Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

J anice wept all night and, in the morning, rose puffy-eyed and miserable. She had hardly slept, and her exhaustion was plain to see. Kitty, her maid, remarked upon it as she helped her into her bath the next morning.

"If ye don't mind my sayin' so, Mistress, ye look dreadful this mornin'," she observed, frowning in anxiety. "Ye will need to put a wee bit o' somethin' over those bags under your eyes."

"I do not feel too good, Kitty," she admitted, then forced herself to smile, "but I will be better soon. It is time for breakfast, and then I will see the guests off. I am quite glad this whole circus is at an end, to be honest. It has been a great strain." She sighed and put her face in her hands, yawning.

Kitty frowned. She felt uneasy, but it was not her place to question her mistress about her personal matters.

"I am glad the contest is over, anyway, mistress," she sighed. "I suppose the best man won."

"Hmmph!" Janice grumbled. "There is no ‘best man.'"

"What about you, mistress?" Kitty asked, laughing. "We all know that you are the best man around here."

Janice giggled. "Thank you, Kitty…I think!" she said. "My father seems to think so, and that is all that matters to me. There is nobody who means more to me than him."

Kitty smiled as she laced Janice's dress up at the back. She was utterly devoted to her mistress and would not hear a word said against her, but if Janice had one fault, it was that she cared too much. She wanted to do everything for everyone, and Kitty knew that her mistress could run herself ragged doing it. Therefore, she reasoned that Janice was quite simply tired.

Janice's breakfast arrived at that moment, and although she had to force herself to eat it, she finished all her porridge, bread, bannocks, and ale. Then, despite feeling as if she had a stone at the bottom of her stomach, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and went to say goodbye to her guests. Thank God it was nearly over!

Bernard had risen from bed with a thumping headache and an ache in his heart. He knew he would have to mend fences with Janice, but he also realized that it would be easier said than done, even though the misunderstanding was not his fault. He was glad that he did not have to have breakfast across the table from William because he was too angry to be civil to him. However, he was silent and reserved throughout the meal with his fellow guards. Therefore, after having tried to engage him in conversation a few times and being rebuffed, they left him to his own devices, assuming he had had too much to drink.

After he rose from the table, he went upstairs to see if he could find Janice and saw her at once, curtsying and shaking hands with her departing guests, her father by her side. The laird looked old and stooped now, even though he was only a man in his early fifties. It would not be long now until his demise. Even as Bernard looked, he was seized by a bout of coughing that he found difficult to watch.

Janice slapped her father's back and held a linen cloth to his mouth as the painful, hacking sound of the cough ripped through his frail body. When she took the cloth away a few moments later, there was, as she had expected, a bright red patch of blood on it.

"I think you had better retire to bed, Da," she murmured, as the laird tried to straighten up. "You must rest now. I will see our guests out."

Her father nodded without speaking, then shambled away with the aid of two manservants and climbed the stairs with terrible slowness.

Bernard, watching Janice's eyes following him, felt infinitely sorry for both of them. Abruptly, she turned back to her guests and pinned a smile on her face. He could see that she was acting because he knew every expression on her face so well, but she was doing her duty to the best of her ability, and his heart ached for her.

Suddenly he jumped as a hand descended on his shoulder, and he spun around to see William grinning at him. His hands bunched into fists, and he only just stopped himself from taking a swipe at his friend, who, seeing the expression in William's eyes, stepped back, frowning in puzzlement.

"What's wrong, Bernard?" he asked, frowning. "What has happened?"

"What you said the other day about me sleeping with Janice," Bernard growled. "She heard you, and you saw how it affected her."

"So?" William shrugged. "She is a laird's daughter. She must have heard worse things in her life, and she is a beautiful woman. I am sure I am not the first one to have made such observations about her."

"You do not care how much you have hurt her feelings?" Bernard asked tensely, barely hanging on to his self-control. "You should apologize and explain to her. Tell her you were only making a bad joke." His voice was bitter and throbbing with anger.

"Why?" William looked across at Janice and shrugged. "She is too busy to speak to me."

"Later, then," Bernard insisted. "I mean it, my friend."

William looked at the fury on Bernard's face. He suddenly felt ashamed, realizing that his friend's feelings were deeper than he had assumed. He nodded.

"I will do it if it means so much to you."

Bernard went up to William and stood a mere foot away from him, his hazel eyes dark with anger.

"It does. She thinks I am a lecherous fortune hunter who is trying to get my hands on her dowry."

"I see." William was mystified. "Are you in love with her, my friend?"

Bernard, with a supreme effort of willpower, kept his hands by his sides. "Not another word, William." His voice was throbbing with anger. "Or I will not be responsible for my actions. Do you understand?"

For the first time ever, William felt a little afraid of his friend. Before, he had always been glad that Bernard's muscles had been on his side. However, as he looked at all the condensed power held tightly underneath his skin, William knew that he had pushed his friend to a place he had never seen him in before. And it was a very dangerous place indeed.

William's bags were being hauled downstairs, and he went away for a moment to oversee his servant loading the belongings onto the pack horse. When he turned to speak to Bernard again, he saw Janice flash his friend a venomous look, then, with a scathing glance at him too, she ran upstairs as if wild dogs were chasing her.

Bernard almost snarled when he saw William. His face was flushed, his eyes still black with fury, and his fists still clenched like clubs.

When Janice had said farewell to her last guest, Bernard did not waste a second. He strode across the parquet floor to her side before she had a chance to run away and stretched out to grab her arm. However, she anticipated his move and snatched it away before he could close his hands around it.

Bernard took a brief and desperate glance around to see if he could locate William but could not see him.

Janice looked at Bernard with absolute contempt and growled at him. "I have nothing to say to you. You sought to use my body to worm your way into my affections and ruin me so that I would have to marry you. You are a snake!"

She turned away, but just then, William came up to them and begged her to stay.

"Mistress—you misunderstood," he said desperately. "Please let me explain."

"No!" she snapped. "Get out before I have you both thrown out!" Her eyes were blazing with anger as she turned to sprint upstairs. "I have nothing to say to you, and you will never be welcome here again!"

"Janice, wait!" he called.

He put a foot on the first step of the staircase to follow her upstairs, but suddenly two burly guards seemed to appear from nowhere and stood in front of him, blocking his way.

Suddenly, William appeared at his side again, just a moment too late. The two men stood watching as Janice disappeared around the bend in the staircase, then Bernard's shoulders slumped, and he turned away from his friend.

"I am sorry, my friend," William said gently. "It was indeed my fault."

Bernard nodded, trudged outside, and mounted his horse.

Laird Ballantine looked at him questioningly. "What has happened?" he asked.

"Later," Bernard answered, urging his horse onward. "I don't want to talk about it now."

Janice watched them go, wondering how many times her heart could break before finally shattering as she watched the man she now was certain she loved disappearing into the distance. Was she happy that she had not given herself fully to him? No, she was glad. She truly only had a vague idea of what took place between a man and a woman during lovemaking. Moreover, once she had given him her virginity, it was gone forever, and she would likely become a subject for gossip and mirth amongst him and his cronies. Men were like that.

Sighing, she got to her feet and went to her father's chamber, where she found him dozing peacefully with the village wise woman by his side. She looked up and smiled sadly at Janice. The laird's breathing was wheezy but not labored, but as she sat down at his side, she could see by the white papery texture of his skin and the bulging blue veins underneath that the end was very close now.

"He has been vera calm, mistress," Cathy McLeod said softly. "But I think ye must soon prepare yerself for the worst. He is vera weak."

Janice nodded. "He becomes worse by the day," she agreed.

She moved over to the fire and stood looking into the flames for a moment before she poured herself a large glass of whisky and sat down by her father's side.

She dismissed the healer and leaned back in her chair, then watched her father as his chest rose and fell, hearing the wheezing and rattling noise of his breathing as his lungs struggled to take in air. It hurt her to listen to him, but she dared not leave since she was afraid that he might die while she was away.

Gradually, as she emptied the glass, the whisky took effect, and she fell into a drugged sleep.

"We won!" Laird Ballantine said triumphantly. "Alasdair Stewart will be putty in our hands soon. We must, however, make sure that we leave one of our men there to influence him, and I know the perfect man."

"Who?" Bernard asked.

"You, of course," the laird said, chuckling. "I trust you, and if you are as good at making the laird obey you as you are at ordering my guards about, then you will have no trouble at all. Within a couple of weeks, we can put our own men in at Howdenbrae and begin to rake in the profits."

"Are you thinking of stealing, M'Laird?" Bernard asked, alarmed.

The laird shook his head. "No, my boy. That would be beneath my dignity. I want to make the land more productive and make alliances with other clans through the Stewarts."

Bernard frowned. When the laird had suggested that he was the right man for the job, his heart had leaped for joy. However, he knew that he could not go back to Howdenbrae while Janice was there. She already hated him, and he simply could not bear the thought of seeing her paired in marriage to another man, probably a laird or laird-to-be. After all, she was a very eligible young lady, and he was a nobody.

He sighed irritably. "M'Laird, you are forgetting one thing—or rather, one person." He looked at Laird Ballantine with a deep frown as he shook his head. "Janice Stewart. She is not as biddable as her brothers, and she already thinks that I am akin to something that crawled out from under a stone. She will never cooperate with me. If you must do this thing, then send someone else."

"I thought you and she rubbed along very well," the laird remarked, puzzled. "What happened?"

"It was my fault," William replied, before he went on to explain the situation. "But Father, I do not think anyone can tame Janice Stewart. She is like a terrier, a very small dog with a very big personality. I think you are wasting your time if you think you can deal with her."

"She will likely be married off to a young bachelor before too long, though." The laird looked at them both hopefully. "She is too beautiful to be left on the shelf."

"I have a feeling she will make that decision herself, Father," William said grimly. "If you thought our problems would be solved by exerting influence over Alasdair Stewart, think again."

The laird swore under his breath. "You mean our entire trip was for nothing? I refuse to believe that." His voice throbbed with anger.

Bernard said nothing more because he no longer cared. His future stretched into the distance, bleak and empty.