The Border Trilogy (6 page)

Deep pleasure surged through her at his unexpected compliment. Until that moment her indignation at the unwelcome turn of events had armored her against his charm, but she was suddenly reminded of how quickly he had managed to stir her senses at Critchfield. His flashing smile and the twinkle in his dark eyes warmed her now, and since she heartily agreed with his condemnation of the sidesaddle, an invention beloved by the Calvinists since it was designed to force ladies to keep their legs decorously together while they rode, she silently resolved to observe a truce—for the moment, at least.

They rode on side by side, maintaining light conversation until hearing each other over the increasing roar of the river became too difficult. Soon afterward, they reached the wide, rushing brook and steep, granite cliff wall that formed the boundary between the MacPherson and Drysdale estates.

Mary Kate had met Parian Drysdale, Laird of Ardcarach, only once and remembered him as a tall, thin, dour man, not at all the sort one would expect to rule an estate that seemed from her present position to be a lofty, inaccessible mountain fortress. Towering, rugged crags separated Braelairig from Speyside at that point where the fierce, roaring river swept from the rocky, steep-sided glen before proceeding northward through a slightly less rugged portion of the Cairngorm Mountains until its waters spilled at last into the Moray Firth. The sight at the opening to the glen, where brook met river, was wild, fearsome, and breathtaking. One would expect the laird of the aerie above to be plaided, full-bearded, and burly, with piercing eyes, a bellowing voice, and a claymore at the ready. Mary Kate shouted as much to Douglas above the din.

He laughed and shouted back, “You draw a fine portrait, lass, but isn’t it proper for a scholar like my uncle to dwell upon the heights, too?”

She agreed but insisted that her fierce Gaelic warrior was a more romantic figure, and they turned back toward Speyside House, following the brook for a short time and then heading across rolling, open fields. When they came to a small, green, wildflower-strewn meadow with a sparkling burn tumbling merrily through its center, Douglas reined in.

“How about some refreshment, lassie?”

“An excellent notion, sir, for the water looks most inviting. Have you a cup, or must we make do with our hands? I can do so, you know. Have done since I was a child.”

“My name is Adam, Mary Kate, and I can do better than a mere cup.” He dismounted and unstrapped a leather bag from his saddle before helping her to alight. “I bullied the fellow at the alehouse where I’m staying into providing a proper meal for us. I ought to warn you at once, I’ve a prodigious appetite.” He selected a broad, flat rock near the burn, and Mary Kate’s eyes widened as she watched him methodically lay out two pewter mugs, a cottage loaf, a brick of white cheese, a cold whole chicken, four apples, a tin of biscuits, and a plugged crockery jug of malmsey wine.

“You’ll need such an appetite if you mean for us to dispose of all that,” she said. Removing her safeguard, she spread it out upon the ground and sat down, watching to see what else he would take from the leather bag. “Have you brought fine linen and silver knives as well, Sir Adam?”

“Just Adam,” he said.

“Yes, sir. Have you?”

He grinned, shaking his head and handing her a neatly folded linen towel. “Faith, but you’re a stubborn wench.”

“Aye.” She watched as he hacked the chicken to pieces with his knife, then helped herself to a leg, tearing at it with her teeth. Speaking around a mouthful of chicken, she said, “I thought Father told me you were staying with friends.”

“I was, but they live beyond Braelairig, too far away for easy courting, so I plumped for the alehouse in the
clachan
.”

“Oh.” Having no wish to pursue the subject of courting, she asked him to tell her about his family instead, and the conversation drifted along amicably until they had finished their meal.

Douglas cleared away the remains, stuffing everything haphazardly into the leather saddlebag, but when Mary Kate arose and began to shake out her safeguard, he took it from her, dropped it on the ground again, and taking her gently by the shoulders, turned her to face him.

Suddenly aware as she had not been all day of how vulnerable she was, she looked up at him shyly, and Douglas kissed her. The moment his lips touched hers, she was transported back in time and space, and it was as though she stood before her chamber door at Critchfield once again. His hands were firm now upon her shoulders, and his lips claimed hers even more possessively than they had that night, but she had no wish this time to push him away. Instead, she found herself responding to him with a fervor that would have surprised her had she stopped to contemplate it. She did not think about her feelings, however. She knew only, with blinding clarity, that she had been wanting him to kiss her this past hour and longer.

She felt the muscles of his back rippling under her exploring fingers before she realized that her hands had moved away from her sides, and the warmth that spread through her body surprised and elated her. A small moan of protest escaped her when Douglas set her back upon her heels.

“Enough, lassie,” he said, amused. “I dare not trust myself whilst you encourage me, for your method of quelling my ardor is not one that I choose to experience again.”

She closed her eyes, willing her traitorous body to calm itself. Then, looking at him, she said steadily, “You provoked me that night, sir, but I do apologize if I hurt you.”

“I’ve a hard enough head, sweetheart, though you needn’t have been so rough. I had already deduced that your lack of experience was greater than I had thought it to be.”

“I thought you were growing angry,” she said. “I was afraid of what you might do if I persisted in refusing you.”

He shrugged. “I was angry, but more with myself than with you. I realized that much just about the time you clouted me.”

She bit her lower lip then gazed up at him limpidly. “You are well revenged upon me now are you not?”

“’Twas not out of revenge that I sought your hand, sweetheart, but out of desire.” Looking directly into her clear hazel eyes, he said quietly, “I wrote my father to come to Speyside a week from Friday.”

“Friday week! But why so soon?”

“We will be married on the Saturday,” he replied. “I know, for Duncan told me so, that you thought to have more time, but the king cannot be trusted to spare me indefinitely.”

“But the banns! They must be read from the pulpit upon three separate Sundays. And Friday is the proper day for weddings, not Saturday.”

“I’ve a certain influence, even here, lassie. The banns have been waived. There was a price to be paid, of course, but one reading will suffice. And borderers do not wed on Friday.”

“Good God, sir, but you take a deal upon yourself.” Though she had been in a fair way these past hours to forgetting her quarrel with him, his high-handedness now was too much. “The women in
this
part of Scotland,” she said in carefully measured tones, “expect to be consulted
before
the course of their lives is determined upon. You have already contrived to make my father forget that fact, but you must yet reckon with me.” Muttering wrathfully, she turned away and began to pace back and forth, casting furious glances at him each time she turned. Her color was high, her eyes sparkled with wrath, and her fists clenched tightly as she beat them against her skirts in angry punctuation of her words. “I should have thought you would know better by now than to challenge me, sir. I thought I had taught you to have a care. But you are by far the most despicable, presumptuous, arrogant, domineering, self-centered, egotistical man I have ever known. Oh, even those words are not sufficient to describe you.” She paused, glaring at him, then said through her teeth, “How I wish I knew the proper ones to tell you exactly how I feel.”

He had been watching her stormy progress with suppressed amusement, but at her final words the amusement faded. “Be thankful you do not know such words, sweetheart. I dislike profanity in my women.”

“Damn you!” she cried, defiance ringing in her voice.

But he only grinned. “You will have to do better than that, lassie. I shall teach you the words that will make me beat you if you like.”

She gasped. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“What? Teach you or beat you?” When a withering glare was her only response, he shrugged. “You tempt me, lass. Indeed, I suppose there are many who would insist that I owe you a right good skelping for the lump you raised on my head at Critchfield, but since I am not by nature a man of violence, I probably shan’t beat you until after we are wed.”

“I do not wish to marry you!” she snapped.

“After what happened here moments ago, I don’t believe that,” he said quietly, “but if you believe it, why have you not told Duncan about our first meeting? I’ll warrant he’d not approve of my behavior that night.”

“No, nor of mine.” She looked up at him speculatively from beneath her lashes. When he remained silent, she said, “I am a poor liar when people ask pointed questions, and my father would want to know precisely
why
you behaved as you did.”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you often tell lies?”

“Not often,” she replied, looking away, then forcing herself to look directly at him again.

“It will be as well for you if you tell none to me, Mary Kate.” His tone was still light, but there was an inflexibility in his expression that she had never seen before, and the hardness of steel appeared in his eyes as he continued, “I do not tolerate liars well. In fact, when I discover that a servant has lied to me, I punish him severely.”

“So now I am to be ranked with your servants, am I?” she said, indignant again. “Well, ’tis no more than I expected, but you’ll soon discover that I am not so meek as you would like, sir. You may have my father under your thumb, but I promise you, I am no such easy conquest. Before I have done with you, you will rue the day you contrived this marriage.”

“Faith, what a vixen!” To her surprise, he chuckled. “To think that I began this marriage business on little more than a whim because your daring attracted me. But now I begin to look forward to many long years of companionship, sweetheart. Taming you will be a rare challenge and right good sport.”

“Christ’s blood, sir, do you dare to laugh at me?”

“I think it only fair to warn you,” he said with gentle emphasis, “that ‘Christ’s blood’ is one of the epithets I least desire to hear upon a lady’s lips.”

“‘Christ’s blood,’” she retorted with relish, “is one of my favorite expressions.”

“Nevertheless, it would behoove you to deny yourself the pleasure of its use.” His tone was still gentle, but the dark eyes glittered. “Don’t persist in this defiance, lass. I am a tolerant man by most standards—more than tolerant by those of the Calvinists—so you may lead me as merry a dance as you choose in private. But you might as well know from the start that there are three things I will not tolerate. Profanity from the women in my family is one such. Another is lying, and the third is having my personal concerns blazoned before the public eye. If I should chance to displease you, as I doubt not I shall from time to time, do not make your displeasure a gift to the rest of the world unless you wish to make me very angry indeed. Do you take my meaning?”

“Aye,” she shot back, stirred to further rebellion by the simple fact that she had failed so far to arouse his temper. A voice at the back of her mind suggested that she was testing him and that it was perhaps an unwise thing to do, but she ignored the warning. Her voice fairly crackled. “I understand you well enough, Douglas, but I make you no promises. If I have a thing to say, I say it, and I have no greater care for your wishes than for those of your wretched Calvinists. Here in the highlands, we go our own road as ever we have.”

She paused, but his lips were pressed tightly together and he said nothing. Goaded by his silence, she went on angrily, “You displease me now, Douglas, and since there be none to hear me save yourself and yon horses, I promise you this by Christ’s blood, by the rood, by God’s wounds, or His nails, or whatever else you like or do not like. Since I will not defy my father, I have no choice other than to marry you, but I will see myself damned to the fires of Hell before I will allow you to set yourself up as dictator over me, now or ever in the future.”

“I had not planned to dictate,” he declared grimly, “but if I do give you an order, lass, you will have no choice but to obey me, as you had best learn before you grow any older.” Turning sharply, he strode to her horse, gathered its reins, and tied them deftly to the saddlebow. Then before she had the least notion of his intent, he gave the animal a sharp smack on the rump, startling it into a lumbering trot. Shocked and appalled, Mary Kate watched as her erstwhile means of transport loped off in the general direction of the MacPherson stables.

“What have you done?” she demanded, hurrying toward him. “Surely, you don’t expect me to ride pillion behind you.”

He swung into his saddle. “The question will not arise, sweetheart. You need a sharp lesson, and I mean to provide it as painlessly as possible, much though you tempt me to other methods. You would be well advised during your walk back to your father’s house to contemplate your lack of conduct.”

“Walk?” She stared up at him in consternation. “You cannot mean it. Why, ’tis all of five miles from here!”

“Your father said you need exercise, and the walk will do you nearly as much good as the aching backside you so richly deserve. No harm, barring sore feet, will come to you here on MacPherson land, and I’ll give you an hour and a half before I come to fetch you.” When a look of hopeful calculation sprang to her eyes, his lips twitched, but he nicked his whip lightly against his muscular thigh and his tone when he continued was uncompromising. “I’d advise you to avoid putting me to such trouble, Mary Kate, if you take my meaning.”

Biting her lip in frustrated wrath, she watched as Douglas wheeled the stallion toward Speyside House and quickly urged him to a gallop. Moments later, horse and rider were out of sight over the nearest hill.