Chapter Twenty-Eight

Twenty-eight

T he Highland rain yielded to a surprising abundance of early spring sunshine. The northern winds might still blow too briskly for the sluggish, but Prudence gave her new husband little opportunity to feel the chill as together they sought to remedy the neglect of decades.

Beneath Prudence's loving hands, Dunkirk bloomed. She had never before known the pleasure of having her own home. Living in rented London lodgings and then Tricia's overgrown dollhouse had not prepared her for the warm glow of pride Dunkirk stirred in her. Daily, Sebastian brought her new treasures: a tattered mop, an oaken bucket, a cake of precious lye. They were far more dear to her than any diamonds or pearls.

They worked to the music of Jamie's chatter while their own unspoken words hung heavy between them. Sebastian's presence sustained Prudence, brought hope to each day. She basked in the sheer pleasure of watching him chop wood, his skin kissed by a golden sheen of sweat, his cheeks pinkened by the bite of the wind. She ached to press her lips to his throat, to tangle her fingers in his sweat-dampened hair and draw him into her arms. But still he did not climb the stairs to her lonely bed. The thought that he must prefer the stables and Jamie's company haunted her long into her sleepless nights.

The same physical nearness that strengthened Prudence was slowly driving Sebastian mad. As she took to wearing her hair loose or simply pulled back by two combs, baring the delicate curve of her throat, he found his blood boiling with more than exertion. He would stride outside and throw his throbbing body into yet another chore, praying he would tire himself enough to stumble to his blankets and fall into a dreamless sleep. But too often, his dreams were haunted by a throaty laugh and the feel of burgundy hair slipping between his fingers.

One night he sat watching Prudence sew before the fire, his eyes lazy and heavy-lidded. He enjoyed the soothing flow of her work, the graceful flick of the needle through the ragged linen of his shirt.

She glanced up at him. The needle stabbed her finger. As she tucked her finger between her rosy lips, the crumbs of his contentment scattered, leaving in their place a wild unrest, an insatiable desire to know more of her than just her fine-boned profile or the taunting fragrance of her hair.

But he could expect word from MacKay any day. Once Prudence discovered the bargain he had struck with the treacherous devil, he would have no choice but to send her back.

He rose abruptly, leaving Prudence to stare after him, the slam of the door echoing in her ears.

Prudence fidgeted with her hair, twisting a heavy strand into a reluctant curl only to watch it fall straight when she released it. She sighed, wishing desperately for a mirror. For all she could tell from her reflection in the warped window glass, her hair might be a mop of corkscrew curls like Jamie's. She made a face at herself, then pulled the window open for a breath of cooling air. An overcast sky had brooded over the mountains all day, as grim and implacable as Sebastian's most recent mood. The wind was picking up now, and dark clouds banked in the east.

She lifted her skirts and let the teasing wind blow across her thighs. The heat from the kitchen fire lingered against her skin even in the damp tower.

Dropping her skirts, she smoothed the lavender silk with anxious fingers. This was the only fine gown that remained from her days in Edinburgh. She donned her spectacles, then pulled them off and slipped them in her pocket. She adjusted her lace fichu and leaned out the window for the twentieth time. At last she was rewarded by the sight of a lone figure walking through the courtyard, his steps slow, but edged with tension.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. The devil take practicality and efficiency! she thought. Tonight she was determined to use all the charms of home and hearth to find out if Sebastian still wanted her.

She gathered her skirts and was halfway down the stairs before remembering her matching lavender slippers. She raced back after them, and jerked them on as she ran. As she reached the bottom step, she tripped over her petticoat and nearly collided with Sebastian as he entered the hall.

He caught her by the elbows as she skidded past. "Ho there, lass. What's the bloody rush?"

She bobbed an awkward curtsy. "Pardon me. I must tend to something in the kitchen."

She darted past, squinting in misery. Was nothing to go right today? What was Jamie still doing there? The insolent moppet had his feet on her table. But she had promised him a slice of her treat. She couldn't scold him, could she? He had been nice enough to procure the tender kidney for her, despite his interminable jokes about who he had gotten it from.

She returned to the hall with two brass goblets polished to a high sheen and filled with sparkling ale. Sebastian still stood by the door as if he were an unwanted guest.

He glanced at her, then surveyed the well-stoked fire and satin-draped table, his eyes unreadable. "I'm really not hungry. I thought you'd be asleep by now."

Prudence gave all of her attention to placing the goblets on the table, struggling to hide how deeply his honesty stung. "I waited up for you. You didn't take dinner. I thought you'd be famished." She managed a warm smile.

He grunted, obviously unwilling to take his rudeness into more verbal territory.

As she fled back to the kitchen, Jamie stopped picking his teeth with one of the knives, jumped up, and pulled out Sebastian's chair with a flourish. "A throne for the laird of the manor."

Sebastian sank heavily into the chair. "Playing Cupid again, Jamie?"

Jamie smiled cryptically. "'Tis wiser than playin' the fool."

A wail of dismay rang out from the kitchen. Sebastian rose, but Jamie placed a hand on his arm, giving him the same warning Sebastian had once given him. "I wouldn't if I were ye."

Prudence did not reappear for several minutes. When she did, she bore a chipped earthenware plate and a look of grim determination. She slid the plate in front of Sebastian.

He stared down at the black shriveled lump, then cleared his throat before softly asking, "What is it?"

"Suet pudding," she replied.

Jamie peered at it. "Looks to be more soot than pudding."

Sebastian gave him a dark look. He poked the miserable morsel with his knife, hoping to cut into it to reveal a steaming core. It shot away, bouncing off his plate and across the table.

Prudence clenched her jaw in an agony of embarrassment. "Would you care for some black buns?"

Over her head, Sebastian caught Jamie's violent wave of warning.

"No, thank you." But she looked so crestfallen, he added, "Well, perhaps just one."

Jamie rolled his eyes and drew his finger across his throat. "I'd best be goin'," he said, clapping on his beaten hat. "I promised this sweet lass in the village I'd stop by and give her a good-night kiss or perhaps somethin' more if she'll allow—"

"Good night, Jamie," Sebastian interrupted.

Jamie glanced at Prudence as if he would have liked to say something kind. The hectic color in her cheeks warned him to silence.

"I'll fetch the bread," Prudence said as Jamie ducked into the night. Her lips trembled. She did not dare meet Sebastian's eyes.

Sebastian rescued his pudding and sawed at it with his knife. He was famished, but not as Prudence thought. He was starving for a taste of her lips, a sip of the tender ecstasy they had shared in the cavern. That one sweet morsel had only whetted his appetite for more.

The scent of cedar wafted to his nose. Prudence had hung fragrant boughs over each doorway. He looked around, really seeing the castle for the first time since his return.

The hall was unrecognizable from the cobweb-festooned horror it had been only a week ago. The floor was clean-swept. A braided rug lay in front of the hearth. Two chairs sat cozily on it, as if whispering secrets. Prudence's tender polishing had revealed the ancient beauty of the heavy oak and cherry furniture. She had found the grace beneath the ugly gouges from his father's boots, the careless scars of his own boyhood. The touch of her loving hands was everywhere.

Except on him.

He dug his knife into the pudding, piercing the charred crust to find the inside burnt to crisp, black flakes.

If she were still there when spring came, he mused, she would fill his hall with flowers—jasmine and honeysuckle and bluebells—until the thought of living without their fragrance would be unbearable. As if in answer to his dark thoughts, the sky lowered its threatening boom with a rumble of thunder.

Prudence returned carrying a platter heaped with salted venison and charred bread. He waved away the venison and swallowed a bite of the pudding.

"Sebastian, I don't expect you to eat that."

He chewed grimly. "I like it."

When she started to protest again, his eyes narrowed in such an evil look that she retreated with the platter to her own end of the table. She tried not to stare as he choked down every last bite of the pudding, then followed it with a healthy splash of ale.

Prudence toyed with the cameo that held her fichu together. Sebastian fought to keep his hungry gaze off her, but lost the battle. Candlelight shimmered over her hair, giving it the rich gloss of sherry wine. The lavender silk gown deepened the pale delicacy of her skin. In his muddy breeches and sweat-stained shirt, he felt like the coarse peasant he was.

She lifted her goblet. "Jamie told me there were two Frenchmen in the village today inquiring about you. Do you know why?"

Her question didn't surprise Sebastian. He was only surprised she had taken so long to ask. Perhaps she was as afraid of the answer as he was.

"They're probably D'Artan's bulldogs. The old man has given me two weeks to send him the formula. If MacKay makes good on his promise, we'll need no longer."

"What did Killian promise you?"

Sebastian winced at her use of MacKay's Christian name. There was both tenderness and respect in her voice.

"A pardon," he said gruffly. "MacKay's gone to London to request an audience with the King. He believes His Majesty will be grateful to know what sort of snake he has lurking in his House of Commons."

Prudence's lips twitched. She and Laird MacKay couldn't have thought of a better way to help Sebastian if they had spent months pondering the issue.

She lifted her fork to her lips to hide her smile. "And what did you promise him in return?"

Sebastian drained the rest of the ale. "You."

Her fork stilled.

Sebastian rushed on to fill the silence, studying the burnt crust of his bun with acute interest. "Since we hadn't the written consent of your guardian to wed, an English court should grant you a dissolution of the marriage posthaste. Of course, to avoid a scandal, it would be best for you to convince a judge our union was never consummated."

"What shall I tell him is the reason for that?" Her voice was strangely flat.

Why did she have to be so damn calm about it? he wondered. He felt like breaking something himself. He stuffed half of the bun in his mouth with deliberate crudity. "I don't care. Tell him whatever you like. Tell him I snore too loud. Don't bathe often enough. Fancy men over women."

She slipped on her spectacles.

Oh, hell, he thought. Here it comes. The bun hung like a rock in his throat.

She peered at him over the rim of her spectacles. "Do you?"

He frowned. "Do I what? Snore? Smell?"

"Fancy men over women?"

He gave her a long look from beneath his lashes. He was suddenly spoiling for a fight, desperate for any release from the turmoil that battered him. He had known this feeling before, but in smoky taverns and boisterous alehouses where he could pick a fight without hurting anyone but himself.

He tangled the butt of his knife in the tablecloth, glanced down, and found the fight he was looking for.

He snatched up the edge of the cloth, overturning his empty goblet with a thump. "This was your gown, wasn't it? The pink gown you wore at the Campbells' the night I robbed you."

She gazed at him, every maddening inch the "Duchess of Winter."

"Cranberry."

"Cranberry?" he roared.

"The gown was cranberry. Not pink."

He stood and jerked the cloth off the table, revealing the ugly, scarred wood beneath. The plates shattered as they struck the stone floor. "I don't give a damn if it was fuchsia. I don't expect you to cut up all your fine clothes to serve me. Don't think I haven't seen you! Dusting with your petticoat. Straining cream through your stockings. I never asked that of you."

"I don't need those clothes here. They're impractical. My old gowns are sufficient."

He shot around the table and jerked her hands out of her lap, turning them to the candlelight. Calluses toughened the tender pads. Her palms were chapped and reddened.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "Your old hands were sufficient too. Look at them now! I remember when they were as soft and white as doves."

She stared at the table. A single tear spilled from her brimming eyes and slipped down her cheek.

A wave of self-contempt swept Sebastian, making him even angrier. His fingers dug into her wrists. "Dammit, woman! I didn't bring you here to be my slave!"

She stood, wrenching free of his grip. "Then what in God's holy name did you bring me here for? It certainly wasn't to be your wife!" She slammed her palms on the table and faced him nose to nose. "What's wrong with these hands? Are they too stained for you? Too hard? Not as soft and lily-white as Tricia's or Devony's?" She held up her hands between them. "I'm proud of these. They've done more than serve tea and open books. They've never been more beautiful. I've earned every blister, every callus, and every splinter working to make this castle some sort of home for you."

He reached for her, dazed by the magnificence of her furious passion, but his hands closed on empty air. She was already backing out of his reach.

"I'll be glad when MacKay comes, you ungrateful wretch," she said. "I wish he'd come tonight. I should have no trouble convincing a judge of your duplicity, since you obviously find your wife so distasteful that you'd prefer to sleep with your alleged coachman. As far as I'm concerned, you and your precious Dunkirk can go straight to the deepest pits of hell!"

With those words, she burst into tears, threw her hands over her face, and ran up the stairs.

Sebastian sank down heavily in her chair. He rested his chin on his steepled hands.

"You stupid bastard," he whispered.

A rumble of thunder rolled through the castle like the taunting echo of his father's voice.

Prudence pummeled her pillow with her fists. Who had ever heard of stuffing a pillow with dried heather? she wondered. If she wanted to sleep on bracken and gorse, she'd go lie on the wet, bleak moor below. She was surprised Sebastian hadn't stuffed it with thorns. The bloody Scots were as uncivilized as everyone said they were, and Sebastian Kerr was the worst of the lot! Everything nasty she'd ever heard about Scots poured through her head in an invective stream.

Lightning flooded the tower. Thunder cracked like the heart of a massive stone. She dove under the pillow, where the lingering fragrance of heather haunted her.

Who had ever heard of a thunderstorm this early in the year? Even the laws of God went awry in this primitive land. Was there nothing she could depend on? Nothing, it seemed, but the petty treachery of Dunkirk's master. She and MacKay had been daft to believe they could help such a selfish wretch.

The stifling air beneath the pillow smothered her. She flung herself onto her back, kicking at the wool blanket tangled around her legs. How could she expect a beastly Scot to appreciate the civilized charms of candlelight and satin tablecloths? She should have wrapped herself in an animal skin. They could have squatted in front of the fire and eaten raw kidney meat with their fingers. Lightning ripped a jagged streak across the sky. Her fingernails dug tiny crescents into her palms.

A blast of thunder shook the tower. Wind roared at the window, rattling the ancient panes with fists of wrath. The shadows on the wall danced with a life of their own. Prudence pulled the blanket over her head. Storms usually exhilarated her, but tonight she was afraid. It was as if the storm raged around the tower itself, drawn like a magnet to her own anger and misery.

Without wanting to, she felt the presence of that other girl, Sebastian's mother. She imagined her cowering under the same blankets, smoky gray eyes squeezed tightly shut. Prudence felt as if she were that girl, and every beat of thunder was the stomp of Brendan Kerr's heavy boots on the stairs. He was coming for her. She shoved her fists against her ears, mumbling in vain the Pythagorean theorem of numbers to drown it out. Thunder boomed again and she sat bolt upright, trembling everywhere, her night rail plastered to her body by a sheen of terrified sweat.

A burst of white light threw substance into shadow and shadow into substance. That dark shape over there by the window. It hadn't been there before, had it? Wasn't that a plaid draped over its hulking shoulders and the flash of silver a claymore lifted in meaty fists?

With a splintering crash, the wind caught the window and flung it open.

Prudence screamed. A deafening crack of thunder drowned out the shrill sound. Rain poured into the tower, pelting the stone floor. She jumped out of bed and ran for the door. In the heartbeat of darkness between one flash of lightning and the next, she lost sight of it. She reeled around, beating at the walls like a trapped bird. When another streak of lightning lit the room, her trembling fingers closed around the iron latch. She fled down the winding stairs, her white night rail billowing behind her. She didn't care if she ran into the devil himself as long as she escaped the echoing nightmare of the tower.

At the bottom of the last step, her foot thudded against something soft and substantial. She tripped and went sprawling.

A pained grunt was followed by a hoarse oath. A metallic click echoed in the sudden silence. Prudence flung her hair out of her eyes to find herself staring straight down the barrel of Sebastian's pistol.