Or perhaps it was only his own reluctance, his regret at losing her, that preyed on his mind. His body ached with the elusive imprint of her weight where he had held her. If she were anyone but Andrew’s daughter, she would have been in his bed for the past month. He would have seduced her, taught her, made her his own.
A disturbingly familiar noise broke his worried reverie. He glanced up to see the drawbridge jerking in a slow grinding ascent. “Here!” he shouted in alarm. “What do you think you’re doing? Open that damn drawbridge, Archie, or whoever the hell you are, and open it now! Marsali, if this is your doing, it is not amusing.”
Effie appeared on the walkway above him, putting on her spectacles to give him an unsympathetic look. “Is that you, my lord?”
“Yes, it’s me, you impertinent woman. Let me in!”
“Sorry, my lord,” she bellowed. “ ’Tis laundry day, and Cook’s just ordered the wash hung up to dry. The castle is closed for the afternoon!”
Duncan almost fell off his horse.
“What?
What do you mean, it’s laundry day? It can’t be bloody laundry day because we are expecting visitors to the bloody ball! How are they supposed to get in?”
Effie shook her head as if pondering one of life’s great mysteries. Then Marsali appeared beside her, staring down at Duncan with a malicious grin. “Is something wrong, my lord?”
“Open the damn drawbridge,” he roared, jumping down into the dust, which only sent the chickens into a squawking frenzy.
The commotion lured Johnnie onto the walkway, followed shortly after by Owen, Lachlan, and a bevy of other curious clansmen. They watched Duncan with wary interest as if he were a lion in a coliseum. Finally Cook came onto the scene. The crowd parted respectfully to give her formidable girth room.
“This is all verra disruptive, my lord,” she said, huffing for breath. “Here I was wi’ my elbows buried in flour for yer ball tonight when I heard ye shouting and swearin’, and us expectin’ a castle full of guests.”
“Guests?” Duncan repeated, his voice rising into another roar. “How the blazes can we admit guests with the drawbridge raised?”
Cook took his display of temper in stride. “And how can we admit guests, my lord, when our laundry is not properly washed and dried? What would these strangers think of us, I ask ye, if we greeted them like savages in our sweaty plaids?”
“She has a point,” Lachlan said in support. “
’Twould reflect poorly on wee Marsali if we smelled bad, my lord.”
Duncan thought he was going to burst a major artery before he won this argument. “And when did this castle of slobs become a castle of snobs?” he demanded. “What am I to tell the visitors who are left standing outside after traveling for days to reach this godforsaken pile of rocks?”
“The castle gate is to open at eight o’clock,” Cook answered in a voice that brooked no disagreement. “The visitors can make of that what they like.”
Sabotage. Conspiracy. Duncan smelled its rank threat brewing in the air like a whiff of a London sewer. He was beside himself. He was being bested by the biggest bunch of fools in Christendom.
One by one the crowd of Highlanders melted away, until Marsali stood alone on the walkway like a bedraggled princess awaiting a prince who might never come.
She gave him a sly smile. “You might try to enter by the latrines, my lord,” she suggested. “That is, if you can stand the smell.”
Edwina suddenly appeared behind her. “What smell?”
“Edwina.” Duncan released a long sigh of relief. “Thank God. Raise the damn drawbridge, would you? The idiots have locked me out of the castle.”
Edwina frowned. She was wearing her nice Chinese dressing robe. Her wig was powdered and curled. “I can’t raise the drawbridge, Duncan,” she said after a long hesitation.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I’ve just done my hair and it’s laundry day, and Cook—”
Duncan’s face reddened. “You…”
“—is pressing my best gown for the ball,” Edwina concluded. “Rules are rules, Duncan. You of all people should understand the need to obey established authority. Anyway, I need to do something about Marsali’s appearance. She wouldn’t attract a ragpicker for a husband looking like that.”
C
h
apter
14
D
uncan had dressed to the teeth for the occasion, aware a display of authority was desperately needed to thwart the undercurrents of mutiny in the castle. A breacan and feilidh of blue-green tartan shot with gold swathed his powerful frame. The lower length of the plaid was pleated into a kilt, the upper part fastened to his shoulder with a bone pin. Beneath the coarse wool he wore a long white linen shirt with lace cuffs. Tartan stockings and buckled shoes completed the image of the deceptively proud chieftain.
The chieftain whose own clan would lock him out of his castle.
His clansmen behaved as though the drawbridge incident had never happened. As though he hadn’t had to climb up the latrines and take a boiling hot bath with lye soap afterward. They tiptoed around his chair and took their places at the table as if he were an ogre who would eat them. Marsali’s fate was foremost on their minds. He was surrounded by more moping faces and mournful sighs than had been at Queen Anne’s funeral. Everyone seemed to think the poor wee lass was about to be sacrificed to some cannibalistic Celtic god instead of being offered in holy matrimony to a decent husband.
He glanced to his right at Marsali, a frown darkening his face. She didn’t look unlike a sacrifice in her flowing ivory gown of Brussels lace, the dress that was to have been her wedding gown because she had ruined the gold tulle. She looked virginal. Untouched. A fragile rosebud waiting for a man’s warmth to burst into bloom. She was achingly sweet for all the trouble she had caused him. She was, in fact, a portrait of submissive femininity, all a husband could possibly desire, and then some.
Until Lachlan leaned across the table and knocked a flagon of burgundy into her lap. Instead of complaining about her ruined dress, she giggled helplessly. Lachlan threw Duncan a terrified look and whipped off his blue bonnet to mop up the mess, dribbling wine all over his own damp but newly washed plaid in the process.
“She’ll have to change,” Edwina said in dismay, stylish herself in a rose satin gown with an embroidered stomacher. “This is a tragedy. She’ll have to wear the yellow brocade, and it washes out her complexion in the candlelight.”
Duncan’s frown deepened. “Get upstairs and change, Marsali. Lachlan, for God’s sake, don’t put that dripping bonnet back on your head.”
“The first of the suitors for the hand of Marsali Hay is here, my lord!” Johnnie yelled from the door.
A miserable silence met that untimely announcement. Cook almost dropped her platter of truffles on her way to the table. Heads turned in sly anticipation as a strange clunking sound echoed loudly from the hall.
“What the Devil?” Duncan sat forward, his hand sliding to the sword on his hip. A peculiar rotund shadow filled the doorway. Johnnie stepped back just in time to avoid being crushed by the herring barrel with hairy legs that burst into the hall.
Duncan bolted from his chair, his voice like a clap of thunder in the awestruck silence. “What in God’s name is the meaning of this?”
The herring barrel sprouted a head and a pair of short bare arms. “I might ask ye the same thing, my lord,” it said in sputtering indignation. “If
this
is an example of Mac
Elgin hospitality, to lure a man over mountain and moor only to strip him naked and—and—”
He dropped the barrel to reveal a plump backside plastered in peat and chicken feathers. Marsali covered her eyes with her hand but could not suppress a chuckle of delight. A few guffaws broke out here and there, only to die at the withering look the chieftain cast around the hall.
Duncan’s gaze checked off the prime suspects one by one. Marsali, Johnnie, Lachlan, Owen, Donovan. None of the usual offenders were missing. But, by God, someone was going to pay.
“Who are you, sir?” he demanded, redirecting his attention to the indignant herring barrel.
“I am Dougal MacDougall of Glen Beag, my lord, here at yer own invitation and attacked by a band of your own clansmen.”
“Is there anyone in this hall you can identify as your assailant, Dougal MacDougall of Glen Beag?”
Dougas hoisted the barrel back over his backside and waddled over to the table. His homely face furious, he examined each and every person present until his gaze stopped at Marsali, softening a little.
“I recognize no one here, my lord,” he said stiffly.
“Perhaps a rival clan attacked you,” Lachlan suggested.
Donovan gave his harp a discordant twang. “Aye, ’tis those damn MacKelbu
rn
es again. Always tryin’ to stir up trouble.”
Duncan narrowed his eyes, his long fingers tapping an impatient rhythm on the back of his chair. Rival gang, his big toe. He recognized a nasty MacElgin assault when he saw it, yet he couldn’t very well admit that the “prize” he was trying to palm off was the leader of the ruffians who’d attacked the man. He glanced down at her in grudging respect. Her eyes glittered back at him with unholy humor.
“My men will scour the moor for the culprits and see they’re brought to justice,” he said quietly. “Describe your assailants to me.”
Douglas looked mollified at the offer. Bumping his barrel against the table, he tried to reach the glass of wine Lachlan was holding out to him. “It was a woman, a skinny woman with spectacles, and her piglets.”
From the corner of his eye Duncan watched Marsali cover
a grin behin
d her own goblet. “A woman…
and her
pigs
did this to you?”
Dougal raised his quivering chin. “She wasna alone. There was a band of
’em.” He clutched his barrel higher in a self-defensive stance. “I was overcome, outnumbered—”
“By a band of piglets?” Marsali asked, lowering her goblet.
Lachlan pursed his lips. “Perhaps he meant a band of women. They’re meaner than pigs.”
“He said there was only one woman,” Owen said.
Marsali nodded. “Aye, in spectacles.”
“Perhaps we misunders
tood,” Donovan said from the corn
er of the hall. “Perhaps he was attacked by a band of piglets wearing spectacles.”
Marsali frowned. “Do pigs wear spectacles nowadays?”
“Aye, lass, they do,” Owen said somberly. “Why, when I was in Inverness last year, I saw a dentist riding a horse that had false teeth.”
“Incredible,” Marsali murmured, shaking her head.
Dougal looked as though he would burst into tears. “
’Twas a band of children, my lord! Filthy, evil wee monsters with bows and arrows aimed right at my vital organs. I had no choice but to surrender!”
“Dear God,” Duncan said under his breath, putting his hand to the bridge of his nose. “Someone help me.”
Marsali laid her small hand on his arm. “You have a headache, my lord?” she asked, all maidenly innocence and melting sweetness. “Shall I massage your temple
s? Brew some chamomile tea…
sing you a lullaby?”
Duncan lowered his own hand and gave her a look of sheer evil that made her blood run cold. “This is the prize, Sir Dougal MacDougall,” he said, gripping Marsali by the elbow and reeling her out of her chair. “Marsali Hay, daughter of the MacElgin tacksman, Andrew Hay, and descendant of King Olaf,” he announced bluntly. “Do you still want to make a suit for her or not?”
“How can he resist when you offer me so delicately?” Marsali asked in an acidic whisper.
Dougal waddled up for a closer look, his barrel forcing Marsali back against her chair. While Duncan studied her
in brooding appraisal as if from another man’s position, he could only imagine the thoughts that must be running rampant through Dougal’s mind.
Aye, he could see the nervous excitement on the fool’s face, the prospect of winning this fey woman making him forget the humiliation he’d endured to get this far. With a few deft touches, Edwina had transformed her into a glowing angel of temptation. Her unruly auburn hair had been plaited into a glossy coronet that emphasized her piquant features. Roses bloomed in her cheeks. The white lace dress played up her deceptive daintiness, drawing the eye to every exquisite indentation.
“Aye,” Dougal said hoarsely, swallowing hard. “I want her. Oh, God. I do.”
Johnnie stomped over to the table, stepping between the herring barrel and the chieftain. “As lieutenant-in-arms of Clan MacElgin, I am allowed a vote on the council, and I object to the marriage between Marsali Hay and this man, my lord.”
Lachlan lumbered to his big feet. “Aye, that goes for me too, my lord.”
“And me,” Marsali said heartily, rising from her chair. Duncan gritted his teeth. By ancient law his council members could challenge whatever decisions he made, but who would have dreamed the morons could quote such a law, let alone possess the wherewithal to use it against him?
“Sit down, Marsali. Lachlan, you too. Dougal, you’re dropping your barrel.” Duncan’s face remained as unreadable as stone as he stared down the table at Johnnie. “On what grounds do you object to this betrothal?”
Johnnie frowned. “Well, my lord, I recall your mentioning that Marsali needed a protector, and it seems to me that a man who canna defend himself against Ef—I mean, against a lone female, two pigs, and a few bairns is no goin’ to be much of a protector. If ye take my point.”
Unfortunately, Duncan did. He could no more hand Marsali over to this bumbling barrel than to a stranger. He inclined his head in a stiff nod of reluctant assent. “See that Dougal MacDougall of Glen Beag is given a good meal and decent clothes before he leaves the castle.
With an escort.
”
Amid thunderous applause, Dougal MacDougall of Glen Beag was rolled out of the hall. Duncan sank back down into his chair and sighed.
While he was reaching for his wine goblet, Effie sneaked in from a side door and crept to the table, darting him a sheepish smile.
Lachlan thwacked her on the back with his soggy bonnet, then winked at Marsali. “One down, lass. Only four to go.”