The Laird's Forbidden Lady (26 page)

Ian looked up and caught her watching him. ‘What troubles you?’

Did he have to pretend he cared? These gentle enquiries of his always disarmed her. In one
more week she would leave. She could not afford for him to see any chink in her armour. ‘Do you like this way of arranging my hair? I saw it in one of the fashion plates Chrissie left behind.’

His frown deepened. ‘You sighed. Twice in the last ten minutes.’

Had she sighed? ‘I was just tired of your head being buried in that letter. Is it bad news?’

He glanced down at the paper. ‘No.’ He shook his head as if trying to convince himself. ‘It just isn’t as good as I had hoped.’

She waited for him to say more. Not that he usually did. He told her not to worry about clan business. He had it all in hand. She was like a porcelain doll, all right to look at, but easily broken.

An expression of horror crossed his face. ‘I’m sorry, I forgot.’ He pulled a crumpled letter from his pocket. ‘Logan brought it up from the post this morning. I meant to give it to you right away.’

‘But you became engrossed in your own letter, which contains matters of little importance.’ He looked at her blankly and she wondered why she bothered.

He slid the note across the table and her heart lifted at the sight of the familiar crest on the seal.

‘It is from Alice!’ She couldn’t keep the excitement from her voice, but then remembered it was probably better not mentioning Alice. Her
name always made him grumpy. Probably because it brought back memories of Drew. The man’s shade seemed to hang over them enough as it was.

She broke the seal and read eagerly, filling her mind with images of Alice and Hawkhurst and the recent addition to their family. She chuckled at Alice’s description of Hawkhurst rowing his son around the lake and playing pirates. He had been a pirate once. Or at least a privateer, which was as close to a pirate as one could come these days. He had captured the ship on which she and Alice were returning to England from Lisbon. In the end, he was the one who had ended up in irons. But the war was over and all that was behind him.

When she finished, she had a smile on her lips. She looked up to find her husband watching her intently. The expression on his face was carefully blank.

‘Your friend is well?’ he asked in a non-committal voice.

‘Yes. She writes of her son. Nursery stories. She begs me to visit.’

‘I can’t take you now, or any time soon.’

In one week’s time she had the right to choose whether to leave or whether to stay. ‘I will visit them later, after we …’ She shrugged as his lips thinned to a straight line and his jaw hardened.

He glowered and picked up his letter.

‘There is nothing to keep me here, Ian,’ she said, feeling the need to explain when she saw hurt in his eyes. Deep hurt. Something she thought she had glimpsed from time to time when she spoke of leaving. This time she was sure of it. If only he would say something. Tell her what he was thinking. ‘Ian?’

He pushed to his feet. ‘Since being my wife isn’t a reason to stay, what more is to be said? Excuse me. I have a busy day ahead of me and must cancel our planned ride this afternoon.’

He strode out, leaving her staring after him. It was all in her imagination. If he wanted her to stay, if there was anything beyond their physical attraction, surely she would know by now? He would have said something. And after all, what did he have to feel hurt about? He’d got everything he wanted out of this marriage. She was the one who had been tricked. She was the one who had lost everything she valued because she’d tried to help him.

Sometimes, at night, when they were alone, when he was making love to her, she sensed he cared for her more than he would say—but if that was the case, why did he shut her out of the rest of his life?

No, it was Dunross he had wanted, not her. And now he had it.

Their marriage was purely for convenience. His. He had established the rules and she had
abided by them. Now it was coming to an end. A few more days and she could head south as he had promised.

Something twisted in her chest.

‘Did you hear what I said, Ian?’ Niall’s voice was sharp with impatience.

Ian shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I was thinking about something else. Say it again.’

Niall huffed out an impatient breath. ‘I’ve let everyone know to bring their harvest to the mill over the next two days. The weather looks ready to hold fair for at least a week. We could take in some from farther afield if they can bring it in.’

‘They know to bring it at night?’ Ian asked, looking down at the two drawings of two stills Niall had spread out on a bench in the stables. Designed to fit one over the other, it might fool the authorities if they didn’t look too closely.

Niall nodded. ‘I gave them all the trails being watched by the gaugers. They know to avoid them.’

Logan grinned. ‘And the militia are watching the coast after my visit to the tavern at Wick.’

Ian nodded. Dunstan wasn’t a complete idiot, but since he expected them to smuggle brandy, he seemed ready to believe his eyes and ears. Still it would not do to underestimate the man. ‘Have Tammy keep an eye on Dunstan and his men over the next couple of days. Once the barley
is in, things should be quiet again until it is time to distil.’

Niall glanced down at the drawings. ‘It is too bad we can’t apply for a licence and do all this legally.’

It was too bad. But five hundred gallons at a time was beyond their meagre resources.

‘We can’t. Not with the law as it stands. I heard from Carrick the other day that, even with Lord Gordon’s support, there is no hope of the English Parliament changing its mind. We proceed as planned.’

The sound he had been listening for, the reason for his abstraction, came to his ears. Coach wheels on cobbles. He straightened his shoulders. Saying goodbye to her was going to be the hardest thing he had ever done. But after careful thought, he had decided she would be safer with her friend. If she wanted to go, it was better she went now, before they ran the still, then she could claim she knew nothing if he was caught. She would be tainted enough as his wife; he would not want her to witness his disgrace.

And the clan didn’t want her here. No matter how often he defended her and no matter how often he argued, there were still some who blamed her for the last fiasco. Her presence undermined his authority.

Their marriage was doomed from the start. Their worlds were too far apart.

He glanced up to see her walking down the steps dressed for travel. Her trunks were already at the bottom of the stairs. Even though he’d steeled himself for this moment all morning, her appearance came as a shock.

What, had he thought that when it came to it, she wouldn’t go, when he wasn’t the man she wanted?

The slight hesitation in her gait as she descended caused a painful tug in the region of his chest. She looked so beautiful and calmly remote, yet he knew she was vulnerable, fragile, and the need to protect her overcame regret.

The coachman and his guard hurried over to load her luggage in the boot. He joined her at the bottom of the steps.

‘You are making an early start,’ he said, for something to fill the silence between them, when he wanted to ask her to stay. Oh, that would be a fine sight for his men, the Laird begging his wife not to leave him. Especially if she went anyway. And he had no doubt she would.

‘I don’t wish to make more stops on the road than necessary.’ Her voice was cool, emotionless, light.

As loneliness stretched before him, he gazed at her face. There was a glittering brittleness about her determination this morning. The same brittleness she’d used to keep the world at a distance
at Carrick’s ball, and when she fell from her horse. It dazzled, like her beauty.

It left him in awe and feeling rough and awkward. The way he’d felt as a lad, when he’d found her stoically hopping her way back home after she had fallen in a rabbit hole and twisted her ankle.

He had never seen such a pretty girl. Or heard one talk so boldly. He’d been unable to resist her pretty full lips and had stolen a kiss. How many times had they met that long-ago summer? Four. Five. They all blurred together in one happy memory he thought he’d forgotten. They had all come crashing back the moment he got her letter about Drew. Along with the guilt. When his brothers had come across them on the beach he’d been ashamed of being caught consorting with his family’s enemy. He’d said some pretty cruel things. At least he had stopped his brothers from throwing rocks at her as she ran off.

An urge to tell her he needed her here, with him, rose in his throat. Angry at himself, angry at his inability to think logically when it came to this woman, to be the Laird he was raised to be, he cut himself off from his feelings and focused on what had to be done.

He opened the door and held out his hand to Selina. No gloves. Her hand nestled in his like a small broken bird. He had broken her. He saw it on her face, in the shadows in her eyes. He
had taken away her freedom to choose and now he should be pleased to give it back, instead of feeling as if someone had reached into his chest and plucked out his heart.

A flash of understanding hit him hard.

While he had been busy trying to woo her, he had fallen in love, not with her beauty, though he dearly loved that, too, but with her courage and spirit, her caring heart.

Love. Was that what all this turmoil in his chest was about? Apparently it was a brutal taskmaster, for it turned a sensible man into a fool and had him wanting things he couldn’t have. Like her loving him back.

How could she? He’d crushed her dreams to further his own. Well, he would not do it any longer.

So while it went against every instinct he had—indeed, he found that his hands were actually shaking as he helped her into the vehicle—he closed the door.

She sat back against the squabs.

A man ran down the steps from the keep. Angus. ‘Fire!’ he yelled. Breathless, his chest heaving, he struggled to speak. ‘At the mill,’ he panted. ‘I was up on the battlements looking out for yon chaise when I saw a pillar of smoke. It can be nothing else. You need men down there right away.’

Everyone looked at Ian, their mouths agape.
‘I’ll take Beau to the Barleycorn and gather as many as I can there. You go on down in the chaise, Niall, please. Take Logan with you. Do what you can until we arrive.’

His brothers were already leaping onto the roof of the coach as he finished speaking. The coachman swung the carriage around as Ian ran for his horse. He glanced over his shoulder.

Damn it. Selina was in there. And in for a rough ride. He just had to hope she would understand this was important.

As the carriage rocked to a stop and the three men leaped down, Selina peered out of the window at the mill. Stunned, she watched as smoke poured from under the eaves and rose up for a few feet, only to be whipped away by the wind.

Two figures, one small, one large, ran up from the stream to throw the contents of their leather bucket through an open door into the heart of the blaze. Greedy red flames.

The coachman yanked the door open as Niall and Logan rushed to help. ‘Out you come, my lady, in case these beasts panic.’

Heart racing, she jumped down. ‘Go. I’ll be fine.’

Outside, the roar of the fire was overpowering and so was the smell of smoke. She glanced around, wondering what she could do to help. More men were pouring over the hill and women
from the village. They carried buckets of all shapes and sizes, running to form a chain from the stream to the mill. Another chain formed beside the first. Selina joined it, squeezing in beside a small girl who was sobbing with the effort of passing the heavy containers.

Selina added her strength to the child’s and they soon had a backbreaking rhythm of lift and heave and pass, until her back ached.

The supply of water-filled buckets stopped for a moment.

Were they winning? She stood and stretched her back, looking towards the head of the chain. Flames licked around the doorframe. A familiar figure ran inside. Ian? She hadn’t seen him arrive, but he must have been with the rest of the men. What on earth was he doing?

One of the younger boys, his face covered in soot, ran towards the stream with several empty buckets. And the woman behind her tapped her on the back. The rhythm started again. A pause several buckets later gave her another chance to look up. Ian and several of the other men were rolling barrels out through the doorway, wet jackets pulled over their heads for protection. Spirits. They were risking their lives for smuggled liquor?

Again.

She might have guessed. Anger stirred in her stomach. How could they be so stupid?

At any moment, the militia might see the smoke and ride up and arrest the lot of them. They should have let it burn.

The child beside her tugged at her hand. ‘My lady?’

Beneath the soot and the tears tracking down the child’s face were thousands of freckles. ‘Marie Flora? What are you doing here?’

‘Pa brought his barley. Then the fire started.’

Selina turned to take the next run of buckets from the woman behind her and the backbreaking work began again.

‘It’s out,’ someone yelled.

Cheers rang out.

Selina looked up. Smoke, acrid and choking, still swirled around the cobbled courtyard, but it was lessening, being cleared out by gusts of wind.

‘Keep the water coming,’ someone shouted. ‘Just to be sure.’ She passed on the next few buckets until there were no more to grab and walked out of the line.

Marie Flora ran off, no doubt looking for her father.

Selina surveyed the damage. Part of the roof had fallen in, but most of the stone building remained intact. The fire had been confined to the end where the waterwheel turned the great millstones.

Thank God they had arrived in time.

She glanced around. There was no sign of Ian. Or the barrels. Then she realised the coachman was whipping up his horses.

It was leaving without her? As the coach moved off it revealed Ian on the other side of it, sooty-faced and with a hand raised in farewell.

Blast them. No doubt the coach was full of their precious barrels. Her stomach sank. She wouldn’t be leaving the village tonight, after all. She wasn’t sure if she was sorry or glad. Glad, damn her soft heart.