Chapter Three #2
The landscape bordering his drive was in a condition resembling a woolen carpet of green, and about as thickly woven.
Monteith was leaving the woods beyond the road in pristine condition, though, and there wasn’t much sunlight penetrating through them.
It was unnerving. There could be any number of watchers and guards posted, and no one would ever be the wiser.
It was also impossible to see how large this fenced-in property of his was.
It was a longer span before Monteith Hall came into view.
Lisle stopped. His castle was supposed to be black and craggy like the rocks overlooking the Moray Firth, and bleak enough to contain a clan in league with the devil.
It was the exact opposite. Sunlight was touching the light yellow stone of which it was constructed, making it look like it belonged in the sky rather than attached to a small hill in the center of the valley it was nestled in.
Lisle selected one of the stone benches at the side of his drive and sat for a moment, to rest the blisters forming on the backs of her heels, and also to absorb the beauty and dimension of Monteith’s home.
It looked to be ten times the size of the MacHugh ruin, and probably four times the one she’d been raised in.
A flag flew from the flagpole, fluttering with what breeze there was.
She knew it was green, and would contain a lion passant at the center, the heraldic beast that was a lion in profile.
It would have two crossed swords in its hind claws, and would be colored in solid, vivid gold.
Looking at what she was, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find he’d paid to have actual gold thread put into every embroidered stitch.
There appeared to be four ways to enter the walls, although she could only see three of them.
One had a drawbridge. She knew that because it lowered, and she watched a coach leave with a sort of detachment that had little to do with the lump of nervousness still there, like a stone in her belly.
She stood and waited. She didn’t question that it was being sent for her. She knew it was.
“You’ve got…a visitor.” Etheridge huffed between the words, his frame holding the post upright while it was lashed into place.
“What?” Langston took a moment to answer. He hadn’t been paying attention. He was being driven mad by visions of sky-blue eyes, alight with something his imagination told him he’d glimpsed, and that he wanted so badly his hands shook on the rope pulley before he could stop it.
“I said…you’ve got…a visitor.”
The man’s words came with a curse, since water was still seeping through the wall behind the post. He was being pessimistic.
At least it wasn’t flooding anymore. Langston stepped back, pulling on the rope as he went.
It was going well. They had one more log to set, and the wall would hold.
It hadn’t been a design flaw, either. It was an engineering problem, and a misread of his plans.
“I dinna’ hear the pipes.”
“There’s nae way to hear anything down here. This place would swallow the sound of an entire band of pipers.”
Langston grinned. The others stopped and stared. The grin died as he realized it. Hide emotion. Hide everything. Always. It was better that way. He cleared his throat. “Then, how do you know I’ve got a visitor?”
“Because Duncan’s standing behind you, waving his arms and speaking of it. Has been for some time. You dinna’ hear him. You dinna’ hear much, I’m for thinking. Your mind’s elsewhere. Has been for some time. Strange.”
Langston turned his head. It was true. A clansman was at the steps; a dry clansman. “Well?” he asked the man.
“It appears the woman is arriving. She’s on the drive.”
“What woman?” His heart might have lurched. Langston’s voice stumbled as he felt something so foreign he had to consciously command his body not to betray it. That was stranger than anything Etheridge mentioned.
“The one you write your notes to.”
Langston’s eyes widened then. He couldn’t prevent it. “Here?” he asked. “Now?”
“Aye.” Now Duncan was grinning, too.
“How much time do I have?” He was looking down at the mess of sweat-soaked shirt, wet plaide, and mud-covered boots.
“Little. We sent a coach.”
“What?”
He couldn’t break into a run until he got through the standing water. He knew they all watched. He would have, too. He was supposed to be an emotionless, demonic, Black Monteith. Etheridge didn’t wait to show his reaction, though. He was laughing.
She was still standing as the coach slowed before it reached her.
Then it passed by to find a spot to turn about and return for her.
It could also have been because whoever was in it wanted a look at her.
The coach stopped directly in front of her, making a looming shadow that reached to the toes of her scuffed and used boots.
Lisle watched as the coachman secured his reins.
There was also a groomsman at the rear of it.
He stepped down to walk over and open the door for her, and lower a row of three steps into place.
“We’ve come to fetch you,” he informed her, holding out one of his white-gloved hands in order to assist her in.
Lisle gulped. She had too much sweat on her hands to touch his gloves. She stood there, undecided, and watched as he smiled at her.
“It’s all right, lass. We’ve been expecting you.”
They had? That was almost enough to send her marching right back down the perfectly groomed road and back to poverty. Almost.
She took his hand and allowed him to help her enter the coach that contained two opposing newly padded leather seats, a small shelf on the far side, white satin to line the sides and top and windows, and nothing else.
Lisle settled onto a seat and watched as he put the ladder back into place beneath the flooring and shut her in.
There was no turning back now, and her heartbeat wasn’t loud enough to dull anything.
It was loud, though. And it wasn’t dimming the entire two minutes that the ride took.
It was actually getting louder, pulsing through her, and making everything else feel weak and shaky.
She was going into purgatory, the devil’s spawn was awaiting her, and there wasn’t anyone there to help her, or guide her, or even hold her hand.
Lisle was afraid her bottom lip was trembling.
The drawbridge closed behind them. She couldn’t hear it; she had to sense it by the loss of light as they went into his courtyard. Her mouth filled with spittle that she was too frightened to swallow, and then when she did, her ears popped with the released pressure.
She only hoped she didn’t burst into tears.
The coach stopped with a rocking motion the coachman had probably needed many years to perfect. Lisle watched the empty seat in front of her with unseeing eyes, pushed another swallow down her throat, and grimaced at the heavy, hard feeling of the ball of fear she was harboring.
She told herself she was being stupid. There was nothing to be frightened over.
She was simply going to ask him what he wanted from the MacHughs, and then she was going to bargain for the best price for it, and then she was going to take her leave.
She wasn’t going to give him the time to create a reaction of any kind within her.
The door was opened, showing her a sun-kissed inner keep that made her gasp.
The rocks used to construct his keep were nearly a story high each, and constructed vertically, so they looked like they were thrusting up from the ground into the sky, before being molded to another rock that appeared to do the same.
And they were marbled-looking, giving the castle walls veins of gold and amber and brown and white, and making it look like there wasn’t any amount of money that would have made such beauty.
“His Lordship is awaiting you in his study, Mistress.”
She thought the servant waiting for her was different from the groomsman that had assisted her in, but she wasn’t certain of it. She hadn’t paid him enough attention, and this one was wearing gloves, too.
Then she saw the three doormen, all wearing Highland attire.
There was no stopping her jaw. It dropped, completely and mortifyingly.
Imprisonment and confiscation by the Crown was the penalty for a Highlander in a kilt, and Monteith was begging for that very thing.
She didn’t think it possible that he was that stupid.
But he had to be, or he wasn’t afraid of the penalty because he was immune from it.
Her upper lip lifted in a sneer, and some of the hard ball in her throat dissipated with it.
He was immune. How right she’d been about him!
He was in league with the devil, all right, but the devil was the Sassenach.
Every Scot knew that. Lisle no longer felt any fright and she smoothed her hands down the silken-feeling fabric of her traveling gown, not even caring if the motion caused more snags than it had earned with use.
She was a true Scot. She was born a Dugall. She’d married a MacHugh laird. She could still look herself in any mirror on any wall in any castle, Jacobite or not, perfectly maintained or not.
The mirror he had in his front foyer meant this was an excellent time and place to put that to the test, and Lisle looked at herself, seeing for the first time the yellowish purple of her left eye, which still wasn’t as fully open as the other one.
Then she was looking at how her cheeks looked like she’d just come in from a run about the moors, because of the agitation.
It surely wasn’t due to anything like a blush.