Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“You made me do that!” she hissed.
Langston frowned.
“You wanted me to learn, and so you made me touch him!”
“Not exactly,” he replied softly.
“Well, you succeeded. I learned. Doona’ let that man touch me again. He won’t survive the skean I put into him.”
“Lisle.”
“Doona’ ‘Lisle’ me!”
“At least keep your voice down then.”
“My voice is down. Otherwise I’d be tearing out handfuls of that black hair from your scalp and screaming you into a deaf state.”
His lips twisted. “Visual,” he said.
“Why would you do this to yourself? Isn’t it enough to host that snake? Must we add the Butcher?”
“Cumberland is a learned man. He’ll be a wonderful conversationalist. I doona’ even think he likes to argue. It would take too much effort, and that he doesn’t give.” He was smiling and talking and moving her over to a seat at the very end of the very long table, and then he was helping seat her.
“Entertain your guests, Lisle.”
“I detest this about you, Langston.”
He sighed. “Take some time to introduce my new valet, Percy, to a certain Mistress Angela. I believe they’ll make a fine coupling.”
“How would you know?”
“I believe I spoke too soon, Monteith. She has a vicious tongue, and turns it on you. That’s interesting and enlightening.” It was the captain again. He was seating himself to Lisle’s right.
She tried glaring at Langston. It didn’t do much. He simply lifted one brow, his right shoulder in a shrug that wouldn’t hurt him, and turned his back on her. She told herself she was never speaking to him again.
Langston had three ships awaiting them in the harbor, and three more just barely visible on this horizon, although you needed a spyglass to make certain.
At least that was what she was told. She didn’t ask anyone about anything.
She wasn’t speaking to anyone. She told herself it was for the practice, since he was denying her his presence.
She was getting all her information from her maid, Betsy, who had now been joined by two more young girls named Bess and Cassie.
Mary MacGreggor wasn’t going anywhere where her feet weren’t on solid ground.
Betsy was made of more adventuresome material.
Then again, she seemed to be on very good terms with one of the lads flitting about through the sails and across the decks, and handling baggage, and then they were escorting her and her little entourage to what was probably the largest cabin aboard any ship, ever.
Lisle stood in the doorway with her mouth open slightly, and looked at a scene someone had dreamt up from an inferno of some kind.
There was dark wood everywhere, and it was sliced in a diagonal pattern with ruby-red strips of what looked to be velvet.
And there were mirrors…everywhere, making everything look like a kaleidoscope of colors—red and black—wherever she looked. It gave her an instant headache.
“They tell me His Lordship designed this cabin.”
“Nae doubt,” Lisle replied.
“Isn’t it grand?”
That was Betsy again. She was walking into the room, looking about and up and all along, at every black lacquered piece of furniture, and the slick black wood that encased their bed.
“It looks like hell,” Lisle replied.
That got her a gasp, and reinforced her vow not to speak. All that came out were spates of angered words that should be directed toward one man, and since he was denying her that, got to be lashed out at whoever was available.
It was better to remain silent…and alone.
All too soon, the cabin emptied. Lisle sat in one of the red velvet–covered chairs and watched as her maids unpacked her clothing, hung it in all four of the wardrobe closets he had lined against one wall for that purpose, and then served her a light supper of a hard roll, sliced ham, and a mustard seed spread that made her nose itch.
The cabin emptied again, and when the ship left the dock she was very grateful to be alone. No one needed to know that she was a dreadful sailor and that everything she’d eaten for the last month wasn’t going to stay there.
Then Langston was there, hauling her into his arms from her position at the chamber pot, and rocking her and soothing her brow. He was speaking words of such devotion and love that she forgot she wasn’t ever speaking to him again, and she just let him hold her until the next bout of mal de mer hit.
“This all your fault!” she wailed when her stomach settled enough she could use her voice.
Langston got onto the mattress with her, although he did it slowly. The movement still made her retch. She opened her eyes to slits and glared at him.
“Dinna’ you hear me?” she asked.
“You’ve got the sickness. That isn’t my fault.”
“You brought me here, dinna’ you?”
He couldn’t deny that, and after a few moments, he didn’t try.
“You also made certain I’d be put in a cabin resembling hell. You ken what that does to one?”
“Hell?” He lifted his head to look around. “I fancied it more like a rich, elegant, calabash tent. They’re everywhere. One could always find something to look at while smoking oneself into a state of lethargy.”
“Aye. Yourself.”
He grinned. “Some say it’s not such a bad thing to look at.”
Lisle looked at him until the grin faded. “You design this cabin?”
“Nae,” he replied.
“But you left it this way? With all your gold?”
“I rather like it.”
“Ugh.” Lisle was rolling back off the bed and running back over to the privy closet, her hand plastered to her mouth.
He was sitting on the bed, looking at his hands, when she groped her way back, using the wood along the sides for handholds.
If every shard of mirror was telling the truth, she was pale to the point that her hair looked flame-colored and theatrical.
She grimaced at herself. He must have thought it was at him.
“You finished raging at me?”
“I wasn’t raging,” she replied nastily.
He snorted. “You keep so little hidden. It’s a real joy to spar with you when you try to do so.”
“I wasn’t raging. You want to see me raging? Wait until I have firm ground beneath my feet, and a kitchen full of pots to launch at you.”
He was laughing at that. Lisle lay carefully on the bed, waiting for the pitch and roll of the thing to make her belly wish it had never eaten anything—again.
“It won’t last, love.”
“Doona’ call me love!” she replied.
“Very well…sweet.”
“Doona’ call me sweet, either!”
“You are difficult to please tonight.”
“You left me with that Captain Barton arse the other night, and you want pleasure tonight? Find yourself a tavern wench!”
“There’s a shortage of taverns aboard my flagship. Consequently, that would also mean there is a shortage of tavern wenches. Aside from all of that, I happen to find myself enamored of just one woman in this world, and there is nae woman that could possibly compete.”
“Would you please cease talking?”
He laughed for an answer, and then kept talking. “Cool water is what you need. I’ll be back. Doona’ move.”
“I couldn’t move if I wanted to,” she grumbled.
“That would also mean that you’re unable to climb about, seeing things that should remain unseen, and learning things that are best left undiscovered?”
He was out the door before she could answer, and beyond a weak toss of her head, there wasn’t much she felt like answering, anyway.
But he was going to be back, and she was going to give him an earful.
Just as soon as she finished retching and crying and sobbing.
He returned, wiping cool cloths about her cheeks and across her forehead, and crooning nonsensical things to her, until she was ready to cry again over his stupidity.
“This is all your fault!” she wailed when he wouldn’t cease.
“You already said that. I already replied.”
“You doona’ know the whole of it!”
“Apprise me.” He had her head pillowed on those two lumps of his chest, which, when he didn’t make them taut, had the consistency of a warm mattress, except for his heartbeat. It also made his voice sound like it was coming from very far away.
“You should have let me stay. I wouldn’t have been trouble.”
“And go without you? This is a honeymoon. I’d look a fool.”
“You already look like that.”
“My thanks. At least my acting isn’t in question.”
“You wish to look like a fool?”
“Fools can’t do much. Therefore, they’re not looked at closely.”
“I hate travel by ship!” Lisle replied.
“It’s just down the coast. We’ll be there a-fore you know it.”
“And I failed at music! I can’t even read notes.”
Langston stopped breathing for a moment, and then he restarted it. Lisle wondered if he noticed. “Music?” he asked.
“You have them play music. With horns.”
“Horns?”
“Aye. One long note. Sometimes two or three of them. Spaced far apart. Always the same tone—always. I doona’ know which note you have them use. It’s like this.” Lisle moved her head a bit, sucked in a breath, and mimicked the note.
“Really?” The one word was accompanied by a stroke of his finger along her cheek and to her jaw.
She nodded. The support of his chest moved as his arm moved. Lisle let her head roll with the motion. He was pulling her closer to him, and that was making the heartbeat thicken in her ear. That was interesting.
“What else is my fault?” he asked.
“The three notes. They mean something. Something like hide or run, or the rangers are coming. Something like that. One note means all is clear. I think. I’m na’ certain since I’ve heard it but once and we weren’t home at the time. He must come in your direction a lot.”
“Home. You just called my castle home.” He wasn’t in control of his breathing, but that was all right. The arms tightened for a moment too, tucking her nose between the muscles of his chest, and then he released her, although one arm stayed at her back.
“I have nae other place to stay,” she replied finally.
“Having nae other place to stay, and calling a place home, are two incredibly different things, Lisle.”
“I doona’ ken what two notes mean,” she replied.
“What?” He wasn’t feigning the confusion.