The Highlander's Redemption

Calumn shook his head, pushing his hair back from his forehead. ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘you’re right, that was more than enough to prove my point.’

‘What point?’

‘You would not have kissed me like that if you really were in love with de Guise.’

Madeleine blushed furiously. ‘It is none of your business how I kiss Guillaume, and none of your business to be kissing me. You should not have done so. I told you to stop. I said no, I—’

‘You’re deluding yourself, mademoiselle,’ Calumn said with infuriating calm. ‘You wanted to kiss me, just as much as I wanted to kiss you.’

Madeleine stared at him in consternation, desperate to contradict him, but instinctively knowing that to do so would be foolish. ‘I …’

Just then, there was a soft rap on the door. ‘Your dinner’s here, Master Munro,’ a female voice called.

‘Saved,’ Calumn said with an infuriating smile as he left the room to relieve Mrs Macfarlane of her loaded tray.

Chapter Three

Mrs Macfarlane’s plain but excellent repast eased the tension between them. As they ate their way through chicken stew served with a dish of peas and greens, Calumn directed the conversation to less personal matters. Perhaps he felt he had made his point, perhaps he wished simply to enjoy his food without further contretemps; whatever it was, Madeleine was happy to follow his lead. Banishing the whole kissing episode to the back of her mind, she regaled Calumn with a highly coloured version of her two days at sea in a Breton fishing boat. It made him laugh, and encouraged him in turn to recount some of his own—carefully edited—traveller’s tales. His description of a meal of pig’s trotters he had eaten in a Paris café encouraged Madeleine to recall the plate of pig’s fry she had been presented with as a child, after attending the ceremonial slaying of the said pig by one of her father’s tenants.

‘It was an honour, you know,’ she said with a grin, ‘but I was only about five, and I said to Papa, I don’t like worms.’

‘Did you eat it?’

‘Oh, yes, Papa would not have his tenants insulted. It didn’t taste of anything much.’ The clock on the mantel chiming the hour surprised them both. ‘I didn’t realise it was so late,’ Madeleine said in dismay.

‘You’ll stay here, then? It’s far too late for you to go looking for somewhere else now, and at least if you’re here I’ll know you are safe.’

Though he phrased the words as a question, his tone indicated that he would brook no argument. Madeleine was inclined to dispute this assumption of responsibility, but common sense and an inclination to spend more time in his rather-too-appealing company made her keep quiet. ‘Thank you. I would like to stay, if you’re sure.’

‘I’m sure.’ Calumn pushed back his chair. ‘I’m going out for a while. Have you everything you need?’

She was disappointed, but realised he was being tactful. ‘Yes. And thank you, Calumn, you’ve been very kind.’

‘Until the morning, then.’ The door closed behind him, leaving the rooms resoundingly quiet. Loneliness threatened. To keep it at bay, Madeleine tried to think about what she would do when—no if, it must be if—Lady Drummond sent her a message with Guillaume’s whereabouts. But that set her into a panic about how she would do whatever she had to do, so she took herself to bed, and despite being absolutely certain she would lie awake all night worrying, Madeleine fell into a sound sleep.

The company at the White Horse was thin, and Calumn was not in the mood for gambling. Returning early, he lay awake, all too aware of Madeleine in bed next door.

Her situation was abominable. He knew too well what it felt like, that wanting to know. If de Guise was alive, the bastard deserved a whipping for not having the guts to face her. He did not deserve her, any more than he deserved to have her save his lands, for he must have known his cousin would claim them in his absence. In fact, de Guise seemed altogether too careless with all his property. Of a certainty he didn’t deserve it. Unless of course he really was dead, which, the more Calumn thought about it, seemed the most likely thing.

Except that Madeleine seemed so sure. Just as Calumn had been, against all the odds. What if he’d given up, as his mother had begged him to? How would that have looked, on top of everything else? Angrily, he closed his mind to that path of thought. Betrayal was betrayal. A matter of degree made no difference.

Back to Madeleine, an entrancing enough diversion.Such a shame it would be for such a lovely one as she to throw herself away on someone who didn’t deserve her. Her response to his kisses had taken him aback. His own response had been equally surprising. Calumn was not a man accustomed to losing control, but there was a depth of sensuality in her which was obviously yearning to be released.

Releasing it was absolutely none of his business, Calumn told himself. None, no matter how tempting the idea was. Misguided Madeleine might be in choosing to marry for the sake of her family, but at the end of the day, it was her decision. And as to seducing her just to prove a point—no! No matter how attractive the proposition was, it was strictly against his own rigid rules of conduct. But that did not prevent him from thinking about it.

Madeleine awoke the next morning to an insistent tapping on the door of her chamber. Still befuddled with sleep, she tumbled out of bed and opened it, wearing only her shift. Calumn stood on the other side, already dressed, filling the small room with his presence. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, gazing up at him in bewilderment.

He reached down to twist a long coil of her platinum hair around his finger. ‘You look even more like a mermaid than usual, with your hair down like that.’ His eyes widened as he took in her state of undress. The neck of her shift was untied, revealing the smooth perfection of her breasts.

She caught the direction of his gaze and blushed, placing her arms protectively over herself, trying to bat away the hand which toyed with her hair. It was a nice hand. Warm. The fingers long and tapered. Not soft but work-roughened. He had not the hands of a gentleman, but nor were they of a common labourer. He had interesting hands. Realising she had been holding on to one of them for far too long, Madeleine dropped it.

‘It’s a bonny day,’ Calumn said. ‘I thought I could show you a bit more of Edinburgh while you wait on her ladyship getting in touch.’

‘That would be lovely, but I’m sure you must have business to attend to.’

‘Nothing that can’t wait, and at least if you’re with me I can be sure you’re not getting into any trouble.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Don’t look like that, you know perfectly well you shouldn’t be going about a strange city on your own, and you know perfectly well you don’t really want to. Allow me to be your guide. I want to.’

The clank of a pail heralded Jamie’s arrival with hot water. It was an appealing idea charmingly proposed. After clearing the air last night, and spending such a pleasant dinner, Madeleine could think of no reason to refuse it. ‘Thank you. I’d like that,’ she said, with a smile she tried hard to restrain.

‘We’ll go out by the Bow Port,’ Calumn said, taking her arm at the gate of Riddell’s Court half an hour later, ‘then we can walk through the royal park. I’ll show you where Prince Charles Edward stayed in the lap of luxury while he was in Edinburgh—and where his men were forced to camp in less salubrious conditions.’

They proceeded in their usual fashion through the Edinburgh streets, Calumn striding with graceful ease through the crowded thoroughfares and mazelike wynds. ‘Thank you for taking the time to show me around. Despite what you said, I am sure you have other things you should be doing,’ Madeleine said, clinging to his arm.

Calumn cast her a shrewd glance. ‘Are you fishing?’

Her dimples peeped. ‘A little. You don’t strike me as a man who would be content to be idle. Jeannie told me you’d been teaching her brother how to fight with a sword.’

‘Did she now? And no doubt she told you I’d been in the army too?’

Remembering Jeannie’s warning about Calumn’s reticence on the subject, Madeleine nodded warily.

To her relief Calumn seemed not to take offence. ‘I joined up at sixteen. ‘Twas my father’s idea. I was in need of some discipline, he said, and to be honest I was relieved to get away from him—I was just beginning to see that what he called the old ways were more or less tyranny. We were forever at outs. A couple of years’ service is all he intended, enough for me to learn how to do as I was bid, then I was to come home and do as he bid.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘But the army made me; my regiment was more like a family to me than my own blood. After two years, though my father ordered me home, I stayed on. Two years became six, the rift between us became a gulf, but the more he created the less inclined I was to obey and as for him—even now he’s on his last legs, there’s no give in him.’ Calumn’s face darkened, then he shrugged. ‘I was a good officer and I worked hard to earn the respect of my men. There’s any number of wee laddies in these parts like Jeannie’s brother who think to escape as I did, though what they’re running from is poverty rather than despotism. I spend a fair bit of my time teaching them the tricks of the officer’s trade. Not that any of them will be able to afford a commission, mind, but if they know how to use a sabre and a foil, if they have some education and understand the basic rules of warfare and command, it will give them an advantage in moving up the ranks.’

‘I imagine you are an excellent teacher—though with that temper of yours, I would not envy the boy who gets it wrong.’