Duncan shrugged, his gaze shadowed. “I found her.”
“And? What was she like?”
To Fia’s surprise, a deep red flush rose over Duncan’s face. “She was infuriating and damnably proud.”
Fia lifted her brows. “Was she as beauteous as they say?”
He didn’t answer for the longest time. “I did not notice.”
Ha! “I would wager you did.”
He shot her a hard look. “It matters not. I have declawed that particular cat.” He touched a heavy silver chain around his throat, pulling a magnificent amber amulet free from his clothing. The chased silver work that held the jewel depicted an odd mixture of flowers, grass, and a sinuous snake.
Fia blinked at the seductive beauty of the amulet. “Is that hers?”
“’Twas hers.” Duncan’s face held a sense of exquisite satisfaction. “Now ’tis mine.”
“Good God. Won’t she come to get it back?”
Duncan’s smile was pleased and secretive. “Perhaps.”
“But she’s a witch! She’ll not tamely sit by and—”
“Enough.” Duncan’s smile was gone. “That’s my concern and no one else’s. I wish to speak about your behavior with the Sassenach.”
“Fine. Where is he?”
Duncan nodded to the far side of the great hall, and she saw a tall chair facing toward the fire. She knew the arm that rested on it was Thomas’s by the ragged fringe of his sleeve. As she drew closer, she realized his head was bowed.
That was odd. Was he praying, perhaps? Or—She frowned. He wasn’t moving. She hurried her steps. What’s wrong? Is he—
Her heart ached as she realized he was unconscious and bound to the chair. “Duncan, what have you done to my Englishman?”
“Nothing he did not deserve,” Duncan said, walking behind her.
She knelt beside Thomas, noting the trickle of blood running down one cheek. One eye was swelling, while the other was a telltale red.
Fia smoothed back Thomas’s thick, black hair and carefully examined the large lump on his forehead. “Och, you’ve beaten him to a bloody pulp!”
“He’s an intruder on my land. I could have rightfully killed him and no one would have said a word.”
“He says he’s an English earl. I don’t know that I believe that, though.”
Duncan gave a grim smile. “I know exactly who he is.”
“Aye, he’s a Sassenach. Queen Elizabeth’s not one to greet with a smile the news that someone has beaten one of her subjects.”
“My men wouldn’t have done so much if he’d talked. The damned fool wouldn’t say a word.”
“Ha! You were looking for an excuse; I know you too well.” Fia gathered a pitcher of water and a cloth from the sideboard and returned to Thomas’s side. She carefully bathed his bruised face.
“Let the man be,” Duncan grumbled. “You’d think he was made of glass, to be hurt by a few light taps.”
“Light? And who among your men is given to delivering ‘light taps’?”
Duncan scratched his bearded chin. “Well . . . young Fitzgerald has a light fist.”
“I should hope so; he’s only twelve.” Fia pinned Duncan with an exasperated glare. “You had my Englishman trounced soundly, and not by young Fitzgerald.”
Duncan rubbed his ear, a sheepish look on his face. “Aye, but—”
“I’m ashamed of you, Duncan MacLean, for causing harm to an innocent man!”
“Innocent, my ass.”
“Innocent. And if you weren’t such a hothead, you’d know it for yourself.” Fia dabbed at the cut on Thomas’s mouth. She hoped it wouldn’t leave a scar.
Duncan took a chair and watched as she tended the wounded Englishman.
“I cannot believe you’d treat a man such, and for nothing more than giving me a kiss.”
“’Twas more than just a kiss. I saw it. If I had not arrived when I did, there is no telling what might have happened.”
True. Still . . . “He didn’t deserve this.”
“If you hadn’t put yourself in the most damnable position, I wouldn’t have been forced to take such an action.”
“No one forces you to do anything, Duncan.”
His jaw tightened. “Life forces us all to make decisions we dinna like. For example, I returned home and found you gone. Then I discover you wandering about in the middle of the night with an Englishman, like a common—” He snapped his mouth shut and glared. “What were you thinking?”
Fia rinsed out the cloth and dabbed at a bruise beneath Thomas’s eye. “I was on my way to London.”
“Och, London again.”
“Aye, where my destiny awaits. I’ve told you that time and again.”
“So you have.” Duncan regarded her grimly. “But not with an Englishman you didn’t even know.”
“That was a stroke of good fortune.”
“Lass, you’re daft, you are.”
“No, I’m not. I had everything planned.”
“Really?” Duncan scoffed. “What were you doing with the candlesticks? A house full of valuables, and all you could think to steal were some paltry candlesticks?”
“Borrow,” she corrected as she rinsed out the cloth. “My household goods are all locked away.”
“Where they’ll stay until you marry.”
“So I borrowed some of your house goods. If I’d sold some of my jewels or silver plate, you’d easily have tracked me down. The candlesticks were nondescript; I doubt you’d have even missed them.”
Duncan looked sour at this calm assertion. “How did you propose to sell your loot? Just walk into some crofter’s hut and flash it before their amazed eyes?”
“Angus’s brother is a tinker. He was going to sell the silver and take us with him to London.”
Duncan’s brows lowered. “Angus?”
“Angus Collins, the man who helps in the stables. He is Mary’s new husband. They are waiting for me at Crenahan.” Fia wondered if Thomas would need stitches for the wound on his cheek.
Duncan looked thunderous. “Mary knows about this?”
“Of course.”
“By the rood, I pay Mary well to be your companion and to stop just such nonsense!”
“’Tis not nonsense, Duncan. One way or another, I will go to London.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Over my dead body.”
She clenched her fists. “Don’t tempt me.”
They glowered at each other.
Finally, Duncan scowled. “I thought Mary had more sense than to encourage you. Has she gone daft, too?”
“She thinks I am wasting away on this isle.” Fia smiled through gritted teeth. “She loves my plays and knows I will be famous.”
Duncan groaned aloud, but Fia continued undeterred. “And as Angus is her husband, it only made sense that once Mary agreed to come, he wouldn’t stay behind.”
“Addlepated, the lot of you.” Duncan scowled down at his boots before shooting her a sharp glance. “How did you plan on getting off the isle?”
“Tam MacCrea’s father has a boat.”
“MacCrea?”
“The sheepherder.”
“God’s wounds, have you recruited all of my servants to plot against me?”
“Pssht. Don’t be so dramatic; I asked them to help. No one’s done a thing against anyone.” She gave Duncan an admonitory frown. “You should make more of an effort to get to know your retainers, Duncan.”
“Why should I bother? You know them all much too well as it is.”
“They are good people. Tam’s father agreed to take us across the firth to Carnorvah. The tinker’s cart is waiting for us there. He was to trade the candlesticks for silver, and we were to travel in stages to London.”
Duncan looked astounded. “Bloody hell!”
Fia rocked back on her heels. “’Twasn’t such a foolish plan after all, was it?”
“Nay,” he said, his voice somber. “And that scares me more than anything else.” H
e frowned at Thomas’s bent head for a long moment. “Where did you find the Sassenach?”
“Perched in the library window like a great bird.”
Duncan’s gaze warmed with interest. “Was he, now?”
“Aye, I think he was climbing in to steal some of your worthwhile items.”
“An earl was climbing into my window? I am honored.”
She blinked. “Wait . . . he’s truly an earl? I didn’t believe him.”
“Aye, he’s an earl; one of Elizabeth’s court favorites.”
“How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “So ’twas mere coincidence you met the man as he was climbing through the same window?”
“Nay, Duncan—’twas fate.” He grunted and she added, “Of course, none of this would have occurred had you taken me to London as you promised.”
“Once you are married—”
“By the time I am married I will be a hundred years old, too bent and gnarled to hold a pen in my hand, let alone reach London. I’m twenty-four now and I’ve yet to see a single road into London.”
Silence filled the room as Duncan glowered at her. With a disgusted noise, Fia turned back to Thomas, brushing his dark hair from his forehead. He looked like a prince, she thought wistfully, tracing the bruise on his cheek. A beaten and muddy prince, but a prince nonetheless.
Duncan watched, his brow lowered. Finally he spoke, his voice loud in the quiet. “You’re right, lass. ’Tis time and then some that you were wed.”
Her hand froze, curled about a strand of Thomas’s hair.
Duncan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’ve found you a husband. He’s not exactly who I’d have for you, but considering these uncertain times, he’s the best—”
“No!”
He frowned. “You were just complaining that you weren’t wed.”
“I was complaining I’d not yet been to London! I wish to go there—but not with a husband.”
Duncan’s brow lowered. “London is a great morass, lass, ’twould not be safe to go there on your own. ’Tis past time you were wed. Let your husband take you there.”
Fia recognized the iron-hard sound of Duncan’s voice. He is decided, and there’ll be no changing his mind. She clasped her trembling hands in her lap. “Who . . . who have you chosen?”
Duncan shifted in his chair. “Malcolm Davies.”
“He’s but seventeen!”
Duncan’s face reddened. “He just turned eighteen and his mother says he is mature beyond his years.”
“Pssht! What else would she tell you? That he’s never left the walls of Dunvena Castle? That he has no chin and less manly parts? They say his mother rules both Malcolm and the clan, and keeps them both under lock and key.”
“Malcolm’s been ill,” said Duncan bracingly.
“Ha! Faint of heart is more like it.”
Duncan gave an exasperated sigh. “’Tis not easy to find a bridegroom for you, lass. You want the impossible—a well-made man who will allow you to write and take you to London. There’s not eight men in all of Scotland who’d do so much.”
She gave Duncan a disbelieving gaze. “Malcolm the Maiden would leave Dunvena Castle and travel all the way to London? Has he promised to do so?”
Duncan’s color rose even more. “Who calls him Malcolm the Maiden?”
“You did, just last year. After the gathering at Lochvie, you said he was a maggoty light skirt of a man who—”
“That was before,” Duncan interrupted hastily. “Let anyone else say such now, and I’ll have their liver in my haggis.” Fia raised her brows and he waved a hand. “Malcolm will go to London. He has pledged it.”
“With or without his mother?”
Duncan shifted in his seat. “’Tis possible his mother will wish to accompany him on such a long journey.”
“Sweet Jesu, Duncan! The man is a babied lackwit. I want a man to husband—a real man. Worse than his lack of backbone, they say he is cruel to the maids in his house. That he forces himself upon them and then, when they get with child, he sends them away to—”
“Who told you such drivel?” Duncan snapped.
“Everyone knows it.”
A concerned look settled on Duncan’s brow. “’Tis not true. ’Tis only servants’ gossip.”
“But—”
“Nay.” Duncan crossed his arms over his wide chest, his jaw set. “I’m your guardian, lass, and I know what’s good for you. Malcolm will not dare hurt you; he knows he’d have to deal with me if you come to harm. His mother’s skirts wouldn’t protect him then.”
Fia started to argue again, but then thought better of it. She could see the telltale signs that Duncan’s calm humor was already wearing thin: his mouth was white about the corners, his jaw set like a rock. His irritation was bubbling to the surface and if she continued, it would explode.
She’d wait until later to make her point, when he wasn’t so tired. He might be made to see reason then.
Heart heavy, Fia returned to her Sassenach, regarding Thomas’s fine broad shoulders and well-muscled arms with new admiration. Why couldn’t Duncan have chosen a man like this? One who was tall and handsome and dashing—not to mention his kindness while they were attempting to escape the island, even after she’d stolen his gold.
Instead of a worthy companion like this, she was to be married to a hunchbacked, addlepated, cruel lackwit.
She sighed and leaned her forehead against Thomas’s arm, suddenly feeling painfully lonely.
“Lass, dinna look so forlorn.” Duncan stood restlessly and crossed to stir the fire with a long iron poker. The fire gleamed along the hard lines of his face and reflected on the amber amulet until it shone with a fire of its own. “You must understand; these are dangerous times. Things have come to a head and I must act. And you’ve given me no choice, with your desperation to go to London. I won’t have you alone and unprotected in that hellish city.”
She regarded him somberly, noticing for the first time the heaviness that sat about his dark eyes. He wasn’t just tired; he was worried. A chill touched her heart. “What’s happened?”
He leaned against the mantel and kicked aimlessly at the sputtering fire. “I fear Queen Mary will soon marry that fool Bothwell.”
“What? But he murdered her husband, Darnley!”
“So many believe. Bothwell isn’t trustworthy and will not be accepted as her consort. The lairds are talking war.”
“Bothwell will be surprised at such resistance.”
“Nay, I think that has been his plan all along. But the fool doesn’t understand that such a move will enrage Elizabeth, perhaps to the point of sending her own army to put down what can only be seen as a revolt.”
Fia’s chest ached. War would mean fighting and death. Duncan was not a man to fight from the back of the field; whatever happened, he would be at the forefront. “What can be done?”
“If the Scots band together and support Prince James, Mary’s son, then we stand a chance. Elizabeth’s fears will be soothed.”
“James is but a babe, barely a year old.”
“Aye—a babe who can be molded into a real king and ruler, rather than one left to spoil within the French court, as Mary was. If we renounce Mary and join behind the babe, then Elizabeth will leave us alone.”
“Mary is such a fool! Why did she align herself with Bothwell?”
“She says she’s in love.” Duncan shrugged. “Bothwell attempted to stage it so that she could claim rape and thus not be to blame for the hasty wedding—but I know differently. She was a more than willing participant.”
Fia didn’t ask how he knew; Duncan was a man of many secrets. “You are attempting to gather the other lairds behind the prince, then?”
“Aye. We shall see if ’tis true that as the MacLeans go, so goes Scotland.” Duncan’s face was bleak but set. His gaze flickered to Fia. “As you can see, I can’t leave you unwed. If I am killed in battle, or assassinated beforehand—”
“Assassinated?”
“It could happen. I’m not invincible, and neither are you. Look at what just happened: our castle broken into in the dead of night by an English earl.”
“You knew of him before, didn’t you?”
Duncan crossed his arms. “Aye. Thomas Wentworth is the Earl of Rotherwood. The greatest of his estates marches the border between Scotland and England. He has lands in Northumberland, Devonshire, and Yorkshire. He possesses an ancient and respected title and is of good birth. Furthermore, he is reputed to be one of Queen Elizabeth’s favorites. All that, and he’s a bloody Sassenach and not fit to step foot in Duart Castle.”
Fia returned her gaze to Thomas. That explained the man’s arrogance. She reached out and touched Thomas’s ragged shirt, the quality still evident. “What else do you know about him?”
Duncan’s gaze rested on Thomas’s bent head. “His closest companion is Robert MacQuarrie.”
Fia raised her eyebrows. MarQuarrie was the laird of his clan and had once resided in glorious Balmanach Castle. As a young man of sixteen, MacQuarrie had disappeared with his five sisters following the murder of their parents by a rival clan. At first it had been assumed that the children had been slain as well, and the young laird had been a figure of great sympathy—until rumors began to circulate that he had suddenly appeared at the English court and was well on his way to becoming a favorite of the English queen.
Few Scots thought well of a laird who slunk away in the dark of night and refused to accept his responsibilities.
Fia frowned. “’Tis hard to imagine such a proud man having a friend like Robert MacQuarrie.”
Duncan shrugged. “All I know is that the Coward of Balmanach is never far from your Sassenach.”
Fia regarded Thomas’s face for a moment. “What else do you know?”
“Wentworth works closely with Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s most trusted counselor. Walsingham is reputed to be like a father to him. They say your Englishman dons the guise of a spy on occasion at Walsingham’s behest.”
Fia looked at Thomas as if she had never seen him before. “Is that why he came here?”
“Perhaps. Your Sassenach is known as the luckiest man in England. Perchance he came to—”
Thomas stirred, and Fia dropped to her knees beside his chair. He moaned as he lifted his head. At first, his blurry vision found nothing more remarkable than a nimbus of dark red-brown hair curling about a piquant face. He blinked rapidly, his eyes swollen and pained, his mind too fuzzy to remember how he’d gotten here.