Chapter 13

H aving three sisters, Ian knew better than to declare that he needed no explanation, because he had made up his mind. His attention having shifted to other parts, he offered the tactful suggestion that they could discuss the matter later.

“I would prefer to discuss it now,” Lina said with her usual tranquility. “Sithee, sir, if you do not take me home with you, just think how it will look.”

“How do you think it will look?”

She cocked her head, as if she wondered why he had to ask. Then, soberly, she said, “Do you not mean to tell your parents about this, about us?”

“Of course, I’ll tell them,” he said, although the truth was that he had not spared that forthcoming event a thought. The only time he had considered his parents’ opinion was when Andrew had said they would not object to his marrying Lina. Nor would they, he reassured himself. However…

She continued to watch him. Her expression was unchanged, but he had that feeling again that she looked right into his mind and knew all that was there. That would explain why he could sense so strongly that she was dissatisfied with his answers. In fact, for all the heed that she had paid to the last one…

“Did you hear me?”

“Aye, sure. I just think you should give your decision more thought.”

A shiver shot up his spine. “Look here,” he said, “you begin to sound like Dree. Do not tell me that you also think you know what people think and feel.”

“Of course not. I can only tell when you are not being entirely truthful.”

“Oh, is that all?” He wanted to shake her. “Just what makes you think you can do that?”

Her smile was rueful, not triumphant. “Likely, I’ll wish I had not revealed my secrets,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t know how I know. I just do. But I can often tell by your expression or the way you tug that strand of hair you are holding.”

Flicking the offending strand behind his ear, he exhaled with what his sister Susanna would call his long-suffering sigh and said, “I’ll admit that I hadn’t given my parents much thought, lass. But you ken fine how much they love you. Do you imagine that they will not welcome you to our family?”

“I know they like me,” she said. “And they have always been welcoming. But they will be more so if you tell them straightaway and do not seem to hide me away here. Mercy, sir, you could be gone for months. What would anyone think?”

“Everyone will think exactly what your father does, that I’m leaving you where you will be safe,” he said, keeping his temper with difficulty. Where had her delightful submissiveness gone? Weren’t wives supposed to obey their husbands?

“What people think will depend on you,” Lina said. “If you ‘ forget’ to mention a little thing like your marriage, I expect they will think any number of things, none of which will redound to my credit. But if you take me with you—”

“You can put that notion out of your head,” he said curtly. “Dunglass is but three miles from the rebels at Dumbarton. I want you far away from there.”

To ease his temper, he thought fondly of his mother, who always submitted to Colquhoun’s decisions without argument. Regrettably, however, the image that leaped to mind was his father’s chagrin when Lady Colquhoun entered the inner chamber uninvited to declare that he could not send Lina and Lizzie away at once.

“Your lady mother is there,” Lina said calmly, as if she were just clarifying her thoughts and not sending chills through him again. His hands itched to catch hold of her but not to shake her. He wanted to rip the covers off and, if she was not too sore from their previous exercise, to reveal more pleasures of coupling to her.

Instead, he said brusquely, “If, by the time I return, my father has not sent my mother to join my sister Susanna, I’ll be gey surprised. Dunglass itself may be teeming with Borderers and other ruffians by then. It will be no place for you.”

“Why are so many ruffians coming?”

“To do battle, if necessary,” he said. “You guessed when I rescued you that my father hopes to persuade James Mòr to yield Dumbarton to his grace. What you do not know is that the King ordered me to take back the castle for the Crown.”

Her lips parted and color drained from her face. “That castle is impregnable,” she protested. “No one could take it. James Mòr was able to do so only because the men who then guarded the castle still knew him as Murdoch’s well-behaved son and welcomed him. James Mòr will trust no one.”

“He would trust his mother,” Ian said, simply because broad statements like that one deserved contradiction. Although the thought was an intriguing one.

Lina raised her eyebrows in another speculative look. “You are gey good at disguising yourself,” she said. “And I have never clapped eyes on Duchess Isabella. But I doubt that she is over six feet tall or has shoulders as broad as yours.”

Her tone was solemn, her expression likewise. But the wench’s eyes danced.

“Come here to me,” he said.

“What are you going to do?”

“Provide you with yet another reason that James Mòr would never believe I am a woman, let alone one daft enough to marry into the Stewart family.”

“Will you agree to tell your parents straightaway about our marriage?”

Meeting her gaze and holding it, he said, “I don’t bargain, Lina. Not after I have made a decision. Now, put those covers down and come here to me.”

Lina was not afraid of him, although she did wonder if he had thought she might be, or had even hoped that she would be. He still held her gaze, but she looked steadily, silently back at him until his lips moved, diverting her attention to them. They thinned, and a tiny dimple showed just to the right of them.

Without thinking about what she did, she let the covers slip. Then, sensing a new, exciting kind of tension, she licked her lips and looked into his eyes again.

They were smoldering. He reached for her and she leaned toward him as he did. Without effort, he pulled her into his arms, captured her lips with his own…

… and began tickling her.

Lina shrieked, but Ian’s lips muffled the sound, and he was too strong for her to escape. Soon, though, he was no longer tickling but stroking her, teasing her nipples, making her blood race and her heart pound. His tongue slid into her mouth, and hers darted to meet it.

When he moved over her, she spread her legs to receive him without giving thought to the initial pain she had felt the night before. By the time she did think of it, he was inside her, moving gently. She felt a distant, residual ache, but the other feelings he stirred soon banished all thought of pain.

When he climaxed, he fell away from her. But he lay for only a moment before he said, “Don’t move yet, lass. I want to teach you one more thing to keep you from forgetting me whilst I’m away.”

“How could I forget you,” she murmured, smiling.

Without replying, he kissed her breasts and her belly. Then he moved lower and lower, his legs between hers again as he eased toward the foot of the bed, kissing and licking her until she began to squirm and moan.

Then his fingers returned to where his cock had been earlier, and she could feel his breath there, too. He murmured, “Be still now. Just feel and enjoy.”

His fingers moved away, and his tongue began to do things she had never imagined a tongue could do. Soon afterward, she cried out again in pure pleasure.

When she could breathe normally, Ian moved up beside her, drew her into the shelter of his arms, and said with a smile, “Will you remember?”

“Always, aye.” Lowering her lashes, she wondered briefly if she had any hope of persuading him to take her with him and decided she had none. He had made up his mind, and he was a gey stubborn man. She would have to study him more to learn what persuasive measures, if any, might work with him.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

Knowing that to share those thoughts would merely supply him with another challenge, she kept silent.

“Tell me.”

She felt much more comfortable with him now than she had expected she ever could, and she wished he were not leaving. But she would not tell him those things either. So, she said truthfully, “I was thinking what a puzzle you are to me.”

“How so?” He sounded more sleepy than curious.

Nevertheless, she said, “My family thinks of me as the persuasive one. I can nearly always persuade my sisters and others to heed me. But you are a puzzle.”

“I told you we’re likely to fratch, lass. If you are wise, though, you won’t fight me after I’ve made up my mind.”

“You did promise always to listen.”

“I did, and I will but only up to a point. If you have already said it without persuading me, saying it again or haggling with me won’t aid you.”

“I would not do those things,” she said. “I do hope, though, that you will tell your parents straightaway that we have married.”

“I will tell them,” he said. “I did not mean for you to think I would not. I just disliked the bargain you offered. That one won’t sway me, Lina, ever.”

Remembering, she felt a little guilty. But a woman had so few weapons. Quietly, she said, “It is important to me that you tell them. I feel as if we have married without their permission. And I don’t like the feeling.”

“Nor would I if I felt the same way,” he said. “But my parents have been urging me to keep my eyes open for a wife since I turned eighteen. So I am as certain as one can be that our marriage will please them. They’ll also understand that you will be safer here than anywhere nearer Dumbarton, let alone at Dunglass.”

His saying that she would be safe sent a shiver up Lina’s spine just as Lady Aubrey’s assurance of her future well-being had done. Determined to be sensible, reminding herself that she and Ian had married and should make the most of their time together, she summoned up a smile and said, “How soon must you go?”

“Not today,” he said firmly. “I’m too worn out from making love to my lady wife. Sakes, I may have to stay in bed all day to recover,” he added.

When she shook her head at him, he said, “In troth, I want to give the men at Dunglass time to reduce what are like to be a plethora of plans to a possible few.”

“Who has yet to come?”

“Jamie sent for Douglas to come, and Douglas will bring other Border lords to make up Jamie’s army. I’ll welcome them after I’ve taken the castle, but the last thing I want is tension between powerful Border lords who think Jamie should have put them in charge. I’d liefer take the castle with men from Loch Lomond clans.”

“But everyone’s loyalties have split. Faith, nearly all of us here descend from Earls of Lennox. Yet look at us. Thanks to Lennox and the House of Albany, clans, even families, have divided. We fight amongst ourselves as much as we fight others.”

“ We aren’t fighting now,” he said pointedly. “Art sure you want to get up?”

“I hope you won’t command me to stay in bed,” she said. “I look forward to enjoying more such activity, but I’d liefer get up now and break my fast. We can walk outside the wall afterward if you want to see more of Tùr Meiloach. Or we can go somewhere quiet, talk, and get to know each other better.”

“I do need to talk with your father today, to help draft those documents he mentioned yesterday,” Ian said. “We did not take time to do it then, and we must do that before I go. Shall I shout for Hak and send him to fetch your lass?”

Lina agreed. But when he strode to the door, naked, opened it, and shouted across the landing, she dove back under the covers until Hak had received his orders and gone to find Tibby. Then, suddenly shy about getting out of bed naked, she felt immense relief when Ian pulled on his breeks and a tunic and said he would go and find out when Andrew wanted to draw up the marriage documents.

When he had gone, she relieved herself in the night jar and put on her shift from the day before. Memory returned then rather abruptly of Lady Aubrey’s eerie intrusion during their previous night’s activity.

When that image had appeared and then vanished as if unseen breath had blown out its light, she had felt dizzy and disoriented. Now she wondered if her captivity with Lizzie and all that had followed it might have affected her mind.

Guiltily, she realized that she ought to have told Ian about the incident. Before she could even ponder that thought, though, a more startling one took its place: What if she had inherited her mother’s gift and seen some future event?

Feeling silly even to wonder such a thing, she discarded that notion, too.

Surely, if she had inherited the gift, or curse, of seeing into the future, she would have known it long before now. The strangest of Andrena’s gifts presented itself soon after her birth. And Andrena had known since childhood that she could tell how people were feeling, what they might be thinking, and if they were trustworthy. Muriella, too, had known as a child that she had an extraordinary memory.

Striving to imagine what to say if she did tell Ian, Lina decided she lacked the courage to try. He would likely insist that she had been daydreaming at a time when she ought to have kept her attention on their consummation and him. In short, he’d be annoyed, and she did not want to irk him again so close to his departure.

A light rap on the door announced Tibby’s arrival with a fresh shift, Lina’s favorite blue kirtle, and a crisp white veil. Tib helped her dress and was handing her the silver chain girdle to clasp around her waist when Ian walked in.

Startled, Lina nearly objected to such a lack of ceremony but recalled in time that another right of husbands was to walk in on their wives whenever they chose.

He cocked his head as if he had noticed her mixed reaction. But he made no comment other than to say he had talked with Andrew. “If you’d like to enjoy some fresh air, my lady, I thought we might go down to the shore. I could not see from inside if the tide is in or out—”

“It is in and on the turn, sir,” she said.

“Sakes, how do you know? One cannot see well enough from that window, and I doubt that you have left this chamber.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know how I know, but I do. After living here so long, I expect it is just something one learns to sense from the sounds of the waves.”

“I don’t hear any waves.”

“Then perhaps that is how I know. In any event, we cannot go all the way down, if that is what you had hoped. But we can walk on the cliffs or in the woods.”

He said dryly, “Not thinking of sinking me in one of your hungry bogs or feeding me to one of the fierce beasts we hear so much about, are you?”

“Nay,” she said, smiling. “Not if you behave.”

He grinned at her and turned to Tibby. “Take that veil off her ladyship, lass. I want to see her hair in the sunlight.”

Hearing his tone, Lina wondered what else he might want to see.

Dougal was in the woods above the tower, waiting for Lady Aubrey. His father had watchers everywhere. Andrew Dubh likely did, too. But Pharlain had one or two living amid Andrew’s people. Thanks to one of them, Dougal knew how much her ladyship loved the wee burn-fed pond just below him in the woods.

She came often, his informant had said. Moreover, she had not been able to visit the pond since leaving for Bannachra Tower. She would come today.

Because of his swim, he wore only his tunic, which had quickly dried. He had not been so foolhardy as to come unarmed, though. He had carried his dirk in his teeth and had it in hand now, but he did not expect to use it. The women of Tùr Meiloach felt safe on its land. That simple fact would work in his favor.

He heard her humming, and then he saw her. As expected, Lady Aubrey had come alone. When she knelt by the pond, he stepped out from behind a tree.

She heard him and looked up. “You were foolish to come here,” she said.

“Ye ken who I am, then.”

“Aye, sure. You look much as your father did at your age. But do not think you will harm me. I have only to scream to bring warriors down upon you.”

“They would not catch me,” he said confidently, although if the truth were known, he felt edgy. Things that men had said about the MacFarlan women were whispering themselves to him. “Ye won’t call them, though, for I mean ye nae harm today.” He put slight emphasis on the last word and saw that she had noted it.

“What do you want?” she asked.

That was easy. “The charters to Arrochar. They belong to us, and we’ll need them to show his grace when he comes north. Ye must ken where they lie.”

“I fear that I do not,” she said, apparently unperturbed.

“Ye’re a Seer, so ye’ll find them,” he said. “Ye’ve seen how easily I found ye and how safely I walk on this so-treacherous land of yours. I can find your daughters, too, madam, wherever they are. If ye don’t get me the charters, ye’ll lose one daughter, then another, and then the last. That last one will be the lady Lina, for I want her to feel the pain of losing her sisters and all that I shall tell others meantime about her shameful behavior.”

“Lina has done naught for which she need be ashamed,” she said calmly. “Moreover, you will harm her only at your peril. She is married now to Sir Ian Colquhoun, who will avenge any stain cast upon her character.”

So Colquhoun and his son had somehow aided the chit’s escape, had they?

Dougal wanted to curse, but he did not. Instead, he moved closer to her, saying tersely, “Then I’ll take the one I find first, madam. Do not think I will not. Will it be a daughter ye lose or those wretched charters?”

“Do you think you can come here again so easily?” she asked.

“Not here, but elsewhere, a place I ken where nae one can lay a trap. Ye’ll find the charters, and ye’ll bring them to me. I’ll find a way to tell ye where to meet me, but do not delay or tell anyone. If ye fail me, ye’ll not get a second chance.”

“Sakes, how do you imagine that I can simply leave Tùr Meiloach to meet you elsewhere?”

“Use your Tùr Meiloach magic, woman,” he said harshly. “But ye will meet me or suffer grave consequences. Believe me, for the very fact that I stand facing ye should prove that nae one here is safe. ’Tis plain, too, that ye had nae ken ye would meet me here, despite all the daft tales of your being a Seer. Ye’ll do as ye’re bid.”

She continued to gaze steadily at him, but he knew that he had frightened her, so he refused to go until she promised to meet him when and where he chose.

Afterward, eerie dark shadows that looked ominously like wolves followed him through the woods, making his flesh creep. He had to await darkness again to make his escape safely, but when nothing else happened, his confidence increased.

After all, he was as much a true MacFarlan as anyone at Tùr Meiloach.

Ian was beginning to enjoy his marriage, even to feel pleased with it.

When they entered the hall, the dais was empty. Since that meant the others who broke their fast at the high table had likely done so, he was delighted when Lina accepted his suggestion that they take bread and apples and go on outside.

“My sister Susanna would say that to walk about with food like this is improper,” he confided to Lina as she led the way to the service stairs. “I’m glad you don’t trouble your head about such things.”

She looked back, smiling. “I know you often feel confined within doors, sir.”

“I do, aye,” he admitted.

In the yard, when Pluff opened the postern gate for them, Lina smiled at him, too. She had a lovely smile that went to her eyes, which, in the morning sunlight, were the same shade of blue as her gown. Ian found himself smiling as she led the way to the cliffs. They soon came to a place with boulders suitable for sitting.

“We can eat here and watch the view,” she said, and he agreed.

A thin layer of mist clinging to the water showed that the tide was in and quietly turning, just as she had said. They ate and watched gulls soar overhead.

Several soon swooped near them, and Ian learned that Lina had brought extra rolls to share. She handed him one, and they tossed pieces high for the gulls to snatch out of the air, laughing when the silly birds fought over them.

“You know,” Ian said after a time, “another reason my father will approve is that he’ll assume that I’m ready to assume more responsibility for our estates.”

Without taking her eyes off the swooping gulls, she said, “You don’t have to think of more reasons, sir. I trust you to know what they will think, although I’d not be surprised to learn that they had hoped you’d marry a wealthy heiress.”

“Since you admire honesty, I’ll admit that my father hopes to acquire more land, and I ken fine that you will not inherit much. But that does not trouble me. A knight should win land of his own through feats of duty.”

“Do you think his grace will reward you with land if you can reclaim Dumbarton for him?”

He shrugged. “No one ever knows what Jamie will do. He did promise Mag and me, after we helped foil the coup against him, that he would award us land to go with our knighthoods. At present, though, he is eager to reclaim estates that his kinsmen awarded to themselves and to men they wanted to bind to their service.”

They talked more as they wandered along the cliffs. The day was bright and sunny with a low thin mist still clinging to the Loch of the Long Boats. The water looked calm, and the air was still. Finding a sheltered, private place amid the boulders, Ian took off his plaid and spread it on the ground.

Standing again, he reached for Lina’s laces. “We’ll take this off,” he said. “Your hair looks like gold in the sunlight. I want to see how the rest of you looks.”

With a little gasp but with eyes agleam, she said, “I don’t want to alarm you again, sir, but I had a feeling that you might demand such a thing.”

They spent the rest of Wednesday and most of Thursday together, in bed and out, and to Ian’s delight, Lina soon abandoned the last of her shyness with him.

He did take time Wednesday afternoon with Andrew to discuss and agree on the documents. Andrew prepared them Thursday, and they signed them on Friday.

Saturday morning, shortly after dawn, Ian bade his bride farewell and rode away through the forest with his men and Rob MacAulay, back over the southeast pass and down through Glen Luss. Since he and Rob had scarcely seen or spoken to each other in the meantime, they rode together.

“I wasn’t bored,” Rob assured Ian soberly. “Andrew Dubh entertained me with tales of hawks, badgers, and wolves attacking intruders, and other unlikely events, whilst he showed me more of Tùr Meiloach. I think the man is full of blethers, but he has kept his family safe with those tales of his, so he’s a canny fellow. Certes, I’d liefer keep him as a friend than have him for my enemy.”

Ian agreed. Conversation between the two was desultory. Neither felt much need to break their companionable silence. Reaching the clachan near Inch Galbraith by midafternoon, they found Lippin Geordie awaiting them.

“The laird did tell me tae look out for ye, sir,” Geordie explained. “He’ll be a-riding back wi’ ye, an ye dinna mind his company.”

“How soon can he be ready?” Ian asked.

“Men on the ramparts be a-watching, too. So as soon one o’ ours saw ye coming, our Dolf went over tae collect Himself. He sent word earlier for the men in his tail tae ready themselves and tae meet him afore ye reach Glen Fruin.”

Geordie then inquired about the lady Lizzie and others at Tùr Meiloach. By the time a man from the clachan brought out the laird’s horse, saddled and bridled, the boat carrying Galbraith was nearing the landing.

When they had mounted and turned southward, Rob dropped back to let Galbraith take his place beside Ian.

“Has Lizzie turned Tùr Meiloach upside down yet?” Galbraith asked him.

“The tower remains upright, sir. As to Lizzie herself, the truth is that I’ve seen almost nowt of her. She and the lady Muriella have become fast friends.”

“Aye, Lizzie told me that before she left,” Galbraith said. “Aye, well, if I can trust anyone to keep my lassie out of trouble, Aubrey MacFarlan is the one.”

“Aye, sir,”

“Have you devised a plan yet for Dumbarton?” Galbraith asked.

“Have you suggestions of your own, sir?”

Galbraith gave him a long look, then smiled. “I see, aye. Well, then, if you were my son, I’d encourage you to keep your ideas to yourself until you’d heard all of the others. Many of the noblemen you are gathering at Dunglass are much more experienced than you are and will pay little heed to your views until they have fully expressed their own. You mentioned that you expect Borderers to come, which would likely mean Buccleuch and Douglas since both are loyal to Jamie. They are fine warriors, so Jamie likely included them to give you advice.”

“Perhaps, sir,” Ian said. “But when his grace gave me his warrant, he told me straight out to make my own decision about how to handle the matter. He said, correctly, that I know Dumbarton’s weaknesses better than any Borderer could.”

“Do you ken them better than your sire, lad?”

Ian smiled. “My father is a gey canny laird, sir. But he loathes warfare. Sakes, he hates conflict of any sort. He is a fine leader of men, and he will support whatever I decide to do. He may even offer advice. But I have a devious mind and he does not. He respects mine though, as long as I don’t use it to deceive him.”

Galbraith laughed. “You never answered my question. Have you got a plan?”

“I’ll have one when I need one,” Ian said. “That is what matters. Have you heard aught from your sons, sir?”

Galbraith had not but was willing to talk about them. He did so until the trees on the hillside to their right thinned and the path up Glen Fruin appeared ahead. Eight armed horsemen awaited them there.

Galbraith said, “Those are my lads. I’ll have them fall in behind us.”

They continued riding, therefore, without pause. Soon, dense woods loomed ahead, and Ian realized that they were nearing the area where Dougal and his men had captured Lina and Lizzie.

He was about to point that out to Galbraith, when movement just west of where the path entered the woodland diverted his attention. The stag stood there, poised to dart up the hillside. Ian raised a hand, signaling those behind him to stop.

“Hold, sir, and look yonder,” he said, reining in but making no other movement than a slight jutting of his jaw westward. “See him?”

“Aye,” Galbraith said quietly, staring. “Magnificent.”

The stag stood out against the greenery for several moments. Then it turned smoothly and, with quiet dignity, disappeared into the woods.

“We saw him Tuesday on the Glen Luss trail,” Ian said against the murmur of men behind them, who were also discussing the great beast.

“From the sound of our lads, they’d relish a hunt,” Galbraith observed.

“Not today,” Ian said. “My father likely assumed that I’d return at least two days ago. By now, he must be struggling to keep his temper whilst striving to keep peace amongst his guests.”

“You had good reason for your delay, I’m sure.”

“I did,” Ian said. He nearly told Galbraith about his marriage. But, recalling Lina’s concern about his parents’ feelings, he decided that they should know first.

Galbraith said, “Colquhoun would not thank either of us for dallying. But when we have reclaimed the castle, mayhap we’ll celebrate with a venison feast.”

Ian agreed. He would relish such a hunt.

He sent two of his men to see which direction the stag had taken, knowing that such information might help them find it again. But they found no sign of it.