When the Laird Returns (14 page)

Iseabal turned abruptly and began to leave him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him reach out for her. Pressing her arm closer to her side, she would have moved away, but he gripped her shoulder. His warm palm against her cool skin felt like a brand.

“Take your hands off me, MacRae,” she said, anger surfacing from beneath a lifetime of restraint. “You’ve no right to touch me.”

She jerked away from him and walked out of the room, leaving them all staring after her.

T
he morning dawned clear, the rain the day before freshening the air. That gentle English storm made Iseabal long for those in Scotland. She missed the roaring thunder and the brilliant flashes of lightning as it scratched the sky.

The gardens of Brandidge Hall were even more impressive up close. On either side of the hedges grew a profusion of flowers. Rectangular beds, filled with roses in various hues, lined the gravel path. Some flowers, those she’d never before seen, waved their yellow petals in the morning breeze, a call to venture near and appreciate their beauty.

The garden reminded her, oddly enough, of her mother’s embroidery, delicate and perfect.

Iseabal skirted the edge of the east wing, following the gravel path as the maid had instructed. Abruptly she stopped, startled at this new, more secluded enclosure.

This garden was a spot of wild beauty with plants growing
in a haphazard fashion. Rows of hedges had been planted years before to enclose the place in a square, leafy box. Obviously, gardeners did not venture here and what trimming or planting occurred was done by nature.

In the center of the space was a large pedestal topped with a bronze sundial in the shape of a laughing face. Beside it stood a wooden bench shaped like two semicircles resting atop each other, their bottom curves touching. There, the Countess of Sherbourne sat waiting for her.

Yesterday Patricia had appeared vivacious at times, as if she were a young girl peeping out from behind faded eyes. But now she looked frail, as if all the burdens and memories of her life weighed on her spirit.

“You wished to see me?” Iseabal asked tentatively, wondering what the countess wished of her now. After last night, Iseabal decided, she was not going to be transformed into someone other than herself.

Patricia patted the bench beside her. Iseabal walked over to her, reluctantly sitting. She tucked her feet beneath her, hoping for the right words to decline another metamorphosis. But the countess didn’t seem interested in her attire. “This place reminds me of my childhood home,” Patricia said, looking around her. “The older I become, the more I want reminders about me. Perhaps,” she mused, with a small, self-deprecating laugh, “I wish to recall my youth in order to bear my old age.”

“Or perhaps it’s just nice to have things around you that remind you of easier times,” Iseabal said. “Is that why there’s a Celtic knot in the garden?”

Patricia smiled. “Moira had that planted, and it’s been cared for ever since.” She glanced at the sundial, useless in this shady spot. “Gerald found that for her,” she explained,
smiling. “Scotland has figured prominently in my life,” she added. “But I truly thought that the last thread had been severed at Nigel’s death.”

She turned to Iseabal, reaching out to pat her hand. “Until you, my dear.”

Patricia’s fingers felt so cold that Iseabal covered the older woman’s hands with her own.

“You’re very kind,” Patricia said, smiling faintly. “Which makes what I need to say even more difficult.”

She seemed to sigh, then drew a deep breath. “I should have told you yesterday, my dear. But I am an old, meddling woman who saw the look in Alisdair’s eyes and yours and hoped for a miracle.”

Patricia looked off into the distance. “There is no need for Alisdair to obtain an annulment, my dear,” she said. “Because you are not truly married to my grandson.”

“We were married,” Iseabal said, pulling her hands away from Patricia’s.

The older woman nodded. “I know, Iseabal, but Scottish marriages have not been considered valid in England for a great many years.”

Warmth left Iseabal’s face, sliding down her body until it escaped through her toes.

English law did not apply to her, Iseabal thought. Unless she decided to remain in this country. Here she would be considered a woman without reputation or virtue, one of those shadowy creatures who were pointed at or whispered about. But in Scotland, she would be seen as married. A woman whose husband so disliked her that he had sailed away, leaving her a maiden wife.

Either way, she was caught in a situation even worse than marriage to a bald, toothless man.

“What will you do, Iseabal?” Patricia asked.

“I don’t know,” Iseabal said numbly.

“You’re welcome to stay with me, my dear. I would relish a companion.”

Iseabal forced a smile to her lips, grateful for the woman’s generosity. But remaining at Brandidge Hall would be the worst thing she could do. Each day would summon up another regret. A whisper in the corridor would recall Alisdair’s footsteps. A servant’s smile, Alisdair’s grin. This place itself, with its hints of Scotland and the MacRaes, would be a dubious haven.

“Thank you,” Iseabal said. “I don’t know what I’ll do. But I can’t stay here.”

“The world is not always a kind place to women,” Patricia warned.

Iseabal nodded. “I know,” she said, not telling the older woman that she’d learned that lesson all too well at Fernleigh.

She’d always wished to be brave and daring, and it occurred to Iseabal as she sat there that now was a perfect time to begin.

The library at Brandidge Hall was a masculine domain, carrying the faint scent of tobacco and tanned leather. Tall shelves lining three of the walls were filled with books adorned with gilt spines. A fireplace flanked by two windows and a set of chairs looked to be a cozy place to read or converse.

Alisdair was early for the meeting with Ames, but the solicitor was there before him, occupying the massive desk in the library as if it were his domain.

For all his intentions of giving up the title and Brandidge Hall, Alisdair thought that until he did so formally, this was
his room, and these were his books and his desk. He said nothing, however, simply crossed the wooden floor and stood beside the leather-tooled desk until Ames glanced up.

The solicitor had the grace to look embarrassed as he stood, pushing his papers to the other side of the desk. But Alisdair noted that not one word of apology crossed his lips.

Ames sat on one of the two chairs located on the opposite side of the desk, while Alisdair occupied the tall leather chair he had vacated. Atop the desk, was a leather blotter, a tray of quills, and an inkwell shaped like a frog.

“I imagine you want to get down to business as quickly as possible,” Ames said, placing the papers in a leather portfolio.

Alisdair sat back, folded his arms, and stared at Ames. Had Patricia not employed him, Alisdair would have dismissed the man on the spot, if for no other reason than the leers he’d directed toward Iseabal. But there was also the question of his investigations.

“How did you learn so much about me?” Alisdair said, cautiously amiable. Demonstrating anger, or even irritation, was unwise in any type of negotiations.

Ames began to push the leather case across the desk, hesitating at the question.

“You can’t imagine that I would turn over the Sherbourne wealth to anyone?” he asked.

“Is it yours to cede?” Alisdair asked calmly. “I believe it belongs to Patricia at the moment.”

“You’re wrong, of course,” Ames said, smiling faintly. “She has no claim to any of the fortune. She’s living here on your sufferance, but you’re within your rights to banish her from Brandidge Hall.”

Ames slowly slid the document case across the desk. “If you’ll begin signing, then I shall attest as witness.”

Alisdair opened the portfolio, beginning to read. All of the properties entailed with the title were listed in alphabetical order, along with the dates when they had been acquired. He was surprised to see that most of them went back hundreds of years.

“You’ll find that everything is in order,” Ames said stiffly. “Upon your signature, the Sherbourne wealth is yours.”

Alisdair grabbed the quill, flipping open the frog’s head with its beady emerald eyes, and dipped the nib inside. “What happens if I refuse the title?” he asked idly, tapping off the excess ink from the pen.

“Why would you do that?” Ames wondered, frowning.

“What happens?” Alisdair repeated.

“The title and the estates would go to your second cousin.”

“Do you know him?”

The other man nodded. “I have had some acquaintance with him,” he conceded. “A man of great nobility, who will hold the title well. Unlike your predecessor.”

“I take it you did not approve of my uncle David?”

“The man was a simpleton,” Ames said sharply. “He was most happy with his cats. Anything more difficult was beyond his comprehension.”

Alisdair’s dislike of Ames was growing with each passing moment.

“If I were to decline,” he said, “I would want the countess to be able to remain at Brandidge Hall for as long she lives. And to have a sum of money settled upon her until she dies.” His entire family owed her a debt of gratitude. Not only had Patricia distracted the English while the MacRaes escaped from Gilmuir, but she had been a guardian of their secret all these years.

“I would certainly state that in your letter to the new earl.” At Alisdair’s silence, Ames continued. “You must understand English law. It would be up to the new earl to decide what will be done. If you surrender your rights, you also give up the ability to dictate terms.”

Alisdair lay the quill down and leaned back in his chair, wondering at the curious feeling of reluctance he felt. The words would be swiftly spoken.
I do not wish to be Earl of Sherbourne.
A simple declination of a title he never wished to have.

The idea, however, of a remote cousin dictating what would happen to Patricia and Brandidge Hall rankled him. He didn’t like obstacles in his path. Nor did he like being dictated to. He wanted to live the life he’d chosen, not one forced upon him.

How many of the MacRaes had been allowed to do that? Startled by that thought, Alisdair stood, walking to one of the twin windows.

“Leave me alone for a few minutes,” he said without turning.

“I cannot witness your signature if I’m not here to see you sign the papers,” Ames said patiently, as if he spoke to a child.

“Then I shall not sign them until you return,” Alisdair said. A moment later he heard the door open and then close.

The mantel clock chimed the minutes, a metronome of sound accompanying his thoughts. He turned, to find himself reflected in the convex disk of a sunburst mirror. Staring at his distorted image, Alisdair could not help but wonder at what the world saw.

A captain, certainly. A man to whom family was important. A MacRae, whose heritage was equally so. A builder of ships.

And a selfish fool? One who had forgotten all the deprivations his kinsmen had suffered in settling at Cape Gilmuir. Iseabal had called him greedy, her eyes changing to chips of emerald stone. Until this moment he’d never considered her correct.

As captain of the
Fortitude,
he was familiar with taking responsibility not only for his ship, but for what was more important, the men who sailed her. Yet he’d easily discounted his own responsibility in both his marriage and his heritage, thinking more of his own dislike of the situation than how his actions would impact others.

He couldn’t leave Patricia unprotected, nor could he surrender his ancestry and his father’s to the stewardship of Ames.

Most important, he could not abandon Iseabal.

I’ll not harm you, Iseabal.
Words he’d said to her. Yet he had done so in the worst way imaginable. Although she’d been roughly treated by her father, Iseabal had been protected from the world. Instead of the sanctuary of marriage, he had promised her money and the freedom of her future. But even he was not free, Alisdair realized, tied as he was to those he loved by invisible bonds.

He had thought to marry a woman from his homeland, but the images of his childhood friends had faded in the past days until they were now only faint ghosts of memory.

In the forefront of his mind, confusing and mysterious, was Iseabal.

Take your hands off me, MacRae.
Her rejection of him had been all too apparent. Or perhaps it was only a mirror of his treatment of her.

Not once had he kissed his wife, the realization thrum
ming into his mind like an arrow from a tightly strung bow. Nor had he touched her as he’d wished. Not accidentally while treating her, but with purposeful intent.

He could still see Iseabal’s fingers stroking a marbled thigh, indolently exploring the sleekness of a flank, the fullness of a buttock, the muscles of an upper arm.

Alisdair had never thought himself possessive or jealous, but last night he’d been both. An unknown model, dead a thousand years, had loaned his body to her callused fingertips and furnished knowledge to a mind previously innocent.

His
should have been the body she touched, Alisdair thought, the ideas of protection and responsibility fading beneath a starker truth. He wanted Iseabal to learn from him, map the texture of his skin, smooth her hands over his buttocks with curved fingers the way she had that damn statue. He wanted to see that look of wonder on her face as she touched him.

Alisdair knew, instantly, what he was going to do. Striding to the door, he opened it, gesturing for Ames to enter the library again.

H
earing the crunch of boots on gravel, Iseabal turned her head. Alisdair was walking between the ornate hedges, his destination obvious.

“Are you certain you will not reconsider my offer, my dear?” Patricia quickly said. “I would dearly enjoy you as a companion. Will you stay with me, Iseabal?”

Glancing over at the older woman, Iseabal smiled. “It’s you who are kind,” she said, wishing that she didn’t suddenly have the urge to cry. She patted Patricia’s hand, then stood, watching Alisdair approach. She didn’t feel the least bit brave or daring at the moment. Regret, yes, she felt that, and a sadness that speared through her at the sight of him.

He was dressed formally, as he had been last night. Aboard the
Fortitude
he’d often been attired in nothing more than breeches and a shirt. Sometimes she’d seen him standing at the bow, the fabric of his clothing rippling with the
breeze from the ocean. Once, Henrietta, the cat, had sat beside him, both watching the endless surge of waves. A companionable and charming memory she would hold in her heart.

Unbidden, another recollection flashed before her, of his shirt wetly plastered to his chest, his smile kind as Alisdair bent to dry her hair. She had wanted to put her hand on his chest and feel the beat of his heart even then.

Without his beard he appeared a different person, she thought. But the man who commanded the
Fortitude
was far different from this sartorial gentleman. She would never be a suitable wife for this man, but the captain touched something in her nature, drew her admiration and another emotion she dared not name.

He was all too human, her captain. Occasionally arrogant, certainly obstinate, he was also kind, protective, and caring.

Perhaps in time she might talk of him to matronly women she knew.
I was married,
she would say,
to a comely man with eyes like the sky. A man of honor and loyalty.
They would nod kindly, these women of her imagination, but perhaps not believe her.

He slowed, his footsteps oddly muted now. There was a smear of ink on his forefinger and thumb. He had signed away his heritage, then.

Go away, MacRae.

She focused her gaze on his boots, wondering how to say the words, thinking that they might well be the most difficult she would ever utter.

“Scotland,” she said, forcing herself to face him. His blue eyes were now somber, his lips curved in a half smile. The closer he came, the harder it was for her to breathe.

“I want to go back to Scotland,” she said before he could
speak. “You promised that you would take me anywhere. Take me home, then, MacRae. I’ll bear my shame in my homeland.”

“You think it shameful to be married to me?” he asked, the amiability of his expression instantly vanishing.

“We are not married, MacRae,” she said, forcing a small smile to her lips. “At least not in England. Evidently, the English do not recognize a Scottish ceremony.”

Brushing by him, Iseabal held her head high.

His hand reached out, gripped her arm. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

“You wanted your freedom, MacRae,” she said. “It seems you have what you wanted. Now take it.”

He was becoming damn tired of being dismissed by his wife. Spearing his hands through his hair, he turned to Patricia. “Is that true?”

Slowly she nodded. “Regrettably,” she said. “There is no need for an annulment, after all, Alisdair.”

“Then get me a priest,” he said, annoyed with English law.

He caught up with Iseabal at the maze, once again reaching out and gripping her arm. She flinched and he jerked his hand back. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, fearful that he had caused her pain.

She turned and looked at him, then glanced away as quickly. Her eyes were deep with tears, her face brushed with pink across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Like a butterfly, he thought nonsensically.

She wore her pale blue jacket today, he was grateful to see. Not something borrowed that revealed too much of her body and disregarded her true charms—eyes that sparked, a
mouth that seemed made for laughter, a nature that hinted at both gentleness and strong emotion.

He turned her gently until she faced him, her back to the hedges forming the maze.

In the wake of her silence he spoke again. “What does it take to get you to speak?” he asked, frustrated that she would not answer him.

He placed his hands on either side of her face, tilted her chin up, and bent down to breathe against her lips.

“What must I do to coax you from silence, Iseabal? Should I feed you my own words, only to have you repeat them to me? Or,” he said, placing his finger against her bottom lip, “shall I urge you to speech another way? Speak to me, Iseabal,” he urged coaxingly, “and I will swallow your words so that they never breathe in the open air.”

He lay his lips softly against hers, exerting no demand, simply familiarizing himself with the feel of her. Her skin beneath his fingertips felt like the softest silk from the ports of China, but warm and pulsing with life. Her lips were full and pillowy, immobile beneath his in an invitation as artless and intriguing as the woman.

“Am I supposed to be grateful for your permission to be free with my words?” she asked, pulling back. The question was surprising, uttered in a breathless tone but stinging all the same.

“I can say anything I wish, MacRae,” she continued, frowning at him. “And have always been able to do so. It is the consequences of my speech that I must consider.”

“Yes,” he said, wondering if their kiss had loosened her words, testing the thought by bending forward to kiss her again. “But the consequences of your silences are even
greater. I think I will kiss you each time you refuse to answer me.”

She spoke against his lips, her hands smoothing up his arms before abruptly falling away. “Why?”

He drew back, glancing down at her with a rueful smile. “Because I’ve wanted to all this time. Is that not a good enough reason?”

Her eyelids fluttered shut, and her words, when they came, were oddly without emotion.

“I will not be your whore, MacRae.”

“Stay my wife instead,” he murmured, placing his lips against her cheek. Her skin was heated, but he felt her shiver as he kissed a path to her throat.

“We aren’t married in England.”

“Does that news please you?” he asked.

“No,” she said breathlessly, the confession inspiring another kiss.

They could be seen from any window, he thought, smiling against her mouth. Alisdair MacRae, intent upon ravaging his wife in the gardens. Reason intruded. Here he was not a MacRae and she was not his wife.

He stared down into her lovely face. Her eyes had closed, her lashes long and feathery against her cheeks. In that moment she looked suspended and hesitant, poised upon a pinnacle crafted of both confusion and desire.

Cupping his hands around her face, he waited until she had opened her eyes and gazed up at him. To his delight, her cheeks deepened in color, her eyes widening as she stared at him. Speechless again, he thought, smiling down at her.

Brushing his thumbs against the corners of her mouth, he spoke again, his voice low and grave, the words those he’d never had a chance to speak.

“Marry me, Iseabal,” he said.

She stepped back, her hands at her side. Her silence didn’t surprise him. Nor did the fact that she seemed abruptly distant from him, as if she’d taken herself far away from this place and left only the shell of her body behind. He’d seen her do this before.

“Marry me, Iseabal,” he said again.

She looked up at him, her face flooding with color. “Why?”

Her habit of restraint had unexpectedly become his. He wanted to know why her eyes looked sad at times, or what irritated her. Why she sometimes trembled when he stood near. What she thought of when she stared out to sea, and what her thoughts were when her gaze lit on him and her face stilled into a somber mask.

Curiosity, however, was not enough of a basis for marriage. Yet he felt that they had been bound to each other by ties neither understood. Not merely Drummond’s command, or their mutual fascination for Gilmuir, but something else that he could not quite comprehend. Still, he could not tell her that, or explain his sudden confusion.

“Because you know how I awake in the morning?” he said, floundering for an explanation. “Or because we have such delightful conversations?” he added dryly.

She returned his gaze, her look as steady as his. By law they were not married, not in England or in his homeland. They were companions of a sort, only that. Escapees from a land that had nurtured her and beggared him. But he suddenly wanted more than that, and that was what he could not explain.

“What is your choice, Iseabal?” he asked again, impatient with himself. “Scotland or here? Marriage or no?”

“A woman has one choice,” she said simply. “To be happy or not.”

“And what would make you happy, Iseabal?”

“To be a decent woman. We are already husband and wife, MacRae. By Scottish law. How were your own parents married?”

She didn’t look away and neither did he, stunned by the emotions she’d incited in him. Lust, shame, anger, and confusion.

“By decree,” he admitted, beginning to smile.

“To think that Scots law is not valid, MacRae,” she said, leveling a surprisingly stern look at him, “is to commit treason. What would the Raven think of that?”

Alisdair felt himself vacillating between an odd compulsion to comfort Iseabal and a wish to kiss her words from her. Her words had a way of puncturing his skin and his resolve with near-deadly barbs.

“My father doesn’t belong here,” he said, smiling. He reached for her, bending to kiss her again. “Not while I’m kissing my wife.”

Her mouth fell open beneath his. One kiss and she’d learned to ensnare him. He smiled against her lips as he felt her arms looping around his neck. Softly, sweetly, Alisdair drew her closer to him, wondering how soon he could arrange another ceremony.