The Highland Wife. Lyn Stone
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put the Lady Mairi off? No matter how much he might wish that were the case, Rob found it hard to believe. Especially in view of what she had only just learned about him. That surely must play a part.
Well, it was her misfortune, then, if she could not deal with her lot in life. The bride price was paid. She must honor her father’s contract. Rob would have her.
The laird looked miserable, he noticed. Sad to be losing his daughter, Rob surmised. Losing her to such a man as the MacBain could not be easy for him.
Rob admitted he might feel the same way in like circumstance. Thomas said that he had explained everything in detail to MacInness. Since the laird had only told her just now, she would not have those details as yet.
Would she be consoled to know that Rob’s deafness would not pass down to their children? His mother assured him this was so, since he had been able to hear for a while after his birth. A fever had stolen the sounds.
Would it help her to know that he could hear some things? He scoffed at that as soon as he thought of it. Heavy drumbeats and shrill whistles did not count for much when nothing but muffled silence existed between the two extremes. No, she likely would not care about the fine points of it. To all intent and purpose, he was deaf as a stone and that was that.
The contract had cost him dearly because MacInness had not wanted to let Lady Mairi go to him as wife at first, so Thomas had said. However, the laird had needed to see to his daughter’s future now that he was growing old. Rob might not be able to hear the lass, but he could make her a very wealthy woman.
In return for the bride price, Rob would gain a crumbling estate near the border as her dower. A bog around rocks, that place. He had gone out of his way to see it on the way here. He might as well have accepted the woman dowerless for all the good that useless property would do him. But he knew such was not done, even among the lower classes, though Rob would have been well content with only her person after having seen her.
Rob needed a son to inherit sooner or later. Considering his deafness, it was not likely any other family of nobles who learned the truth about him would trust him with a daughter. He supposed he must concede something to MacInness for extending that trust.
“For two days, I court,” he promised MacInness, holding up two fingers for emphasis. “Then we wed and go.”
The laird slumped and nodded, then pushed heavily from his chair and flung a hand idly toward the tables at the head of the hall. “Come, eat.”
Rob took his seat in the place of honor. The Lady Mairi did not come to table at all.
The laird said nothing more to him until they had finished their meal. Then he turned and faced Rob with a frown. “Will you be good to my Mairi? Did you like her at all?”
Rob’s heart softened in spite of himself at the parental concern evident in the old man’s eyes and offered what reassurance he could. “Aye, sir,” he affirmed, attempting to remain brusque and failing miserably. “I like her.”
Chapter Two
The next morning Mairi approached the situation more pragmatically than she had the evening before. If she did not marry this baron, nothing would change for her. She would spend the rest of her life counting the linens and shining Craigmuir’s meager collection of silver, upbraiding unruly servants and ordering goods for the keep. Yet, should she accept the man as husband, she at least had some chance of establishing a family of her own, of having children who would love her.
And, at last, she would see what lay beyond the sparsely inhabited hills and glens of the Highlands. More than anything, she longed to see a city, any city. She wanted to travel, to meet new people and hopefully have an adventure along the way. Just one would be enough. Simply wedding the MacBain might provide that last wish, Mairi thought with a hidden grin.
He might not bother to speak to her any more than was strictly necessary, but she had to admit he was not hard to look upon. Given time, she could surely coax some semblance of geniality from him.
Once she accomplished that feat, Mairi suspected that their bedding together would be no unpleasant chore. She believed she had felt his brief assessment of her for that purpose, if none other. She supposed it would have to suffice unless they could find some other common ground. Many marriages had not even that to recommend them.
Determined to show him that she could provide interesting company, Mairi headed to the kitchens soon after Mass and put together a basket of cheese, cold meats and bread fresh from the ovens. She added a flagon of wine and set out to find her betrothed, who had not bothered to attend either Mass or the informal breaking of fast afterward.
She found him in the stable, grooming his steed. “Good morn, m’laird,” she said, summoning her brightest smile.
He smiled back at her, a blindingly sweet expression that stopped her right in her tracks and made her suck in a sharp breath. God’s mercy, the man could spellbind when he put his mind to it, Mairi thought, absently patting her chest with one hand. Her heartbeat had speeded to a dangerous pace and she felt quite giddy of a sudden.
Just as rapidly as it had come, his smile faded. The taciturn baron frowned as he regarded the basket she carried. That left her wondering if she had merely imagined his greeting. Wishful thinking?
Her wits returned, Mairi lifted the cloth on the basket to show him. “I brought food. There’s a wondrous place I could show ye, if ye’d like to ride.” She then lifted a bridle off its peg and handed it to him, nodding toward her mare.
“Ride?” He glanced around them and back at her. “Alone?”
She grinned and cocked her head to one side. “Why not? We are betrothed. Who’s there to censure us? None, that’s who!”
With a shrug of uncertainty, he reached for her saddle. Mairi felt content to simply watch him move as he readied her mount and then his own.
Grace in motion, she thought, impressed by the economy of his every action, the play of muscles just visible through his well-fitted clothing.
Rude or not, he stirred her blood, this man. He was the first to do so, and so she half forgave him for his inattentiveness last evening and the lapse of that enchanting smile just now. Mayhaps he was only shy, or had never been taught better manners.
She could teach him. For a first lesson, she waited expectantly for him to assist her in mounting. After a hasty perusal of her person, he grasped her waist, lifted her as if she weighed no more than the basket of food and plunked her atop her mare.
Had those braw hands of his lingered longer upon her than necessary? She thought so. A good sign, that.
He quickly mounted and they rode in silence for a while with Mairi leading the way. Her special place awaited them, a lovely clearing in the wood where a stream pooled beneath a shallow fall. The ferns and flowers growing there made it seem a faerie glen. They could spend a few quiet hours away from the keep, becoming acquainted.
Not that she would allow him any liberties. He would know better than to attempt that before the wedding, certainly. Or would he?
Mairi smiled to herself, almost wishing he would abandon propriety. Many a couple anticipated their final vows. Not that she would countenance such doings, of course, even to turn him up sweet. A lady must have limits. Da said so.
So many times Mairi had wished to speak with another woman about these matters. Her mother was long dead and the few females left at Craigmuir were not the sort she’d ask for advice of that nature. Most were right free with their favors and made no secret of it.
When they reached her destination, MacBain remained mounted and spent quite some time observing the surrounding woods. She could have sworn he checked the grassy ground for tracks and sniffed the air for trouble. Did he believe she had invited him into a trap of some kind?
“I like it,” he announced finally as he dismounted and came to assist her off her mare.
Then