The Knight's Temptress (Lairds of the Loch) (20 page)

“I’ll also want to hear from ye, Sir Ian,” Galbraith said. “Your man said only that Colquhoun tried a tactful approach but that ye’d got them out and away.”

“That tale will take a while, sir,” Ian said. “We’ll have more time tomorrow.”

“Dinna act the dafty, lad. Ye’ll tell us all whilst we take our supper. Forbye, ye’ll all be leaving at dawn. Ye canna stay any longer than that.”

Chapter 9
 

L
ina barely heard Galbraith’s words as she hurried to the dais. She was watching her mother’s expression, hoping to discern her ladyship’s state of mind.

Lady Aubrey stood and walked around the table to meet her with a hug. With Lina clasped in her arms, she murmured, “Ah, love, what a fright you gave us!”

“It was frightful for us, too, Mam,” Lina said, leaning into her and holding her tight. “In troth, though, I never felt as if we were in grave danger.”

“I wish I had felt so,” Lady Aubrey murmured. “It would have made the waiting easier. Whatever possessed—Nay,” she said, cutting off her own words and gently releasing Lina. “No recriminations. I suspect that I know what happened. But we’ll hear about it at supper. Go now and make your apology to Lady Margaret for alarming her. Be polite, but pay no heed to aught she might say in rebuke.”

Nodding, Lina obeyed, walking around the high table to the wiry, gray-haired woman who sat silently waiting for her.

Lady Margaret was stick thin and had what Lina thought of as permanently pinched lips. She was the sort of woman who said what she thought, insisting that
she preferred blunt speech but rarely, if ever, welcoming bluntness from others.

Curtsying, Lina smiled and said, “ ’Tis good to see you, your ladyship. I fear we were exceedingly rude to vanish as we did. But I promise it was not by choice.”

“Very likely not,” Lady Margaret said. “You cannot deny that there was mischief involved, though. Not if you are as honest as your mother says you are.”

“I would prefer to say that misjudgment was at fault, my lady. We were unaware that James Mòr’s men might venture so near Glen Fruin.”

“Nor had they any right to do that. Galbraith, d’ye hear? That villain James Mòr dared to send men near our Glen Fruin! That must not happen again, I say.”

“We have already taken more precautions,” he assured her. “But do not keep Lina standing on the dais when she must be yearning to warm herself.”

Gratefully, Lina bobbed another curtsy and hurried to the fire, noting that her entire escort had disappeared.

“Where did the men go, Liz?” she asked, turning her chilled back to the fire.

“Father sent them to change for supper,” Lizzie said. “Did you not hear him then? We are all to leave in the morning.”

“Surely, he meant that the men would be returning to Dunglass,” Lina said, feeling rather depressed as she said it. “He will not send you away again so soon.”

“But he will,” Lizzie insisted. “I heard him talking to Sir Ian. He said it would not be safe here for any of us.”

Hector had shown Ian, Alex, and Rob to a chamber on the third floor of the tower with several cots in it.

“Ye should be comfortable here,” he said. “That wall yonder gives off heat when the fire below is burning. The weather will clear tonight, too, so the morrow should be fine. We’ll likely ha’ mist, though.”

Hak had arranged the men’s baggage. He had also provided hot water for them to wash and laid out fresh tunics and plaids.

“Galbraith was hardly forthcoming, was he?” Alex said. “I have no wish to linger, but he might have explained his lack of hospitality.”

Ian agreed. Despite the laird’s declaration that they could not stay, when Alex had asked him why not, he had just said again that it would be too dangerous.

Since the hour was late, they changed quickly from their wet garments to dry ones and returned to the hall.

Lady Aubrey was standing by the fire with Galbraith when they entered.

Excusing herself to him, she approached the three younger men with a smile. Greeting Rob and Alex, whom she also knew, she said earnestly to Ian, “My dear sir, you have my deepest gratitude. Will you forgive me if I admit having to resist flinging myself at you and hugging you as hard as I hugged my beloved Lina?”

“Aye, sure, I forgive you, madam. I never reject hugs from beautiful ladies.”

“So Andrena has told me,” Lady Aubrey said with a mischievous grin. “But you must know that you have done us a great service. I suspect that Arthur may not have made his gratitude as plain as I do,” she added with a glance toward the fire.

“I believe that Sir Arthur feels much as my own sire does,” Ian said. “Father fears that I have endangered the
Colquhouns’ neutral stance and thus undermined any further attempts of his to persuade James Mòr to see reason.”

“Colquhoun is skilled at bringing two
willing
sides to agreement,” she said. “But tact alone is rarely enough, and even the most skilled mediator cannot talk sense to unwilling or truly evil men. I shall tell your father so, too, when I see him.”

Ian knew that his surprise must show. He had met her ladyship many times, but he had been unaware until then that she believed, as he did, that some men were simply evil. Colquhoun insisted that all men were fundamentally good, that one had only to appeal to that goodness to persuade anyone against wrongdoing. He doubtless believed even now that he would have persuaded James Mòr to release Lina and Lizzie unharmed if Ian had just given him enough time to do so.

He nearly asked her ladyship if he had understood her correctly.

She spoke first, saying gently, “Do come now and tell us about the rescue. Muriella is especially eager to hear your tale. Although she is still in some disgrace for trying to reach Lina on her own as soon as she sensed that things had gone amiss, I have permitted her to sup with us.”

He noticed then that Lina’s flaxen-haired younger sister sat at the high table beside the lady Margaret. He knew that Muriella collected tales of daring to tell at
ceilidhs
and like gatherings. Even so…

“If you will forgive me, madam, I would like to wait until Lady Lina and Lizzie come downstairs. His lordship means to question us, too, and I’d liefer endure that ordeal only once.”

“Poor laddie,” she said, hugging him then. “I was so
worried about Lina and how tired she looks that I failed to see that you are exhausted, too. By my troth, I shall wait patiently to hear your tale
after
you have eaten and slaked your thirst.”

Sixteen-year-old Murie would be the impatient one, Ian knew. He could see that she was already wriggling on her stool. Hearing Lina’s and Lizzie’s voices behind them, he turned with relief, then stopped and stared.

Lina had apparently decided to forgo a veil and had arranged her hair in long, loose plaits, most likely to let it dry in the warmth of the hall.

Her plaits reached to her waist, making him wonder how long her hair would be if she combed it out. He had never seen her with her hair so before. It had always lain neatly coiled under her veil or hidden beneath a proper coif.

She wore a soft rose-pink kirtle with an even softer-looking shawl of gray-and-pink wool draped over her shoulders.

Her luminous, darkly-lashed eyes met his gaze serenely.

He wondered why he had never noticed before how beautiful she was.

“Hector tells me they are ready to serve us,” Galbraith said. “Lizzie, the lady Aubrey will sit by me, your aunt Margaret next, and ye’ll sit next to Margaret, then Lina and Murie. Ian, ye’ll sit at my right with Alex and MacAulay beside ye.”

When Alex moved as if to escort Lina, Ian gave him a fierce look and stepped forward to offer
his
arm.

“If I may, my lady,” he said politely.

She raised her eyebrows much as his mother might have done. But she put a hand on the forearm he’d extended and smiled demurely. “You are most kind, sir.”

“Sakes, lass,” he muttered. “Do you mock my courtesy? Can I do nowt to win your approval?”

She gave him a direct look and said in a normal tone, “Faith, sir, do you seek my approval? You must know that you have earned my gratitude.”

“But you still disapprove of how I won it, do you not?”

“That is unfair,” she said. “I have already admitted having mixed feelings about that. I do still believe that one should think before leaping into danger.”

“What makes you imagine that I do not?”

“I
know
you don’t always think before you act.”

The challenge was irresistible.

“I defy you to name any such occasion,” he said as they stepped onto the dais. “I’ll wager you won’t name one for which I cannot provide good reason.”

“Then give me your ‘good reason’ for doing what you did to Andrena that caused Mag to heave you into the Loch of the Long Boats.”

“Faith, was Sir Ian the man Mag threw into the loch?” Lizzie exclaimed.

Ian gaped at her. Looking around, he saw the others, all of them apparently having heard the exchange when he’d felt as if he and Lina were alone. Although, thinking back, he
had
been vaguely aware of murmuring voices and distant sounds.

Those sounds—Hector directing the two gillies as they carried food to the high table, Lady Margaret conversing quietly with Muriella, Alex and Rob murmuring behind him, and Sir Arthur’s quick footsteps on the timber floor as he crossed the hall—had all ceased after Lizzie’s exclamation.

Only the crackling of the fire remained.

Lina’s breath caught in her throat. A bubble of laughter rushed up to meet it, nearly choking her.

Then Sir Alex laughed, and Rob joined him.

Galbraith silently ushered Lady Aubrey to her place.

When Alex could speak, he said, “
I
want to hear
that
tale.”

“Me, too,” Muriella said, rising politely from her stool at the approach of her mother and Galbraith. “No one told
me
that Mag had done any such thing. It sounds like a good tale for retelling.”

“It is no such thing,” Ian said sternly. “If I should hear that a saucy lassock who imagines she is a seanachie has been telling a tale like that one at
ceilidhs
, you will answer to me, my lady.”

“Will I?” Murie said, grinning.

“That will do, Muriella,” Lady Aubrey said, taking her seat. “You know you must not repeat every tale you hear for other people’s entertainment.”

“Yes, madam,” Murie said quietly and so meekly that Lina was suspicious.

Love of storytelling was second nature to Murie, and her flawless memory meant that she could repeat exactly what she had heard and describe or sketch in graphic detail anything she had seen. Even so, she would not defy their mother.

The dais end of the great hall was warm. As Lina took her place, she looked for somewhere to put her shawl. When one of the gillies caught her eye and offered to set the shawl on a nearby shelf, she accepted his offer gratefully.

Galbraith said, “We are all curious about that tale now.
But it is up to Sir Ian to decide if he prefers to share it or to admit that he has lost the wager he made with Lady Lina. In any event, I suggest that we eat whilst we talk.”

Lina hoped that the subject of Ian’s unexpected swim in the Loch of the Long Boats had died a gracious death. But Sir Alex soon raised it again.