Saved by the Highlander (7 page)

The first blow to that plan came from what Niall felt as the terrible injustice of her beauty, even after a night upon a highland mattress. On balance, of course, he had certainly seen her at her very worst the day before, after the attack. The fact that Alice had nevertheless seemed to him the most beautiful girl under God’s heaven, even under those conditions, inevitably meant that once she had washed her face and put her hair in what order she could, she looked far too much like an angel for Niall’s continued peace of mind.

She must be used to a looking glass,
Niall told himself partly in an effort not to imagine that there could be any other relation between them than host and enforced guest.
She’ll have no looking glasses here.
In fact, her fair features, with her yellow hair slightly disarranged, made Alice look even more lovely in the arisaid than any highland girl Niall had ever seen in one.

“Good morning, my lady,” he said, when Fiona had admitted him to the house to find Alice sitting at the table drinking a cup of milk that must still be warm from the cow who had given it, doubtless milked by Callum’s wife Gert. Callum and Gert had the next croft over from Fergus. “I hope you passed a pleasant night.”

“As pleasant as I might,” Alice replied. “Mistress MacAlpin has been very kind.”

“And her ladyship behaved herself admirably,” called Fiona from where she was going out the door.

Niall sat at the table and said, “We must talk, my lady, about where we shall send you, and when, and why.”

“Very well,” said Alice, coloring a little, and glancing at him but not holding his gaze for longer than a second. “You mean, I suppose, exactly when today you will send me to Lormoran?”

“I do not mean that,” Niall said evenly. “And it is time I told you why, though yesterday I had thought it best to avoid the subject. I told you that I am not a friend to the laird.”

“You did,” Alice replied, “though unless you plan to hold me for ransom, which I believe I can assure you would be a very foolish thing to do, knowing who my father is, I do not see how your dislike for my intended husband has anything to do with me. Surely despite your lack of friendship with him, you can return me to him. Indeed, I do not see the alternative.”

Niall felt his brow furrow at her tone, and at the way she clutched her cup in both hands and gazed steadily down at the milk in it. Could he detect a note of her own dislike of Lord Roderick Sperry in her voice?

“My lady,” Niall began, thinking furiously about what he had planned to say, rearranging it and adjusting it. If her beauty had dealt a blow to the plan, the possibility that Alice’s joy about her approaching wedding might be tempered—perhaps even mottled—with misgivings shook the plan to its core. “There are two matters that, I believe, I may be able to persuade you to look upon, as I do, as standing in the way of sending you to Lormoran.”

Alice looked sharply at him when he had delivered this formal little introduction. She had clearly not expected an argument to be put to her by a highlander with any rhetorical skill at all.

“And they are, sir?” she asked.

“First, before the leader of the men who attacked you died, he spoke to me with an accent that was clearly English to my ears. He and his men were wearing a tartan they should not have been wearing, but that does not trouble me nearly as much as the possible meaning that Englishmen were wearing plaids at all.”

Alice had bitten her lip. She said very hesitantly, “They were English. I had not even thought before, but they spoke like Englishmen, and not at all the way you do.”

“As I said. Now, I do not know—”

But Alice interrupted, “They had been told to kill me. I think they were supposed to… to do that thing before they did, but…”

Niall could hardly believe her bravery in speaking so forthrightly about her near-rape. He said, “My lady, pray do not speak—”

“I must, though, Mr. MacAlpin,” Alice said, interrupting again and now looking at him intently. “They said that they would take me to live with them as their whore, instead of killing me, and no one would know. That must mean that someone hired them to kill me, must it not?”

Niall nodded. “Yes,” he said, as gently as he could.

“And you think it was Lord Roderick.”

Now Niall felt his eyes go very wide. Lady Alice Lourcy had a very quick intelligence, he realized. “Yes,” he said again.

“And that is the first matter that stands in the way of sending me to Lormoran?” she said, her mouth suddenly twisting up at the side. “I should have thought it might be the only one necessary.”

“Truly, my lady, I had not thought you would see the matter from my perspective, for I had not heard of what the men said to you before we attacked. The English accent was indeed the first matter, but the other matter, which I hoped might prove more persuasive, but which is also very delicate, concerns the main reason I am no friend of the laird’s.”

Alice took a sip from her cup as she listened, and Niall suddenly had the strange urge to beg a sip of milk from her. He loved fresh milk, but he realized suddenly that it wasn’t a craving for the creamy sweetness of the milk on his tongue that he felt, but the wish to share something with Alice. He had not felt thus about a woman in many years, and now to feel it about this Sassenach girl?

He tried to push the feeling back, but somehow that loosed his tongue to begin foolishly, “My lady, I am descended from the Grant lords of Urquhart.”

Alice gratified Niall with a look of pleased surprise, which made him curse his heart for the delight that leapt in it. Niall MacAlpin was a highland chief, and no man should boast himself in any greater station than that.

“Oh, Urquhart?” she said. “I have heard it is so beautiful up there.
He
promised to take me there.”

“Ay, the laird of Lormoran can tread there now,” Niall said a little grimly. “My Grant and MacGregor kin are gone from the place. But…” Now, to his distress, Niall realized he was about to tell a lie, if only a small one. “But I do not tell you this to impress you, my lady.”

He looked into her eyes and saw that he had indeed impressed her. He heaved an inward sigh at the sort of upbringing that would change a girl’s idea of a man because she heard that his ancestors had lived in a castle instead of a glen, and at his own craven happiness to see her idea of him changed thus.

He forged ahead, trying to put away the idea that anything might come to pass between Niall MacAlpin and Alice Lourcy. “Your Lord Roderick has allied himself with the Campbell duke of Argyll, and so I am sworn to oppose him, but even that old alliance has only meant that I have kept a close watch upon his doings.”

Niall tried to put enough emphasis on
doings
that Alice would understand that dark deeds were meant. He saw her brow furrow. Now would come the part that had required much planning.

“My lady, I have learned of terrible, immoral practices in which the lord of Lormoran engages.”

Alice, who had been looking into Niall’s eyes, flushed bright red and turned her eyes back to her cup, now almost empty.

“I think perhaps you understand what I mean?” Niall asked gently.

“I think I may,” she whispered. “Tell me… simply so that I may confirm my suspicion as to what you are saying to me. Tell me, with whom does he engage in these practices?”

“Principally with his servants—his maids, whom he takes from the highland villages.” Niall tried to speak as evenly as he could, in order not to frighten Alice any more than he needed to. Perhaps he did not need to frighten her at all, since she seemed willing to believe that her intended husband had sent outlaws to rape and kill her, but Niall felt that he wished to make sure she knew—or at least had an idea of—the worst.

Alice nodded. “I…” she started. Her blush, which had faded a bit, returned full force. To Niall’s surprise, she turned to look into his eyes. “I saw him,” she said. “In the park of my castle. My home. With… with a scullery maid. I did not know what they were doing… I suppose I did not even know that he should not do that with… a servant.” Her voice grew a little wild. “Or, I suppose, as I think about all these things I have learned in such harsh lessons, with anyone but me—though… though… I would never do them with him.” She bit her upper lip and her brow creased. “Would I?”

“No,” Niall said as gently as he could.

Alice shook her head slowly. “No,” she said. “No.” She took a deep breath and turned her attention back the empty cup. “I have milk from our dairy every morning at Mowton,” she said, “but your milk is better.”

Niall smiled, astonished. “Thank you, my lady. Perhaps it is the heather that the cow eats.”

“You will send me back to my father, then?” Alice seemed to put away all thought of the lord of Lormoran, as if all were settled.

“I will send word to
your father, and he shall send for you. I cannot bring you myself, and I would not do so even if I had clansmen to spare for the duty, because when the laird realizes you have escaped, and that you are with me and my clan, I believe he will go mad with rage and though he cannot win in the end, he can certainly do much damage here. No, your presence with us must remain a secret until your father can arrange for you to return to England.”

Alice looked at him sharply. “You cannot send me secretly? I would need only a guide.”

“I will not risk it, my lady,” Niall said, surprised to find her resistant.

“Because I am too valuable a prize?” Now real anger seemed to enter her voice. Why? She had seemed so reasonable—tender, even—a few moments before.

“No…” Niall began.

“Do not lie to me, Mr. MacAlpin. I understand exactly why you wish to keep me. I am a pawn on your little board, just as I was on Lord Roderick Sperry’s. I won’t have it. Do you hear me? You will send me, with a guide, and I will be rid of this barbarian garb and of you barbarians. Descended from the lords of Urquhart? I see no nobility in your face, or in your conduct. Feign your lineage all you like…”

Niall felt the wrath rise within him. He had a prideful weakness, he knew, and Alice Lourcy had uncovered it, he could see very clearly.

He rose from the table to tower over her. To his satisfaction, he saw Alice swallow in alarm, as if realizing that she had gone much, much too far. “My lady,” he said softly, though with a seething edge to his tone, “no one, man or woman, insults my breeding. Disbelieve me all you wish, but the blood of Angus MacGregor and Elisabeth Grant flows in my veins, and the blood of the Stewart high kings in Edinburgh. I may not be noble, as you Sassenach judge the matter, but I am not a man who tolerates such insults as you have just delivered to me. There will be no mistake about your remaining here until your father can send for you. Go over to the bed, lie down upon it, and bare your bottom for a strapping.”

Chapter Nine

Alice gasped. “Sir, you cannot possibly mean to…” She took a deep breath and began again, in what she hoped sounded like a more reasonable, if also more vicious, way. “Sir, if I had thought you without honor before, I shall condemn you entirely for a barbarian should you attempt such violence, let alone such a base humiliation, against my person.”

Niall spoke calmly in response. “My lady, when I spanked you upon the road, I told you that I believe there to be times when a man must chastise a woman. I spanked you then in order to keep you safe, and I shall strap you now for the same reason—with the augmentation that you have greatly disrespected me.”

Alice looked up into the highlander’s eyes, and to her dismay found an unyielding, and now, after his quiet outburst of a moment previous, calm expression in them. Her mind whirled with a thousand impressions: the memory of the spanking on the road, the way her backside had felt so warm afterward that it had distracted her on the path, the conversation with Fiona the night before, the discovery of his noble blood, which should not make a difference but somehow did. And now, over all, the idea that she must go to the bed and prepare herself to feel a leather implement of discipline upon her bare bottom.

Somehow Alice could tell for certain that she had no hope of escape. She had indeed insulted him. As she considered, she even wondered whether she had spoken thus in order to see what he might to do. Still, though, her heart quailed in that knowledge; how could she have known that he would respond so swiftly and harshly as to decree a strapping for her upon her naked rump? Simply to delay what now seemed terribly inevitable, she protested, “I can see that I have offended you, sir, and if necessary I shall apologize, but I do not see at all how you might keep me safe in this violent manner.”

To Alice’s fury, Niall smiled. “First of all, my lady,” he said, “you shall indeed apologize, but such an apology will not spare your backside the strap. What would you think of me if I used idle threats in that manner? No, I must maintain order here, and if I allow you to think that you may insult me, in the matter of my decision about your staying here with us, it would be far too easy for you to think that you might defy me in larger matters. Indeed, I think it quite likely that if I permitted your insulting words to go unpunished, you would very soon be attempting either to suborn one of my clansmen, or even—though I must say that I cannot believe you this foolish—to run away South on your own.”

Alice felt her heart flutter like a little bird in her chest. Truly, she realized, he had named accurately both the chances she had seen the moment Niall declared that she must stay here in his village. He continued to look down upon her, wearing the smile of a man who knows that his intentions are right. Alice could not understand, all of a sudden, how she could have been so very unwise as to insult his breeding; she saw now in his handsome face all the honor she had just accused him of lacking. The dawning realization that her governess’ ideas about nobility and lineage could not meet the challenges Alice faced in the present hour made her anger—at her governess, at Lord Roderick, at her father for giving her to that vile man, at the outlaw for awakening her to her body’s yearnings in such a degrading way—blaze up suddenly within her breast. Yes, she might apologize, but she could never show Niall MacAlpin that she had truly seen the error of her impression that he was a barbarian. The man was about to strike her with a leather strap, after all!