Hours later, in the early afternoon, Annabel hurried along castle passageways and dashed down dizzying spiralled stairs, wending her way through a labyrinth of corridors.
At last she slipped inside a room, quietly closed the door, and stood with her back resting against it. She held her breath, heart beating a staccato against her ribs. There, she waited. And listened.
With her maidservant occupied elsewhere, it was the perfect opportunity to take advantage of Roderick’s absence from Finvreck in favour of escaping the boredom of her bedchamber and to hide where she’d least likely be found.
The library.
The perfect distraction. Somewhere to be alone and to explore, for the first time, the private sanctuary of the old laird’s den.
Of course, she’d have preferred to accompany Roderick in escorting Thomas home to his parents. If only she hadn’t outwardly, and genuinely, reacted to her father’s news of the deserters and their unforgiveable behaviour towards her clansmen and to the lad’s parents. Roderick had attributed this shocking news to a relapse in her recovering health and so insisted she stay and rest.
She’d agreed, thinking it more prudent to show herself as slowly on the mend. By tomorrow morning she’d present herself as fully recovered from yesterday’s pretence of feeling ill. Still, she lamented not being able to witness what would have to be a joyous reunion between mother, father and son. Already Annabel missed the boy.
No sounds of footsteps passed beyond the library door. Safe to breathe again. Triumph tugged her lips into a smug smile. How easy it had been to give her minder the run-around and lose him. Let him report that to the laird!
Her eyes adjusted to the darkened room. Dust motes danced in slivers of sunlight streaming through a gap between the heavy curtains and the window frame. The chilly air smelled redolent of tobacco and leather-covered tomes.
She made her way over to each of the three windows and brushed the curtains aside, eyes squinting as bright afternoon sunshine flooded the room. A bracing spring breeze flowed through the windows the instant she opened them. Her gaze lifted to the lofty ceiling and heavily panelled walls. Rows of books lined the shelf-encircled library, with some shelves bowing under the weight of heavy volumes. How could one person possibly read each of these books in a given lifetime?
Worn leather wing-backed chairs sat either side of where she stood. Additional armchairs and a sofa were arranged in a semi-circle around the unlit hearth. Thick woven rugs covered timber floors. Oak side tables could do with a polish, so too the silver candelabra sitting on the mantelpiece.
Annabel turned her gaze to several portraits on the walls. Lairds gone by? Dressed in full traditional kilted regalia, they scowled down their noses at her. She was a MacDonald, after all, an unwelcome enemy in their midst. Their intimidating stares forced her gaze from theirs.
A stroll beside dusty literary shelves had her give in to the temptation of touch, to trail her fingers across the varied book spines. Thin and thick books, tall and short books. Tan-coloured and dark moss hardcovers. She selected one at random and fanned the pages to view its content. Drawings of strange animals fascinated her. Maps and illustrations of ships made her yearn to travel to far-off lands, perhaps one day to reunite with her uncle in France.
Other books held nothing but words, possibly about people, real or fictional. Annabel sensed their tangible presence, as if they waited in the wings, ready to populate her mind. Were their lives less complicated than hers? She’d never know.
She walked her fingers from one book to the next and came to rest on one. The gold lettering on its navy-coloured spine glimmered in a shaft of sunlight. She drew it from the shelf and carried it to the large desk on the opposite side of the room. There, she laid it down beside a neat pile of papers. Everything on the desk suggested the late laird had been an orderly man, or had Angus, or perhaps Roderick, stacked and maintained a tidy table?
The chair behind the desk beckoned another temptation. To sit. Its high broad back and seat were crafted and upholstered to house a man. Annabel smoothed her palms along the decoratively carved wooden arms. Her gaze lifted to see the room as each successive laird had perhaps viewed it. What conversations had taken place in this library? What arguments, debates and decisions had determined the fates of MacLeod clansmen? Was this the very room where her father and the late laird negotiated the marriage between Roderick and herself?
She leaned forwards and picked from a tray a sheet of blank parchment. Beside the tray sat an ink pot and quill. Her intimate knowledge of birds determined the quill to be that from a goose. She reached for it and ran the feather’s tip down her cheek and beneath her chin. The scintillating sensation had her repeat the action again.
When she poised the quill above the parchment, it slipped from her awkward grip. A second attempt saw her scratch the inkless nib across the paper in a haphazard fashion. For a fanciful few seconds she pretended to be a woman of scholarly worth, and that what she would like to say on paper might one day echo on the lips of readers, or better still, appear between the covers of a book, destined to adorn the shelves of a library such as this.
Foolish lass! She set the quill in its stand and pushed the parchment aside, along with her ludicrous dream.
Annabel opened the book she’d selected. It contained no pictures and so she spent long moments studying the shape of the print and the amount of text versus white page space. Each printed line presented as a different pattern of markings, like notes on a music staff. Her finger pads ran over the print. Gradually, her vision blurred and her focus drifted and waned to the point of absent-mindedly thumbing through the pages.
The story in her head took over, reliving every minute when, this morning, Jessie had burst into her chamber with news of her father and brother’s arrival. She remembered dressing in a mad panic, hoping to intercept and abort any plans that might see her ousted from Finvreck.
Her feigned illness had turned gut-wrenchingly real when she’d pressed her ear to the door outside the great hall’s anteroom and overheard the argumentative exchange between the two lairds. The moment Roderick demanded her father take her home was the moment Annabel made the decision to intervene. She had to, needed to, stay.
If she hadn’t entered the room when she did she might never have been struck down, as if by lightning, when Roderick had set his gaze upon her. When the heat of his anger suddenly vanished, replaced by something that, in that instant, she’d struggled to give a name.
Now, given time to think about it, and if she were right in her assumption, she believed that something about the look he’d sent her had mirrored her feelings whenever she set eyes upon him, and whenever they occupied the same room. It gave birth to the urge to want to reach out and touch him. To press her palm against his cheek. Rub the texture of his dark hair between her fingers. Breathe in his breath, his scent. To better know and understand him.
It came to her then. One word. It explained what the MacLeod had communicated in the blink of his eyes and that which seemed to hang in the air between them.
Desire.
Fool. No man would feel desire for a tall, unattractive, wild-haired redhead. It was another laughable dream, one her father had convinced her to believe impossible.
And yet the result of this morning’s conversation still left her completely dumbfounded. Who would have thought Roderick MacLeod would be her salvation?
Yesterday, at her bedside, he’d sought her trust with his outstretched hand. He’d done the same this morning, only this time he’d extended her more than his trust. She’d seen something else in his eyes, incorrectly discerning it as pity until Roderick confirmed it was respect.
Each of his gently spoken words was like taking a hammer and chisel to the wall protecting her heart. The fortress—behind which she’d corralled vulnerable emotions and poor self-esteem—had been breached and therefore compromised. Kind words had weakened her, pushing her to the brink of crying unshed tears, unaccustomed as she was to receiving a compliment.
From a man like Roderick MacLeod.
He was no gullible buffoon but rather rebutted the idea of a proxy marriage. He’d discovered firsthand something about Annabel she could no longer hide. That which her father had aptly demonstrated. She was the runt of his litter. He’d unashamedly disowned and dusted his hands of her with no regrets. How she’d wished, in that very moment, to slip between the cracks in the stone-flagged floor.
But then, like the long-held fantasy in her mind, Roderick MacLeod had burst through the dark fog of her shame, inconceivably rescuing her from further humiliation. Why, after witnessing the lack of love and consideration shown her by her father, had he defended her? No Highlander had the courage to contradict her father face-to-face.
On a whisper, Annabel repeated Roderick’s words into the stillness of the library. ‘She has been like a cool and cleansing wave.’ Her cheeks grew warm and her insides fluttered like a kaleidoscope of butterflies trapped in a net. It was the most moving thing any man had ever said about her.
Because she didn’t genuinely believe him, she didn’t understand or trust the reasons behind his actions. That made him a dangerous adversary. She’d everything to gain by remaining here at Finvreck and yet her presence could be of no benefit or consequence to him. What else could she do but accept his outstretched hand? It was the least she could do to thank him.
‘Comfortable?’
Annabel jumped, startled by the terse, instantly recognisable voice.
Roderick MacLeod’s powerful frame filled the open doorway. ‘Stare at that book a minute longer and your eyes will burn holes in it.’ Like the way he stared at her now.
Annabel’s shock at seeing him standing there made her slow to react. Slow to realise she’d been caught trespassing in his private domain and caught sitting in his chair, at his desk and amidst his private affairs. The gravity of her actions sank in. She shot to her feet. ‘I—’
‘Don’t move!’
Given her thoughtless indiscretion, she didn’t dare disobey him and so remained standing at the desk, watching him watch her. How long had she stared at the book without turning a page?
He looked displeased, rightly so, like the portraits of his ancestors on the walls. She squirmed beneath their, and now Roderick’s, accusing glare. He had every right to be angry with her for trespassing in this part of the castle and she now feared what repercussions he might enforce.
‘Suddenly well enough to leave your room?’ Suspicion resonated in his tone.
‘Weel enough, aye.’
He stood still and continued to stare. How long had he observed her? Did he hear her quote his words, even if she had whispered them?
He crossed the threshold, closing the door behind him, and made a steady approach. Like a predator stalking its prey, not once did he take his eyes from her face. Annabel experienced mild panic. Should she fight or flee?
She tensed, never one to flee.
There was a sudden shift in the air between them. The butterflies in her gut grew larger wings, a catalyst to the rising heat in his eyes. Was it the heat of anger or unnerving desire?
With his every slow step, Annabel looked her fill of him. From his leather riding boots and breeches, broad jacket-clad shoulders and dark wind-swept hair. He stopped in front of the desk, arms at his sides. His gaze dropped to the open book. In a matter of seconds, his compressed lips showed the hint of a smile and stiff shoulders seemed to relax.
He drew a circle in the air with his index finger to encompass the shelves all around them. ‘So many books.’ He pointed to her selection on the desk. ‘My mother would have been impressed with your choice. He was one of her favourites.’
‘Who was one of her favourites?’ Annabel was still trying to gauge how long she’d been oblivious to his presence.
‘William Shakespeare. Poet and playwright.’
She looked down at the book. ‘Oh!’ Her gaze lifted. ‘I’ve ne’er heard of him.’
‘Ah. Well. He is a Sassenach, after all.’
‘My apologies, Laird. I had nae right to help myself to yer mother’s collection or occupy yer chair.’
‘Or enter this room!’
She gulped and hastily moved to step away but he reached across the desk and lightly took hold of her wrist. His touch triggered a weakening in her knees.
‘Sit down. Continue reading, by all means.’ He let go of her hand and cast his gaze upon the book. His lips quirked as if seeing the irony in something she clearly did not. ‘The Taming of the Shrew. Read on. Aloud.’ He tapped the page with his finger. ‘This is a particularly entertaining scene.’
She closed the book and traced the gold lettering on its cover. ‘I’ll leave ye to yer privacy.’ Before she could step away, he’d rounded the desk to block her escape.
‘You don’t find that scene humorous?’
‘Nae.’
‘Why not?’
She hesitated, looking anywhere but at him.
‘Annabel?’
She lifted her chin and met his gaze. ‘I cannae read.’
His eyes darted to the book then back to Annabel. ‘You’re a laird’s daughter. Did you not receive private tuition?’
‘Nae.’
‘For what reason?’
‘It pleased my father that I should learn only the necessary skills required to carry out duties expected of a woman in … my position.’
He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it tight. His brows drew together in a frown. He turned, walked a few paces forwards, and settled both hands on his lean hips. There he stood for several moments with his back to Annabel, before turning again to face her. ‘Would you like to learn?’
It took a moment or two to comprehend exactly what he was offering her. ‘Ye would teach me to read?’
‘Aye.’
She’d be foolish to decline such an opportunity. Being able to read would open, for her, unimaginable doors. No longer would she have to rely on interpreting shapes and pictures to understand the sea captain’s instructions or to convey messages between her associates with simple sketches and drawings. ‘I would like to learn. Verra much.’
‘And write,’ he said. ‘You can’t learn one without the other. The two go hand-in-hand.’
On the desk sat materials at her disposal: inkwell, parchment and quill. She could forge documents, referrals or letters of recommendation to assist fugitives on their way. She could communicate with her uncle in France. The prospect of learning such an invaluable skill almost rendered Annabel speechless. ‘Aye,’ she said, eager and excited. ‘If ye say so.’
‘Then we shall start your lessons now.’
‘Now?’ His generosity astonished her.
‘Unless you feel suddenly unwell.’ He raised a brow in question.
Annabel grew warm from the heat of her lie. ‘I am much improved and therefore weel enough to make a start. How long will it take to learn how to read and write?’
‘Weeks. Months. That depends on you. On how well you listen and take direction. I’ll set time aside to tutor you every day and you must make time to practice.’
Weeks? Months? No. Suspicion set in. It was enough he permitted her to stay at Finvreck, indefinitely, but what reason did he have to extend her the courtesy of his time, his attention and knowledge?
She took a step back from him. ‘Thank ye, but I’ve changed my mind. Books are of nae use to me. Nor handwriting. Best ye utilise yer time to search for yer replacement as laird. I imagine ye’re anxious to resume yer life and career in London.’
Annabel felt certain he hid something behind his smile. Even his step forwards seemed calculated, leaving her more than a little unnerved.
‘That could prove to be a lengthy process,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, I shall derive as much pleasure from teaching you literacy as I’m sure you will enjoy learning it.’
‘Pleasure? I dinnae think—’
‘You agreed to abide by my rules and conditions in exchange for residing here at Finvreck, did you not?’
‘Aye, but—’
‘You are free to change your mind and return home to your father.’
‘Nae!’ She swallowed, collecting her thoughts. ‘Am I to understand that lessons in literacy are among these rules and conditions?’
‘They are now.’
‘Ye’ve only just learned I can neither read nor write. How could ye have possibly factored literacy lessons into yer conditions when ye knew nothing about it this morning?’
‘I didn’t. My decision evolved as a result of this discussion.’
How convenient. ‘Ye mean ye’re going to make it up as ye go along?’ She shook her head. ‘I’d like to hear, now, exactly what it is ye expect of me.’
‘Your company, Annabel. Wherever, whenever, and for whatever reason I desire it. Outside of that, you’ll be left alone. Your time, and what you choose to do with it, is your own.’
She detected an intimate undercurrent in his tone. Annabel had no comeback. He was right, and fool that she’d been, she’d trusted that whatever he wished to ask of her would be fair and reasonable. It wasn’t the idea of learning to read that set her nerves on edge, but rather the prospect of spending time with him.
She rubbed moist palms against her skirt. How would she endure minutes, hours, even days, breathing the same air as him when already her stomach flipped, her breathing faltered, and her sensibilities turned to mush? What was happening to her?
‘I ask only to enjoy your company, Annabel. As and when I choose.’
‘My company. That’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
She gave the matter thought. ‘Then, to avoid any misunderstanding between us, dinnae use the word ask or request when seeking my company. If ye would please use the word expect, then I’ll ken when yer summons is mandatory.’
‘Well played, lass.’
‘Aye, weel. Ground rules must be established for any partnership to succeed.’
‘Partnership now, is it?’
‘Call it what ye will, but before I agree wholeheartedly to yer rules I have one further stipulation.’
‘Of course you do.’ There was humour in his voice. He gestured with his hand for her to speak.
Annabel flicked her gaze to the closed library door, then back to Roderick. ‘The human deerhound that follows me. Ask him to heel.’
Roderick erupted into laughter. ‘My man is not very good at his job, is he?’
‘Nae.’ Annabel smiled in spite of herself. ‘I doubt he could follow his own nose.’
‘Consider it done. Now take your seat.’
He retrieved another chair and placed it directly beside her, then walked with purpose to the bookshelves and selected a book. His fingernails drummed the cover. A smile pulled at his lips. Darkening summer-sky eyes swung her way. ‘Take a seat, Annabel. Your lessons begin.’