Chapter 12
“Rosalyn?” What just happened? Lachlan’s head was spinning. Last he’d remembered, he was talking with the bishop about his riding academy, and now? There was Rosalyn, flushed cheeks, her red hair spilling about her shoulders, and her hand on his, well . . . Was he dreaming?
“My lord. This—I . . . you see—”
“I clearly see your hand is in my breeches.”
“‘Tis not.” The lass’s face turned a bright red shade and she yanked her hand out.
“What where you about?”
She stared at him, her lips parted as if to speak, but nothing came forth. She looked so beautiful. Her breasts made taut peaks under her dark blue dress. “Why did you stop?”
“There’s more to be done?” she asked in a whisper, her eyes full of concern. “I do not want you to be in pain.” She leaned forward, looking at him quizzically, as if he had a big wart on his nose.
He chuckled deeply. “Pain, no. But men don’t want to be taken to the precipice of pleasure and then pushed off the cliff. I’d rather have someone to hold on to me and keep me safe.” He raised his arms in her direction.
She shook her head. “As long as you are not in pain, I will keep my distance,” she said as she stood and turned her back to him. “I am here to heal you, not love you.”
Even though she said the words so softly, he’d heard them, but he refused to let her keep her distance. “Did you say you are here to love me?”
Rosalyn coughed. “I gave you some herbs to help you feel better.”
“I can assure you, it was not the herbs that made me feel better. Were you rubbing them on my cock? Is that what you were doing?”
She kept her back turned, but her shoulders tensed and her hands fisted at her sides. “Healers do what they must. Even if it means sacrificing their dignity,” she said with clenched teeth as she turned to face him.
“Well then, I’m grateful for your sacrifice. When do you suppose you’ll need to do that again?”
Her eyes shot daggers at him. “Sir, my intentions were pure. Stop asking me questions.” She crossed her arms over her chest, exasperation in her expression.
He patted the pillow. “Come, sit by me and make sure your good deed is working.” When she recoiled at his words, he coaxed her with a promise. “I shall not touch you and you can ask me all the questions you’d like.”
A smile crept up one side of her face.
“Come, I promise,” he said, patting the pillow again. “I won’t bite either.”
She bowed her head shyly and shuffled to his side. In a tomboyish way, she plopped down on the pillow beside him.
“All right then,” she said, settling into a comfortable pose with her legs crossed beneath her soft blue dress. “Why do you want Fyvie?”
He let out a long sigh, his smile and enthusiasm for her questions deflating.
“Why do I want Fyvie?” he asked, staring off to the rosaries hanging along the wall, reminding himself that he was in the place where the bishop was making his home and lying would be more difficult with a makeshift altar in view.
Even God’s presence seemed to linger about the place making what had transpired, although briefly in his opinion, blasphemous. He chuckled thinking about it.
“Why do I want Fyvie?” he repeated, as if digging deep into his soul for the real answers, not the ones he’d learned to accept. “Well, for one, my father wants me to have it.” There, that was honest.
“Go on,” she said with a softened gaze.
“For you to know why my father wants me to have it means you’ll need to know more about my father.” He turned his head and gazed up at her from his position on the floor. “I certainly don’t want to bore you with family drama.”
Rosalyn nodded patiently before saying, “We are tethered here together, not physically as in the prison, but bound here until we make our final destination. I have nothing else to do but humor you while you are awake.”
“And when I’m asleep, will—”
“No, I’m asking the questions now,” she reminded him.
“Where was I then?”
“Your father.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, stalling, knowing he had to omit his father’s name or the ruse would be over, but he’d tell the truth. “My father, third cousin to King Henry VII, Earl of Dunster. My notorious father.”
“Notorious?” Her eyes grew wide and childlike, as if she was listening to a bedtime story. He grinned wickedly. My bedtime story.
“I come from a line of notorious men, Rosalyn, many treasonous.”
Rosalyn’s eyes grew even wider. Her pretty, pouty mouth pursed, as if ready to ask another question, but he beat her to it.
“And why you may ask? For land. For castles like Fyvie. To conquer other lords.” He lowered his voice. “To steal from the Scots.”
She covered her mouth, but a disgruntled grunt escaped anyway.
“Highlanders and Lowlanders,” he continued, “but Fyvie has always been special. I was told after your da’s death, the castle was given to a woman named Victoria. She was married to my father until he found out that she was a Scot.”
Rosalyn gasped.
Lachlan ignored her outburst. “She lied to him, to get to his wealth.” When Rosalyn looked to object, he amended his response. “Or so he said.”
But then she jumped to her feet anyway. “That Victoria is a Macpherson, one of my kin!” she shouted.
“Lass, will you seek out a weapon and slay me now?” Lachlan asked, chuckling at her ignited anger. He’d never known a woman who was set off so easily. Short-tempered, but beautiful in every way. Her hair, her eyes, and her skin, were shades of burnt red, charred amber, and warm gold. The colors of a glorious bonfire.
“I’ve yet to decide on your fate, but if what you say is true, Victoria came into the castle after my da was killed, because I was not of age yet to keep it. But then Nicholas Luttrell stole it from us all.” Rosalyn stared past him to the altar, but as if gaining strength from God, she fisted her hands and shook them at him.
“Fyvie Castle belongs to the Macphersons. I want it back,” she said defiantly, her legs spread in a wide stance, her arms crossing her chest.
Lachlan studied her. So far he’d managed to keep his family name from the conversation. Rosalyn must not have known Victoria and Nicholas had wed or she’d have called him out by now. As much as he knew, Victoria had remarried shortly after their annulment, then disappeared. Truth be told, Lachlan could swear Rosalyn’s Victoria had been killed by his father, but perhaps not.
At least he now understood the only way to win Rosalyn over was to accept her family’s plight.
“Yes, my love, I understand your wish for the castle to stay with the clan. But you know as well as I, your family was no longer in control of the land and you would have lost it to a rival clan. Now which is worse?”
She let out a loud unladylike harrumph. “You didnae know anything about my da, nor my clan,” Rosalyn insisted in a childlike voice.
That was true. He knew only a little about the chieftain who’d been Rosalyn’s father, and Lachlan had expected a challenge from a Macpherson family member, just not from his daughter. But if she’d looked then, like she did now, he never would have forgotten her.
“Would you tell me about your da?”
She shook a finger at him. “Now, donna be asking the questions again,” she warned, her face puckering with anger.
Then Lachlan remembered she’d reminded him of a cat, making note of the length on her fingernails. “No, no, you ask the questions. Sit,” he coaxed.
Returning to the pillow beside him, she considered him with a wary stare. “Who is this Victoria Macpherson to you?” She tilted her head as if trying get clarity. “Your mother?”
Lachlan shuddered when he thought of the last words his father had said about Victoria. “That witch will pay for her deceitfulness.” He’d spoken many times of a score to be settled between himself and her son, a Knight of the Garter.
But Lachlan wanted to reassure her there was no animosity between himself and her family. “Victoria? My mother? Nay. My father had the marriage annulled after only a few months. The castle must have stayed with Victoria, but my father wants it now.”
Rosalyn studied him closely as he spoke.
“Praise Mary, we aren’t cousins,” she said with an odd look on her face.
“Because when we have children it won’t be blasphemous?” Lachlan asked, looking to rile her, and his efforts paid off. She huffed when he finished.
“Even in my grandfather’s day, cousins married,” he reminded her.
“Not first cousins. Nay, if you were my cousin, I couldnae argue with King James for my land.”
“Your land, through forgery,” he claimed, annoying her again.
She gave him a wild-eyed glare. “You’re suspected of forgery too,” she challenged.
“But even then, my crime would not be as serious as yours.”
Her beautiful, pouty mouth puckered, her amber eyes narrowed into slits, and she jutted out her chin in defiance. “Why is that?” she dared ask him.
Of course, he’d been an idiot to leave the king’s seal at Berwick. But when he’d contemplated it further, he began to wonder how he’d have proven it belonged to her.
Perhaps she’d even dropped the satchel on purpose knowing someone in the castle would find it and she’d be rid of the evidence. But the jewel? That made him pause. No, she would never put the red gem in jeopardy. But at least now he had a plan.
“Because with the proper evidence, you’d lose your pretty head.”