The Highland Wife

At last! He deigned to notice she was present for this conversation, could one even call it that. It was likely to turn to an argument if he did not change his ways on the instant. If there was anything she detested, it was to be ignored.

Mairi smiled sweetly at him. “Ye jest, surely, my good laird! Have ye ever known any maid of my age to cry off a marriage? However, I feel you might wish to think twice on it, ere ye get more than ye bargained for!”

“Mairi!” her father gasped. “Mind yer tongue!”

She rose and turned on him then, giving the pompous baron her back. “Well? I am four and twenty, Da. Not that anyone has bothered to notice my aging these past dozen years. Now ye invite this man to take me off yer hands? Paugh! He can scarcely stand to look at me! He will not even reply to a common pleasantry!”

Her father grasped his chest and rolled his eyes as though caught in the throes of apoplexy. Not that she believed that for a moment. ’Twas an oft used ruse to raise her guilt and gain an apology. Well, he’d not get one now, she decided. Not after trying to match her to this surly scoundrel.

“Do excuse me, Father,” she said as haughtily as she could. “I would retire and leave ye to your guest! I am certain he willna be missing me.” With chin high and without another glance for her erstwhile betrothed, she stalked off toward the stairs.

Handsome the man might be, but damned if she would shackle herself to one who had likely been bribed to wed her. From the look of him and the way he behaved, her father had not paid nearly enough to make the haughty wretch glad of the transaction.

She had done without a husband all these years and fared well enough. Why take one now who did not consider her worth a smile, a kind word or even a second glance? Rot him, then. She would stay a maid.

Rob appreciated the swing of those slender hips as the fair-haired lady took herself away. A pity he could not grasp one word in ten of what she said or he might guess the reason for her leaving.

He found any Highlander’s odd speech hard to ken, especially when one spoke as rapidly as did she and with hardly moving her lips. The old laird made an effort on behalf of Rob’s understanding, but the woman did not. Possibly, she did not yet realize she needed to.

Could that be? Had they not told her? Thomas said he had insisted that she know. Rob had made it a firm condition before his steward set out on the quest.

He shrugged off the worry. Thomas would never lie, not about that. The woman knew about him. She simply did not understand how to deal with it yet. That could be taught easily enough.

Mairi MacInness was a lovely woman by any man’s standard, not at all the timid girl he had feared he might find. Thomas had not told him her age, but Rob guessed she had passed twenty. That suited him.

Anger at her sire had added color to the smooth cream of her cheeks. The blue eyes had sparked when she had included him in her fit of pique. Whatever had caused her displeasure, he was glad that she showed some spirit. She would need it.

Again he faced the laird. “You did tell her?”

“What?” the old man asked warily, his gaze darting here and there, avoiding Rob’s.

Rob eyed him steadily, waiting, not bothering to define what the man already knew but was obviously reluctant to discuss.

“Aye, I told her, but I was brief.” He ducked his head, then looked up again. “And I left it late,” MacInness admitted.

“Late?” Rob repeated, sorely afraid he now understood the woman’s anger all too well. “How late?”

The laird looked shame-faced and ran a hand through his graying hair. “Today. Just now.”

Rob exhaled sharply and shook his head. “Damn.”

“She’ll grow accustomed,” MacInness said hopefully. “Mairi is a guid lass. Kind,” he added.

“When you told her,” Rob asked, hiding his apprehension, “she was angry?”

Rob did not want her to reject him, he realized. With others, he had not cared so much. Except for Jehannie. Her betrayal had nearly destroyed him. Since she had broken their long-standing betrothal, he had cared not one way or the other whether he ever wed anyone.

If he had not needed to produce an heir for Baincroft, he would never have agreed for Thomas to contract a match for him. He had felt no great rush to wed anyone. Not until he had seen this woman…

“Nay! Nay. ’Tis not that which angered her,” the laird assured him, shaking his head. “She but wants courting, I think. All women do.”

Rob nodded. Courting, of course. He should do that, yet he had little time or inclination for it. Nor did he think it necessary in this instance. The betrothal contract had been signed. The woman was his. All that remained was signing the marriage documents and repeating the vows. And the bedding, of course. Not likely he would forget that now that he had met her.

He chewed his bottom lip for a second, caught himself doing so and quickly smoothed his features. If he did not court her properly as her father suggested, she might be the one willing to forget that final detail of the ceremony that Rob so looked forward to accomplishing.

She could cry off the match and he would never touch that fair, smooth skin of hers the way he wanted, or inhale fully that subtle scent of roses she wore. Not to mention the other pleasures he now anticipated.

Fine, then. He would court, but he would not prolong it. Now, he only wished to wed and go home again.

Once they reached Baincroft, the lady would soon see that she had no reason to doubt his ability to care for her and the children they would make together. There, among his people, lay his best chance to impress a wife.

However, if she wanted constant courting and sweet words daily after their marriage, she might go lacking. Rob had tried being courtly with his first betrothed as soon as she’d grown old enough for it. That had come to no good end.

His beloved stepfather and brother had been right all those years ago to caution him against showing any gentler feelings he might have. They had said he must cultivate a stern and commanding demeanor in order to gain respect.

Though both had spoken of Rob’s dealings with other lords, knights and men of business, Rob wondered if the advice might not hold true for women he wished to respect him.

Should he play the smiling, teasing courtier with this one as he often did with the women he sought for pleasure? Or ought he to remain somewhat aloof, since she was a noble and about to be his wife? He wished Trouville or Henri were here to advise him in this.

He did not like to be away from Baincroft, especially in these strange surroundings where he knew only the four men who rode with him. Because of their low rank, he could not keep them close by in these delicate encounters with his future bride and the MacInness laird.

Had Thomas come with them to speak for him, matters might be proceeding more smoothly. Then this would not be so difficult because Thomas already knew these people. Unfortunately, that one lay abed back at Baincroft with a broken leg.

Rob damned his luck, losing the services of his friend and factor at such a critical time. The loss of his usual self-confidence plagued him. Jehannie’s doing, of course.

Only once, as a child needing the love of a father, had he given any particular care at all as to what a person thought of him or his abilities. Until Jehannie had refused to wed him.

Since that time, self-doubt had increased with every new acquaintance he made. He must somehow recapture his early certainty of his worthiness. His mother had worked too diligently to instill that for him to lose it forever. But he much doubted he would regain it here and now amongst these people.

Was it lack of courting alone that had 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.”