The Knight's Temptress (Lairds of the Loch) (25 page)

Ian, Rob, and Ian’s men went in through the door that the women had used and found themselves in an entryway that was little more than a stair landing. “The hall is on the next level,” Ian said. “You lads go up there, and we’ll join you anon.”

He cracked the door open enough then to hear. The narrow postern gate opened, and a man hurried in, talking. “Laird, Dougal MacPharlain demands speech wi’ ye. He’s promised tae come up alone. Says he has an offer tae make ye.”

Chapter 11
 

G
oing upstairs with the other women, Lina’s curiosity about Dougal’s arrival and his purpose in coming to Tùr Meiloach nearly overwhelmed her. But she knew that her mother would frown on expressing it on the stairway or in Lady Margaret’s presence. The older woman was intolerant of such interest in the business of others.

Nor was Lina looking forward to private speech with Lady Aubrey, although her ladyship had said naught yet about their capture except that she was grateful for their safe return. However, Lina thought, having expected to hear the whole tale at Inch Galbraith and then hearing only about the rescue, her mother’s curiosity was likely burning holes through her customary courtesy. Also, since any such talk would likely focus on what Lina’s duty had been to Lady Margaret as their hostess, and to Lizzie…

They had reached the fourth floor of the tower. Lady Aubrey led the way into the ladies’ solar, where the windows were open to the late-afternoon breeze.

Lina’s loom in the corner where she usually sat was a welcome sight, and she saw Muriella hurry to her spinning wheel and touch the spindle as if to be sure that all was right with it. On the loom, a half-finished length of wool
fabric in the soft shades of mossy green and red that Dree favored called to Lina, but its voice was too faint to overcome her yearning to know what was happening below.

“Ye canna stay here by the door, lad,” Andrew said tersely after sending the messenger back down to the shore. “As ye heard, I’ve sent that lad to tell Dougal I’ll hear what he has to say. Have ye any notion what he wants?”

Ian shook his head. “In troth, sir, when you asked me before if Pharlain might know aught of what happened at Dumbarton, I was about to say that if Dougal had returned to Arrochar, he might know more about that than I do.”

“Was Dougal there?”

“It was he who captured the ladies Lachina and Lizzie,” Ian said. “The man who helped me rescue them from the castle told me at the time that Dougal was at the harbor. I suspected then that he was preparing to leave for Arrochar.”

“If he set out straightaway, he’d ken nowt o’ the rescue.”

Ian considered telling Andrew that Dougal had planned to abduct Lina. But he wanted to know Dougal’s mission at Tùr Meiloach first. If he had come to issue threats on behalf of his father, Dougal might know little or naught of the rescue. Surely, if he had had to face James Mòr, he would still be at Dumbarton, trying to answer for missing keys and a message in the tower room signed with his initial.

Andrew shifted impatiently, so Ian said, “I have my own suspicions about Dougal, sir. But I have no evidence yet to prove them. I need to hear what he says before I can tell if what little I do know has merit enough to share or not.”

“Aye, good enough. But ye cannot be present, lad, nor
leave the door cracked as ye did afore. I’ll talk with him in the yard, where my lads can keep watch without hearing all we say. When I’ve heard him out, I’ll come to ye, and we’ll discuss whatever he’s said to me.”

Ian nodded, and Andrew went back outside to wait.

“You know more than you told him,” Rob said as Ian shut the door.

“Aye, but I dared not tell him all I know just when he has to treat with Dougal,” Ian said. “Sithee, if I tell him what that villain had planned for the lady Lina—and Lizzie, too—Andrew will throttle him and we’ll learn nowt.”

Rob gave him a long look. Then he nodded. “Andrew could do that, aye.”

Moving to the next landing, they waited there in the silence that develops between men who’ve known each other since childhood and hunted and made war together. They had small need for words. A look or gesture was usually enough.

Thinking about that, Ian decided that his relationships with Alex Buchanan and Mag Galbraith were similar. He had just seen Rob more often over the years than he had seen the other two.

He was still engaged in idle reverie when he heard the door below open.

“We’re here, sir,” Ian said quietly, knowing Andrew would hear him.

When the older man came around the curve in the stairway, his expression was grim. “Upstart vermin, that’s what Dougal is,” he snarled. “But we willna talk here on the stairway. My privy chamber lies above.”

He led the way past the hall landing to the one above it, where he opened a door to a chamber smaller than
Colquhoun’s at Dunglass but boasting a large, solid-looking table, shelves, and scattered stools. Leaning with his hips against the table, Andrew gestured vaguely toward two of the stools.

Ian and Rob remained standing.

“What did Dougal want?” Ian asked.

“Our Lina’s hand, that’s what.” Andrew crossed his arms against his chest.

Ian stared at him, resisting an urge to grind his teeth.

“In marriage?” Rob asked.

“Aye, sure, in marriage,” Andrew said, his thick, dark eyebrows knitting together. “The knave dared to tell me that such a marriage would reunite Clan Farlan. Then he had the gall to ask if I didna
want
such an end to the trouble and strife of the past two decades. Come to that, I expect it might serve such an end.”

Ian felt as if the Fates had kicked the wind out of him. But he gathered enough air to say, “You didn’t… that is, you couldn’t have agreed to that.”

Rob’s eyebrows shot up then, and Ian’s peripheral vision caught that rare sign of surprise in his friend.

Andrew grimaced. “Nay, I couldna agree to any such thing,” he said. “The idea! As if I were caperwitted enough to believe that a clan reunified so would have aught to do with its rightful chief. I’ll see him and his da in hell first, and so I told him.” Looking from Ian to Rob and back, he added, “Sent him back to his boat with an escort and told them to keep that galley well away from our shore. Dougal could swim to it, I said, and welcome. Och, the threats he made then!”

“What threats?” Ian demanded, although he could guess.

“Villainous threats is what. Perverted and dishonest
threats as I saw for m’self when I saw our lassie safe and smiling again. The man’s a liar and worse.”

Dougal returned to his galley in a fury. That they had forced him to swim was an outrage. He would protect himself against the potential, if hidden, mockery of his captain and crew by pretending he had made the choice himself to swim.

He had made it look as if he had by diving in, forgetting how cold the Loch of the Long Boats could be even at the height of summer. To ignore his chattering teeth, he made himself remember not only what had happened but also such other plans as he had in mind already to teach the contentious old devil a lesson or two.

His anger increased when he remembered that he had done the honorable thing by requesting the right to her ladyship’s hand from her father, and giving him good reason, too. For Andrew to have rejected him so rudely was reprehensible.

As he swam, he noted that he was warming. He also recalled how Pharlain’s men had accessed Tùr Meiloach just months ago. The distance from one side of the great waterfall to the other was not even so great at present, and the place where Andrew’s men had made him swim was close to the surface of the water. At low tide, it might be even more accessible. An army, even a small one, might never again succeed in reaching Tùr Meiloach that way. But one man could.

He would teach Andrew Dubh a good lesson, one way or another.

“Prithee, sir,” Ian said, controlling his impatience, “tell us what Dougal said.”

“He said he’d tell the world that he’s had his way with our Lina, even shared her with his men. Och, but I wanted to hang him from the tree outside me gate right then! In short, if Dougal canna have her, he’ll murder her reputation. So, in my fury, I’ve condemned my daughter to the sad future of an unmarried, unwanted woman. A future in which others will revile her, if Dougal has
his
say. Och, I’m a villain m’self to do such a vile thing. Mayhap I should think more on it, unless…”

He looked at Rob, who stared silently, blankly back at him.

After a glance at Ian, Andrew chose a point midway between the two men and said with a slight, self-deprecating shrug, “I dinna suppose ye’d… either o’ ye… be willing to marry the poor lassie and save her from such a dreadful fate.”

Ian saw the pit yawning before him, but he barely heeded it. Having saved Lina from one wretched fate, he did not want to watch her fall victim to another.

Impulsively, he said, “I… I’d be willing to give the idea some thought, sir.”

“Good lad,” Andrew said cheerfully. “I’ll let ye have her. I doubt that your father or your lady mother will object. They’ve both long since taken a liking to our lass. Forbye, since our lands abut, such a marriage would suit us all gey well.”

Ian could not argue that point. His father would approve, especially if Andrew were able to reclaim the vast lands of Arrochar north of Tùr Meiloach.

Andrew claimed to possess the original charters to
Arrochar and needed only to show them to the King. However, Jamie’s chief concern was to reclaim the royal properties that his uncle Albany had given away to build his nefarious alliances while conspiring to keep Jamie captive for two decades in England. Nevertheless, Jamie had promised in Ian’s hearing to provide Andrew the opportunity he sought as soon as the King could arrange a meeting at Inverness with the Highland chiefs.

He hoped to do that soon, to learn who was loyal to him and who was not.

Meeting Andrew’s steady gaze, Ian said, “Did you really tell Dougal that you would see him and Pharlain in hell before you would let Lina marry him?”

“I did, aye. After he made his vile threats, I also told him I’d gut him and feed his entrails to the beasts o’ the forest here afore I’d give him our Lina.” He added mildly, “I think the man understands that I didna like the notion.”