The Intended (25 page)

For what she saith, ye may it trust

As it by writing sealed were.

And virtues hath she many moe

Than I with pen have skill to show.”

His face suddenly pensive, Surrey reached
over and wrapped a hand around his cup of wine. “Though I’ll deny
ever saying it, my friend, that
is
a tall
order for Edward.”

And how could you not think so, the
Highlander thought silently, when he himself—Malcolm MacLeod—was
not man enough to deserve her.

The music began again, and those in the Hall
hushed immediately. Malcolm’s eyes never left Jaime’s face as the
performers continued with their display of beauty and song.

Surrey’s eyes were fixed on Malcolm’s face
when the music paused once again. “Do you mean to press him with a
challenge for her hand?” the earl asked, studying his face. When
Malcolm glanced at his hosts, Frances was pretending not to hear
the two men’s talk.

“Now, that would be between your brother and
myself, don’t you think, m’lord?”

Surrey paused and raised his wine to his
lips, speaking his words into his cup. “He plays quite dirty,
Malcolm, and I should hate to see your head stuck on a pole at
Norwich Castle, simply because you underestimated my brother.”

This time it was the Highlander’s turn to
smile as he nodded silently in response to the earl’s words. “I can
assure you that I am already well attuned to his methods. And I
agree completely with your concerns.”

The sound of children’s voices rising once
again silenced the two men in the midst of their discussion. And
Malcolm pushed aside all thoughts and turned body and soul to the
woman before his eyes.

He knew that Edward would never accept a
challenge from him for Jaime’s hand. But one thing he hadn’t
mentioned to Surrey was that getting his cowardly younger brother
to agree to a challenge would be nothing compared to convincing
Jaime that he truly loved her. Indeed, fighting Edward would be far
simpler than getting Jaime Macpherson to trust, once again, in the
power of his love.

Quite remarkable how he’d mended, Master
Graves had said, considering how battered and close to death
Malcolm had been only a fortnight earlier. The Welsh physician had
then nodded his head thoughtfully and given the Highlander an
emollient to speed the healing of the jagged scars on his chest.
Sending his apprentice out ahead of him, Graves had stopped to ask
Malcolm if he needed any questions answered.

Malcolm had simply shaken his head. He did
not think the physician knew how to ease wounds of the heart.

So, with a kindly nod of the head, the older
man had left him. It was only a short time later that Malcolm had
spotted the letter on the floor near the entrance of the
bedchamber.

Pulling on his shirt, the Highlander crossed
the room and picked up the letter.

“...and various ladies and gentlewomen from
the Pole family, as well! Servants and grooms? She must have
fifty
in her entourage now! Can you imagine? And in addition
to all these people, she has brought in with her dozen personal
maids!” Mary wrapped her hands about her waist and twirled on her
toes, watching the swirl of her skirts. “What I would do with so
many people attending to
my
needs! But how can she keep them
all busy?”

“Perhaps she’ll ask you to join her circle,
Mary. Conceivably,
you
could then have them to see to your
needs. After all, there are plenty of them to go around!” Jaime’s
ironic tone was not noticed by her cousin, whose eyes were suddenly
drawn to one of the windows and the stained-glass rendition of the
Howard coat of arms that adorned the top of each of the music room
windows. In spite of the darkness of the night beyond, the colors
of the stained glass were vibrantly red and gold.

“Can you imagine what life would be like,
progressing through the kingdom with the king and his devoted and
beautiful queen?”

Jaime paused to consider the thought, then
dismissed it with a crooked halfsmile and a shake of her head. But
Mary was still gazing at the window, at the crown that sat above
the shield and plumed helmet. Shrugging her shoulders, Jaime placed
the stringless lute she was carrying against the wall by the door
before moving back to her worktable to inspect one of the other
instruments that had been piled on it.

“I would be a very useful member of her
circle,” Mary said dreamily. “I can easily imagine Catherine taking
me back to court. I shall be one of her gentle ladies in waiting!
Oh, the courtiers and knights I will meet then! They shall all be
vying for my hand.”

“Very useful,” Jaime repeated, scowling at
the breeze that had suddenly sprung up through the window beneath
the colorful coat of arms, ruffling the music sheets stacked beside
her worktable. Laying a small harp on top of the music, she quickly
moved to the window and pulled it shut. The rain was coming down in
torrents, and the wind pushed at the window in her hand. Like a
summer storm in the Highlands, she thought with a smile. Jaime
turned the latch before closing the window completely, causing it
to stay slightly ajar. She had a wee bit more work to do, and she
didn’t need to suffocate doing it.

“But do you think he’ll miss me?” Mary asked,
plucking a harp string absently. “Do you think he will be upset by
Catherine’s decision to take me to court?”

Running her hand over her rain-spattered
skirts, Jaime looked up quickly and stared into her cousin’s face.
For an instant she was afraid to ask the question, but then it was
too awkward for her not to ask. She straightened up and pasted on
her most indifferent expression. “Who, Mary? Who will miss you so
dreadfully?”

Mary affected a nervous glance in the
direction of the closed door before whispering her answer.
“Malcolm, silly. Who else but my wild Highlander?”

“Of course,” Jaime answered shortly before
walking to the worktable. “How ridiculous of me to not realize you
were referring to
your
Highlander!”

Mary giggled. “Then you think he would miss
me!”

Jaime yanked the harp unceremoniously from
beneath her cousin’s fingers, not deigning to so much as lift an
eye to the excited expression she knew must be on Mary’s face.

“Please, Jaime, answer me! You
do
think so, don’t you?”

“I hardly know what to answer, you foolish
creature.” Jaime turned the harp over in her hands and then stalked
over to the door, leaving it on the floor with the others. “I
hardly know him.”

Mary cut Jaime off and grabbed her by the
shoulders on her way back to the table. “But
I
know him. In fact, sometimes I lie awake in bed and
think I’ve known him all my life. There has never been a man who
has affected me as he does.”

Trapped, Jaime looked into Mary’s pretty face
and drew on all the patience she had in her. In a moment, though,
she thought, I’m going to knock her right on her affected arse.

“Jaime,” Mary said with note of sisterly
empathy in her voice, “now I know the torture you must be going
through with Edward away at court. Oh, the loneliness you must feel
when he is away!”

Jaime stood stock-still in Mary’s grasp and
felt a knot rising in her throat. She lowered her eyes, staring at
her cousin’s button of a chin. How wrong could one woman be? she
thought, pressing her lips together.

“But, coz, did you see him tonight?” Mary
asked, her voice rising excitedly as she abruptly turned the
discussion back to
her
Highlander. “Did you see how
devastatingly fierce he looked? In that long, black velvet tunic
Lord Surrey had the tailors make for him, I could almost imagine
him standing in his kilt on some windswept moor, his dark eyes
flashing, his hair flying about his face.”

Jaime drew in a deep breath. She had avoided
looking at him all night. But in her mind’s eye, she had no need to
imagine him looking so gallant. Her memories were quite vivid.

Mary suddenly dropped her hands to her side.
Then, with a quick glance at Jaime’s face, she turned slightly, her
bottom lip protruding and giving her face the pout of a spoiled
child.

“But did you see Catherine?”

Jaime shook her head and silently moved past
her cousin toward the table.

“Oh, it was disgraceful the way she pushed me
out of the way to get the seat next to Malcolm. She certainly did
not look like a woman on the verge of marrying the King of England!
And to think that I had my eye on him long before anyone else
around here, and Catherine...Catherine, just arriving
tonight...”

Jaime had no interest in listening to things
that made her heart wither in her chest. “Forgive me, Mary, but I
still have a great deal to do,” she said quietly, picking up the
two remaining lutes from the table and turning back toward the
doorway.

“Do you need help carrying these?” Mary asked
breezily.

Jaime glanced over at the instruments already
organized by the door and then back at her cousin.

“These are the last of them,” she answered,
moving away. “But you can put those loose sheets of music on the
worktable.”

“What are you doing with all these broken
things, anyway?” Mary walked around the table, and picked up the
harp that Jaime had placed atop the music. She held the instrument
as if it were diseased. “They are good for little more than
kindling, aren’t they?”

“Nay!” Jaime corrected, turning sharply.
“Most are only missing some strings. These others simply need a new
finish.”

“But what are you doing with them?”

“The instrument maker from Norwich is coming
down in a few days,” Jaime answered, taking the harp from Mary’s
hand. Bending quickly, she put the stack of music on the table, and
put the harp in the appropriate stack. “We’ll have them
repaired.”

“But why? We have so many fine, new
instruments. The music teacher—the one whom Catherine, well, the
one who left—he needed only half as many as...”

Jaime was in no mood to have an endless chat,
so she just raised her hand, interrupting her cousin. “I am having
these repaired for the children who are not living here in the
house. I intend to have them take the instruments with them to
their own cottages.”

“You mean to borrow?” Mary asked in shock.
“Do you trust them to...”

“Nay, cousin, I mean for them to keep the
instruments!” Jaime answered.

“But, Jaime, these are valuable instruments.
You just can’t...”

“Hold for a moment, Mary,” Jaime scolded,
happy to find—finally—a way to vent her anger. “You just said they
had no more value than kindling, not worth saving. But now, finding
out they can be useful, perhaps even bring some happiness into the
lives of some poor children--these pieces of wood have suddenly
become precious in your mind. Which is it, dear cousin? Shall we
discard them as worthless? Or shall we simply let them rot in that
chest in the corner? Why don’t you let me know what
you
would prefer, rather than what I was planning to do to them?”

“Jaime, I just...I just thought...” Mary
spluttered to a halt and, blushing to the roots of her blond hair,
waved a hand in the direction of the instruments, as if shooing
them from her presence. “Do whatever you will with the things! I
don’t care anything about them. I was just trying to say that you
have already given so much to these ungrateful brats. And...”

“Cousin, please don’t make this worse. I only
ask that you not meddle in my affairs.”

“Meddle? I?” With a toss of her head, Mary
marched toward the door. “I wouldn’t dream of meddling.”

Jaime watched, somewhat relieved that her
cousin was leaving. But Mary never made it to the door. Her steps
faltered halfway across the room, as if she’d just remembered
something important. She stood still for a moment. Then, as Jaime
busied herself at the worktable, her cousin went on a meandering
tour of the music room. By the time she’d returned to Jaime’s side,
it seemed she had completely forgotten their disagreement.

“I believe I should talk to him,” Mary
announced with an air of decisiveness. “I shall take the first
step. It simply wouldn’t be right to let him hear from someone else
that Catherine could be taking me back to court.”

Jaime didn’t answer, but instead looked
around the room for a way to distract herself. The stack of loose
sheet music definitely required resorting, and she turned her
attention to the task.

“Surely, being a prisoner and a Scot, he
would deem himself unworthy to approach me openly with signs of his
affection.”

The slam of Jaime’s palm on the tabletop
caused Mary to jump with alarm. “Aye, Malcolm is a Scot! What of
that? What is wrong in being a Scot?” Jaime snapped. Her eyes
burned into Mary’s flushed face. “Do save such idiotic snobbery for
Catherine and those who relish such idle and pretentious chatter. I
care nothing for it, Mary.”

“Really, Jaime, you have no reason to become
so upset. Just because...”

“I have every reason to be angry!” Jaime’s
voice shook as she spoke the words. “Malcolm MacLeod might be a
prisoner of Edward’s, but he is still an honorable man. The laird
of his people. Surrey and Frances have seen fit to treat him as a
guest and not as some barbarian; certainly, you might see fit—see
it as your duty—to treat him in the same fashion.”

“I have been treating him...”

“Mary!” Jaime interrupted her. “I just don’t
know what’s gotten into you. One moment ago you called him a
prisoner and a Scot as if he were a criminal or in some way
disgraced. Apparently, you think him unworthy—simply because of
your elevated—and imaginary—status. And that came immediately after
telling me how you must fight for his attentions. And that, after
praising him for his looks, his manners. Which is it, my dear? Is
he false, or is he true? Is he the lowly cur, or is he the noble
hound? Tell me how you will have it, Mary--will you hate him, or
will you love him?”