Chapter 3
The tea left a bitter taste in Thomas’s mouth.
That didn’t stop him from swirling his tongue along his gums over and over again, trying to rekindle the taste. Stupid, really.
He’d had that tea often before to cure all sorts of hangovers and headaches, and could probably make up the medicine himself. He knew that Delphine always added a dollop of honey to sweeten the bitterness, but Emma hadn’t bothered.
He smiled to himself, saddling up his horse with absent, mechanical movements.
Emma was so refreshing to be around, after all the yes-men and flirtatious women in Keep MacPherson. But Emma was something else. She didn’t like him, and of course, that was just a challenge. Thomas was used to being liked.
He hadn’t quite figured out what made her dislike him so much. He’d never been unpleasant to her, and he allowed his chief healer and her apprentice whatever license they wanted in the Keep and the surrounding lands.
Yes, Emma was a puzzle, but one Thomas didn’t have the time or right to solve.
He reminded himself that he was the Laird of MacPherson Keep, and she ought to be more respectful.
She didn’t have to like him, but making jokes about putting hemlock in his medicine—assuming they were jokes, of course—really wouldn’t do.
He’d have to do something about the young healer sooner or later, as it seemed that Delphine couldn’t keep her under control.
Ten years ago, or even five, Delphine would have whipped her into shape in no time. Poor Del is getting old, and no mistake.
He finished saddling up his horse, a monstrous grey stallion, and swung himself up.
“Me Laird?”
One of the grooms poked his head through the open stable doors, squinting in the gloom. The stable was all wood and so had hardly any lanterns to light it up. Thomas couldn’t bear the thought of burning down the stables with his precious horses inside.
“Don’t mind me, Malcolm. I’m just going out. I may be back late,” Thomas said briskly. “Get yourself to bed, lad.”
Malcolm chewed on his lip, shifting from foot to foot in the doorway. “But Lady Urquhart said that ye ought not to go out without a guard.”
Thomas sighed.
Typical Tabitha.
Now that her husband was too ill to sit on the council of advisers, Tabitha Urquhart had taken his place. When the other councilors had kicked up a fuss, Tabitha had petitioned to be elected to the council in her own right.
To everyone’s horror, Thomas had agreed.
Well, what else could he do? Tabitha was a formidable woman. She was nearly sixty years old, outspoken, terrifyingly intelligent, and single-minded. Besides, she was the only one of his advisers who would look him in the eye and tell him the truth, whether he wanted to hear it or not.
Thomas needed her.
Unfortunately, that meant hearing things he didn’t want to hear, including, but not limited to, the fact that he ought not to go out unaccompanied to pubs and alehouses at night.
But Tabitha was not here, and the nervy Malcolm was not exactly a formidable replacement.
“I’ll be fine, Mal,” Thomas said, grinning. “Tell her I’ll be back before dawn.”
“But, Me Laird…”
Thomas spurred his horse forward, thundering past poor stammering Malcolm and into the night. He knew exactly where he was going, and so did the horse. The two of them could find their way there in the dark, which was, of course, very convenient.
Above, the stars twinkled into life, one by one. The moon, a glowing crescent in the velvet sky, washed the hills and forests below in an ethereal, silvery light, easily illuminating the way for a single horse and rider to find their way towards the distant glow of a town.
The Sinner’s Pub was a popular one. It was barely two miles from the Keep and always packed to the rafters.
The familiar sound and smell washed over Thomas when he pushed open the door. Chatter, laughter, strains of music, and the clink of glasses and mugs. The smell was less pleasant but a familiar one, nonetheless.
The rushes under his feet were long since trodden down, little more than dried strips of green under his feet stuck to the stone floor with dried, spilled ale. He shouldered his way through, heading for the bar.
He couldn’t see the bar, not with all the people, but he knew it was there.
Elbowing his way through a knot of chatty drunkards, he finally reached it and leaned his elbows on it, craning his neck for the barkeep. His linen shirt stuck to the counter, which was in great need of a wipe. He tried not to think about it.
“Dom!” he called, seeing a familiar shock of chestnut-brown hair. “Dominic, over here!”
He finally got the man’s attention, and Dominic thrust a foaming pint at a man and hurried over to Thomas.
“Are ye here to help?” Dominic asked, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “It’s fair heaving in here tonight.”
Thomas frowned. “It’s like this most nights. Of course, ye wouldn’t know that because ye are never here.”
Dominic rolled his eyes. “I’m a busy man, Thomas. I wish Veronica and Colby would get over their wedded bliss soon and start taking over again. I don’t care for working in a pub.”
“Not even a pub as profitable as this one? Och, lad, where is yer head? I’ll have a pint of ale, by the way.”
Dominic pressed his lips together in a thin line. He was older than Thomas by a few years, and premature threads of silver were already finding their way through his tight black curls. He had grey eyes, startlingly light in his tanned face.
How the man managed to get tanned in the freezing highlands of Scotland, Thomas did not know. He himself was content with milk-pale skin that burned at even the suggestion of a sunny day.
Dominic pushed a pint of ale his way, glowering at the crowd of men waiting at the counter, waving coins and money purses and shouting out their orders.
“I’ll just sort out these whiners,” he said curtly, rounding on the customers with an aggressive, “What do ye want?”
Thomas sipped his ale and smiled. It was a testament to the Sinner’s popularity that even Dominic’s rudeness couldn’t drive customers away.
At one time, not so very long ago, the Sinner had been a den of thieves and drunkards, with cutthroats and cutpurses hovering in every corner.
Shady men slunk around, a coterie of dead-eyed, sallow women in low-cut bodies and unbound hair limping after them, watching in resignation as money changed hands right in front of them.
The place was completely different now.
Well, it was still a den of thieves and drunkards, really.
But Colby, Thomas, Dominic—and later Veronica—had stopped the trade of human flesh dead in its tracks. There were some women plying their trade here tonight, but they worked for themselves and chose whom they wanted.
Well, at least they had a choice in the matter, Thomas thought. He’d never had to pay someone to lie with him and didn’t intend to start now.
On cue, a woman pressed up against him, under the pretense of leaning against the bar.
“Do excuse me, Me Laird,” she said, her voice low and breathy. “I cannot seem to get the barkeep’s attention.”
Thomas didn’t bother to point out that she wasn’t even trying to catch the barkeep’s attention. Instead, he glanced at the woman herself, taking her in.
She was staggeringly beautiful, with the sort of face one might see in a classic painting.
A true work of art. She was around twenty or twenty-two years old, with glossy black hair falling down her back in loose curls, the hair at the temples pulled back in twists.
She wore a linen shirt and a tight bodice, all designed to accentuate the curves of her bosom, and a plain brown skirt and white apron.
She tilted her head, her smile widening at his inspection.
“I’ve seen ye before, have I not?” Thomas asked.
She laughed, throwing back her head. “Aye, Me Laird, ye have. I work here. I’ve served ye ale countless times before. I’ve always remembered ye.”
He laughed, too, shaking his head. “Forgive me, lassie. There are so many people in this place, and I cannot fix more than one face in my head at a time.”
She chuckled. “Do I seem offended, Me Laird?”
He had to admit that she did not.
At last, Dominic glanced their way. His gaze landed on the pretty woman, and he frowned, scooting over towards them.
“Astrid, what are ye doing?” he snapped. “Ye are meant to be serving people. Can ye not see I am run off my feet?”
“Ah, Dom, give the poor lass a break,” Thomas interjected. “She’s fair fainting away. Isn’t that so… Astrid, wasn’t it?”
Astrid grinned. “Aye, Me Laird.”
Dominic rolled his eyes. “Lord, give me strength,” he muttered, then stomped away.
Astrid watched him go, wincing. “I probably shouldn’t get on his bad side.”
“I shouldn’t worry about that. He’s got nothing but bad sides.”
Much to Thomas’s embarrassment, memories of Astrid were creeping back in. He’d flirted with her more than once before, although it had never gone anywhere. He was comfortably aware that he was a handsome man, with the sort of face women liked and the sort of manner women were drawn to.
And, of course, he was the Laird of MacPherson Keep, and he could always find the right thing to say.
Another thing that women liked about him—the right kind of women, of course—was that he made no demands on them.
Thomas prided himself on making sure all his women left his bed satisfied, and he knew how to stop a child from coming.
The women who pursued him were glad of all that and had no desire to marry.
Not yet, at least. When they did marry, they’d marry staid, uninteresting men who adored them and were unlikely to attract another woman anytime soon. Someone like Thomas was far too dangerous. Too risky.
It was every man’s dream to live like that. Wasn’t it?