Chapter 32 #2
That Grudach didn’t look around her to see if he might have been talking about someone else was telling. She certainly seemed to think the problem of Iolanthe had been solved. That was interesting.
Grudach looked him over as if she sized up a prize steer. “Who are you?”
“Patrick,” he said with a bow. “I was here a pair of days ago to ask your father for aid in finding my lady.”
Grudach turned a very unfriendly glance Madelyn’s way. “She smells as if she’s been living in the cesspit.”
Madelyn smiled politely. “I have been, actually.”
“Don’t want you befouling any of my clothes.”
Robert the piper stood and looked at her without any friendliness at all. “Then fetch something of Iolanthe’s. There should be aught there, given that she wasn’t allowed to take anything with her.”
“It was given to the poor in the village—”
“Bollocks,” Robert said crisply. “I saw you wearing her finest dress not two days before I found myself out on an errand which put me straight into the Fergusson’s hands. An errand, I might add, that you saw me sent on.”
“You dare—” Grudach spluttered.
“I dare much. Fetch the dress.”
If she could have killed him, it looked as if she would have. She spun on her heel and marched away. Patrick looked at Robert.
“You’re a brave one.”
Robert shrugged with a smile. “What have I to fear from her?”
“You would know better than I,” Patrick said, though he had to admit that he knew far more than he wanted to.
Robert smiled, undaunted. “She’ll surrender something for our lady to wear.” He looked at Madelyn. “I’ll see that none of Grudach’s ilk aid you with your bath.”
Madelyn looked so grateful for the chance to have a bath, Patrick suspected she didn’t care who helped her. She flashed him a look.
“Will I have any privacy at all?” she asked.
“I could stand guard.”
Her eyes grew quite wide.
Robert offered her his arm. “Survivors of the Fergusson hell must watch over each other. I will be the one to stand guard for you, my lady, and do it with my back turned. Don’t mind my lack of useful fingers. I can keep all at bay with my sharp tongue alone.”
Patrick offered a mild protest, but Robert gave him a look of amusement.
“I’ll watch over her well, my friend,” he said.
Patrick couldn’t deny that Robert had certainly done that in the future. Perhaps that was reason enough to trust him in the past. He looked at Madelyn. “Are you all right?”
“If it means a bath, I’m perfect.”
He rose, helped her up, then put his arms around her briefly. “You are a wonder,” he whispered in English. Then he handed her over to the piper. “Take good care of her, my friend.”
“I will protect her with my life,” Robert said.
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Madelyn said with half a laugh.
“With Grudach, one never knows,” Robert said dryly. He offered her his arm, then walked her slowly across the hall.
Patrick watched them go, then sat down to warm himself by the fire. He didn’t like to think about the strangeness of sitting by the fire he’d spent the greater part of his life sitting by—except that now he was sitting by it in a century he’d never been in.
But there was something to be said for it. Perhaps they could spend a day or two in a place of relative safety, long enough to let Madelyn heal a bit. Besides, who knew when the gate would let them get home? Or what it was they had to accomplish here in the past?
He stared into the fire and gave that a great amount of thought as he nursed his rather drinkable ale—whatever else his faults, at least Malcolm spared no effort to produce a fine cup of ale.
He stared into the flames and pondered the possibilities of a few days of nothing to do but sit with Madelyn and talk. In Gaelic, no less.
The woman was, as he continued to tell her, amazing.
The front door opened. Patrick looked up automatically, expecting to see someone from his family coming inside. He stared at Malcolm for a few minutes before he realized whom he was staring at. He rose immediately and assumed a deferential mien.
“My laird,” he said.
Malcolm must have had a successful hunt, for his humor was fine.
He motioned with an expansive gesture for Patrick to join him at the table.
He called for wine and meat to be brought, then proceeded to regale Patrick with an exceedingly bloody tale.
Patrick counted himself blessed to have spent his youth discussing such things over supper, for he managed to eat yet another supper without flinching during even the most gruesome of details.
Suddenly he felt the air in the room change and knew without looking that Madelyn had come into the hall. It was a feeling akin to what he’d felt the first time he’d laid eyes on her. He turned his head to look at her.
And she fair took his breath away.
She was wearing clothing not her own, but it suited her as if it had been made with her in mind.
Her hair was nothing short of a rampage of curls.
Her face was fresh-scrubbed, her clothing clean, and her expression one of great relief.
Indeed, as she walked next to Robert, she laughed easily at something he said, as if she’d done nothing more strenuous in the past three weeks than a bit of touring.
Of course, she wasn’t walking all that well, and she was having a hard time straightening up completely, but that would pass in time.
And then she looked at him.
And her smile turned into something else entirely. Something private, something full of a mixture of uncertainty and hope.
“By the bloody saints, Patrick,” Malcolm grunted, “the wench wants you.”
Patrick managed to clear his throat without choking and making a proper fool of himself. “Apparently,” he said.
“Lovely gel,” Malcolm said, slapping Patrick on the back. “Taking her away from the Englishman, are you?”
“Aye,” Patrick said.
“No reason you can’t wed her today. Put her forever past his reach.”
Patrick didn’t mean to gape at him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had the thought of marriage cross his mind before. Fleetingly. Briefly.
Or lingeringly, as of late.
But a marriage today?
“I’ll see it done,” Malcolm said, rising. “I’ll rouse the priest.”
“But—”
Malcolm looked at him with a glint in his eye. “Don’t think you should be wandering about with a wench of her breeding and not be wed to her, do you?”
“Ah—”
“’Tis the least I can do for a cousin,” Malcolm said. “If you are a cousin. You look a great deal like a proper MacLeod, but these are perilous times. . . .”
“Aye,” Patrick managed, “they are.”
“My pit has housed more friendly souls than you.”
The threat was implicit; the choice was clear.
Damnation, if he had to choose between wedding the woman and languishing in Malcolm MacLeod’s pit, what was he to do?
He wondered if he could manage to look pained by it well enough to have Malcolm—and everyone else—believe he was being forced to the altar.
Was that why they’d come to the past? To be wed?
By the saints, he didn’t want to believe that time thought him such a fool that only machinations of that magnitude would bring him to his senses.
“No time like the present,” Patrick said heavily, “to see to one’s duty.”
Malcolm grunted, but there was a very visible twinkle in his eye. “Robert!” he bellowed. “Fetch the priest!”
Robert deposited Madelyn in the chair next to Patrick, then went to see to his laird’s pleasure. Madelyn smiled at Patrick.
“What’s up?” she asked.
He looked at her solemnly. “A marriage.”
“Whose?”
“Let’s put it this way,” he said, “We may not have much time for any conversations of a serious nature . . . before . . .”
“Before what?” she asked.
He was suddenly afraid to answer.
Malcolm, bless his conniving heart, was not.