Sarah Gabriel (25 page)

“A
ch
, I’ve corrupted you, lass,” Roderick said. “Connor will have my head for it. You’re thoroughly ruined now.”

Sophie laughed and tossed down her last hand of cards. “I believe I am.”

“You’re a natural for winning.” Roderick shook his head in wonder. “You trounced me soundly three games in a row at Ombre, and before that, twice at Primero.”

“Three times at Primero,” she pointed out. “Why would Connor be upset with you?”

“I’ve spoiled his bonny innocent bride.” Roderick grinned.

“I wonder if he would care,” she said sourly. “He’s hardly even here.”

“He would care,” the young man murmured.
“And it serves him right for not coming back for supper again. We were forced to amuse ourselves.” He tilted an eyebrow.

Laughing, Sophie glanced over his shoulder toward the door of the great hall where they sat playing cards by candlelight. She had glanced there repeatedly all evening, waiting for Connor to appear. An uneasy feeling pecked at her. She could not shake the sense that he was not safe, that he might even have come to harm.

“I thought he would return by now,” she said. “Do you think something has happened? Did he go to meet Neill, or Andrew?”

“He’s fine,” Roderick said. “Conn is always fine. He’ll be here when he’s here.”

“Did he go raiding, or hunting perhaps?” But Roderick only shrugged evasively. She frowned. Perhaps her uneasy feeling was ungrounded and Connor had simply decided not to return to his bride, she thought.

Roderick shuffled the cards. “Have you truly never played cards before?”

“We were not permitted to use playing cards at the convent. My parents enjoyed games of cards, but they never taught their children—said it wasn’t seemly until we were older. But I do love playing cards. Thank you for teaching me.”

“
Ach
, what else could I do, I was told to guard you, and it’s miserable standing in the rain making sure you do not go too near the front gate.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Sophie smiled, and swept a small pile of chipped stone pieces toward her. “I have a wealth of pebbles now. I wonder what I should do with them.”

“Patch one of the drafty holes in this castle,” Roderick suggested. Sophie laughed in delight, while he chuckled.

“I’ll save them for our next lesson in social corruption and unseemliness,” she said.

“Oh, the laird can teach you that far better than I can,” Roderick replied with a wicked twinkle in his eyes. “But I’d be glad to play cards anytime. If I had any coin, you would have emptied my pockets. I’ll be more careful next time. How did you manage to win so often?”

“Fairy blood,” she replied lightly, without thinking.

Roderick lifted his eyebrows. “They do say the MacCarrans have true fairy blood in them. Is that why you have such winning luck? I can well believe there’s some magic in you, mistress.” He winked. “You look like a fairy queen. Delicate, like.”

“Thank you.” She touched her crystal necklace out of habit. “There is some fairy blood in my family, or so they say.”

“Did you inherit the MacCarran magic? I’ve heard the stories, though I do not know much about it.”

“I…may have a touch of it,” she said.

“They say each MacCarran who inherits it has a certain sort of magical skill. What’s yours? Card games, I’ll wager, or gambling. I’ll take you to London to make my fortune.”

“Nothing so grand. Sometimes I can make things grow.”

“Aye? Can you make me taller? Or better yet, for the sake of the lassies…” He grinned mischievously.

“Oh, stop!” She tried not to laugh. Roderick reminded her of her brother, she realized with a twist of sadness, even while she smiled. “No, it’s flowers,
plants, vegetables, that sort of thing.” She shrugged. “Nature grows anyway, so it’s not much of a magical skill. I tried to explain it to Kinnoull, and he did his best to understand.”

“He is not much for fairies and ghosties and such.”

“He’s seen the ghost that’s here.”

“Has he?” Roderick looked puzzled. “Oh, that one, aye.” He laughed. “So, tell me—is this why you like to go digging in the dirt, mistress? We’ve tried to tell you, little grows or flourishes at Glendoon.” He shook his head.

“So I’ve heard. Why?”

“There is a barren curse on this place. Long ago, when one of the early lairds of Glendoon died, and his love with him, a terrible curse befell this old place. Nothing shall flourish here, they say, nothing at all, until…”

“Until what?” She took the shuffled cards he handed her and fanned through them.

He shrugged. “Until the magic returns. But no one knows what that means.”

She glanced at him quickly.

“Connor says it is all nonsense, that nothing grows because the castle sits on solid rock, and we can expect only weeds and bleakness for our efforts.”

Hearing the door open at the far end of the great hall, Sophie started and looked up. Immediately, foolishly, she hoped to see Connor. But he was not there, and Mary smiled at them.

“I’ve filled a tub for ye, mistress,” Mrs. Murray said. Her face was flushed. “’Tis not much, a wee hip bath, I thought ye might like it, having been working
hard in the gardens all day. I have a bit of my good soap here, which I make with lavender and rose petals,” she added proudly.

“Oh! Thank you, Mary.” Sophie smiled. She glanced at her hands, which she had scrubbed in the kitchen, but she felt as if a film of garden mud still clung to her like a pall.

“Since ye were raised in this glen, I thought ye might have the Highland habit o’ keeping clean, as we like to do, rather than the Frenchie habit o’ living with yerself,” Mary said.

“Ah…thank you,” Sophie repeated, trying not to laugh.

“Ye can fetch clean linen and clothing from the wardrobe in the laird’s bedchamber. The tub is down in the kitchen, where it’s warmest for bathing,” Mary went on as Sophie joined her.

“I’ll be down directly. Roderick, thank you for the card lessons,” Sophie said, looking at him over her shoulder.

He smiled and waved her out of the room. Sophie headed upstairs to collect clean linens and something fresh to wear. She did indeed have the Highland habit, as Mary called it, of preferring cleanliness. Her back ached mildly and her shoulders were stiff from the day’s work, and the thought of a hot, fragrant bath was deliciously tempting.

He nearly had to fight Neill off at the front gate, with his concern and his offers of help. “I’m fine,” Connor growled. “By the devil, Neill, leave me be.”

Finally he convinced Neill that he could make it inside by himself. “It’s nothing,” he insisted, though
he kept his hand pressed to the cloth-covered gash.

“Damn fool,” Neill growled. “I saw a fair amount of blood.”

“A wee scratch,” Connor said.

Mary and Roderick came running toward the gate, as did the four dogs. While Connor patted Colla’s head and the terriers and spaniel jumped about, Neill explained to his wife and son what had happened. Mary insisted on tending to Connor’s wound, but he refused.

“I’m fine.” He urged them all through the gate, urged them home, promising to go inside and to bed. “Go home. It’s late. Sleep will heal this faster than bandages and possets and well-meaning Murrays.”

“Let yer bride tend to ye,” Mary said. Although she understood the Gaelic that the others spoke, she generally used her native Scots. “She’s waiting for ye. Make sure to go in by the kitchen door.”

“Ma—” Roderick began. Mary elbowed her son.

“There’s bandages and healing salve in the kitchen cupboard,” she went on. “And whiskey on the shelf as well. Yer bonny lady will take care of ye.”

“Very well,” Connor grumbled, though he did not plan to reveal his injury to his bride. He did not want to alarm her. And he did not want any anxious feminine fidgeting over his person. If she cared to do anything else to his person—well, he could find the strength for that. Perhaps by morning, he amended.

He shut the gate on the Murrays while they were still talking. Then he bolted it and turned. He felt relieved, but he hurt like hell.

God, how he hated attention, hated fussing over him. He always had, from infancy to manhood. In
particular, he loathed having to admit that he needed help, that he was hurt or weak, that a damned Sassenach bullet had caught him.

The dogs wanted to fuss over him, too. They gathered around him, licking his hand, nudging at him as he walked. He realized that the wolfhound was offering his shoulder for support. Connor leaned on the old dog as much as he dared and tried not to trip on the terriers.

Clutching at his side and taking slow breaths, he crossed the yard in the darkness. God only knew how he had made it up that beastly hill outside the castle, but his bed was only a bit farther, up the turning steps. Or he might just sleep on the warm kitchen floor, he thought.

Reaching the back of the yard, he headed for the rectangle of light thrown by the kitchen door, staggering as he entered.

Low flames glowed in the hearth, and Connor saw that the room was empty. The wooden hip tub sat before the huge hearth, filled with steaming water. A floral smell wafted toward him.

Bless Mary for leaving him a full, hot bath, he thought, even a flowery one. Normally he bathed quickly in a cold loch or a river or washed at the burnside—like many Highlanders, he preferred cleanliness and did not consider it unhealthy. The tub was hauled out for cold winter nights, but Mary must have prepared one for his bride that day. She had been kind to leave it full for him afterward. It was just what he needed to soak away grime, blood, and exhaustion.

First he went to the cupboard for the bandages and salve, and poured a whiskey dram into a pewter
tankard from the small keg that Mary kept on the shelf. Taking a fortifying sip, he carried the supplies to the tubside.

Testing the water, he found it not as hot as he liked, but Mary had left a bucket of steaming water by the hearth. He poured it in, wincing again as he lifted the bucket.

Then he stripped slowly, grimacing in pain as he bent over to remove his shoes and woolen stockings and as he eased out of his plaid and the bloodstained shirt. Standing nude in the firelight, he took away the cloth stuck to his wound to look at the gash. The pistol ball had nicked his side, grazing through skin and flesh, but had not embedded itself.

Stepping into the tub, he sank down into the heated water with a deep groan. The tub was not large, a washtub really, but he could submerge to his chest if he bent his legs, knees high. The warm water stung his wound at first, then blissfully soothed.

Sliding deeper, he closed his eyes.

She had forgotten her fairy crystal. Coming toward the kitchen, lantern in hand, Sophie remembered leaving the fine silver chain and pendant beside the tub when she had bathed not long ago. Now she hurried through the corridor, wearing a voluminous dressing gown of rose silk damask, long and full-sleeved, over a cotton shift. Her feet were bare, the old stones cool and hard beneath her soles. She had borrowed the garments from Connor’s mother’s trunk, having nothing clean to wear until Connor went to Duncrieff to fetch her belongings—or until she left Castle Glendoon altogether. And that, she knew, could well happen.

Entering the dim glow of the kitchen, she moved toward the tub, her gaze searching the floor for the glimmer of the necklace. Hearing a splash, she looked up to see a dark head and shoulders just beside her, and met Connor’s gaze.

“Oh!” She stared for a moment, long enough to see that he sat naked in the wooden tub—her gaze caught the lean folds of his belly, the dark hair that arrowed downward. Water glistened on his broad, well-muscled shoulders and arms. His knees and thighs, partly visible, were well-shaped, too. Soaked to blackness, his hair curled and touched his shoulders.

“Ah, Mrs. MacPherson,” he said, brow lifted. Cupping water in the palm of his hand, he dribbled it back into the water. “Come down to join me?”

“I’ve had my bath,” she said a bit stiffly. She wanted to turn, spin away like a shocked girl, but she made herself stand there, returning the bold gaze he gave her.

“Your hair is wet. It looks like dark gold.” He tilted his head. The compliment, his attention, was unexpected and touching, and the deep, warm tone of his voice resonated through her body.

She touched her hair without reply. Her heart pounded as she looked at him. He was a stunning vision, all raw power and rugged beauty. Suddenly realizing how intently she regarded him, she glanced away.

“I—I left my necklace. I came back to find it.” She trained her gaze on the floor, then dropped to her knees to search for the silver chain. “I left it just here,” she said, on her hands and knees. “But I do not see it.”

Connor stretched his arm over the side of the tub,
fingers grazing the floor, to assist in the search. His hand brushed the hem of her gown, touched her bare foot. Even that slight, accidental grazing felt like fire to her. Then he rested his hand briefly on her back, almost a caress. His hand was warm through the silk damask before he lifted it away.

“Where are Mary and Roderick?” She glanced around.

“I sent them home.”

“Ah.” Her heartbeat doubled. They were alone, then. The awareness plunged through her body like lightning. Alone, and he was nude, and near, and she could not keep her gaze from him. In the deep golden light of the fire, he was all muscle, sinew, smooth gleam, with a sweep of dark hair over his chest, dark whiskers smudging his jaw. His face had a hard beauty, his cheekbones flushed and prominent, eyes bright, his lips gently curved. Remembering the tenderness and the power of his kisses, she caught her breath.

He opened his eyes and looked at her in silence. His eyes were very green in the firelight. She wondered at the thoughts there, what made his gaze burn so.

“You were gone a long while,” she said. “I—was concerned. For some reason I had a strange feeling…that you might be hurt. But you are fine,” she finished with relief.

“All in one piece,” he murmured. He sank in the water, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. She heard his sigh, heard a grind in it, a weariness.