Chapter Five #2
The walk to the carriage was excruciating, the ride was going to be worse, and there was nothing she could do about any of it. What was one supposed to say to a stranger one had just wed, giving the rights to one’s body to? Especially a stranger that wasn’t even going to force it?
He had no right to be chivalrous. How dare he do something so against character that it tossed her emotions up into a blur of confusion before giving them back to her?
He was supposed to be vicious; taking, ravishing, stealing…
exactly like the Sassenach had done to every woman they came across after Culloden.
He was supposed to be a devil. He was supposed to have evil intent behind those eyes that looked to be so brown, they were almost black.
He surely wasn’t supposed to be chivalrous.
Lisle was at his side when he reached yet another carriage, where the door was opened by two groomsmen smiling—no, they looked more like open grins, she decided—at both her and Monteith, while they waited for the couple to enter, so they could be sealed in together.
That was it, she told herself. He was waiting. He’d force her when they were alone, and no one would be there to rescue her, or even hear her screams. He’d probably ordered them to drive slowly; to give him enough time to make certain she hadn’t a bone left that wasn’t violated.
“Do you need an assist in?” he asked, at her elbow, since she had been standing there, stupidly looking at the yawning opening of the carriage like it was supposed to swallow her up without her having to expend any effort.
“I—I…uh, no,” she answered, stumbling over the words and having to look away from the humor that was starting to haunt every bit of every look he was giving her.
He stood back a step and waited while she lifted one part of her skirt with a hand, showing that her slippers were caved in at the heel, and not fully on her.
It wasn’t because her feet were too big, although she suspected that was what he thought, since he had even more humor about his features the next time she dared to glance at him.
It was because the linen wrapped about her blisters had made the slippers too small to wear.
If the other coaches were luxurious, there was no description for this one.
Lisle stooped to get in, running her hand along red and black–patterned silk that could only have come from the Orient, meeting dark mahogany everywhere else, and trying to keep the gasp in where he couldn’t hear it.
She should have known it wouldn’t succeed.
“I had it built in Edinburgh. For one occasion, and one only. Then, I’m retiring it,” he informed her, in a bored-sounding voice.
“Good Lord, why?” she asked, before she could stop herself. Then, she busied herself with putting the pipes reverently at her side, arranging her skirts about her ankles, and taking up as much of her side of the coach as she could, so he wouldn’t even think about sitting next to her.
He looked like he’d known what she was about, too.
He entered, the carriage rocking slightly with his weight, which, from the stolen glimpses she was still trying to keep him from seeing, looked to be considerable.
She couldn’t imagine where he’d gained such an amount of bulk to his frame.
From all she’d heard, he didn’t do a thing, except spend gold.
“For posterity,” he replied, with the same bored tone that hadn’t a hint of depth, sense, or reason to it.
Lisle glanced at him again. He wasn’t looking at her. He was settling himself on the opposite bench, opening the buttons on his black coat, and then pulling a bit at the white material he’d swathed all about his throat. She couldn’t stop the smile.
“Something amuses you?” he asked.
“What is that for?” She pointed.
“It’s called a cravat. Menswear. For formal dress occasions. This being one of them.”
“A cravat,” she replied, without inflection.
“I decided that if we have to dress in the English fashion, I may as well adopt some of their ways. You doona’ like it?”
“It looks like a bundling of scarf, in the event of cold weather.”
“My valets will be crushed,” he replied.
“Valets?” she asked.
“Personal servants. I have a score of them. Very observant chaps, very conscientious in their duties, very precise. According to Etheridge, this is the height of fashion in London.”
“Oh.” It was all she could think of to say. The height of fashion in London? she repeated to herself.
“I’m na’ very fond of it, but one must play by the rules one is given, nae?”
“If you’re asking about living under Sassenach rule, and liking it, you’re asking the wrong person,” she replied, using the exact same, bored tone of voice he was.
“That’s distressing,” he replied.
“That’s not the most distressing part, let me assure you,” she continued.
“It’s not?” he asked, almost jovially. At least, it looked like he had even more humor to his features when she looked up. It was muted the moment their glances touched, until it became almost a frown.
“I’ll not be made fun of,” Lisle announced.
“I’d never allow such a thing to occur.”
“Good. Then we’ll start this marriage by discussing your spendthrift habits and the cessation of them.”
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“You. Spendthrift. It’s a word attached to your name…our name, more oft’ than necessary. Nae one likes a neighbor with more gold than they have. It’s making enemies of us.”
“Do tell,” he responded and quirked one of his eyebrows.
“Someone should have told you sooner. The more you toss gold about, the more contempt you’re held in. I doona’ like it.”
“So?” he asked.
“You’d best not mean what it sounds like you mean with that tone, my lord.”
“Oh, please. Call me Langston,” he replied, smoothly and easily. Almost too smoothly and easily, she was thinking.
“Langston?” she asked.
“It is my given name.”
Lisle giggled.
“I’ve not received that response a-fore. Tell me. What is it about my name that amuses you so?”
“Langston and Lisle,” she replied, dropping her tongue on the beginning consonant so it rolled. “You doona’ find it funny?”
“Nae,” he replied, and the word hadn’t a bit of amusement or humor attached anywhere to it.
“Well, I won’t allow any child of ours to have a name beginning with an L, then,” Lisle continued. “We’ll be worse than laughingstocks.”
The sigh that came from his side of the coach must have been his reply, for he didn’t say anything for long enough that she had to fill in the gap. “Is that your acquiescence?” she asked.
“You’ve been formally schooled,” he replied evenly…too evenly. The lamplight was swaying slightly, highlighting him and then moving away, so she couldn’t tell why he sounded so different.
“Of course. Ellwood MacHugh dinna’ betroth just any lass,” she said to that, lifting her chin slightly, so he could tell his insult had been taken and replied to.
“Perhaps we’d be better off partaking of wine.” He was speaking, but it didn’t sound like his self-assured, bored voice, nor did it sound like any voice he’d used before. It sounded young, and in a higher pitch than before. She wondered why.
“Wine?” Lisle asked.
“What wedding coach comes complete without wine?” he replied.
“I’ve never drunk wine,” she said.
“Never?”
“I’ve na’ touched whiskey much, either.”
“Nae?” he responded.
“Does wine have the same effect as whiskey?” she asked.
“Some say ’tis worse.”
“Good. I’ll take two doses of the stuff, then.”
He laughed, and it was such a surprise that Lisle couldn’t keep from staring. He didn’t look like he was in league with the devil. He looked like he was a handsome, young man. Young, she repeated in her thoughts.
“How auld are you?” she asked when the sound of his laughter had died.
“That would probably depend on how auld you are,” he replied softly.
“What? Why?”
“I would na’ wish to frighten you.”
“I’m not frightened of you,” she announced loudly.
“You look frightened.”
“You doona’ know me enough to judge such,” she replied.
“True,” he said, finally.
“So…how auld are you?” she asked again.
“Twenty-eight.”
“Nae!” The shock in her voice had him laughing again. Lisle reddened, and had to turn her face away before he saw anymore of it.
“Too auld for you?” he asked.
“My first husband was fifty-seven,” she replied to the wall.
“Ugh,” was his response to that. She almost matched it.
So, Langston Monteith was twenty-eight. Young, by any standards, and especially youthful to have amassed the fortune he was spending.
She wondered if he’d stolen it. That was probable to the point of being likely.
He was a pirate. That was it. He’d stolen it from good, sea-faring folk, taking their ships, stealing their gold, and then sending them to the bottom of the ocean.
That’s where the gold must have come from, she told herself.
“You’re mumbling to yourself. Here.” He was holding out a slender, crystal goblet, filled at the bottom with a dark liquid that rolled back and forth with the carriage’s movement. She wondered where he’d gotten it, and why she hadn’t even seen it.
“Is this all I get?” she asked.
His lips curved into a smile, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Not when he handed the goblet to her, or when he touched it with the side of his own, since she hadn’t been able to move her hand, or when he brought his own to his lips, took a draught, and then swallowed it.
Lisle wasn’t able to prevent her own throat from doing the same motion. She dropped her gaze to the goblet she gripped with two hands now, to still its trembling. She didn’t know what was happening to her, but it wasn’t good.
“Until I see how well you handle it…aye,” he said, filling the coach with the smoothness of his voice again.
“What?” she asked.
“You were asking if that’s all you get. That’s my answer.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll not have it said my wife’s a drunkard.”
“What?” she asked. The words were insulting, but the tone was slick and warm and masculine, and making strange rivulets of something she didn’t know enough about to define run her spine and then return, crawling up into the circlet of flowers still at the crown of her head before dissipating, like bubbles of froth at a fast-running burn. That wasn’t good, at all, she decided.
“Take a sip. It’s not lethal.”
Oh, if only something was! Lisle lifted the glass to her lips and made the same motion he had, although the wine was sour-tasting and acrid, and made her nose wrinkle with distaste before she swallowed. She didn’t like a thing about wine.
“Does it meet with your approval?” he asked.
“What?”
“The wine. It’s a very good stock. From France. Expensive. I drink only the best and pay well for the privilege.”
“Will you cease flaunting this wealth? ’Tis unseemly!”
“To whom?” he asked.
“Every Scot that’s without it,” she whispered.
Her answer settled into the carriage, changing the atmosphere so subtly that if she wasn’t so attuned to it, she’d have missed it.
It was colder, too. She reached to touch the bundle of bagpipes on the seat beside her for strength and courage, and to curb the fright she’d just claimed she didn’t have.
“I really hadn’t given it much thought,” he finally said, making her gasp with the words.
She lifted the goblet and gulped it down, making a wince at how it tasted at the back of her throat, and then she held it out for more. He didn’t say a word; he just lifted his eyebrows, before tipping the bottle and pouring her another dollop of it.