Chapter 14
When Gillian woke, she was alone in her vast bed.
She lay very still, holding close the memory of Nicholas climbing into bed with her in the wee hours of the morning.
Had that been a dream, too? But the pillow next to her still bore the imprint from his head.
She smoothed her hand over it. No warmth of him remained.
He had been gone for a while. She rolled over onto the pillow, inhaling deeply.
It still smelled of him. She sighed and felt it to her toes.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
Gillian rolled away from the pillow guiltily, cheeks flaming.
The door between their chambers stood open, and Nicholas leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. His damp hair was combed away from his face. He wore close-fitting black breeks and a snowy white shirt, unlaced at the throat.
How long had he been standing there? His expression was inscrutable as he crossed to the bed. Her heart stepped up its tempo.
She glanced at the open shutters and saw it was nearing noon. “You’ve let me sleep all day.” She started to get out of bed, but he motioned for her to lie down again.
“You had a difficult night. You should rest.”
She lay back slowly. “I’m fine, my lord.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “I told you before, when we’re alone there is no need to ‘my lord’ me.”
Gillian smiled shyly.
“I have a question for you.”
“Aye?”
“Does anyone want you dead?”
He said it so matter-of-factly that she blinked, then said, hesitating, “I can’t think of anyone.”
“Are you certain? Someone you’ve offended? An angry suitor?”
Gillian’s lips curved reproachfully. “You know I had no other suitors but you and Father’s Frenchman.”
He touched a lock of her hair that fell over the bedclothes, rubbing the ends of it between his fingers. His black lashes shadowed his eyes. “What about in the Lowlands?”
Gillian watched his fingers caress her hair. She could not actually feel his touch, and yet she felt it all over.
“Maybe it’s not about me,” she said, “but about you. I am your new wife. Maybe one of your lovers didn’t want you to wed.”
He wrapped the end of her hair around his finger. “I thought of that. But I can think of no one who would benefit by your death.”
Gillian released the breath she’d been holding. He had no recent lovers, at least.
“Maybe it’s revenge,” she suggested. “What of your enemies?”
“For your death to hurt me, the attacker would have to believe ours was more than a marriage of convenience. That you meant something to me.” Her hair was wrapped so tightly about his finger that it pulled at her scalp.
Gillian’s gaze dropped to her ring, and she twirled it on her finger. “I’m sure no one thinks that.”
Her heart sank when he remained silent. Maybe Hazel had given her a lust philter by accident. She didn’t expect him to love her.
But she wished for it.
“Besides,” he continued, his grip on her hair loosening, “when one seeks revenge, they usually declare themselves. What good is it if the object of your vengeance doesn’t understand why?”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
He tugged gently on her hair. “You wouldn’t.” He released her hair and moved his hand away to rest on his bent knee. “I tried to discover more about yesterday’s . . . mishap. I’ve heard some very strange accounts.”
When he didn’t elaborate, Gillian said, “Aye?”
“The cook swears the ballast bounded off of you, as if you were wearing armor. A stable lad claims it changed direction right afore it hit you.”
“That is very odd.”
“Aye. All insist it should have hit you. And yet you are unharmed.”
Gillian felt vaguely guilty, as if she’d done something wrong. She tried for her best look of wide-eyed innocence, then remembered the lad hanging from the gates.
“Sir Evan should not have hanged that boy. I am unhurt.”
“He tried to kill you, Gillian. If Evan had not hanged him, I would have.”
Gillian shook her head, leaning toward him and resting a hand on his arm. “But he was not acting on his own. Someone made him do it. Sir Evan should not have hanged him until we discovered who . . . and then maybe not at all.”
“Aye, and I’ll talk to Evan, fash not. But likely he acted in passion, furious at the attempt on your life.” His face hardened, eyes flat obsidian. “I might have done the same in his place.”
She wanted to tell him about the visit from the boy. Had it been a dream or something else? Her fingers tightened unconsciously on Nicholas’s arm. The muscles beneath her fingers flexed.
“What is it?” he asked, studying her closely, his expression guarded.
“I had strange dreams last night . . . fantastic dreams.”
He patted her hand. “Opium will do that.”
Gillian nodded, her lips rolled inward.
He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “But you’re not sure these were dreams. Tell me.”
“The lad that Sir Evan hanged . . . he came to me, here in the bedchamber. He wept and said, ‘He made me do it.’”
“And . . .?”
She shrugged. “And then he left.”
One of his black brows twitched. “If this is one of your ghosts, they’re not very informative. Did he give you any names?”
She gave him a sour look and shook her head.
“It was a dream, Gillian.”
“But it seemed so real.”
“Opium-induced dreams do seem real.”
She let out a frustrated breath, her eyes narrowing. “Very well. I had another visitation.”
He closed his eyes, as if the word visitation pained him.
She rushed on before he could stop her, “It was a maid. She cleaned my fireplace over and over again—even though there was a fire burning. And she drank my wine.” It sounded ridiculous when she said it out loud. Heat suffused her neck.
Nicholas just looked at her.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Very well. Maybe that one was an opium dream.”
Nicholas scratched behind his ear. “I’d like to remind you of the conversation we had about this—”
Gillian huffed out a breath. “Aye, I remember. I’m forbidden. I didn’t summon him, though. He came to me.”
Nicholas unfolded her arms and took her hands in his. “Gillian, I pray you. Forget this ghost rubbish. You know what the clergymen say? That there’s no such thing as ghosts and that those who claim to see them are communing with demons. What does that make you?”
“A witch.” Her voice was stubbornly defiant.
His grip on her hands tightened. “I vowed to your father that I would protect you, but I need you to help me by not begging for trouble. We have enough to worry about, with two attempts on your life, without you announcing to the world that you think you’re a witch.”
Gillian stared down at the velvet coverlets. He spoke wise words, but she still didn’t like them.
“You’re angry with me,” he said.
She shrugged, her mouth pursing, unhappiness filling her. “It’s not you . . . it’s just not what I thought it would be.”
He sat back. “What’s not?”
“Being a countess. Oh, Nicholas, I’m the worst countess ever!
” And suddenly the wretchedness and confusion of the past day bubbled up inside and she burst into tears.
“I don’t know what I’m doing! Sir Evan hates me, and my servants are killing themselves, and now someone wants me dead, and you think I’m crazy. ”
She covered her face with her hands. Nicholas pulled her into his arms.
“I don’t think you’re crazy . . . maybe a little dotty. . . .”
Dotty? Despair hit her anew, and she sobbed harder. Maybe she was dotty to interpret opium dreams as ghostly visitations—but she didn’t want to be dotty. That’s not what she wanted him to see when he looked at her.
“I mean that in a good way,” he said, his voice strained, hands stroking over her back. “And I’m sure Evan likes you. How could he not? He’s that way with everyone. Dull as a stone— that’s why I like him. He doesn’t annoy me with mindless chatter.”
“Like me!”
He groaned. “No, not like you. And what else . . . you’re a beautiful countess, a perfect countess.”
She sniffled against his shirt. “Liar.” But she felt better that he’d said it.
“I mean every word of it.” When she had calmed down somewhat, he asked, “What’s this about your servants killing themselves?”
She told him about Aileen, growing a bit tearful again and ending with, “Sir Evan said the servants kill themselves because they’re so miserable. We must do something to improve their lots, Nicholas, something to make them happy so they want to live.”
He let out a breath. “Very well, aye—if it makes you happy, improve the servants’ lots, but I vow my servants do not go about killing themselves. I’ve never mistreated them.”
She sniffed and nodded. She hadn’t thought he mistreated them, but maybe he didn’t pay enough attention to them. She knew some people considered their servants some sort of different form of life, like a talking horse.
“Has anything else happened while I was gone?”
“Sir Evan has a sweetheart. I saw them kissing.”
“Sir Evan has many sweethearts, sweetheart.”
The endearment broke through her melancholy. She smiled at him.
He tilted her chin up with the edge of his hand and kissed her, his mouth soft and warm. Gillian closed her eyes and sighed, leaning against him. She was glad he was home.
“Are you sorry you wed me yet?” he asked. “Someone has tried to kill you twice in the short time we’ve been married. Not a very auspicious beginning.”
“I’m not sorry.” She kept her face buried in his shirt. “I’ll never forget how you appeared out of the fog to rescue me. A very auspicious beginning, methinks.”
He pressed her back on the bed, his hands sliding eagerly into her dressing gown, and he made love to her, bright sunlight streaming through the windows.
They spent the afternoon in bed, talking and making love. She told him about her foster parents and the border feuds, and he observed that borderers didn’t sound any different than Highlanders—they both loved to feud. Once while she was talking, he caught her hand in one of his.
“You keep turning this ring.” He took it between his fingers and twirled it himself, studying it. “Where did you get it?”
“It was my mother’s.”