He nodded slowly. “You worked a farm, did you not? You can cook, clean, sew.” He clipped each of those words as though counting off a list.
“Aye.” She had essentially been the family servant. No task too menial or grand. She did them all, including managing the household ledger. She mentioned that then. “I managed the household.”
“Ah.” He snapped his fingers. “A housekeeper then. You sound aptly qualified to that task.”
Housekeeper. That would be an improvement over unwanted wife, she supposed. She eyed him suspiciously. Was he implying he would help her find a situation? It was almost too much to hope.
“I have a position for you. I’m on my way to my property in the north. On the Black Isle.”
The Black Isle was far north indeed. It was quite the opposite of where she wished to go. Inverness was the closest city and it was hardly London.
And yet he was offering her work.
She looked him up and down again. “You’ve property there?”
“I do. Kilmarkie House. It’s at the top of the peninsula, near the point.”
Her mind immediately tracked back to her geography lessons with her father. “Is it true you can see dolphins there? In the sea?” Scotland might be surrounded by sea at every side but she had never seen the ocean, much less dolphins.
“That’s what I hear.”
She blinked. “You’ve never been there yourself? And this is your property?”
“No, I haven’t visited, but I’ve heard dolphins are visible from the shore. Whales, too.”
What manner of man owns a property he has never before seen? Was he very rich then and simply averse to bathing?
“I’ve heard it’s very beautiful,” she admitted, mulling over his offer. The Black Isle. It wasn’t London, but she would be seeing more of the world. And she would like to see dolphins. That was one incentive. “Would I earn a wage?” She could work until she saved enough money and then move to London. Or anywhere at all . . . hopefully with a glowing reference in her pocket.
“Of course,” he replied with no inflection to his voice.
Of course?
He acted as though she should expect fairness when life had taught her to expect very little. If life were fair then she wouldn’t be here with him and rope burns on her neck.
“I didn’t bid on you in that auction for free labor,” he added with a touch of indignation.
She resisted asking why he did bid on her. Sometimes it was best not to ask questions.
She nodded decisively. “I accept your offer.”
She would not be getting any better offers at this time and well he knew it.
The dark whiskers surrounding his lips twitched. “Very well.” He looked her over quickly. Turning, he swung up onto his mount again. “Wait here.” With no further explanation, he turned about and headed back into the village.
She watched him ride away, wondering what precisely was happening. Why was he going back to the village? Certainly he was returning for her? He’d taken her valise with him. She shivered a little and hugged herself, hating how reliant she was on this man—her Non Husband. A man whose name she still did not know. She bristled. Apparently he had not deemed her significant enough to properly introduce himself.
She stood at the edge of the road for some time before she stepped to the side and leaned against a tree. As much as she wouldn’t mind sitting, the ground was covered in snow. Her dress and cloak would be soaked and then she would really be cold. She looked down, considering her too-tight boots and tattered garments. She was not attired for traveling north into the Highlands. It would only get colder.
Minutes ticked by and she glanced up at the cloudy sky. The afternoon was well on its way. Her stomach grumbled and she wondered if they would eat any time soon. Whatever the case, she knew she would not ask him.
“Alyse!”
At the sound of her name, her gaze popped up. She scanned the road.
Nellie approached on foot, holding her very swollen belly with one hand.
Alyse sprang away from the tree and hurried to meet her friend, her heart immediately clenching in concern for the girl she had looked after for so many years.
“Nellie! What are you doing walking all the way out here? It’s far too cold for you. You should be off your feet.”
Nellie breathed heavily. “I ’eard wot ’appened. Oh, that damn Yardley! I wish ’e’d never come back! And m’father! I’ll never speak tae ’im!”
“Shhh, now.” Alyse rubbed a comforting hand over Nellie’s back. “Don’t distress yourself.”
“Ye canna go wi’ ’im.” Her gaze darted around. “Where is ’e? Did ’e abandon ye ’ere?”
“Nay, he’ll return. I’m just waiting here for him.” At least she thought he was returning.
Nellie’s face crunched up with tears. “I ’eard ’e was a giant and reeked like a barn.”
Alyse winced. “Aye, but he can bathe.” One would hope.
Nellie shook her head, her face crumpling. Fat tears spiked from her eyes and tracked down her cheeks. “Nay. Ye canna go wi’ ’im!”
“Shhh, don’t distress yourself.”
“Ye deserve better, Alyse. Better than m’father, may a blight fall on ’im.” Her lip curled in a sneer as she continued her tirade. “Better than Yardley . . . and better than some monster of a man!”
Right then the monster returned.
They turned in unison at the sound of clomping hooves. Her Non Husband trotted along the road, kicking up a small spray of snow. Another much smaller horse trotted behind him with an unwilling air . . . as though the beast resented being pulled out of whatever warm stall he’d occupied. No. She peered around her Non Husband atop his great beast. It was not a small horse. It was a mule. He led a mean-eyed mule.
He stopped before them and before she could inquire about the mule, Nellie charged ahead, ready to resume her tirade.
“Listen ’ere! Dinna think ye can abuse ’er!” She shook a fist, her other hand holding her swollen stomach, looking rather absurd in her intense ire. Certainly not a visage of intimidation. “I’ll find ye if ye do! I’ll spend all m’days ’unting ye down! I’ll make ye pay, God ’elp me!”
It was impossible to read if his expression cracked beneath the dark pelt of his beard, but he only gave a mild blink. He inclined his head once and she couldn’t help thinking that nod rather regal. Arrogant, but regal. “I give you my word no harm will come to your friend.”
Nellie held his gaze for a long moment as though measuring the value of that promise. The silence was uncomfortable and Alyse cleared her throat.
Sniffing and looking partially satisfied, Nellie turned and embraced Alyse with a clucking sound. “Ye take care of yerself. Where will I direct m’letters?” She cast another suspicious glance over her shoulder. “I ’spect to ’ear from ye and assure myself of yer well-being.”
“I’ll be at Kilmarkie House in the Black Isle.” She gave Nellie’s gloved hands a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t fret yourself.”
“Outside Inverness,” he contributed.
Nellie cast him a glare, clearly unwilling to warm to him. It would take more than his promise not to harm her to accomplish that. “I will write ye and if I dinna ’ear back . . .”
“I know . . . you’ll send an army.” She squeezed Nellie’s hands again.
“Nay, I willna need an army,” she said loudly, looking at him and speaking to him rather than Alyse. “I’m a good shot by my own right.”
Alyse nodded, her lips twitching. “Thank you,” she whispered to her friend.
“For wot?”
“For making me feel loved in this world.” This morning she would have said she had more than Nellie to call friend. She’d thought she had Yardley, too.
Nellie released a strangled little cry and hugged her again. Alyse laughed and patted her on the back. “I look forward to your letters. I want to know all about the baby. Now go on with you. Get somewhere warm.”
&
nbsp; Nellie stepped back with a sniff, swiping at her red-tipped nose. She nodded. “Aye.”
Alyse faced her Non Husband, looking up at him perched in his saddle. “Am I to assume the mule is for me, sirrah?”
He nodded once.
She peered around the gelding to consider the smaller creature. The mule’s large dark eyes seemed to stare back at her in equal consideration.
“It . . .” She paused and ducked her head to peek under the animal. “He seems small. You expect me to ride him? Are you certain he can hold my weight?”
“Mules are sturdier than you think.”
Still, she hesitated, staring at the animal as though it might suddenly transform into something else before them. Something resembling a full-sized horse.
With a resolute nod, she told herself this mule might not be as ornery as every other mule on the face of the earth. “Very well. Let’s be on our way then.”
He dismounted and approached her. She took several steps back before she could stop herself. Nellie hissed from where she stood, looking ready to pounce on the bigger man regardless of her condition.
Shaking her head, Alyse told herself not to be so jumpy.
After all, he didn’t want her as a wife. He pitied her and had offered her a position as his housekeeper. If he was to be believed, she should be overjoyed. She had employment. She would earn a wage and soon she could go anywhere she wanted.
If he was to be believed, she would eventually be free.
Chapter 6
The wolf had no notion what to do with a dove. The creature was so clean and fragile.
He came from a world of wolves where doves did not exist.
Marcus helped her mount although she could probably have done so without assistance. As she pointed out, the beast was not very large.
“Perhaps I’ll call him Tiny. Or Little Bit,” she muttered as she arranged her skirts.
Even though he didn’t want to be amused, his lips twitched as she settled herself atop the mule he’d purchased for far more coin than the nag was worth. Bloody extortion.
The animal was all to be offered in the stables and only through much coaxing had the stable master parted with the mule. All other horses available for sale were being auctioned in the square and nothing would have prompted his return there. His taste for auctions had been efficiently dispatched. He doubted he would ever attend one again.
He stared at her for a long moment as she finished arranging her bedraggled skirts and cloak to cover her legs. Even so, the barest amount of thick wool socks peeked out above her worn boots. No woman of his acquaintance would wear such meager garments. Nor would they bear the indignity of riding such a creature. It would be absurd. The soles of her boots might actually graze the ground. His father had owned greyhounds that were taller than this mule.
And yet she didn’t utter a protest. Of course not. She was of lowly roots, was she not? He’d bought her for fifty pounds. She wasn’t going to complain about her manner of conveyance. She was accustomed to far worse.
Even as he told himself this, his stomach knotted. The entire mess made him uncomfortable. He did not like to think of himself as a procurer of humans. Even if pity and altruism had motivated him.
He looked away from those unusual eyes of hers, feeling nearly as uncomfortable as he had watching her on that block with a harness around her neck. He didn’t own her. Nor was she his wife.
No court of law would decree their marriage valid. He could imagine, however, a court would pronounce him responsible for her. He winced. He did possess a bill of sale, incredible as that seemed. Tucked inside his vest pocket, the paper felt like an unrelenting weight pushing against his chest.
Not that he needed that bill of sale to tell him he was responsible for her. He’d opened his mouth and purse for her. He accepted his duty to her. She was penniless and without a roof over her head. He couldn’t abandon her.
Your father would . . .
His father, were he in Marcus’s shoes, would take full advantage of her. Use her up and then toss her aside once he’d slaked himself.
Not me. I’ll not do it. I’ll not touch her.
And that reminder bolstered him. The last person he ever wanted to be like was his father. Not since he’d learned the truth about him. Not since he discovered the precise nature of the man who had sired him.
He exhaled. As of now she was his employee. That’s all she was. All she would ever be.
There were only minimal servants at Kilmarkie House. A caretaker and his family managed the property. He’d gotten a sense from his last correspondence with Mr. Shepard that they would appreciate the help. His wife was in poor health. Alyse could slide into the role of housekeeper easily enough.
Resolved, he gathered up the reins and handed them to her.
She bent, reaching for them. As she did so, her nose wrinkled.
He glanced down at himself and was reminded of the fact that he spent the night in a stable. It was rather humbling. Women desired his company. It was the simple state of his life.
Not that it should matter to him. His ego wasn’t so fragile as that. She was not even to his tastes even if she were available.
“Here you go,” he snapped. “Take them.”
She accepted the reins. He moved ahead and mounted, ignoring her friend who still stood in the road, gawking as though he were some two-headed spectacle intent on devouring Alyse.
He heard the muffled sound of their voices behind him as she exchanged hushed words with her friend. Then the mule followed, its hooves clomping over the snow.
“C’mon, Little Bit.” She clicked her tongue. The mule issued a braying whinny of protest. “Ow!” she exclaimed. “He bit me!”
An apropos name then.
He slowed his pace slightly with a grimace. “You must show him you’re in control,” he called back.
“I don’t think he agrees. Ouch! Stop that, Little Bit!”
At this rate, it would take them months to reach Kilmarkie House. “Perhaps he takes exception with his name?”
“Oh, should I just address him as ‘mule’? What makes you think that impersonal designation would not offend him?”
Sighing, he dug in his heels and circled around to check on her.
Just this once he’d help her. She was his employee. He should not dote on her and give her unreasonable expectations that their relationship was anything beyond that of employer and servant. He needed to keep them both carefully in their respective roles. A challenge perhaps considering they would be traveling together in such close proximity, but not unmanageable. He hadn’t bought her off that auction block for any nefarious reasons. Pity drove him. She had looked so hapless and tragic and unnervingly courageous standing before that unsavory mob.
His father would call him weak for giving a damn what happened to some peasant girl. Especially a scrawny thing like her. She was hardly the type of female Marcus preferred. It should prove no struggle to resist her, proximity or not.
He moved Bucephalus alongside her.
The mule danced skittishly to the side.
“Oh, I don’t think he likes you so close,” she sang nervously.
He reached between them and loosened the slack in the reins. “Shorten your lead. His mouth is sensitive. A light touch will satisfy.” He bent and dropped his hand just below her knee, squeezing her calf once through the fabric of her garments to indicate where to nudge the mule.
She flinched at his touch and yanked her leg away.
“Use your legs to direct,” he snapped, not even bothering to defend his actions. She was understandably uneasy.
When he looked up he caught her leaning away and averting her face, reminding him that his odor still offended. He pulled away, offended in turn, which was perhaps unreasonable. He did stink. He knew that.
He didn’t want to feel offended. But he didn’t want to repel her either . . . this girl he had saved. It very well might be the one good selfless thing he had ever done. So yes. It
mattered to him, he supposed. It mattered what she thought of him. Or at least that she realized he wasn’t some groping letch.
“Keep close,” he snapped. “He should follow Bucephalus.”
He trotted ahead as she called behind him. “Your horse’s name is Bucephalus?”
“It is.”
“He’s a lovely animal.”
It took him a moment to reply. He was still seeing her flinch in his mind.
She continued, “The name suits him even if it is a mouthful.”
After a few moments, he heard himself explain, “Bucephalus was—”
“The horse of Alexander the Great. Yes. I know.”
He had to resist sneaking another look behind him. The peasant girl he had bought from that little backwater knew Ancient Greek history? He never would have thought such a thing. It made him wonder what other surprises she hid.
He saw a flash of her on that block again, her wide topaz eyes set deeply beneath darkly arched brows, snow falling lightly around her. Initially he’d been taken aback by the spectacle, marveling at the surreal quality of it all. The absolute absurdity of it.
But now it struck him. She’d been the unearthly one. Some untouchable wisp of a fairy. A dove with pale clean wings pinned to her sides, unable to fly away as humanity raged and frothed around her in all its stark ugliness.
He knew something about the ugliness of man. Even as untouchable as she had seemed up on that block . . . ugliness would have seized her if he hadn’t done something. He’d known that.
So he’d done something.
He urged his mount a fraction faster as if needing more space between them.
He just had to get her to Kilmarkie House and then he could secure her as his housekeeper and have all the space he needed.
Chapter 7
The dove paced the confines of her new cage, learning its parameters . . .
learning all she could about her new prison.
Alyse reached down and rubbed her calf where Little Bit had nipped her. She knew there would be a bruise later. Thankfully the beast had ceased trying to eat her for a snack. She didn’t know if it was because of her Non Husband’s instructions or if the animal simply decided to increase its pace to something beyond a crawl.