugged. “I doubt it. I’ve never seen an exiled man return. Well, except for Lady Kerr, of course. And she had to be brought back almost in chains.”

Duncan slipped the linen over his head. He had forgotten her father had sent her away.

Nab said, “But Rosston’s man is not the only thing I must tell you about—”

A knock sounded and Grendel flew to the door.

“Come,” Duncan said.

A gap-toothed maid with steely eyes opened the door. “The chieftess requires your assistance.”

“Oh?” He brought the plaid up over his shoulder again.

“The smith is in need of ten feet of the thickest chain the castle has—as wide as your wrist, if ye please.”

“Jesus. Is he penning an elephant?”

“I didna ask, though it seems unlikely. There are nae eilifints in Scotland, sir.”

“Can it wait till morning?” Even in full light, carrying ten feet of four-inch-thick iron chain was going to be a hell of a job.

“Are ye ill? I can spare a girl if ye need help, though it’s Katie, and even in the best o’ times—”

“No, no, no. I can do it myself. I just—Never mind. Where’s the chain?”

“There’s a storage room at the base of the west tower stairs. I expect you’ll find what we have there.”

“And the smith?”

“East bailey, behind the old brewery.”

Duncan groaned. Stairs, full darkness, three hundred pounds of chain, and an entire castle’s width to cross.

The woman eyed him dubiously, as one might a one-legged man who’s been handed a ladder, but seemed to decide in the end whatever happened wouldn’t be her problem. He suspected he was never going to be asked to tote the best china though.

“You may let her ladyship know I’ll take care of it.”

“Lady Kerr
presumes
her requests will be fulfilled, Mr. MacHarg. ’Twould only be worth notice if you refused. And in that case I should call the castle guard.” With a sniff, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the hall.

“
Well
.” Duncan could think of no more to say that should be said in front of an impressionable young man. “Ten feet of four-inch chain. What in God’s name is it for, do ye think?” he wondered, adding with a grin, “Maybe her ladyship’s planning to lock Rosston out of the castle on his return, aye?”

“That’s what I need to tell ye. Rosston’s back. He’s here—in the castle. I don’t know what he’d been planning to do, mind, but after he left the chapel, he stopped at a crofter’s cottage just north of here and came out with a small chest, which he brought back here and has been hovering over ever since.
That
is what the chain is for. To lock it up.”

“Why would he need a three-hundred-pound chain for a chest?” The words had barely left his mouth when it hit him. “Gold.”

Nab nodded. “He’s let it be known this is his wedding portion to Lady Kerr. The date has been set. And the date has been moved. They are to be married in three days’ time.”