CHAPTER 9 #2
Ella held her bowl out tentatively, as if she did not expect him to give her the second helping.
It was not his business, but it seemed to him that Lady Margaret had made a verra poor choice in the woman she’d left Ella with in the village.
Besides being thin and dressed in rags, the bairn was too quiet.
He was surprised he did not mind the wee bairn’s company at all. In truth, she was a welcome distraction from Lady Margaret. The damned woman sparked his curiosity. He wondered if there was a hot, passionate woman beneath her calm exterior—and the devil in him was tempted to find out.
Sailing to the Highlands had another advantage—on an open ship, he’d never be alone with her.
“Time for us to find a boat sailing north,” he said once Ella had finished. “The sailors will all be in the tavern next to the harbor.”
He packed up their things and bridled the horse to lead it down. He was uneasy taking Margaret and Ella into a gathering place for rough, seafaring men who were mostly pirates, but, promise or no, he could not trust Margaret not to run off if he left them.
He glanced sideways at her as they started down the slope toward the harbor.
Despite the servant’s clothing, she would stick out in the tavern like a rose growing in the midst of a pigsty.
Besides her pearly-white skin and slender hands that had never scrubbed a pot, she carried herself with a quiet dignity that set her apart.
Worst of all, the lass was too damned beautiful. If she had half the effect on other men as she did on him, there could be trouble.
“Some of these men are unsavory,” Finn warned her. “You’ll be safe in the tavern and on the boat so long as the men think you belong to me.”
“Belong to you?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I’ll tell them you’re my wife.” He ignored Margaret’s startled expression. “You’ll fit in better as a Maggie, so that’s what I’ll call ye.”
“All right,” she said without any hesitation.
“And you, wee one,” he said, picking up Ella, “will be our daughter.”
“You’ll be her father?” Margaret said. “Does this mean you’re going to be drunk and miserable?”
He laughed and put his arm around her. Now that they were in sight of the boats and the tavern, he may as well play the part. But he had no business enjoying it.
He’d misjudged the lass when he saw her at Holyrood Palace and thought she was cold and humorless. Still, Lady Margaret did not seem the sort to engage in a brief and frivolous affair. He was beginning to think that was a shame.
A damned shame.
###
When they reached the tavern, Margaret took Ella from Finn and ducked under the low threshold behind him. Inside it was dark and noisy and had a foul stench that made her gag.
“Stay close to me,” Finn ordered and clamped a hand on her elbow. “I’ll make this as quick as I can.”
Margaret thought he was warning her not to attempt to escape—until her eyes adjusted to the gloom.
Men at court made her uncomfortable with their suggestive remarks and attempts to lure her into dark corners, but these men with their hard expressions and scarred faces looked as if they would slash her throat to steal a ring without a twinge of regret.
“Finn, is that you?” a loud female voice called out.
A woman with wild, unbound red hair, laughing eyes, and a generous bosom that threatened to spill out of her ill-fitting bodice pushed men aside as she bounded toward them.
She threw her arms around Finn and kissed him right on the mouth.
And continued kissing him as if intent on sucking the life out of him.
The woman’s brazen sensuality made Margaret feel painfully prim and uncomfortable in her own skin. Unlike her, this young woman clearly enjoyed her appeal to men. She would be surprised to learn Margaret envied her that.
Of course, her envy had nothing to do with the particular man the woman had her lips locked on at the moment. After what seemed an unnecessarily long time, Finn removed the woman’s arms from around his neck. Then he nodded toward Margaret as he spoke to the woman.
The woman shot sour looks at Margaret while she and Finn continued their whispered conversation. Then she called a couple of men over, and they all talked some more.
“Found a ship sailing in the morning,” Finn said when he returned to Margaret’s side. He paused and peered more closely at her. “I’m sorry if that embarrassed ye. The lass meant no harm.”
“She appears to know ye rather well,” Margaret said. “Do ye come this way often?”
“I came here once, two or three years ago,” he said, and took Margaret’s arm.
“Must have been a memorable visit,” Margaret murmured beneath the noise of the tavern as he led her out.
“The lass helped me find someone to buy the horse as well,” Finn said as he untied his horse outside the tavern. “He makes his living hauling goods to and from the boats and lives just up the path here behind the tavern.”
“You’d sell your horse?” Margaret asked.
“I need the money to pay for our passage,” he said as he rubbed the horse’s forelock. “And he’s not mine.”
“Whose horse is he?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I stole him from the palace stables.”
She laughed despite her shock. After her husband and brothers, who always tried to hide their selfish motives and unsavory acts, his frank admission had a certain charm.
When they reached the cottage, she counted five children outside, who were either pulling weeds in the small vegetable garden or hanging clothes out to dry. Their father watched them approach with narrowed eyes.
“Remember, ye promised to give me no trouble,” Finn said in a low voice. “Don’t try to run off on me.”
Where would she go?
While Finn and the man haggled over the price, the children stopped working and came over to greet Margaret and Ella and pat the horse.
The contrast between these happy, boisterous children and Ella, who cautiously peeked out at them from behind Margaret’s skirts, worried her.
Fortunately, the men did not take long to conclude their deal for the horse.
“Be good to him,” Finn said and rubbed the horse’s ears.
Once they were on their way and out of earshot, Margaret said, “Ye do know that horse was worth far more than what ye sold him for.”
“Aye, but the man could not pay what the horse is worth without taking food out of the mouths of his children,” he said. “As it was all gain to me and enough for our passage, it was a good bargain for us both.”
While the two men bartered, she had watched the other man closely and was certain he would have paid more, whether he could afford to or not.
She was accustomed to men of vast wealth who squeezed their tenants for every farthing with never a thought for how their families would suffer for it.
And yet her kidnapper, who did not appear to have an extra penny to his name, had shown kindness toward a stranger out of concern for the man’s children.
She found herself increasingly at ease with this Highlander, which was a mistake.
She reminded herself that, while he appeared to have a soft heart for children, he was also a womanizer, a charmer, a horse thief, and a kidnapper.
Such an unpredictable man just made it more difficult to anticipate the dangers.
###
Finn took another long pull from his flask as he watched Margaret put her sleeping daughter to bed in the basket, leaving the two of them alone in the night before the fire.
How in the hell did he get himself in this situation?
He had not thought through what it would be like traveling with Lady Margaret Douglas.
He shook his head as he recalled the frozen look on her face when they were in the tavern.
He should never have taken her into the tavern.
He never should have taken her at all.
“You should go to sleep as well,” he told her.
He’d wager she had never slept on the ground in her life before this. No doubt, the maids fluffed her pillows each night. Probably took two maids to comb out her hair and strip her of her fancy gown—ach, he should not think about that.
When he agreed to this, he thought the widowed Douglas sister would be older.
Matronly. Definitely unattractive. It was just his bad luck she was impossibly beautiful.
Hell, if she was going to look that good, she ought to at least be difficult.
He’d expected his highborn hostage to be complaining, demanding, and generally unpleasant. Ach, was that too much to ask?
Lady Margaret was trouble, all right. But the wrong kind of trouble.
He felt her eyes on him as he took another long drink. Without the bairn for distraction, she could not quite hide her unease at being alone with him in the dark. Unease? Hell, she must be scared witless. He was a horse’s arse for not realizing it sooner.
“Don’t worry, lass, you’re safe from me,” he said. “You’re not my kind of woman.”
“What is your kind?” she asked after a long silence. “Women like the one in the tavern?”
“Exactly. I like hot-blooded women who want a good time”—he paused to take another swallow—“and nothing more.”
Lady Margaret was careful, contained, and highborn to boot. She could not be further from the sort of woman he liked. And yet he wanted her so much his teeth ached.