“Ye will.”
Graeme opened the door, nudged her inside, then shut it again as she faced it. She listened, abruptly cold and worried again, for the sound of the lock turning, but he didn’t do it. If he had, all chance at an alliance would have been lost.
“My lady!”
Whirling back around to face the dim, candlelit room, and nearly tripping beneath the heavy bulk of the coverlet around her, she gasped. “Mrs. Giswell!”
The stout woman sat on the single, plain chair by the wall, her hair a disheveled crow’s nest and her simple muslin gown wrinkled and more than a little askew. Even more telling, she was barefoot. Mrs. Giswell stood, a chain rattling along the floorboards in response, and Marjorie flung out her arms to envelop the older woman in a tight hug.
“That damned barbarian,” Marjorie snapped. “What in the world happened?”
“Oh, my lady, you vanished into thin air!” Mrs. Giswell sobbed. “We looked everywhere for you, asked everyone we met, but no one knew anything! I should have sent for your brother immediately, but I… I was selfish, and I didn’t wish to be let go for losing you. I’d decided to send Wolstanton to fetch him this morning, but I should have done it much, much sooner. I am so, so sorry. Can you forgive me?”
Gabriel didn’t know she’d gone missing? That could be good for Graeme, but that shouldn’t be the first thing that occurred to her, blast it all. “Of course I forgive you,” she returned, patting her companion’s shoulder. “For goodness’ sake,you’rethe one in a locked room with your ankle chained to a bed.”
“Better me than you.” Mrs. Giswell took a deep breath, clearly trying to gather her wits back around her. “I might have fought harder when they captured me, but that man told me he would bring me to you, and that you were safe.”
“And so I am.”
She settled Mrs. Giswell back into the chair, perched on the edge of the bed, and tried to explain the last five days. She left out the kisses and her unexplainable… interest in Graeme, but she included everything else—ending with the fact that she was now posing as a tutor for Graeme’s younger brothers.
“That was very clever of you, to announce that you were a tutor in front of witnesses. That fortune hunter! Shocking.”
“It wasn’t as straightforward as that, but no matter the circumstances I am not about to put my future into someone else’s hands,” Marjorie returned. “Not when I finally control it myself.” Or what remained of it, anyway.
“I knew we should have hired outriders,” Mrs. Giswell returned, shaking her head. “Though if I’d had any idea how dangerous it would be for you to be up here, I would have objected to this trip much more strongly. Highlanders? A clan war? Good heavens.”
“I’m only thankful that you didn’t race about the countryside announcing that Lady Marjorie Forrester had gone missing. You kept things from being much worse. But yes, the bit about the clan war with Gabriel would have been nice to know.”
Never making this journey, though—not only would it have meant not meeting her brother Gabriel’s betrothed, whether she would ever have a chance to do so now or not, but it would have meant that none of the last five days had ever happened. That she wouldn’t have met Connell or his brothers. Or his oldest brother. If nothing else, she’d felt more… alive, more challenged than she could ever remember. And for that, she had to thank Graeme.
Of course, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be having a very stern word with Graeme once she left Mrs. Giswell. That last kiss, especially, left her feeling uncertain of her balance, as if the floor wasn’t quite firm beneath her feet. And this had been after he’d given her the key, after he’d lost the ability to lock her in a room. For that moment she hadn’t been his prisoner, nor he, her captor. She’d liked that kiss, very much. She wanted to repeat it. And heaven help her, shedidwant to see what he had beneath his very fine kilt.
But those thoughts certainly weren’t appropriate when Mrs. Giswell sat in chains. She shook them off, or at least managed to push them back a little. “Can you remember the route you took to get here?” she whispered, not certain how close by Graeme might be. “We could follow it back to return to the inn.”
“They put a smelly sack over my head,” her companion said with a sniff. “All I know is that we drove for hours and hours.”
“Yes, that was my experience as well, blast it all.”
“Lady Marjorie. Your language.”
Ah, she had her conscience back, not that she generally needed reminding. “My apologies.” She stood. “Now. See if you can get some sleep, and I will see if I can get that barbarian to take that shackle off your leg.” She headed for the door, belatedly noting in the growing glow from outside that this room was much smaller and plainer than hers. Not that that signified.
“Remember that a lady who controls her temper, controls her situation.”
Abruptly she also remembered why she’d once wished that the trip north had been considerably shorter. Marjorie smiled. “I shall keep that in mind.”
She opened the door and shut it behind her to give Mrs. Giswell some privacy. When she turned around, though, Graeme wasn’t lurking in the hallway. Nor was he on the stairs or in the foyer when she leaned over the railing to look.
Fine.This would be a conversation best had after she was dressed, anyway. Deliberately going out and kidnapping Mrs. Giswell,afterhe’d agreed to terms with her, and after he’d claimed to be so angry with his brothers for doing the same thing to her. The nerve of that impossible, arrogant man.
Stalking back to her room, she shut and locked the door. The only gown to hand was the fancy emerald one, and so she cleaned up, dressed, and put up her hair as swiftly as she could. Graeme Maxton needed a lesson taught him, and she would have to be the one to do it.
Leaving the room again, she started for the stairs, but stopped when she heard a sound coming from the half-open door beyond hers. The room at the very back of the house belonged to Graeme, so she turned around and marched up to it.
He stood in the middle of the large bedchamber, his back to the doorway, and his rough shirt and coat on the floor at his feet. All he wore, in fact, was the kilt belted around his hips. As she watched, he ran a wet cloth over his face, under his arms, down his chest, and around the back of his neck. The play of the muscles across his back, the flex of his arms and shoulders—it left her mouth abruptly dry and sent warmth between her legs.
Marjorie had always been a logical woman; she’d never been able to afford to be otherwise. Flights of fancy were for the rich. Given her birth and her monetary circumstances, she’d known for a very long time where to set her sights, in which direction lay the chance for her best possible life. She’d landed precisely where she’d aimed, becoming the well-educated companion to a short series of wealthy, elderly women. It hadn’t been particularly fulfilling, but it had provided her with lodgings, spending money, and a certain degree of freedom during the few hours each week she wasn’t needed.
