“Fair terms. I have met the Dowager Avrie, and Aggie is friendly with her servants.” She resisted the desire to look at him again, just for the sheer pleasure of it. “We did hear a rumor her grandsons had returned. Also that you killed their father.” She hoped she was not going to be caught amid some bloody, highland feud. “Was this attack today about revenge?”
He made a face and gestured with those beautiful hands. “Life is mostly about revenge, is it not, mistress?”
“Not in my experience.” Wryly she added, “It is mostly about survival.”
He moved at last to sit on the three-legged stool beside the hearth, affording Jeannie the enjoyment of watching his muscles flex again. “Revengeissurvival.”
“Perhaps, in your world.” Jeannie reflected briefly on it. “I suppose if you murder a man’s father you can then expect him to come looking for you.”
“I thought the sons had taken flight like two carrion crows and were in hiding for fear of their own lives. I will be better prepared the next time I meet them.”
She swung to face him and crossed her arms across her breasts. “And if you kill them also, Laird MacAllister? Will that not merely extend the violence on and on?”
“’Twill do more than that, Mistress MacWherter.” He leaned toward her and his eyes glowed. “’Twill rid the world of a scourge of vermin. And, you ken, such vile pests must be eliminated wherever they are found.”
Chapter Eleven
Jeannie stirred uneasily on the narrow straw pallet and reached for sleep that would not come. Aggie had insisted on giving Jeannie her bed in the loft and now slept in a nest of blankets on the floor alongside, but neither Jeannie’s mind nor emotions would still.
Might as well try to sleep while a wolf prowled below; Finnan MacAllister remained at large in the cottage, watching over his servant and supposedly guarding the place.
She could hear every step he took, soft padding very much like the wolf she envisioned. He had added fuel to the fire and been in and out of her bedroom, tending Danny. Outside, the world lay still, the hush of the summer night seemingly complete. She counted Aggie’s quiet breaths; she caught the murmur of Finnan’s voice, if not his words, every time he spoke to the lad.
Was Danny awake, then? Better? Worse? How long could she lie here wondering? How long till dawn?
She knew she should stay where she was, difficult as that might be. She needed to keep well away from Finnan MacAllister and the danger he represented to her peace of mind. But lying there staring at the beams of the loft by the dim firelight that sifted up the ladder, she acknowledged keeping away served very little purpose. He already occupied a place in her head, and she could virtually see him moving about, those tattoos writhing above the muscles of his chest and arms, hair hanging down his back like the mane on a wild pony.
How might it feel to run her fingers through that hair, tangle them in the rough tresses? How might it feel to press herself against his hard body? To taste him?
Forbidden thoughts, wicked thoughts. It was as if she had caught them from him.
She groaned softly and rolled over, desperate to supplant him in her mind, but other thoughts, like sleep, would not come.
What sort of man was he? For weeks, Aggie had been bringing home whispers of him, gossip from the servants at Avrie House and others in the glen. Murderer, betrayer, mercenary. He had fought at Culloden—as had Geordie—and survived, but no one seemed sure on which side of that conflict he had raised his sword.
Her best source of information about Finnan MacAllister was now dead. Geordie had not liked to talk about his past. Even when in his cups he threw out only a few words before falling into brooding silence.
Indeed, Geordie MacWherter had spoken of his good friend, Finnan, seldom enough. He had mentioned him in passing, and also when telling Jeannie about the residence here in Glen Rowan his good friend had gifted him.
“Paradise on earth,” he had claimed, his eyes hazy and distant with the drink. “A home at last, for I have never had one.”
“Why do you not go there, then?” Jeannie had asked, nodding at the letter, covered with black script, Geordie held in his hand.
Geordie had gazed at her with wistful eyes that retained that childlike innocence despite all he must have seen. “I would not go there alone, Jeannie Robertson. Will you marry me?”
She had refused him then, attributing the offer to the drink, of which he obviously had a skin full, and also later when he proposed a second time. She knew to her soul he deserved better, someone who could give him her whole heart.
But still later, after her father died and her situation worsened, Jeannie found herself in need of the protection the big, sandy-haired highlander offered. Marrying him had not been an honorable thing to do. Yet she’d been as honest with Geordie as she could. And he had taken her on her terms.
She had not made him happy. She’d known that on some level, even if she had not been aware he had written letters to his good friend, MacAllister. Complaining of her, apparently—for the proof of what Geordie must have told Finnan lay in Finnan’s anger with her at their initial meeting.
But now—now he claimed Geordie’s ghost had come to him and asked for his protection and forbearance on Jeannie’s behalf. Finnan would have Jeannie believe his attitude toward her had changed. Did she believe it? Lying there with her eyes stretched wide in the darkness, she could not tell.
She heard Finnan murmur again, then followed his soft footsteps as they went to the fire, heard the splash as he poured water. With a sigh she sat up and slid from the cot.
She had gone to bed fully clothed, unwilling to undress with that man in the house. She seized a shawl and wound it about her shoulders before going down the ladder.
No one in the main room. The fire burned steadily, and the kettle simmered, hot. She went to the door of her bedroom and peered in. One glance told her Danny had taken a turn for the worse. Finnan bent over the bed, on which the lad tossed and muttered words to which she heard Finnan reply.
