The Maclean Groom (4 page)

“There are countless men who'd give their sword arm to be in your shoes,” Fearchar reminded him. “And the lass needs a strong man who can protect her property from those who'd seek to take advantage of an ignorant female. As her husband, you'll be laird of thousands of acres, with tenants and livestock, granaries and mills, smithies and quarries. Not an opportunity to be tossed away lightly, my bucko.”

“Oh, 'tis perfect,” Rory agreed with a curl of his lip. “I get a bride who's descended from a long line of Scottish traitors on one side and our ancient enemy on the other. Hell, I don't know which is worse: the fact that she's half Macdonald or half Sassenach.”

Fearchar clapped Rory soundly on the back. “God's bones, man! 'Tisn't the lass's fault she was born half-English. Or that her grandda was the Red Wolf of Glencoe.”

Rory chuckled in spite of himself. “I have to admit, she is fair bonny. And she smells damn nice.”

Fearchar's eyes twinkled with amusement. “How the hell would you know? You've never been that close to her.”

“Her perfume lingered on the pillow,” Rory admitted with a grin. “The Maid of Glencoe may spring from a long line of traitors, but she smells like my mother's rose garden.”

Not just the pillow, but the entire bed—mattress, coverlet, and curtains—carried the intoxicating fragrance of a blossom-filled bower. He'd wakened in the night with the image of a sweet, supple body lying beside him and a cockstand that'd give credit to a sailor after ten months at sea. That morning he'd gruffly ordered a servant to put fresh linens on the bed and air out the chamber.

Rory picked up a letter he'd written earlier. He dusted it with sand, folded it, and sealed the missive with his ring; then he placed it beside a package wrapped in paper and tied with string, along with several other letters.

“Send Arthur to me,” he told Fearchar. “I have an errand that will take my gillie to the
Sea Dragon
. On the way, he can deliver some letters to Stalcaire, along with a package containing one of Joanna's gowns. Lady Emma can use it to take the measurements for the little bride's wedding garments. Then Arthur can accompany her and my uncle back to Kinlochleven, along with Lachlan and Keir.”

“Your family's coming here?”

At Fearchar's look of surprise, Rory leaned against the table and grinned. “We'll celebrate the wedding when they arrive. In the meantime, we're going to show Clan Macdonald that the MacLeans have a few tricks of their own. If the entire castle can conspire to keep Lady Joanna's identity a secret, we can convince them for a few days that we haven't discovered the fact that the stable boy is my sweet, bonny bride-to-be.”

“You're going to pay them back in kind for their trickery,” his cousin said with an approving nod.

“'Tis part of it,” Rory admitted. “But the most important reason will be to keep them off guard. As long as
they're certain we believe Joey Macdonald is a lad, there'll be no attempt to sneak her away from Kinlochleven. I don't want to wake up one morning and find she's bolted. Until the wedding vows are said, I intend to keep my conniving bride-to-be right at my side.”

 

To Joanna's disgust, the Sea Dragon showed no sign of dragging his tail out of her castle. He slept in her bed, ate her food, and issued orders like he was the bloody king of England.

And as if that weren't bad enough, his men swarmed all over the fortress. Practicing swordplay in the bailey, marching up and down the battlements, stabling their ravenous animals in her barns, and nosing around the bakehouse with the boldness of greedy lads.

As Joanna made her way across the lower bailey, the Dragon's giant henchman called out to her. Fearchar's flaxen hair and full beard, along with the gold stud in his ear, the scars, black eye patch, and immense bulk, reminded her of a Viking. Maude had told her as a child of how the Norsemen had once been the scourge of the Scottish coast.

“The MacLean wants to talk to you at once, laddie,” Fearchar said with a ferocious scowl. “Best hotfoot it into the keep, if you know what's good for you.”

Joanna nodded and turned back. Geese and ducks honked and scolded, flapping their wings in outrage as she raced through their midst. It was a whole lot easier running in a kilt than a dress, and Joanna sprinted for the upper bailey and the door of the keep. She reached the donjon's open doorway, brushed past a startled Seumas, and skidded to a stop on the vestibule's stone floor in front of the Dragon himself.

MacLean stood with his feet planted solidly apart, his hands resting on his narrow hips. An engraved gold bodkin fastened the edge of his belted black and green plaid to the shoulder of his flowing saffron shirt. His shiny black brogues sported gold buckles that matched the rosette points on his checkered stockings. Beautifully carved Celtic
designs adorned the hilt of his eighteen-inch dirk.

Godsakes, if he didn't look the portrait of a Highland laird, nobody did.

And the laird was scowling. Again.

Deciding he looked far too busy to be interrupted, Joanna quickly lowered her gaze and started to scoot around him.

“Don't leave,” he said.

He'd spoken so softly, she looked up to see if he'd meant her.

He had.

With a wave of his hand, MacLean dismissed Seumas and turned his full attention on Joanna.

His stern, sea-weathered features had the mesmerizing appeal of a newly sharpened ax blade. A thrill of admiration, mixed with fear at the sight of a nearly invincible enemy, twanged through her.
Bonny
would never have described him—even if his name hadn't been MacLean. The fierce warrior standing before her brought to mind phrases like
awe-inspiring
and
frighteningly majestic
.

“Do you wish to speak with me, milord?” she asked, sending a prayer of gratitude heavenward that her voice was several octaves lower than that of most females. During Joanna's years at Allonby Castle in Cumberland, her Aunt Clarissa had told her more than once she had the voice of a whisky-soaked harridan.

His reply held the rumbling threat of far-off thunder. “I do.”

“He's naught but a halflin,” Seumas blurted out. “If he's doing something wrong, I'll see to it that he's properly instructed.”

MacLean looked over at the steward in surprise. Instead of leaving as he was supposed to, Joanna's trusted retainer had hovered near the doorway, waiting to see what the fearsome man wanted with his mistress.

“If you please, laird,” Seumas continued stubbornly, “I'll take the laddie with me and set him to work in the scullery.”

MacLean stared at the portly, dark-haired man as though
unable to credit his ears that a lowly steward had dared to defy him. Beneath the Sea Dragon's icy regard, Seumas clamped his mouth shut and backed two slow steps to the door. Then with a quick, worried glance at Joanna, he hurried away.

To go for help
, she fervently prayed.

Once Seumas had disappeared, MacLean turned back to Joanna. He jerked his head toward the small library just off the vestibule that he'd confiscated for his private office. “In there, lad.”

Joanna swallowed painfully and tried to speak, but nothing came out. With no excuse to keep from being alone with him, she walked into the Dragon's lair on shaky legs, halted in the center of the fine Hindustan rug she'd brought with her from Cumberland, and waited for impending doom to follow her in.

With her teeth clenched to keep them from chattering, she stared at the warlord with all the bravado she could muster. She'd barely passed the five-foot mark in height, and at seventeen, there was no hope of ever getting any taller. She hooked her thumbs in her belt, tipped her head back, and met his frosty gaze.

God above! His eyes were cold enough to freeze Loch Leven in the summertime. But no matter what he threatened to do, she wouldn't reveal her true identity.

Like the king's daughter in the Celtic tale of the sea dragon, who'd been chained to a rock to be devoured for her people, Joanna would never forsake her duty.

He could burn her with hot pokers.

He could hang her from the rafters by her thumbs.

He could throw her into the moat, bound hand and foot!

No matter what hellish torment his lurid mind dreamed up, she'd never tell him she was the maiden he sought to despoil with his lecherous, debauched, lascivious MacLean hands.

Never
.

Rory looked down at the dirty-faced lassie, trying so hard to act brave. The sprinkle of freckles across her nose and
cheekbones could barely be discerned beneath the layer of soot. 'Twas all he could do to keep from smiling at her impudence.

“What's your name, lad?” he growled.

“Joey Macdonald.”

“Who are your parents, Joey?”

Lady Joanna threw back her shoulders, and her dark blue eyes glistened with open defiance. “I don't have any parents. Nor grandparents, neither.”

“You're an orphan, then?”

“That's what they usually call a child with no parents,” she answered cheekily.

In spite of the brazen demeanor, Rory sensed her pain at the questions. “Who
were
your parents, laddie?” he asked in a milder tone.

“My da died on the Field of the Moss at Stirling fighting the old king. Mama died two years ago.”

“So your father was a traitor.”

The lass fisted her hands. “My da was a hero,” she declared proudly. “He killed eight men with his claymore before being cut down by cannon fire from the hills above.”

If the man hadn't died in the battle, he'd have been hanged with the rest of the rebels, but Rory didn't bother to point that out to his bride-to-be.

Joanna must have lost her father when she was only eight or so. The tattered shirt, several sizes too big for her, hung on her small frame. The frayed red and blue plaid she wore could have served a full-grown man. Even her worn-out shoes were overlarge.

Her tenacious pride touched something inside Rory. A memory of his own childhood flashed before him. He'd been fostered in the home of a Stewart ally at the age of eight. In his loneliness, he'd felt the need to prove himself to the other lads by acting as impertinent as Joanna. Gideon Cameron's patience must have been tested to the hilt.

“I've considered turning you over to Fearchar for training as a soldier.” He paused to watch Joanna swallow back
her dismay, then continued with a smile. “However instructive my kinsman's rigorous discipline might be, though, I'm not sure you've the makings of a warrior.”

At that moment, Jock Kean appeared in the open doorway. “You sent for me, laird?”

Rory nodded and motioned for the man to enter, then turned back to Joanna. “Besides your household duties, lad, I'm going to have you work in the stables under the direct supervision of the stable master. In the afternoons you'll take orders from Jock, and your first duty today will be mucking out the stables.”

Jock stepped forward and tugged off his coarse wool cap, revealing his smooth, hairless pate. His lively gaze darted to Joanna in reassurance and then back to Rory. “I'll take care of the laddie, then,” he said, his round face splitting into a jaunty smile. “I'll see that he's kept busy and stays out of trouble.”

Rory folded his arms and waited for the Sassenach heiress to confess her bloody secret.

Instead, Joanna edged closer to the cheerful, baldheaded gnome, then looked at Rory with huge blue eyes. “I'll do just as Jock says, laird,” she promised. “I can handle the mucking—I know I can. And I'm real good with horses. You'll see.”

He scowled at her. “What are you waiting for, then?” he snapped. “Get out to the stables and get busy.”

She bowed low from the waist. “Very well, milord,” she answered with a hint of mockery in her voice. “Thank you, milord.”

All Rory could see was the top of the moth-eaten stocking cap, but he could have sworn the cheeky imp was grinning.

Before she had a chance to straighten up, Maude Beaton, who'd been identified as the missing heiress's former nursemaid, appeared in the doorway. She bobbed a curtsy the instant Rory glanced over. “Your pardon, milord,” she said meekly. “The lad is needed in the scullery.”

“Joey has work to do in the stables,” he replied with a
frown. “And don't interrupt me again, woman, when I'm speaking with someone. No matter what the cause.”

“I won't, laird,” Maude promised. The tall, big-boned female looked at Joanna with solemn gray eyes, then turned and left, with Jock right behind her.

“You may go, lad,” Rory said.

“Thank you, milord,” she answered with a wide grin.

“Oh, and Joey,” Rory said as she moved toward the door, her returning confidence obvious in her boyish swagger.

Joanna paused to look back.

“If you ever again answer my questions with such impudence, I'll discipline you myself. And if I do, you'll wish I'd let Fearchar strip the hide off your puny little bones, yank your ribs out of your chest, and beat your head into your shoulders with them.”

The lass fled the chamber without a backward glance.

Rory grinned as he shook his head in grudging admiration. The confounded girl had spunk. The thought of bedding such a lively sprite sent an unexpected surge of lust flooding through his veins. Damn, if he wasn't starting to look forward to his wedding day.

 

Almost a dozen of her kinsmen were waiting for Joanna outside the library, listening for her cry for help, ready to rush to her assistance.

“Are you all right?” Davie Ogilvy asked in a hushed voice as he shuffled out of the vestibule alongside her.

“Did he hurt you?” Jacob whispered, his big blacksmith's hands fisted menacingly.

Safely wedged between her bailiff and the clan chaplain, Joanna strode down the south gallery that led to the chapel. “He didn't lay a hand on me,” she said with a satisfied grin, “but I'd rather not have another private interview with the Sea Dragon for as long as I live.”