The men sent to Mingarry Castle returned the next day to report that Ewen Macdonald wasn’t there. Lady Joanna’s cousin and clan commander had left before they arrived, apparently with the intention of riding to Stalcaire to request an audience with the king.
Rory received the news without comment. Ewen’s appeal to James Stewart would be in vain. The political reasons behind the alliance uniting a MacLean and a Macdonald would prove to be uppermost in their sovereign’s mind. Rory would soon wed the Maid of Glencoe, despite all pleas to the contrary.
The image of Joanna, standing wide-eyed and open-mouthed in his bedchamber, had been seared into his brain. Her innocent gaze had roamed over his near-naked frame, bringing a reaction so fierce and sudden, he’d been rendered all but speechless. ’Twas nigh unbelievable. Why had his body responded to that slip of a girl dressed in boy’s garb? She’d gaped at him as if he were some rude barbarian. Dammit, the lass was as insignificant as a gnat and just as irritating.
Feeling restless and impatient, he decided to take Fraoch for a gallop. Remaining cooped up within the walls of a castle had lacerated Rory’s nerves; he was used to the open sea. A moving deck beneath his feet, the sound of the wind whistling around the masts, and the soothing slap of the waves against the prow easily eclipsed the raucous hurly-burly of Kinlochleven’s lower bailey.
Intending to harness and saddle his mount himself, Rory didn’t bother to call out as he entered the cool, dim stables. The gentle nickers of the horses welcomed him as he strode past the stalls, his steps muffled by the loose straw on the dirt floor.
He stopped short at the sight of Joanna, crouched on a bundle of hay and peeking through the slats of one crib into another, her chores forgotten.
From his superior height, Rory could see easily over the top of the farther stall. Tam MacLean, his plaid shoved up out of his way, had one of the comely dairymaids nearly buried beneath him in a mound of straw. The lass’s skirts had been lifted to her hips, and her plump white thighs cradled Tam’s naked flanks as the soldier pumped rhythmically. The buxom girl buried her fingers in Tam’s yellow hair and pressed his mouth to her exposed bosom, all the while emitting breathy whimpers of encouragement.
Grinning, Rory reached down and grabbed Joanna by the collar. Her surprised yelp alerted the two lovers, who quickly disengaged and repaired their disheveled clothing. With one meaningful look, he sent Tam and the scarlet-faced dairymaid hustling out of the stable.
Rory set his future bride on her feet. “Don’t you know better than to spy on the grown-ups?” Rory asked with a feigned scowl.
“I wasn’t spying,” Joanna said defensively. “I heard Mary’s sobs and thought that blackhearted devil was hurting her. I grabbed a pitchfork to stab him, but then she started moaning for him not to stop, so I waited to see what was going to happen next.”
From the shock in the lassie’s enormous eyes, Rory realized she was telling the truth. Apparently no one had ever bothered to explain the facts of procreation to the virtuous little maid.
He tried not to laugh at the comical look of stupefaction on her face. “And when did you finally realize he wasn’t hurting her?”
Joanna lowered her head and hunched her shoulders at the question. “I got a fair idea of what they were doing soon enough,” she admitted to the toes of her scuffed boots, a blush of mortification spreading over her face. “Only they’re supposed to wait till they’re married.”
Rory smiled at the indignation in the husky voice. “That’s true,” he replied, “but people don’t always wait.”
Joanna’s russet brows drew together as she tugged her knit cap further down over her ears. “I don’t understand why not,” she stated bleakly. “I’d think you’d only do that if you had to.”
Rory sank down on the stack of hay, thoroughly enjoying her outspoken nature and obvious inquisitiveness. But he didn’t want his bride to come to their marriage bed frightened. “You’ll find that when your own body starts to awaken. Joey, the idea won’t seem so repulsive. And if you’re lucky, the bonny lass your eye lights upon may feel the same way.”
Joanna peeped up from under thick lashes for a moment, studying him with a thoughtful frown. “Is that what you intend to do to the Lady Joanna when you find her?” she asked suspiciously.
“After the wedding, I will,” Rory said, sharp carnal need spearing through him at the thought. “’Tis what a man does with his wife, laddie. There’s no shame in it. Nor harm, either.”
She took an involuntary step back, bewilderment on her dirty face. “What if the wife doesn’t want to?”
He kept his voice soft and reassuring. “Then it’s the husband’s responsibility to make her want to.”
Joanna stared at the golden-haired warrior seated on the bale of hay in front of her, frozen in sheer terror as the specter of torture rose up before her. The methods employed on common felons ranged from the boot to iron gauntlets. What would the notorious Sea Dragon inflict on a recalcitrant wife?
“By beating her?” she asked.
He smiled, and the crinkles around the corners of his eyes deepened. “There’s no need to use a lash to get a lassie to do your bidding, Joey.”
Joanna drew a quick, steadying breath. She knew the magnificent, broad-shouldered creature before her was wicked, but did he possess sorcery, too? Perhaps the magical power of the sea dragons had descended, along with their scaly green tails, from father to son in an unbroken line. ’Twould account for the strange effect he had on her. Her words rasped in her dry throat. “How, then?”
MacLean gestured toward the chestnut mare in the next stall, watching them with curious eyes. “The same way Jock taught you to handle the horses by coaxing them with carrots and apples to eat out of your palm. Once they get used to the smell and feel of you, they come round.”
Her crushing disappointment at the bald, unromantic description of courtship tempered Joanna’s relief.
Godsakes—carrots and apples?
Where were the ardent serenades sung beneath the lady’s window, the poetry and flowers, the pledges of undying love?
The thought of MacLean doing to her what she’d witnessed between Tam and Mary wasn’t at all the romantic rendezvous she’d envisioned for her wedding night. God’s truth, such earthy sensuality left her breathless and trembling.
The sudden memory of the Sea Dragon’s large, sinewy male body, naked except for the scrap of white linen, flooded her with embarrassment. Her heart did a funny little skip. Just imagining the touch of his lips on her bare breasts sent a tingling sensation curling through her inner parts. Even the sound of his deep baritone brought goose bumps to her skin. Though she’d ruled out torture as his preferred method of seduction, the use of magical powers couldn’t be so easily dismissed. There were definite physical changes in her body whenever she was near him that couldn’t be explained in any other way.
“Have you tamed many lassies with apples and carrots?” Joanna inquired, determined to squash the fluttery response in her belly.
MacLean gave a short, good-natured laugh, which she assumed was a modest affirmative.
She frowned at him skeptically. “Without once thrashing them?”
His emerald eyes sparkled with amusement. The thick golden hair framed his ax-sharp features, softened now by his devastating grin. “For a halflin, Joey, you’ve a mansized curiosity,” he said with a chuckle. “A wise man doesn’t use a whip on his woman any more than he does on a fine horse.”
Now he’d thoroughly confused her. As a young girl, Joanna had dreamed of a knight in shining armor coming to Allonby Castle and carrying her away on his magnificent white charger. Instead, she’d been betrothed to a man who equated courtship to horse training. “You’d treat your wife like your livestock, then?”
“That’s not what I meant, lad,” MacLean said patiently. “But a man’s wife does belong to him, just as his land and his cattle. And he takes good care of what belongs to him, just as he protects it from rapacious neighbors’ raiding parties.”
At Joanna’s mystified silence, he continued in an amused tone, quoting an old Highland proverb. “‘My own goods, my own wife, and we will go home are the three finest sayings in Gaelic.’”
The fact that he considered both her and Kinlochleven Castle his property couldn’t have been stated more boldly or clearly.
“Seumas told us you’re planning to make changes in the castle’s fortifications,” she said. “Don’t you think you should discuss it with Lady Joanna first?”
Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands loosely in front of him. “Why would I?”
“Because she might not agree with your plans.”
“What would a woman know about fortifications?” he asked in a bewildered tone.
“You could explain it to her.”
He flashed her a lopsided smile as he shook his head. “And have her explain how she supervises the candlemaking to me? Or the bleaching of linen?”
Appalled at his intention to shut his wife out of the most important decisions affecting her own castle, Joanna tucked her thumbs in her belt and scowled at him. “You think because she’s a maid she couldn’t understand?”
He eyed her for a moment, then shrugged. “Lady Joanna’s a bit slow,” he said, tapping a fingertip to his temple, “even for a female.”
She stared at him, indignation burning inside her. “What makes you say that?” she demanded.
“I was told so the first day I arrived. And Lady Joanna hasn’t said three words to me in the time I’ve been here. The moment I come into view, she looks at me as though I’ve two heads and scurries away like a frightened wee mouse. So I assumed Lady Beatrix had spoken the truth, when she said the simpleminded heiress sometimes wanders about the glen, lost in a daze.”
“Oh,” Joanna replied. She bit her lip and looked down at the straw covering the floor. She’d forgotten that part of their plan.
“That is true, isn’t it?” he questioned.
She looked up to find him watching her intently. “Why, of course,” she replied. “But I still think you should discuss your plans with her. She might understand more than you think.”
“Whether she’d understand or not isn’t the point, lad,” he stated. “I wouldn’t debate the emplacement of the castle’s artillery with my wife any more than I’d discuss a battle strategy with her. Protecting a fortress from its enemies is a man’s responsibility.”
Her low voice dropped another octave as she said tightly, “And a woman’s responsibility is to see to her husband’s comfort, produce a batch of bairns, and keep her nose out of his bloody business.”
MacLean plucked a piece of hay from the stack he sat on and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “For a wee laddie, you’re taking this discussion very seriously.”
Joanna caught herself just in time. She plopped down beside him and shrugged indifferently. “I was only supposing. I’ll never have to worry about castles or lands—or womenfolk, either, for that matter.”
He whacked her on the back, nearly dislodging her from the bundle of hay. “Consider yourself lucky,” he advised. “You’ll be able to choose your own bride, instead of having one chosen for you.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Don’t you want to marry Lady Joanna?”
“Why would I?” he asked with a lift of his brows. He rose to his feet before she could ask another question. “You’d best be getting back to your chores now,” he said briskly.
As Joanna poured oats into the feed troughs, she watched MacLean saddle Fraoch and lead him out of the stables. She prayed that Ewen would arrive soon. For she could never allow poor Idoine to be shackled for life to an ignorant jackass, who had all the romantic sensitivity of a door.
Rory’s conversation in the stables with his irrepressible bride-to-be heightened his curiosity. He wanted to learn more about her. Hell, he wanted to learn everything about her, starting with what she’d look like without her boy’s disguise—or anything on at all, for that matter. He found himself thinking of their wedding night and the delights that lay in store. Since he couldn’t question Joanna directly, he decided to send for Maude Beaton.
“I’m told you were Lady Joanna’s nursemaid when she was small,” Rory said when the woman arrived. He stood in front of the fireplace in the library, one arm resting on the granite mantelpiece.
Maude sat down stiffly in the ladderback chair he’d indicated, a basket of colorful yarns she’d carried into the room resting in her lap. Attired in a fine wool gown, with a black headdress banded in velvet, she watched him with thoughtful gray eyes. Her costume and bearing bespoke a highly respected member of the household, and she showed no sign of fear in his presence, as did the other females.
“That I was, laird,” she replied. “Though as for nursing her through illnesses and such, there wasn’t much call for that. Joanna came into this world screaming her lungs out, her wee arms flapping and her short legs kicking, and she hasn’t been still a moment since. ’Twas her mama who was the sickly one. From the day Lady Anne learned her husband had been killed in battle, her broken heart never healed.”
“And that’s when the Englishwoman returned to Cumberland with her daughter?”
Maude nodded and breathed a long, cheerless sigh. “I insisted on going with them. Couldn’t stand the thought of being parted from my wee lamb, though it meant going to live among the Sassenachs. In the seven unhappy years we were there, I thanked God every day, for her sake, that I did.”
“Why unhappy?”
Maude looked at the powerful laird standing before her and wondered just how truthfully she should answer him. When Joanna had concocted her ridiculous scheme to pose as a lad, Maude had been certain the King’s Avenger would be as cruel and savage as legend portrayed. But after the first day, he’d shown great patience and understanding with his kinsmen-to-be. Not one Macdonald had been molested during his brief time as their new laird.
From the charts on the table, she surmised that MacLean planned to make improvements in his new home, not merely drain it of its resources for his own aggrandizement. And his leadership of men was unquestionable. Though stern and short of words, he conducted himself with decorum. To her knowledge, not a chambermaid—or a dairymaid, either—had spent a night in his bed, though more than a few willing lassies had succumbed to the blandishments of his hearty men-at-arms.
And Maude felt certain that Joanna’s ruse would soon be discovered. The shrewd, sardonic green eyes watching her now convinced her of that. Lady Joanna and Laird MacLean would spend the rest of their lives bound to each other. It made no sense for the lass’s future husband to think less of her than he already did, simply because she was a Macdonald.
“Och, the Nevilles never accepted her—Joanna being half-Scot and all,” Maude said at last. “They criticized her accent and her uninhibited ways. Even the servants were needlessly cruel. I once overheard an uppity chambermaid call my sweet lassie a mongrel behind her back. I boxed the nasty chit’s ears good for her, I did.”
Intrigued, Rory sank down in the chair across from the ruddy-cheeked woman. “The Nevilles allowed this kind of treatment of their only granddaughter?”
“Joanna’s grandparents were seldom at Allonby,” Maude explained. “The marquess remained in London until his failing health caused him to retire to the country. He died a few weeks later, and his wife returned to court, only to follow him very shortly to the grave.” She waved her hand in contemptuous dismissal. “Not much loss there. Neither one of ’em was worth a ha’pence, if you ask me.”
Rory steepled his fingers, his elbows resting on the chair arms, and searched her perceptive gaze. The day the king of Scotland had commanded Rory to marry Joanna, he’d explained that George Neville, Marquess of Allonby, had been a trusted courtier in Henry Tudor’s court, and the marchioness a lady-in-waiting to the English queen.
Rory motioned for Maude to go on.
“Lady Anne loved her daughter dearly,” she assured him, “but her ladyship was an invalid for the remaining years of her life. So the poor dear lassie grew up alone and pretty much forgotten.”
“No one saw to the future heiress’s training in deportment or the running of a household?” he asked in surprise.
“My faith. Joanna had tutors, right enough. Mean, pinch-faced men who’d rap her wee knuckles for the least mistake in her recitations.”
“And did she make mistakes often?” he asked quietly, though his jaw tightened at the thought of anyone purposefully inflicting pain on the spirited lassie.
“Often enough to reduce her to tears at the sight of them,” Maude replied, her eyes flashing with scorn. “Scholars. Hah! There was no pleasing any of those self-righteous hypocrites. ’Twas no wonder she’d sneak out to the stables, saddle her pony, and ride for hours through the countryside all by herself. The only solace she had was her daydreams and the stories I’d tell her in the evening just before she fell asleep. Mostly, she lived in a world of her own creation, filled with knights and their ladies fair and evil dragons needing to be vanquished.”
“I see.”
But he didn’t see at all. Knights. Dragons. Ladies fair. None of it made much sense. And Rory was, above all, a sensible man.
Maude glanced over at the sheets of parchment spread across the library table. “Are you planning to make changes, laird?” she asked with the inherent aplomb of a trusted retainer.
Drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair, Rory nodded absently. He’d imagined the Maid of Glencoe as a pampered Sassenach noblewoman, given everything her heart desired. The possibility that she’d been mistreated because of her Scottish blood hadn’t occurred to him. His lack of awareness pricked his conscience—he wasn’t generally that obtuse. He’d let the fact that she was a Macdonald overshadow everything else.
“Was her maltreatment the reason Lady Joanna decided to return to Scotland when her mother died?” he questioned.
Maude smiled reminiscently. “Bless us, milady didn’t make that decision. ’Twas made for Joanna by her Uncle and Aunt Blithfield.”
That surprised him. Usually relatives were anxious to hang on to an orphaned lass born with a silver spoon in her mouth.
“They sent the heiress back to Scotland?”
“Not exactly.” Her gaze on the colorful basket in her lap, Maude smoothed her fingers over the balls of brilliant yarn. Her smile spread into an irrepressible grin.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Well, now,” she said, “shortly after Lady Anne died, Lord Philip and Lady Clarissa came to take Joanna back to London with them. Clarissa was Lady Anne’s younger sister. As far as the Blithfields were concerned, Allonby Castle was the farthest outpost of civilization, and they couldn’t wait to shake its dust from their fancy shoes. But before they could pack Joanna up and hustle her off to their manor in Surrey, an army of Scotsmen appeared at the gate. Their leader demanded they turn the heiress over to him or he’d storm the fortress and slay every living soul. Rather than risk losing their own lives, those two cowardly Sassenachs agreed to hand her over, with not so much as a sword being drawn or a hackbut discharged.”
Rory scowled, scarcely able to believe the tale. “Her own relatives relinquished Joanna without a fight?”
“Humph,” Maude said, as she made a distasteful face. “You must remember, laird, the English aren’t known for their honor. Nor their courage, either.”
That much he knew to be true. “Was she held for ransom?”
Maude chuckled and shook her head. “The Scots’ leader was none other than the lassie’s grandpa, old Somerled Macdonald. The Blithfields had never seen him, and when he identified himself as the Red Wolf of Glencoe, the two imbeciles still didn’t realize who he was. They simply had the portcullis raised and shoved the wee lassie outside.”
“No one in the castle tried to stop them?”
“Oh, the officer of the guard tried to reason with the Blithfields. Captain Pechell told the lass he and every last one of his men were willing to give their lives defending her. But when Joanna heard that the armed force outside the walls was too large to repel, she insisted on sacrificing herself to save the others.”
Rory leaned forward in astonishment. “Didn’t she know who the Scots leader was?”
Maude shook her head. “Not till she stepped outside the gate. No one had bothered to tell her ’twas the Red Wolf. Then Somerled opened his arms and called her by name, and Joanna ran to him. He said he’d come to take her home to Scotland.”
“Why hadn’t he told the Blithfields who he was in the first place, instead of threatening the castle?”
“Because Somerled knew they’d never give her up unless they feared for their own lives. ’Tis a fortune she’s worth, as you very well know, milord. The last thing they wanted was to let the golden goose slip through their fingers. But their terror of the Scots was greater than their greed.”
Maude’s emphasis on the maid’s fortune made Rory realize exactly how the loyal nursemaid viewed him. In her eyes, he was just another avaricious person who coveted the girl for the wealth and lands she represented.
Dammit, he had tried to throw the proposed alliance back in the king’s teeth, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Maude now. She’d never believe him, anyway.
“If what you say is true,” he stated skeptically, “Lady Joanna showed uncommon valor.”
Maude lifted her brows at the inference she’d been lying. “Faith, ’tis true, right enough. The lass has more pluck than most men. But then, she is a Macdonald.”
His eyes thoughtful, the laird rose to his feet. “That’s all for now. You may go.”
She dipped a curtsy and left The MacLean to his quiet contemplation, with the hope that her words would soften his wrath when he discovered just who his impetuous bride-to-be really was.