The MacNaughton Bride (3 page)

There were times in her
life when
Aislinn
would have considered that
statement to be a direct challenge.
 
When she was younger, she was much more likely to rise to that type of
bait.
 
But life of late had dragged
her down a bit.
 
She was a little
older, and hopefully a little wiser.
 
“It was more in the manner of merely having to make my presence known,
frankly – a single, unmarried female in his house discouraged him from
indulging in . . . “ she hadn’t realized where she was going to have to go with
this explanation, but pressed on while her skin burned like a beacon in the
evening, “his acquaintances with woman . . .
ahh
. .
. of loose virtue.”

Chapter
2

“I see,” he said gravely,
suppressing a smile at her obvious discomfort.
 
Kell
shouldered himself away from
the wall and bowed in front of her.
 
“Well, I’ll leave you to get settled.
 
There’s a pull in the corner that will summon a maid if you
should need assistance.
 
I will be
on the same floor – two doors down to your right when you come out of the
door – if you should need me.”

But here and now, on the
morning of their wedding, beyond the superstition about a groom seeing a bride
on that day, to which he did not subscribe, he would have thought that she
would have been deep in her own preparations for the moment when they would be
joined as man and wife.
 
Instead,
she was wandering around his – their – house in her robe for some
strange reason, and was apparently trying to turn the question around to him.

It wasn’t too soon to let
her know how he expected her to behave.
 
Not too soon at all.
 
“I
want to know what you’re doing, and I want to know now.”

Aislinn
knew he wasn’t going to let her get away without some sort of plausible
explanation.
 
She could just see it
in the way he held her eyes.
 
This
was a man who was used to being obeyed.
 
He wasn’t her father, who was willing to let her do almost anything as
long as she didn’t interfere with his steady supply of spirits, nor was he her
Uncle, who, in her opinion was much worse than her father.
 
At least her father had never pretended
to be anything other than what he was – a weak, fallible man whose lady love
had died as a result of his own lust, and whose new love was a much harsher,
more unforgiving taskmistress.

Uncle Bertram was an oily
snake who presented himself as one thing to pleasant company, but showed an
entirely different demeanor to anyone for whom he did not have a high
regard.
 
Anyone not worthy in his
estimation – and that most distinctly included his nosy body niece
– was subjected to the bite of his tongue at least, or the back of his
hand at worse.
 
He had cracked
Aislinn
across the face only once, and then she had been
careful not to get within striking distance from that point forward, not that
that had stopped her subtle efforts to make sure that he foisted her off on
someone – anyone – before he ran through her entire fortune.

Biting her lip, she looked
up at him, her face as open as possible.
 
“I was going to go up on the roof.
 
I just need . . . a breath of fresh air.”

Kell
wasn’t sure whether or not to believe her, but he decided to give her the
benefit of the doubt, taking her hand and turning her completely around.
 
“You’re headed in the wrong direction.
The stairs to the roof are at the end of the hall down here.”
 
He waved his finger at her pointedly.
 
“Don’t spend too much time up there
– you’ll catch a chill.”

“Uh, thank you.”
 
Aislinn
knew
that already – one of the first things she’d done once she was sure that
the rest of the house was asleep was a little judicious exploring.
 
She needed to find a small, unused
room.
 
And in a place this sized,
she hadn’t figured it would be a problem, and she was right.
 
She’d found one on the forth floor,
well away from the servants’ quarters.
 
It wasn’t fancy, but then neither of them was used to fancy, anyway.
 
It had a small bed – especially
in comparison to the parade ground she was currently occupying,
Aislinn
had thought wryly – and one good-sized
dresser.
 
It was also only a few
steps from the roof top.

After spending what was a
surprisingly refreshing few moments gazing out over what would soon be her
homeland,
Aislinn
snuck carefully back downstairs,
trying to keep her eyes and ears as peeled as she could.
 
That man seemed to have eyes in the
back of his head – and was hard as a brick wall to run into.
 
She made it out to the shack near the
stables, which was the first place Jenny had been able to find that would keep
Adelle
out of the elements.

She was asleep atop a bale
of hay, huddled under several blankets.
 
Aislinn
closed the rickety door behind her and
walked over to her sister, placing her hand over that thin shoulder and shaking
gently.
 
Calling to
Adelle
would have been both a security risk – someone
might have overheard it and grown suspicious – and useless.

Adelle
– who turned her mirrored face up to her sisters with a huge grin and
threw herself into
Aislinn’s
arms – was both deaf
and mute.
 

Once she was able to set
her sister – who was younger than she was by a few minutes and smaller by
a pound or so when they were born – away from her, their conversation
commenced at a frantic pace.
 

Although
Aislinn
and
Adelle
had developed
their own sign language as they grew,
Aislinn
had had
taught herself – and then subsequently her sister – the more
accepted, British version that
Aislinn
had hoped
might help
Adelle
, if she ever got a chance to
interact with the rest of society.

Father had ignored
Adelle
.
 
Aislinn
was sure that he wouldn’t have noticed if
Aislinn
had disappeared, much less
Adelle
.
 
Adelle
hadn’t
had much of a chance.
 
Everyone
ignored her – except her sister – and before
Aislinn
grew enough to assume responsibility for her sister, Jenny had taken care of
the infant, while putting forth the rumor that although Madam Montgomery had
birthed twins, only one of them had survived.
 
Since Jenny and their Father were the only two in attendance
when Sarah gave birth then died just a few hours later,
Adelle’s
existence – or lack thereof - was never questioned.
 
Albert was too stunned by the loss of
his wife – too deep in the bottle from that point onward – to
question the servant when she gave him the sad news that the smaller, obviously
weaker infant – who hadn’t made even one peep from the moment of her
precipitous birth – had died.

Despite her inauspicious
beginnings – and surroundings, which were always quite secretive so that
no suspicions were aroused,
Adelle
thrived, and it was
due in large part to
Aislinn
, whose love for her
sister knew no bounds.
 
She did her
best to teach
Adelle
everything she learned, never
expecting that she couldn’t learn.
 
Aislinn
was a smart girl – everyone kept
telling her – and
Aislinn
expected that
Adelle
would be smart, too. The girls were inseparable,
even as adults, and
Aislinn
was fiercely protective
of her sister.
 

When they were all moved to
Uncle Bertram’s,
Aislinn
was extremely careful to
make sure that arrangements were made for
Adelle
to
move, also.
 
She wasn’t about to
spring
Adelle
on Uncle Bertram, although she’d
considered it until she got to know the man.
 
Since things had turned out differently, she had secreted
her sister in the attic and put into motion her plan to get them both out of
there as soon as possible.

Adelle
was driving her sister crazy with questions about their new home.
 
What was the house like?
 
Was her betrothed old and gray as
Aislinn
had wanted?
 
Was she being treated well?

Aislinn
answered each question patiently, stumbling a bit on the one about her
betrothed being old and gray.
 
He
most certainly was not.
 
She’d
fervently wished that Uncle Bertram would marry her off to some old man who
might die soon after their wedding, leaving her a widow who was free to do as she
pleased.
 
Aislinn
had had so much freedom in her upbringing – however unintentional it
might have been on her Father’s part – that staying with their Uncle, who
had insisted on the strictest of proprieties in regards to her behavior –
had had her chafing at his restraints.
 
She could barely find time to slip away and see her sister.

Her betrothed –
Kell
, he’d said when he’d executed that courtly bow before
her when they’d first met – was probably less than thirty and hadn’t a
gray hair anywhere near him . . . and she’d seen more of him than she’d seen of
any man in her life.
 
Even his
chest hair was coal black, although distinctly thinner than the thatch on his
head.
 
She didn’t relay these
disturbing facts to her sister, choosing instead to gloss over her description
of the
MacNaughton
himself.
 

Aislinn
didn’t spend too long with
Adelle
– she did
need to get back and finish getting dressed.
 
Adelle
hugged her sister when she
rose to leave, then stopped her as she stepped towards the door, tugging on her
arm then turning to grab something from under the blankets.
 
It was a set of pillowcases,
meticulously embroidered with the
MacNaughton
crest.

Of the two,
Adelle
was much more adept with a needle than
Aislinn
, who was truly hopeless, but she knew how many hours
of work this represented on
Adelle’s
part.
 
Aislinn
hugged her sister to her as tightly as she could, feeling the tears she’d been
trying to ignore since her father’s death seeping into her eyes behind her
lids.
 
If she didn’t stop, her eyes
would be swollen and puffy during the ceremony, and that wouldn’t look good.

Although it tore at her
heart for some reason she didn’t understand,
Aislinn
put
Adelle
from her gently, looking into those eyes
so like hers.
 
Silent as always,
Adelle
had a small smile on her face as she nodded and
gripped her sister’s arms tightly, rhythmically.
 
It was as if she was trying to support her sister in her
time of need - trying to convey that everything would be all right - which was
a complete reversal of their usual roles.

Aislinn
sniffed a little and turned away, slipping back into the house and up to her
room without incident.

Meanwhile,
Kell
was trying to deal with the exuberant spirits of his
brothers.
 
He was the eldest of the
MacNaughton
boys at nearly thirty one.
 
Burke was next in line and the one most
likely to give himself to the Church . . . if he could ever settle down long
enough.
 
Of the three of them, he
was the most scholarly, although that was somewhat a case of damning with faint
praise.
 
But he had already
confided to
Kell
that he felt that might be his
calling, and with
Kell
marrying and presumably
producing heirs, it was highly unlikely that the title would pass to him.
 
Kell
was the
quietest – such as he was, the one least likely to start a feud or punch
someone out in a public house or be caught with a whore.
 
But if he decided you needed punching,
then the job was done more thoroughly than by him alone than by the two of his
younger brothers put together.
 
All
of his punches were knockout punches.
 
Few men dared to challenge him a second time.

Together, the brothers were
a legend around the small town of
Kilarnan
, and well
beyond the lands they owned.
 
When
they were younger, they drank, whored, and generally caroused together in
Scotland and beyond, and the stories of their exploits had already taken on
legendary proportions.
 
Kell
, in particular, did nothing to stop any of the rumors,
especially those of their prowess in bed sport, which he found to be the most
boastful and the most truthful at the same time.