The Knight's Temptress (Lairds of the Loch) (46 page)

His tone tightened the tentacles gripping her and sent heat and apprehension through her in equal, if wholly disparate, measures. The heat she welcomed. She yearned for him to make her feel it strongly again all over. The apprehension.…

Without looking at her, Andrew said lightly, “What will ye do with our Lina, lad, if I may ask ye?”

Lina swallowed hard at her father’s choice of words.

“You may ask me any questions you like, sir,” Ian said. “In troth, I do not know the answer to that one yet. I would like to take her with me to Dumbarton—nay, to Dunglass and from there to Craggan. But you will agree that I’d be leaving her in good hands if I decided to leave her here for a time with Lady Margaret.”

To Lina’s shock, Andrew nodded. Her mother kept silent.

Then Andrew said, “I’d ask only that ye visit us soon at Tùr Meiloach, lad. I ken fine that ye’ll likely take ship from Dunglass tae Craggan when ye go there. But we’ll want to see ye as soon as the pair of ye settle in at Craggan.”

Lina opened her mouth to remind them that most of her belongings were at Tùr Meiloach, which would make settling in anywhere else difficult, to say the least. But a glance at Ian’s harsh countenance stopped the words on her tongue.

He nodded as if her silence pleased him. Then, to Andrew, he said, “We will see you anon, sir, I promise.”

“Then take yourselves off, although ye might want a bite of supper first.”

“Perhaps,” Ian said. Offering his arm to Lina, he added, “We’ll see.”

Without hesitation, she accepted his arm. Her own temper had begun to spark.

Having noted the set of her delicate jaw and the thinning of her so-kissable lips, Ian urged her across the yard. Again, men saw them coming and made way.

“I must speak with Lady Margaret,” Lina said. “She will need help if she is to provide supper for this crowd.”

“We won’t trouble her,” Ian said. “Where is your bedchamber?”

“Good sakes, sir, would you send me to bed without supper? I’m not a bairn.”

“Mag and Rob will see to the men’s supper with the aid of the Galbraith people here. Lady Margaret’s own people will look after her and will perhaps provide us with supper, too, later. Meantime, I want to talk to you, and I do not want anyone to interrupt us. Now, where is your bedchamber?”

“This way,” she said, moving away from him toward the main entrance. Following her inside, to an entry that was no more than a broad landing on a spiral stone stairway, he saw a smaller landing and an archway into the great hall a few steps above them. Steps to his left led downward. Despite apparently being the tower’s main stairway, it was as narrow as the service stairs at Tùr Meiloach.

“Defending this place would be nigh as difficult as attacking it,” he said. “I wonder if James Mòr knew aught but that this tower stands in Glen Fruin.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder as she crossed the great hall landing to the next flight.

“Because your lad Pluff said that one of those six men pointed to Lady Margaret’s banner on the ramparts and said they would ride on. They had got well ahead of their other men by then, so I’m thinking that James Mòr expected those following them to delay pursuit if any presented itself. Or mayhap, he planned to bide here for a time to take a meal or even to seize the tower.”

Looking thoughtful, she led him to the next landing and one more after that before she gestured to one of two doors off the second landing.

“That is where I slept before Dougal captured us,” she said. “Lizzie and Murie shared that room yonder. I think this must be the one where Mag usually sleeps when he stays here, though. The bed is longer than any other one here.”

“If the bed suits Mag, it will suit me,” Ian said. “And he won’t sleep here tonight. He and Rob will take the prisoners to Dumbarton as soon as they’ve eaten.”

Leaning past her, he opened the bedchamber door and urged her inside. Following, he shut the door and bolted it.

The room was small, the bed against the wall to his left as long if not as wide as the one they had shared at Tùr Meiloach. The only other furniture was a washstand with the usual basin and ewer, a pair of wooden kists, and two stools flanking a small square table near the only window, across from the door.

“Now, lass,” he said, leaning against the door, “let’s have it.”

“What do you want me to say?

“I want you to tell me again about seeing your mother
in the woods before you decided to follow her to her meeting with Dougal.”

“Faith, I didn’t
know
then that she went there to meet Dougal.”

“Don’t quibble. She did. He said he told her to bring the charters.”

“But she did not bring them. She had promised only to meet him.”

“So you asked her about that, did you?”

“Not exactly, but she said he threatened harm to us if she did not promise to meet him and that meeting him was
all
that she had promised to do.”

“Then she should have told Andrew, and plainly she did not. That, however, is his business and none of yours or mine. What you did today
is
my business, and I mean to get to the bottom of it. So, tell me everything that happened. What did you see? Describe it all to me. How did you feel?”

She hesitated, and he could not tell if she did so because she was sorting her thoughts or because she was trying to think how she might avoid the discussion.

“Don’t try me too far, lass. My temper is unreliable at the best of times, let alone on a day like this one has been. So sit on that stool and begin with what happened on our wedding night.”

Knowing that she had little choice, Lina gathered her dignity, called on her ability to compose herself, and obeyed him. When he drew up the second stool and sat facing her across the table, she described all that she could recall of the events.

For a time, as she talked, she expected him to interrupt her at any moment, as her father often did, to demand more detail. But Ian kept silent.

If, at times, he frowned or showed other indications of doubt, he controlled any urge to cross-question her, and she was grateful for his reticence. It allowed her to search her mind for details that she might not otherwise have thought to include.

After describing the scroll-like objects that Lady Aubrey had carried in her arms during the second episode, she hesitated until Ian frowned before she said hastily, “Mam was not carrying anything today. I did think at first that she might have such things under her shawl. But she had naught when we saw her with Dougal, so what came to pass today was not exactly as I had seen it before.”

“Did you think the scrolls were the Arrochar charters?”

“Not at the time,” she said. “Only after Dougal mentioned them today.”

“Had you seen such visions as you’ve described before our wedding night?”

“Never before that one,” she said. “I have experienced some strange things in the past, though. Things to which I paid little heed when they happened.”

“Such as what?”

“For one, when Peter and I rode after Lizzie that day. The sun was shining, but the woods ahead seemed to darken, as if day were turning to night.”

He looked darker himself, hearing that. “What did you think
that
meant?”

“I didn’t think about it then at all. I thought only of stopping Lizzie.”

“What do you think now?”

“That it meant danger lay ahead. That I should have heeded the warning and found some way to stop Lizzie sooner.” She was opening herself up to him. That felt dangerous, too, because he had revealed little to indicate what he was thinking.

“Did anything like that happen today?”

She froze, remembering. Then, warily, she met his gaze.

“I see,” he said grimly. “What else?”

She wondered if she ought to tell him about her ability to calm Lizzie or if, in truth, that ability had ever existed. She did not want to lie to him, nor, she decided then, did she want to tell him anything that she doubted herself.

“Well, lass? Art going to spit out whatever it is that’s hopping up and down on your tongue? Or must I—?”

“I don’t know if I believe it myself,” she admitted. “But if you must know, I’ll tell you. I think that, whilst we were captives, I was able at times to spread my calm to Lizzie. It even felt once as if, when I willed her to compose herself, she did.”

“Sakes, you do that to me all the time.”

Lina stared at him. “I don’t!”

“Aye, sure, you do. You did it just a few minutes ago.”

Ian wished he could take back his last few words, because he had not meant to challenge or interrupt her. That first sentence had slipped out. Then, when she contradicted him, he reacted as he always did when anyone challenged him.

Frowning, she shook her head. “By my troth, sir, I don’t know what you mean. I have not tried to do any such thing… not successfully, at all events.”

He allowed himself a wry smile at the rider and could see that his smile gave her no comfort. Nor should it have.

“Art sure that you do not try to impose your will on me?” he asked softly.

He could almost feel her temper rise at the suggestion that he might now take it into his head to doubt her. She said flatly, “I do not lie to you.”

“Forgive me if I begin to wonder whether you
can
will such things,” he said, matching her tone. “It was bad enough to learn that Dree can nearly hear my thoughts as I think them. To discover that I may have married a—”

“A what?” she demanded “I ken fine that some people have called Dree a witch. I also know that Mag has asked you not to call her Dree. But I will refrain from comment on that.”

A good thing that is, too
, he thought.

“What I will say,” she went on tersely, “is that if you want to discuss what happened today in a civil—”

“I am always civil,” he snapped. “I was just reminding you that having one woman in the family who thinks she knows what I am thinking or feeling is bad enough. To be married to one who can
toy
with my emotions would be worse.”

Knowing that her temper was about to slip its leash, Lina fought to maintain her dignity if not her composure. As she did, she glanced at Ian and saw that he was fighting a battle of his own, either to calm himself or to avoid eruption.