“Once I sell my spring wool, I will pay ye back.”
“The spring wool from your forty sheep? Surely, you need that money to make it through next winter.”
Yes, damn him, she did. And how did he know she had only forty sheep? Thirty-nine to be precise, since a ewe had disappeared last week despite her and Luran’s careful watch.
“My people need food, Lord Reeves.”
“The current Duke of Dunmore has made clearances. My father made them years ago. If you or your grandfather had, you would not have people you needed to feed.”
He stood and walked to her, his eyes on her chest. She willed herself not to recoil, not to back away. Not to squeak. She was a countess. In her own right.
“I would say you were in need of food, too, my lady. Your bosom is so shrunken. Is there famine in Kinmarloch?”
She leveled her gaze at him, waiting for his eyes to move up to her face. Finally, they did.
“Nae,” she said. And it was true. There was not famine. Not yet.
He sighed and walked away from her and refilled his cup from the ewer next to his chair. “This is why these old Scottish peerages are so foolish. A soft-hearted, brainless woman can inherit a title and have the responsibility of making prudent decisions when so many men might die.”
She let his insults slide off her. She did not care about his good opinion, only his money.
“I have made prudent decisions, Lord Reeves, the same as my grandfather who was both the Duke of Dunmore and the Earl of Kinmarloch when he was alive. I have just nae made the same decisions ye have.”
“You think keeping your farmers as farmers when you so desperately need grazing land is prudent? All your people should have been moved years ago to the coast where they could fish or harvest kelp or croft in some other way.”
“Ye know my land dinnae touch the sea.”
“No, it doesn’t, does it? You lost that bit when your grandfather died five years ago, didn’t you? Then you should have moved your farmers someplace else where they might scratch out a living. Glasgow. The New World.”
“I dinnae have the money for that, my lord.” And it was cruel to tear people away from the land they had lived on for centuries.
“Yes, I see your difficulty. But it’s your difficulty, isn’t it? Not mine.” He turned his back to her and faced the fire.
She almost turned then herself. Almost turned and walked away, leaving the warm room and the warm house of this unspeakable worm. She would resaddle her horse herself, not wanting any favors from Reeves’ grooms, and ride the many miles back to her keep.
And once in her keep, she would do what? Have Mags make up the pallet in front of the fire while she herself heated the groats. And after a few shared spoonfuls, she and Mags would lay down on that pallet, her keeping the girl in front of her to get most of the heat, she with her back to the cold of the keep. Please let it not rain tonight.
“But.”
The word arrested her.
“But?” She could not keep the hope and the plea out of her voice and she hated herself for it.
“I might be willing to make your difficulty mine. I am long past due to take a wife.”
He spoke slowly, almost in a lazy manner, as if the idea had just occurred to him. But for Helen, the words dangled, sharp and pointed, full of menace, like a suspended sword. No, no, no. Not this.
“I had thought to go to London,” Reeves went on. “To rent a house. To make the acquaintance of some young ladies there. Perhaps make an offer of marriage to the daughter of a merchant. Or to the daughter of an impoverished earl, desperate to dispose of one of his female offspring. I do not need a large dowry. I just need an obedient wife who is willing to come live in this godforsaken place. A fertile wife. But perhaps I need not travel so far afield.”
He turned to face her. “Because, after all, there is a woman here, in front of me. An ugly woman, but one with land. Barren, rocky land I know can turn a profit as grazing land. And she has a title which would one day go to my son. He would be an earl, himself.” His eyes ran over her body. “But is the woman as barren as the land? I think I would have to plant some seed and make sure it took root before committing myself.”
He had made it easy for her, thank God. He had not wooed her with pleasantries or undertook any effort to make himself appealing. He had made the crudest offer possible—that he would take her, likely in this room, right now, and if she met with his approval and if she became heavy with child, he would marry her.
She had her dirk strapped to her leg. She allowed herself to imagine a future in which she pulled that dirk from its sheath and charged Lord Reeves with a battle cry, sinking the dirk into his belly and twisting it so his intestines spilled out onto the floor of this warm room.
But . . . Mags and everyone else who depended on her. And her title would become extinct when she was executed by the crown for murder. And the people of Kinmarloch would be at the mercy of some other man she did not know.
She took a breath and summoned the strength of the MacNaughtons so she could manage to bite her tongue, to say what was needed to get her money. She had not known how much strength it took to submit.
