Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“Oh, yes. And wait until you see them. Twenty-seven of them! All trussed up and ready to haul to London. Just like I promised.” It was Captain Barton answering, and the drug only seemed to heighten his arrogance and make him louder.
“You gave them to a Highland laird for safekeeping? Isn’t that highly unusual?” It was obvious William was searching for the correct word.
It was probably damned unusual, Langston thought.
“This is no normal Highland laird, Wills, old boy!” Captain Barton clapped the duke on the back, and received a stern look for his effort. It didn’t affect him much. “This is Monteith. Hated by both sides, loyal to none. Isn’t that right, Monteith?”
“It would seem you have me directly in your sights, Captain. My congratulations,” Langston replied, drawing out the words with a bored tone. They were at the door to the dungeons. Langston turned to prepare them. “Don’t go too close to the bars.”
“The bars?” William asked.
“Why ever not?” Captain Barton wanted to know.
“Because desperate men do desperate things. The MacDonalds are that.”
The men, wearing MacDonald plaide and posing as MacDonalds, were desperate, all right, but it wasn’t for any escape.
They were also writhing and screaming and one of them appeared to be trying to climb the walls, while another was looking at his toes as if they held all the secrets of his world.
There was one beneath a bed of straw, splashing in the film of water coating the floor, and the smell of filth assailed their nostrils to the point that William started gagging.
Langston smiled. He’d ordered it prepared, and the men they were watching had but been placed there an hour earlier.
They were also well into the bane of every opiate addict—withdrawal.
“My God, Monteith! What have you done to them?”
It was Captain Barton, and he wasn’t going anywhere near the bars. He was staring at the men inside and then at Monteith as if he were a demon only Satan could have dreamt up.
“I tortured them. Exactly as you specified. Think nothing of it. They’ll be on their feet and ready for travel in a matter of days. Those that survive, that is.”
He yawned, and watched as William looked like he was ready to retch into the perfumed handkerchief he had held to his nose.
“Have you seen enough, Captain?”
Barton nodded. Langston smiled and waved the way back up the stairs. He could hear the stones of the secret passage moving before the door was shut, and made a mental note of reprimand. They were not to move the prisoners until it was time, and it wasn’t time…yet.
Supper was served exactly on schedule, and with a gaiety that seemed to permeate the air until even the wine sparkled like it was champagne.
Lisle made her entrance, and Langston’s heart felt every bit of the hurt and pain that was reflecting from those sky-blue eyes at him.
She looked across the room at him and nodded.
Then, she was walking over to take her assigned place, and holding her hand out to the butcher of the Highlands and introducing herself with the slightest warble to her voice, enchanting that fellow until his eyes looked like they’d forgotten how to blink.
Langston was halfway to a stand before he caught himself.
She was wearing a sky-blue taffeta dress that he’d selected, but once again he’d forgotten that she had a very lovely bosom, and only an idiot put such a thing on display when there was a man known for his sexual appetites as her dining partner.
Langston groaned, and stabbed his fork into his gelled cranberry mold, separating it with the thrust and watching the filling ooze out with a strange feeling of satisfaction that was only tempered when he looked up and watched William Cumberland fawning over his wife.
As if she’d felt his gaze, she looked up, speared him into place with the pain luminating out at him, and making him wrench the silver spoon in his hand until it warped.
She looked away, placed her hand on the duke’s arm, and laughed lightly at something he’d said.
All of which had Langston rising from his seat again, and feeling nothing over the blood-pounding heartbeat in his ears but pure and absolute hate.
Then Lisle was turning to the captain at her other side, and leaning slightly as she conversed with him.
The movement had the front of her gown gaping farther open, and she made certain the gentlemen were looking there, as she brushed a stray lock of her hair from where it was at least trying to shield some of her. Langston groaned.
He’d planned everything to the smallest detail, except for one thing: his own reaction to his wife.
Langston controlled the tremble of his own hand as he reached for, and downed, the water in his goblet.
He needed her tonight; her beauty, her power, her charm.
He was trusting her more than he should, but he was prepared for a betrayal by making certain every one of the chairs had a servant directly behind it, and that servant wasn’t just a footman.
They were Yellow Company, well trained, and well armed.
The duke had even done him the great honor of dismissing his own guard, since he felt so certain of Monteith, and so safe in his hands.
Lisle was laughing, and Langston was not.
He watched her pose and flirt with the men at either side of her, and knew he was turning red with an emotion he should have killed off years before.
The sweat was making the shirt stick to his backbone, and run from there to the edge of his English trousers, and he couldn’t wait to shed them and put on his rightful raiment, and take his rightful place.
She damn well better get her hand off the duke’s sleeve!
Langston had his napkin tossed to the table and his chair already sliding out before he caught the motion, and stared down at the plate of squab pie they’d served him, looking at it like it was something that hadn’t been invented yet.
He took great gulps of air, pulled his collar from his neck, and wondered what was wrong with him that he couldn’t control his emotion any better than this.
She truly was ruining him. He was going to be useless as an actor and a liar if this kept up. He sat back down, put half the pie in his mouth in one bite, and started chewing, viciously, with intent, and with a look down the table that if she’d chanced to glance up she’d have gasped in shock at.
They served another course. She was laughing and hiding her mouth and saying things that made them laugh, and everything he put in his mouth was as tasteless as the next, and then everything went completely still as he saw her lift a wine glass and take a sip of it.
Langston was on his feet, and halfway down the table before she set the glass down.
Then she was looking up at him with those beautiful, brittle-looking, sky-blue eyes, although anyone else would have a hard time looking anywhere but at how much bosom she was putting on display, and pleading with him not to hold the matter against her anymore.
“Gentlemen. I’m afraid my wife has taken ill,” Langston said, nodding his head for one of the servants to assist her with her chair.
She was in his arms, and she was pliant and looking at him with a dazed expression, while he was kicking himself for every kind of a fool for allowing her to come into close contact with anything that might harm her, or their baby.
Langston’s eyes filled and he had to blink them rapidly before the two Englishmen noticed that the laird was close to sobbing, and then they’d want to know why.
It was at what he’d done. Very little was going according to plan.
Lisle looked up at him with eyes that were swimming with her own tears.
Then she was pouting and smiling and making little kissing noises.
All of it was driving him insane with all he had to keep in his mind; the things he had left to do.
There was nothing for it but to get her into competent hands.
“Excuse me, gentlemen. I have to see my wife to her room. I’ll be down shortly.
” Langston ran up the steps. He was calling for Mary MacGreggor and giving her heartless instructions to keep Lisle up and sober and walking.
Then he was running back down the steps before any of the men got the idea to leave.
He reassured himself with his instructions.
There hadn’t been much opiate in any glass of wine, or in any of the ale.
There hadn’t been enough to harm anyone.
He just wanted their senses dulled, not obliterated.
He needed every one of them well and alive, and healthy; exactly as he’d told Captain Barton a prisoner needed to be.
“Well! It’s been a lovely evening, Monteith. Congratulate your wife when you see her again. Tell her Big Wills has a surprise for her. I’ll be happy to let her see it.”
Langston had his hand in a fist, and was ready to swing it before sanity returned, and with it time and reason and everything he’d prepared and worked for. He uncoiled his fist by act of will, and worked his fingers loose.
“My pleasure, my lord duke. If you’ll be so good as to come outside. We’ve got everything prepared.”
“You’re a wonderful host, Monteith. I’ll recommend you to all my friends back in the civilized world. I vow it—”