Seduced by a Rogue (30 page)

“So here we are,” he murmured, shifting up onto an elbow to kiss her again. “I must go now, truly,” he added. “The men downstairs
will be stirring soon, and I need at least an hour or two more sleep. But we will talk more of this, believe me.”

Getting up, he pulled on his breeks and fastened them, then checked her shutters again. The wind had eased its ferocity, and
the only thunder he had heard for some time came from well to the east, so he picked up the lantern, used the candle to light
it, and blew out the candle. Then, bidding her sleep well, he opened the door.

Tiggie, stretched full length across the doorway, gave him a slant-eyed look, arched up to his feet, stretched again, and
rolled to his back.

Rubbing his belly with a bare foot, Rob said, “Get you inside, laddie, if you mean to. I’m shutting this door.”

When the little cat had obeyed, Rob left and went to his own bed.

In the darkness of the bedchamber, Mairi watched the door shut behind Rob and listened for a moment to the diminishing wind.
Feeling Tiggie’s slight weight on the bed just before he bumped his nose into her face, she greeted him and waited until he
had settled on his favorite pillow before letting her thoughts return to Rob.

Her imagination replayed details of their coupling from the moment he had entered the room until he had gone. She did not
think much about their talk, because as far as she was concerned, the subject required no further discussion.

Even if her father were a man who would allow his heiress daughter to marry where she chose, she was not at all sure she wanted
to marry Rob. He was and would always be a Maxwell, after all, and that fact alone would cause trouble with her family and
perhaps with their Annandale neighbors as well.

Also, although Rob was a landowner and Trailinghail a beautiful place, unlike Sir Hugh Douglas, he was not a baron or even
a knight. Moreover, his proposal, if one could call it so, had come so impulsively on the heels of their coupling, he could
not have considered fully the fact that he would be marrying a woman who might become a baroness in her own right.

She was sure that the consequences of that would be worse for him, or indeed for any man who expected to control his family
and all of its affairs.

Jenny had explained to her how it would be, and Dunwythie had confirmed it. Mairi’s husband, unless he had a title of his
own as Hugh did, would have naught but a styling. That meant that although people would properly address him as “my lord,”
the words would be no more than acknowledgment of his marriage to a baroness. She would remain Dunwythie of Dunwythie unless
she agreed to relinquish the barony to him, something she would not do.

“Maxwell of Dunwythie” flew right in the face of all that her family believed in. Her son, if she had one, would become Dunwythie
of Dunwythie, just as his ancestors had been, as her father was now, and as she would be if she succeeded him. She could not
and would not consider any other course.

As she tried to imagine what Rob would say if she were to explain
that
to him, her imagination boggled. But if she did not tell him, then…

She did not wake until Annie came in with her breakfast and the news that the laird would be busy most of the day but would
try to join them for supper.

“There be trees down and roofs gone all over, m’lady,” Annie said. “So they’ll be lucky if any man amongst them gets his dinner
today. They be a-scurrying hither and yon. Gibby says even Fin Walters’s cottage lost much of its thatch. But at least the
rain has stopped, and the sun be
a-playing ‘all hide’ wi’ the clouds.”

They tidied the chamber and stitched pieces of the quilt together for an hour before their midday meal, then worked on it
afterward until Annie produced a dice cup and they threw dice together, competing for exorbitant if imaginary sums.

Annie had just suggested that she ought to go down and see how much longer it would be before supper when they heard footsteps
on the stairs.

They stopped on the landing below.

“That will be the laird, m’lady. I ha’ nae doots he has come up to change his clothes before supper. We’d best get ye tidied
up gey quick.”

Mairi decided to change her gown, so Annie shut the door, and they bustled about. Mairi was sitting on the stool while Annie
finished plaiting her hair when Rob rapped at the door and asked if she was ready for her supper.

Barely waiting for her answer, he entered, leaving the door open behind him.

Annie got up quickly and bobbed a curtsy.

He gave her such a long look that Mairi expected him to send the maidservant away. Instead, he said, “Gib and one of the other
lads will be bringing our supper up shortly. I just came ahead to see that all was—”

Breaking off, he turned toward the open door.

Mairi heard a female voice in the distance, a commanding one that echoed up the stairs. She also heard a male voice that sounded
like Fin Walters, placating.

“Sakes, I must go!” Rob exclaimed. “Shut the door behind—”

“It is of no use to stand in my way, Fin Walters,” the unfamiliar female voice declared loudly enough to be heard quite clearly.
“I know where his chamber is. If he is not dressed yet, with supper awaiting him in the hall, he ought to be. But I have a
few things to say to him before he eats that supper, so stand aside, my man!”

Rob stepped hastily out to the landing and pulled the door to with a snap.

Mairi turned to Annie. But Annie looked as mystified as Mairi felt.

Rob straightened his cap and tried to muffle his footsteps on the stairs. But it did him no good, because Gibby came bounding
up the stairs ahead of her. Before Rob could hush him, he exclaimed, “Laird, she’s here! Herself be here!”

“Hush!” Rob hissed just as his grandmother came around the bend in the stairs behind the lad.

“It is of no use to hush the lad, or scold him, either; I am coming up,” Lady Kelso declared. “You will scarcely turn me from
your door, after all.”

“Madam, I would not, but it would have been good to have warning.”

“I do not doubt
that
,” she said, eyeing him shrewdly. “Where is she?”

He opened his mouth, words of denial leaping to his tongue. But he could not utter them, not to her. Instead, he said, “Why
have you come?”

“Gib, go below and tell them I do
not
like my mutton overcooked. I shall expect my supper just as soon as my people have brought my things in. I expect you can
spare a basin, a ewer, and a drop of water for me, Robbie lad.”

“Aye, Gran, but you’d best come into my chamber to use them, I expect.”

She nodded but said, “She
is
here then. Faith, lad, what were you thinking?”

Rob looked sternly at the fascinated Gibby. “Get hence,” he said.

“I thought I should wait until ye take Herself into your chamber, lest—”

“Get!”

Gib slid hastily past Lady Kelso and fled down the stairs.

“So you, too, prefer this chamber,” she said when he opened the door for her. “You can leave me to my own devices, if you
like,” she added, giving him a wry smile. “I warrant you would like to warn her that I am here. She should take her supper
with us, I think. My Eliza will be up directly, though, so prithee, leave that door open so she can find me. It has been years
since last we were here.”

“Aye, but tell me first why you have come,” he said, meeting her gaze.

With a slight grimace of distaste, she said, “I thought I ought to warn you that Dunwythie came to Dumfries and confronted
Alex, demanding to know what the devil Alex had done with his daughter. Alex tried to order me out of the room, of course.
But I am not so yielding as his Cassia is.”

Too concerned to smile at her understatement, Rob said, “What happened?”

“His lordship, justifiably furious, said his daughter had vanished and your offer of aid had made it plain to him that the
Maxwells had taken her. He demanded that Alex return her at once. He ripped up at Alex, too, told him that
his
despicable tactics would never persuade his lordship to let Alex extort gelt from Annandale.”

“I see.”

“I warrant you do,” she said tartly. “What I should like to know, however, is just when you took leave of your senses!”

Ruefully, he said, “I think it must have happened the moment I laid eyes on her, Gran. If not then, it must certainly have
been when I went to look over Annan House and ran bang into her at the riverbank.”

Shaking her head, she said, “Mayhap, henceforward you will learn to control your impulses, though little good that would do
you now. The plain fact is, my lad, that Alex is furious. He told Dunwythie that
no
Maxwell had done any such thing, but the confrontation ended badly. His lordship having had at least sense enough not to
bring an army with him to Dumfries, nevertheless departed with threats to do that very thing, whereupon Alex informed me that
he
would soon teach you a lesson.”

“So he leaped to the conclusion—”

“Don’t cry out about
that
to me,” she snapped. “You deserve to hear whatever he has to say to you, for you need a good down-setting. And, as I believe
he is close upon my heels, it will come to you soon enough.”

“He is on his way now?”

“Aye,” she said. “I was nearly ready to depart for Glasgow, in any event. So I put my journey forward a day and hied myself
here instead. I doubt that I fooled him any more than you have, however. He is far too likely to be acting in haste. You understand
what this could mean, I expect.”

“Clan war,” Rob said curtly. “I never meant that to happen.”

“Mind your tone,” she said. Her expression was rueful, though, when she added, “I realized on the way here that you must have
thought you were acting for Clan Maxwell. I ought to have recalled how headstrong you can be when you react to anger or resentment.
I had second thoughts after I’d mentioned the clan, but I hoped… Never mind that now, though,” she said briskly. “I want to
meet her, so go and tell her that I am here. I trust you at least had the kindness to lock her in the great chamber and not
in the smaller one upstairs.”

“She is in the great chamber and has not been locked in since just a few days after her arrival,” he said. “In fact, she has
already tried to escape.”

“Then she has more spirit than I’d expected. Go quickly now and fetch her. You may bring her to me here, and we shall go down
and sup together.”

“I’ll have to bring Annie along as well, then,” Rob said.

“Annie?”

“Fin Walters’s good-sister,” Rob said. “You’d know her as Dora’s sister.”

“Sakes, that bairn was no more than ten the last time I was here!”

“Then it is time and more that you came to us, madam.”

“Get her before I hand ye a clout on the lug,” she said sternly.

Remembering other times she had made his ears ring with a slap, Rob grinned but decided not to tempt her further.

Hurrying upstairs, he opened the door to Mairi’s chamber without ceremony.

Annie was setting the stool at the table for their supper, and Mairi stood by the window, her figure outlined by the light
there. She stood in profile, drawing his gaze briefly to her memorable firm, silky breasts before he looked her in the eye
and said, “My grandmother is here. She wants to meet you.”

Her mouth dropped open, which, he was sure, was how he had met the news himself. “Come along, lass. Annie, you will sup with
us at the high table, but Lady Kelso wants to speak with Lady Mairi privately before you join us. So you can have a few minutes
to tidy things here and lay out whatever her ladyship will need later, if you will.”

“Aye, laird, just shout when ye want me,” Annie said.

He nodded. Then, noting that Mairi had not moved, he said, “Now, lass. Gran has less patience than I have.”

Smiling then, she moved toward him. He was glad to see that she wore the pink velvet that became her so well, until he remembered
whose dress it was.

Suppressing any alarm that stirred at the memory, he put a hand under her elbow and ushered her out the door, murmuring for
her ears alone, “She can be a termagant. But if one does not show fear or defiance, she will remain civil.”