“Ye’re welcome, lass,” came almost immediately and from very close by. She could imagine him leaning his forehead against the door as she was, their hands touching but for an inch of old oak. The thought made her feel warm, and safe, in the least likely place in the world for her to do so.
Before the chill of the room could sink deeper than her skin she backed away and stepped into the bath. With blessed heat surrounding her she took her time soaking, and then washed her hair with soap and lemons and tried to convince herself that she was only smiling because it felt good to be clean, and not because her maddeningly stubborn captor was also proving to be far more considerate, and interesting, than she ever would have expected.
Chapter Eight
The moment he heard Marjorie step into the brass bathtub, Graeme pushed away from the door and moved quickly and quietly to his own bedchamber. The pale, perfect skin of her leg marred by purple and red bruises, wounds thathe’dcaused her—it made him angry. Furious. He’d fought people—men—before, caused and received cuts and bruises far worse than those she bore. But those had been fair fights, two opponents stepping forward willingly. Marjorie had had no choice in the matter, because he hadn’t given her one. Not from the moment she’d arrived.
Cursing, he dug one of his softest linen shirts out of his wardrobe and with the help of his boot knife, tore it into long, wide strips. Gathering them up along with a heavy wool scarf, he returned to her room and sat on the floor to line the ankle cuff with the thick wool and then wrap every bit of it but the lock with layers of linen. He’d have to open the cuff a bit wider than it was now to fit it around her leg, but he’d be damned if he would lock it on her again without some padding.
He wanted to leave it off her altogether; in fact, he wanted to yank it free of the bed and throw it through the window. If it had been just the two of them, he would have risked it, risked her getting away and sending the law and Lattimer after him. But as he’d been reminded every day for the past eight years, he couldn’t make decisions based solely on whathewanted.
Because what he wanted happened to be naked just a few feet away from him. A proper, aristocratic, tight-bunned English female, and he wanted her pale, perfect skin against his, he wanted her mouth on him, he wanted to see her face flushed with passion and to hear her cry out his name as he came inside her.
That was why he’d asked her so-called aunt if she had a beau—though why in hell that should matter, he had no idea. He simply wanted her, and that had nothing to do with what an alliance with her could do for his corner of clan Maxwell. He wanted to know that a lovely duke’s sister desired a near destitute Scottish clan chieftain who mended fences and sheared sheep and delivered calves with his own two damned hands.
With the cuff as comfortable as he could make it, he stuffed the knife back into his boot, placed the book of Robert Burns’s poetry he’d dug out of the attic on the mantel where she could reach it, then returned to his watch by the spare room’s door.
A few minutes later, that door opened, and Marjorie in shimmering emerald stepped into the hallway with the scent of steam and lemons swirling around her. Graeme’s entire body reacted, and he had to work to remain where he was. To make it worse, her long, dark hair hung damply halfway to her waist, strands framing her own face and caressing her cheeks. She looked up at him, her deep blue eyes searching his.
Abruptly she blinked and looked down. “You found another dress for me,” she said, brushing her fingers along the deep green satin of her skirt.
Thankfully they’d simply stored most of his mother’s things away in the attic, along with his grandmother’s and her mother’s before that. “It was fairly fashionable ten years ago, I imagine,” he heard himself say. “And it’s a bit warmer than the other one.”
Of course she wouldn’t thank him for it, because she’d said she would do no such thing, but she did incline her head. “I don’t suppose I could go for a walk?” she said, stopping short of the open door to her room. “Stretch my legs a little?”
Graeme knew he was being led about by his cock, but he was still tempted to take her for a stroll. “Nae,” he said aloud. “The fewer people who know ye’re here before I wed ye, the better fer all of us.”
“For all ofyou,perhaps.”
He grimaced. “I met Mrs.Giswell this morning,” he offered, motioning her into the bedchamber. “She’s calling ye her niece Marjorie, and offering a hundred pounds fer yer safe return.”
She stopped again, facing him. “Why—”
“I reckon she figured with the way ye went missing, that ye’d been taken. And that if so, it’d be better if ye werenae known to be Lattimer’s sister. A hundred quid’s a damned fortune, hereaboots, but nae overly suspicious. Nae when it’s offered by some mad old Sassenach lass.”
“At least someone’s looking for me,” she muttered, limping past him and into the room.
“Aye. And we’d best come to an agreement, ye and me, before she brings yer brother and all of his MacKittrick men doon on my head.”
“Who’s MacKittrick?”
There likely wasn’t any harm in telling her, and if it distracted her for a time, so much the better. “Yer brother’s started his own clan. Did ye nae know?”
She shook her head, the dark cascade of her hair falling over one emerald shoulder. “I had no idea that was even possible.”
“It isnae, truly. But the castle, Lattimer, used to be called MacKittrick, after an old Maxwell chieftain. When all yer brother’s tenants sided with him against the Maxwell—the Duke of Dunncraigh—they were booted from clan Maxwell. So they decided yer brother was Laird MacKittrick, and now they’re MacKittrick’s men. His clan, in the ways it counts.”
“That’s… Why in heaven’s name didn’t Gabriel write and tell me all this?” she burst out, stalking toward the window and then quickly turning back, as if she remembered she wasn’t supposed to be over there. “Why didn’t he tell me he was in the middle of a war with clan Maxwell? And that clan Maxwell apparently surrounds Lattimer?”
“It does,” he commented. “And he didnae do ye any bloody favors by keeping silent, and that’s damned certain.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Yes, I believe we can agree on that point. And your language sir, if you please.”
Back to that again, were they? So be it. Neither of them had much incentive to change, so he’d imagined they’d be having the same argument until doomsday. “Aye. My filthy language. Ye can sit in the chair, or on the bed,” he said, squatting to pick up the end of the chain. “I padded it, but I’ll let ye choose which leg I put it on.”
Marjorie scowled. “My right leg, then. At least I’ll be able to sit in the chair more comfortably.” With that she seated herself, graceful as any princess, in the old, overstuffed chair. “And however well you cover it, it’s still a shackle, and you’re still locking it around my ankle.”
Graeme clenched his jaw. “I’m aware of that, lass. Agree to marry me, swear on someaught ye cherish, and I’ll take it away.”
