The Laird’s French Bride #4
He was surprised. He would have thought she would want to inspect the Great Hall, the solars or the stores, the buttery or the chapel, places where the wealth of a lord could be gauged.
But he nodded and led her with the white pup in her hand from the gatehouse annexe across the bailey, Paula trotting behind.
No one looked surprised by their passage or took particular note of him, though Jeanne in her finery and the great, muscled dog at her side drew many an interested glance.
His people were used to seeing him hither and yon about the castle.
He’d been born and raised within these walls and, while treating him with deference, everyone accepted that theirs was a laird who must know everything about those things and people for whom he was responsible.
There was no room he had not been in, no roof he had not climbed over, no floor he hadn’t trod, no person with whom he hadn’t shared a word and a drink.
They entered the stables at the far end of the bailey, Paula hard on their heels. The light inside was soft and diffused, the horses in their stalls whickering softly at the sight of the strange dog.
“Who goes?” a young man’s voice croaked from overhead.
A second later a gangly lad of fifteen or sixteen years jumped down from the loft where he’d been napping or – a giggle from above caught Rob’s wry attention – indulging in another more pleasurable pastime.
One look at his laird and the boy dissolved into abashed silence for which Rob thankfully offered up a prayer.
“I’m showing the lady the stables, Davie. I won’t need your help so you can go to the kitchen and have Maura fetch you a cold glass of buttermilk.” He glanced up. “And one for yer friend, too. If she’s a mind to come … No. Not word from you now. Yer secret’s safe with me.”
“Thank—”
“I said, not a word,” Rob repeated. “I meant it.”
The wide-eyed lad bobbed his head and, with a backward glance at Jeanne, made a tching sound at which a pretty young face, round-cheeked and dusky-skinned, appeared above them.
Without a second’s hesitation the girl swung her legs over the edge and dropped lightly to the ground.
Then with a giggle and blush, she grabbed hold of Davie’s hand, hastily pulling him through the stable door, leaving him and Jeanne alone. At last.
“You know the stable lad’s name.”
“Aye.”
“Does the laird?”
“Aye. Of course.”
“No. Not ‘of course’. I’ve been in many a castle where the lord wouldn’t know the name of his cook, let alone the stable boy.”
“Well,” said Rob comfortably, “this isn’t such a grand castle as those.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she murmured, releasing his arm and walking down the aisle separating the stalls.
The ground underneath was even and freshly spread with sweet hay.
The scent of warm horse, grain and dust filled the air.
His gaze followed her, the gentle sway of her hips, the straight spine and shiny red-gold hair.
She stopped outside his stallion’s stall and looked back over her shoulder at him. “An Arabian steed?” she asked.
“Half,” he answered. “The other half is Highland mare. In other words, no particular lineage.”
“Hm,” she said, reaching in and rubbing her hand down the great steed’s velvety face. Rob was unconcerned. He didn’t tolerate vicious animals in his stables.
“Why did you ask to see the stables first?” he asked curiously.
She gave a little shrug. “A lord would make sure his chapel’s cross was shined and his larder well-stocked to impress a woman he hoped to marry.
The solars would be fitted anew with linens and draperies, the halls swept, tapestries borrowed, beaten and hung.
It’s an easy enough thing to make a place look wealthy and welltended.
It’s not so easy to make a hungry horse look fat.
And a mucked-out stall tells more about a lord’s husbandry than a clean dining hall. ”
Young and girlish and innocent she might be, but Jeanne Forbes was also smart and canny. They’d make an imposing team. He nodded.
“And do the stables tell you anything else about the laird of Barras?”
“Aye,” she said. “The temperament of his horse tells me he would rather persuade than conquer. Am I right?”
He hesitated, uncertain if her words were meant as a compliment or a criticism.
Many men – and women – considered intimidation the only way to see things done.
“Force doesn’t make a thing love you, only fear you, and it’s the nature of things to try to destroy those they fear.
You can only hold a thing to you through trust.”
She regarded him silently. Her expression was impossible to read. “Are those your sentiments, Rob? Or the laird’s?”
“We share like views,” he said.
“Hm.” The pup she carried had begun mewling, causing Paula to dance lightly before her mistress. With a chuckle, Jeanne pushed opened the door to an empty stall and carefully laid the pup on a bed of straw in the corner. At once, Paula flopped down and the pup began nursing.
Jeanne rose, dusting the hay from her skirts, and came back to him.
The light filtering in from the open doors glazed her hair with a fiery sheen and the air in stables dusted her skin with a fine golden talc.
He wanted very much to take her in his arms and lick the fine powder from her brow, her cheeks, and her lips …
She tipped her head back, eyeing him seriously and he realized she didn’t have the slightest notion of the effect she had on him, or where his errant thoughts were taking him. Them.
“What sort of man is the laird, Rob?”
He started, unprepared for the question. He’d expected her to ask him about Barras’s power, land, loyalties, even his faults but not something so all encompassing, so intimate.
“I am uncertain as to your meaning, lady,” he said slowly.
“Is he a good man?”
“Well, now, paining me though it does to say, he’s not much for church-going.”
“No, no,” she said impatiently, shaking her head. “Let me ask this … what does he value?”
That was easier. “Honesty. Hard work. Peace.”
His answer didn’t appear to satisfy her. “But what of the man?” she insisted. Then an inspiration seemed to come to her. “What will he do with the pup?”
“He’ll value him as a gift from his lady.”
“He’ll not have him fight? Or will he?” She was standing very close now, her expression worried. He could see the ruby sheen in the shadows of her red-gold hair, a sprinkling of gingery freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“No. That I can promise. He’s no love of violence for its own sake.” She smelled like sun and soap and she was regarding him so earnestly, so seriously and he wanted … He wanted …
He reached across the space separating them and tipped her chin up.
Her lips parted in surprise and before she could react he’d bent down and brushed a kiss over her mouth.
He heard her breath catch and he shifted closer, this time letting his lips cling.
Her own were soft and plush and warm and sweet.
So sweet. She swayed and he caught her wrists together, bracing her hands against his chest as his kiss deepened, his tongue sliding between her lips to taste—
She shoved against him, hard, and he stumbled back, amused and aroused and pleased, because he wanted her and she wanted him.
He had never imagined, never had the hubris to hope, that their union could be more than an expedience for both of them.
But now … he nearly laughed with the joy of it, the wonder and fortune of it.
She would be his mistress as well as wife, and he would be her lover in addition to husband.
Although she didn’t know this yet. Indeed, at the moment she looked decidedly put out.
“Why did you do that?” she shouted.
“Well, Joan,” he said in his most reasonable tone, “yer a lass and I’m a man and the stables are as private a place as a solar, and you looked willing and lord knows I am, so … why not?”
Half of him hoped she would choose now to dispense with her masquerade so they might go forth in honesty.
But the other half of him, that half that was still a boy, reacted to the girlishness of her blushes and stutters.
That half liked not being cautious, politic, and wise beyond his years, and liked that for these moments she wasn’t Jeanne Forbes, who held the future of his portion of the Highlands in her hands, but “Joan”, a pretty, hot-headed, passionate girl.
Apparently, “Joan” didn’t appreciate his answer. She gasped. “How dare you? I am not some tart to be tumbled in a stall!”
He gave her a lop-sided grin. “How about in a loft?”
Her eyes grew round and he decided to take her momentary silence as consent. Besides, he was in a lather to taste her again, to feel her hands on him. He scooped her up while she was still floundering for a reply. She was light and finely made but well curved and womanly.
He’d one foot on the ladder leading up before she managed to sputter, “Put me down, you great ox! I’m not some doxy! I’m … I’m …”
He didn’t put her down, but neither did he start up the ladder, instead he waited, interested to see what she’d say, how far she’d take her masquerade.
“I’m … I’m betrothed!” she blurted out.
“Aye?” he said, feigning surprise. He bounced her higher up in his arms and in response she flung her arms around his neck, clinging.
He liked the feel of her arms around him and he bent his head down, nuzzling her neck.
Her skin was velvety and smooth, like sun-warmed chamois.
The pulse at the base of her throat trip-hammered beneath his lips.
Delicately, he nipped the tender skin and heard her draw in a startled breath. Her arms tightened. “Didn’t you hear me?” she asked in a high and unnatural voice. “I’m to be wed!”
“No matter, lass. So am I.”