The Laird's Lady

Tamping down any compassion he might have felt, Malcolm deposited his delicate burden in a chamber at the top of the stairs and strode out the door without a backward glance. He nearly knocked over Gerta in his haste.

“She’s in there,” he barked, leaving the old woman to nurse the Beaumont she-demon back to her former good health.

Rosalind awoke to a light so bright she feared she had passed into the hereafter.

“You awake, love?” asked a familiar feminine voice.

An angel?

“You are awake, I can tell. Open your eyes, Rosalind Beaumont, and cease this nonsense.”

No angel. It was most certainly Gerta.

Rosalind peeked out blearily to see her childhood nurse frowning at her. Sunlight filtered in through a small window high above her. The normal courtyard sounds of carts rolling and crofters shouting drifted on the cool breeze, while a fire burned merrily at the foot of her bed.

“I knew ’tweren’t nothing wrong with you that a bit of sleep would not cure.” Gerta smiled, a rare display for the perpetually irritable elder woman.

Rosalind marveled how the change in expression transformed her wrinkled face. Gerta was a fair woman yet.

“Everyone has been fretting about you, but old Gerta knew you were too stubborn to let the dungeon get the best of you for long.”

The dungeon. Memories of the cold, endless night assailed Rosalind.

“Is everyone…” Her belly roiled again. She could not finish the question, but she had to know if anyone still lived after the Scots invasion.

“You thought those Scotsmen would slaughter the lot of us, didn’t you, my poor little lamb?” Gerta squeezed her mistress’s hand in her own. “I had a feeling that is what worsened your health these past days—fear for the rest of us and none for yourself.”

“How long has it been since the siege?”

“Three days. One in the keep’s underbelly for you, two up here convalescing.”

For Rosalind, time had been a blur. “What did they do to me?” Had they beaten her? She honestly couldn’t remember much.

“They did naught to you, sweeting, but neither did they take very good care of you. I let that old goat Lachlan Gordon know what I thought about his neglect, you can be sure.” Gerta’s gray coronet bobbed in time with her emphatic words. “Treating the lady of Beaumont like a common prisoner of war. But at least Lord Malcolm remembered to go fetch you out.”

“Who, pray tell, is Lord Malcolm?”

“No offense to you, but the McNair does run the keep now. The servants did not know how else to call him.”

Rosalind pondered this, appeased but not pleased. She could hardly ask Gerta to purposely bait a barbaric Scotsman.

“At any rate, it has been two days since he brought you upstairs and asked me to care for you.”

“The same man who locked me in my own dungeon to start with?” The thought of herself in Malcolm McNair’s arms disturbed her.

“Aye. But at least we have not lost any lives. A bloody miracle, considering the fight we put up.”

Rosalind’s annoyance fled. Had she heard properly?

“It is true,” Gerta continued, as if sensing her disbelief. “All of the prisoners they took in battle were spared if they would but give the Scots their allegiance.”

“They did what?” Rosalind shot upright, anger pulsing through her even though her head swam at the quick movement.

“Not to the Scottish cause.” Gerta patted her shoulder. “Just a promise not to turn on the new lord.”

“It is the same thing.” Rosalind threw aside her covers and slid out of bed. “You mean to tell me all of Beaumont has sworn loyalty to these Scots?” She yanked a surcoat out of the closet, snagging the fabric in her haste.

“I knew you would be upset, but—”

“Upset does not begin to describe my feeling on the matter.” Rosalind pulled the torn surcoat over her kirtle. “My whole household has given loyalty to the same people who only a few years ago burned half of Beaumont to the ground? The same murderous lot who took all my kin?”

Tears glistened in the old woman’s eyes. “John Steward refused to swear loyalty. He was banished.”

“Banished?” Rosalind croaked, pausing for a moment in her battle with her garters. “What will he do?”

“The rest of us did not have the courage to defy them. I could never be banished from Beaumont, my lady.” Gerta dabbed her eyes with a worn scrap of linen from her cuff.

Rosalind’s heart softened. “Did John say anything to you about his plans or where he was headed?”

“I do not know, but John mentioned he hoped to get word to Lord Evandale.”

An enormous weight seemed to slide from her shoulders. Gregory would come. He would come if only to save her, she knew, but as her betrothed he had another interest in expelling the Scots—Beaumont would be his once they wed with the king’s approval.

“Perhaps all is not lost.” Smiling, Rosalind squeezed the older woman’s shoulders. “If Gregory comes, he will rid us of these barbarians.”

“In the meantime, will you try not to rile the new Scots lord at every turn? Sometimes you can learn much more if you are smart enough to go along with things.” Gerta fiddled absently with the hem of her sleeve as she rose from the bed. “Shall I call Josephine for you? It would seem you need help getting dressed.”

Rosalind glanced down at her wrinkled gown. The tear in her seam glared from her surcoat. Her kirtle was crooked. One garter already slid sadly to the floor. Knowing she would never be able to conduct a rebellion if she wasn’t at least properly garbed, she nodded.

Two hours later, she was glad she had listened to Gerta even if she hadn’t been allowed to leave her chamber. An aging Scots warrior loomed outside her gate, his thick brogue almost unintelligible, but his refusal to let her pass into the hall had been clear enough. She was as much a prisoner in her chamber as she’d been in the dungeon, but at least here she could be comfortable enough to think and plan. To recover her health. To plot against her captors.

Now, she sat in an unforgiving chair draped with a weathered tapestry, her supper on a tray beside her. Picking at a bit of stuffed pigeon to help regain the strength she’d lost to her illness, she barely tasted the food. As much as she resented Malcolm McNair’s arrival, she counted her blessings that he had spared so many lives. Most conquerors would not be so generous.

Malcolm. The very name roused anger and…curiosity. Although she bitterly resented his invasion of her home, she could not deny that his war tactics had surprised her. Who was this warmongering Scot who spared English lives? And had he truly spared them, or was he merely biding his time to wrest hard labor from her people?

Savoring a sip of mulled wine, she recalled the strange sensation that had assailed her from the first time she’d looked at the man. She could appreciate his warrior’s might even if she despised him as her enemy. In the time that Gregory had been away, Rosalind had come to long for a man’s strength at her side. Life would be so much easier with a powerful lord as a mate. Surely the fact that she noticed Malcolm McNair’s capabilities as a warrior only underscored how much she missed Gregory.

Satisfied that she’d uncovered the source of her strange response to Beaumont’s unwanted visitor, she returned her knife to the trencher as a knock sounded at her door.

“Come in, Josephine, your timing is perfect.” She pushed away her half-eaten meal.

The door opened, and a cool gust of air blew into the solar as a heavy footstep crossed the threshold. “I fear ’tis nae Josephine, but I hope ye find my timing equally pleasing.”

Rosalind did not need to look over her shoulder to know who had just entered the chamber. The man’s presence radiated from a league away.

“I am afraid I find your timing deplorable. I would have you depart my chambers immediately.” Rosalind’s hand shook as she replaced her cup on the tray. Had he come here to dislodge her from the master chamber, to oust her from what small domain she still held?

“Can ye be forgetting so soon that ye wished a private audience with me? I am merely fulfilling yer wish.”