Parris Afton Bonds (10 page)

"A scurvy dog, ye are, Duncan of Ayrshire!” Mhorag spun from the window seat and slashed at his thigh with the riding crop she still carried from this morning’s ride. "I had set ye to cleaning my boots."

The man
’s eyes flared at the smarting rap, then the hangdog brows drooped even farther at the outer ends. He retrieved from the tartan carpet the letter she had held and, backing away, dropped it on a kidney-shaped table, donated by some luckless English sympathizer, she remembered not who.

When she had arrived at the castle only a few pieces of furnit
ure remained among its ruins. Even those pieces were not in the best of condition.

The same could be said of her life now . . . not in the best of condition. A life spent quartered in castle ruins, on an abandoned farm, in the houses of villagers still loy
al to the Jacobite cause and the restoration of an independent Scotland.

"Ach now, me lady," Duncan said with that mocking smile. “
‘T’was merely admiration that prompted me to watch ye dry yer hair instead of cleaning your boots."

The thudding in her heart slowed but did not stop. That always took time. And solitude. "Hie ye back to your duty, knave.”

He retreated and returned to the fireplace, where her muddy boots slumped against each other for support. She turned back to the leaded window. She had been reading Murdock’s purloined letter greeting his new wife by the morning’s wan sunlight.

The sunlight did not penetrate the mist that capped the formidable peak of Buachaille Etive. Trees on its exposed heights leaned permanently to
the northeast. Moisture-heavy southwest winds tortured the trees, rendering them grotesque weather vanes.

She felt grotesque, though her mirror showed a normal, well-formed woman. She felt angry, too. Her anger had driven her to ride through the mist and r
ain like a demon spurred by the de’il himself, lashing the world for being there.

So the Lowland woman was wife to Simon Murdock. And the oaf cleaning the riding boots was in her retinue.

Mhorag closed her eyes. Her hand twisted at her crop’s leather quirt. She must, indeed, be stone mad to guarantee the man’s safety.

Or deviously sane.

How long before the remnants of the convivial girl she had once been lost the struggle for sanity?

She wasn
’t even aware of the banshee wail peeling from her lips until Duncan’s hands shaking her shoulders snapped her back to awful, unalterable reality.

With her maidservants sent packing back to their quarters that morning, Enya was assigned to Jamie, who escorted her out into the inner bailey. Following him into its spinning house and loom shed, she heard a powerful thudding, accompanied by women’s voices lifted in song.

In the spinning house
’s outer room she was introduced to spindly Dame Margaret, ". . . who will teach ye what ye need to ken,” he finished lamely, backing out rather hurriedly.

The dame was a stringent string bean of a woman, with a mouth pursed like a prune. "I
’ll put idle hands to work. Join the women at yon table.”

As if on an inspection tour of Afton
’s crofts, Enya strolled through a low-linteled door. Their heads bound in scarves, a dozen or so village women of all ages sat round a long, narrow table. They were cleaning and thickening a band of newly woven cloth with their hands to make it ready for use. The thump as they banged the tweed on the table in unison gave the "waulking songs" a steady, stalwart beat.

‘‘
Seat yeself and lend ye hands to honest work, m'lady,” the old dame said, her arms crossed, her scarf-wreathed face set in wrinkled lines of satisfaction.

Enya eyed the ruddy-skinned y
oung woman on her left. Molly’s reddened hands deftly kneaded the coarse, tweedy material. Shrugging, Enya plowed her hands into the work. For seven hours she crunched and thumped and rolled and twisted. Having to learn Gaelic at Ranald’s insistence had turned out to be easier than the chore assigned her.

At one point, a fat, mustachioed woman to Enya
’s right jammed her thumb and muttered what could only be a Gaelic curse.

For just a moment Enya rejoiced that she was not the only one suffering
—though she did so silently.

The tormented, deafening keening of the women set off a throbbing pain at her temples. She felt like screaming at them to shut up. Her spine and upper arms ached unbearably. So this was her reward for having taken the oath a scant three week
s ago. Well, so be it. With grim determination, she kept her hands moving in unison with the women and their God-awful singing.

The monotonous work became sheer torture for her. Every woven piece she touched she snarled.

Dame Margaret rolled her eyes in despair.

At one point Enya swore in English, but somehow the English no longer yielded the satisfaction of the good Gaelic curse that she tried next. "
Mo Dia
!"

Next to her, the fat, mustachioed woman winked.

Enya began laughing, but tears of fatigue lurked behind her lids.

Later that day the old dame deserted the table. Through the partially opened door, Enya spotted her conversing with Jamie. Reporting on her poor work?

At last, Dame Margaret dismissed the women for the day, or evening as it turned out to be when Enya left, remembering to duck her head to avoid the spinning house’s low doorway.

She barely found the energy to climb the stairway to the keep. Others, mostly Ranald
’s warriors, sought out the great hall also. Dinnertime was nearing. She could have cared less. She wanted only a bed. And a back rub.

“
Milady."

She half turned at the staircase, her hand on the scrolled newel post to support her sagging body. It was Jamie. “
Aye?”

"I have orders from my l
aird." He paused. His slender, elegant hands rubbed together in agitation. “You are to be in the kitchens at dawn."

"At dawn? Is the man dirled? I need rest. You tell him that, Jamie. And tell him I said he could
—” She thought better of what she had been about to tell Ranald he could do with himself.

She could outlast his persecution. She had to.

Chapter Six

“
T
he laird wants ye to serve the council this morning,” said Flora, the cook. The homely, sparsely haired matron smelled as foul as the kedgeree she set on the dimpled copper tray. "Now dinna dally. Ye know how men muck about. Me own mon was a monster at that. Mind ye, when ye return the kitchen needs to be redd up."

From its bed of rice with hard-boiled eggs, butter, cream, and parsley, t
he smoked herring seemed to fix an accusing eyeless socket on Enya. If the Highlanders could eat this, they were indeed heathen souls.

At the moment her mouth salivated for thick clotted cream with scones
—always her downfall, and doubtlessly accountable for her less than lithsome form.

She swallowed back her distaste for the unappetizing fish and accepted the tray of kedgeree, porridge, cream, and steaming tea.

"I can carry the tray," Annie Dubh said. Annie, whose cleavage was as deep as Loch Ness, was none too pleased with Enya’s presence in the castle. Enya suspected the fetching scullery wench had her sultry brown eyes set on her new laird.

"I
’ll have yer head if ye don’t fetch yon platter and more butter," Flora said without looking up from the sweetbread she basted with great globs of melting butter. Garrulous and gossipy, Flora was doubtlessly interested in how the Lowland captive would contend with the Highland laird.

Enya would have loved to pass the duty off to Annie, and not just because she had no
desire to remind Ranald Kincairn of her presence. Since four that morning she had been at work in the large room with its chopping table, myriad cauldrons, and turnspit in an immense fireplace that could roast an entire ox.

It was not even the sixth hour,
and she looked as if she had been at work a full day. The kitchen’s heat and steam had exploded her naturally curly red locks to the size of Medusa’s snaking hair. Sweat stained her dress. Lack of sleep had left her eye sockets looking as empty as that of the herring’s.

Leaving a fuming Annie to bring more cream up from the buttery, she climbed a back staircase spiraling up a window-slit turret to the third floor. Already the days were noticeably cooler, and her sweaty dress chilled her flesh. The backs of
her legs began to hurt, and her arms ached from carrying the heavy tray. The tea sloshed with each step she climbed.

Wakening birds in the surrounding forests chirped a hymn to the new day, even though the sky was still faintly smeared with stars. In the p
redawn darkness, the village bell tolled the hour dolorously.

Exactly her sentiment. For the past fortnight, since her debacle at the loom shed, she had been reduced to working as a scullery maid, of all things.

She knew the servants were wary of her. They hadn’t decided what status to accord her just yet: that of a titled lady, a prisoner, or another servant.

A routine had begun to
take form. Mary Laurie was given the duty of chambermaid; Elspeth was put to work wielding both needle and spinning wheel; and Duncan had been commandeered by Mhorag as a Jack of all trades.

Enya followed the sound of men
’s voices. ". . . Glenfinnan . . . fortnight . . .”

A long, narrow hall led to a room that had to be an armory. Muskets, claymores, dirks, bayonets, and powder horns ribbed three walls. On the fourth, a window, with the shutters thrown back, funneled into the room air scented with wild thy
me, fir, and pine. Outside, an owl hooted eerily.

In the room
’s center was a table lit with two candles whose flames flickered with the morning breeze. The table, rubbed to a satin finish by the hands of centuries of diners, was bordered by mayhap a dozen men of the Cameron council. She recognized four: Jamie, Ian, Robert of Macintosh—and Ranald.

The last sat at the head of the table, leafing through a list of some sorts, and barely afforded her a glance. She had seen him only three times in the past fortni
ght, and that had been when she served him at mealtimes.

"Put the tray on the sideboard,”
the nearest, Ian, told her. His crutch was propped against the arm of his chair.

"Then come here," Ranald said.

The memory of his vivid threats to degrade and defile her still smote her with apprehension, but Enya sauntered toward him. "Aye?”

"You should know we canna breakfast without platters and utensils."

She strived for an attitude of indifference. "I only brought what I was told to."

"You have a brain. I suggest
ye use it.”

She heeded not Jamie
’s warning look. Her hands knotted into fists on her hips. "I suggest ye eat with your fingers like the pig ye are.”

He laid aside the papers
—a list of male names, she saw—and regarded her with a blinking stare, as if he didn’t quite credit her audacity. “I think the time has come to bring ye to heel, to take the retribution I promised. I have other pressing matters, but I shall deal with ye anon.”

The insouciance of his tone chilled her to the bone. She had no actual authori
ty here. She had behaved like the fool she was taken for. "Then demonstrate the brute you are. Take me by force, as you threatened."

His dark brows angled to a peak. "Take ye? Look at yourself. Besides, I have no desire for a Lowland traitoress. But breed
ye I will." His forefinger flicked the pages with its list of names. "All dead, these men are. The English are killing our men and raping or sterilizing our women."

"The English, not I, are doing this."

“Ye are our Lord Lieutenant’s wife. Ye will give birth to children to be brought up as Highlanders. Then me Lord Lieutenant can have ye back, if he should still live . . . and should still want you.”

He glanced at the other men sitting around the table. "Weel,”
he asked in his thick, musical Scots accent, "which of ye wishes to bed her first?”

"Ranald!" said Jamie.

"Lift your skirts, mistress," Ranald ordered. "Show what you bring to the man who is bold enough to bed ye first."

"I will!”
a young man volunteered. His jaw was heavily bearded and uncombed, and his eyes were glazed with sexual desire.

“
Nae, Colin," said a squat-sized man, looking uglier than any fabled troll. "The wench is mine by right of lineage."

Farther along the table, two burly men offered to arm wrestle for her. Three other men were loudly
arguing. "Ye already ha’—ha’—a woman, Macdonald!” one stuttered, a fair-haired man who looked to be about her age.

"That
’s ’cause—’cause I ken how—how—to keep her, Patric,” the pot-bellied Macdonald mimicked.

A riot was threatening to break out among them.
The scene might have been comical but for the awful reality of it. At that moment no compassion was to be found in those faces, only lust and violence.

Despite the early morning
’s cold, sweat beaded at her temples. Was she to be ravaged there on the table before one and all?

Ian thumped his crutch on the floor. “
Enough, Ranald. This is dividing the men. Select one for her and get it over with.”

Ranald rubbed his jaw, his eyes passing over the avid faces of his council. "Select one, Ian?
If each had a turn, the Lowland lass would be certain to breed."

His words pierced her like a bayonet. “
You couldn’t mean it!"

“
Why not? Me sister fared no better.”

“
Would your revenge bring back her innocence? Would your revenge gain you anything but a corrupted heart?”

“
On the contrary, mistress, revenge would gain me release of me heart’s ache, if you will."

She spun back to the others. "Then which of ye will behave as the lowliest of men?"

She raised her skirts, exposing her scarlet stockings of coarse worsted all the way to her gartered thighs. “Come on! Which of you is lower than even the English you so despise? Which of you would rape a Scotswoman? Come now, speak up. Here I am. Unarmed. Yours for rutting with like a beast of the field!"

Silence. Sha
med silence.

Pipe in mouth, Ranald studied the scene. Watched, waited, and listened.

“I suppose you are vastly entertained by this—’’ she flung out a hand "—this demonstration of depravity!”

"I
’ll take ye," said the troll. “Me name’s Nob. I’ll see that ye are filled with a Highland bairn and care for ye both afterwards."

By force of will she kept herself from shrinking against the wall.

Ranald cocked a questioning brow at her.

Shoving back her panic, she tried to think. Nob seemed gentle enough. She could s
teel herself to endure his taking of her until such time as she found a way to escape. Dear God, what if Nob got her with child first? Escape would be made more difficult.

And what if the child looked like Nob?

She swallowed a nervous giggle, dropped the ugly little man a curtsy, and said in a most formal voice, “I thank you, Nob, but as I already am married I could not accept your offer. You understand, I’m sure?”

Dumbly, he nodded.

“Then I shall make ye, too, a widow,” Ranald told her in the hush of the room.

Her breath eased out of her. That particular threat would take time.

“But I shall not wait ’til that time to see that ye are with child. Go on with ye, mistress. I shall summon ye when I am ready for—” He paused, smiled, and amended his words. "Me thinks an appropriate time to get ye with child would be All Hallow’s Eve.”