Three

A hanging was good entertainment to most people’s thinking.

Jane heard the celebration starting up long before first light. The cell they’d shoved her into was dank and tiny. There wasn’t room to lie down, and the stink coming from the corners made her resist doing more than leaning against the hard stone of the back wall.

At least she didn’t suffer from the cold. No, she knew how much more cutting it might be. The fact that there was no door on the cell, just a collection of bars that kept her locked in, didn’t bother her too greatly.

But the conversation coming from the camp chilled her blood.

“I say she kicks eighteen times…”

“Nae, it will be twelve…”

There was no one to act as her hanger-on in the event her neck didn’t snap immediately. No one to hug her legs and pull her down so she died faster instead of kicking for long moments of agony.

It would, however, be faster than starving to death or freezing. So perhaps Fate was being kinder to her after all. Diocail had certainly given her a fine last kiss.

She was losing her grip on sanity, but she didn’t fight it. Far better to allow herself to float away on her own whimsy than to listen to the growing enthusiasm for her death.

Diocail Gordon was a fine man to do so over, too. He was a fine, burly subject for impure thoughts. Strange how at the end of her life she was indulging in behavior she had always resisted.

Lust…

As a descendant of Eve, she’d grown up listening to lectures in church about how important it was to avoid allowing herself to think of men. But now?

Well, she indulged herself for a long time contemplating Diocail Gordon. He was hard, and his gaze was piercing. She found his eyes strangely fascinating. They were confirmation of how determined he was when it came to matters that he’d set his mind to.

Or better yet, to those things he’d devoted himself to maintaining. So many men spoke about honor, and so often they abandoned those ideas when it suited their whim.

Henry certainly had.

The thought of her husband sobered her. Daydreams had never gained her anything. Only facing facts had granted her any measure of happiness. She tried to convince herself that love would grow in their marriage as so many told her it would. Henry himself had been pleasing enough the few times he’d come to negotiate with her father.

Things had certainly changed once their vows were spoken and he’d taken her home. All of the mystery of the wedding bed had been ripped from her in an act that had taken only a few moments to accomplish. The physical pain was nothing compared to how alone she’d felt once he’d rolled aside and started snoring next to her.

No love could come from such callousness…

Jane looked through the bars, noting the faint lightening of the sky. A ribbon of pink began to widen. She waited for the first bird song and smiled when it broke through the sound of those anticipating her death.

Hangings were done at dawn. She heard the men coming for her, and in a way, it was a relief.

That didn’t stop her from lamenting how short her years had been or thinking Henry might be waiting for her on the other side of death.

If there was any mercy in heaven, God would grant her freedom from that ill-fated match.

The village was large enough to boast a proper gallows. It was a raised platform in the middle of the town. There was also a post for whippings and stocks for public shaming, but the men who came for her pushed her toward the edge of the platform. A noose was already dangling over a beam.

“Do ye confess yer sins?”

A priest stood there, and the men behind her gripped a handful of her dress to turn her to face the man. Jane blinked, stunned by his presence.

“No need to confess, we know she’s a spy,” one of her captors growled.

“I am no such thing,” Jane argued.

“Get on with it!” someone yelled from the gathered crowd.

Jane turned her attention to the people waiting to watch her die. They’d made sure the children had a good spot up front to watch the entertainment and the lesson to be learned.

“English bitch!”

The priest was pushed back as the two men shoved her forward. She was oddly aware of the way the rope felt as it came over her head. It caught several of her hairs, tugging on them before it lay against her bare collarbone.

Prickly…

“Hold!”

The crowd turned on whoever shouted, but the sound of hooves followed. Only a fool stood in the street when horses were running. The crowd split, pressing up against the walls of the homes.

Diocail had impressed her before. Today he was every bit the man she’d first thought him to be.

Dangerous.

His people saw it too, looking at their laird as he came into the square, his stallion’s shoes making a loud clopping sound against the brick. He pulled up, Muir by his side as he raised his hand to stop his men. But he didn’t stop—he rode straight toward her. There was a flash of sunlight off the bare blade of his sword as he pulled it from the scabbard in a graceful motion and swung it in a wide arc above her head. It sliced neatly through the rope, sending the two men behind her stumbling back to avoid being sliced along with it.

His horse danced in a wide circle, taking him away from her. She watched the way he controlled the beast, clinging to its back with the strength in his legs.

“Here now…” One of the men behind her had recovered. “We caught her spying.”

A few members of the crowd added a jeer, but they were in the minority, as many of them kept their mouths closed and waited to see what their new laird would do. The children who had been near the front all scattered, and with good reason.

Diocail Gordon was furious.

“A spy, man?” Diocail demanded. “Are ye daft?”

“She was leaving,” he persisted. “On her way back to her noble house with everything she’s heard on Gordon land.”

“Aye,” the second man behind her joined his comrade. “Her husband said plenty about how he was going to use her blue blood to gain himself a position.”

“So ye hang a lass because her fool of a husband wed her for gain?” Diocail demanded. “What man does nae marry for such reasons?”

Agreement rippled through the crowd.

“Why else would she be slipping away from ye?” her would-be executioner demanded. “If no’ to carry secrets back to England and maybe keep our king from inheriting the throne from Elizabeth Tudor!”

The crowd was jeering once more. Their fear had been touched upon by the name of the English queen.

“The Protestants will march up and burn our homes…”

“They want to murder us!”

“Kill our children…”

James Stuart the Sixth of Scotland might have been reared as a Protestant, but a great many of his subjects were still followers of the Catholic faith.

“She ran because she overheard us plotting to wed her to the laird,” Muir tossed out nonchalantly.

Jane recoiled, stepping back into the men who had just fitted her with a noose. Diocail snapped his head around to glare at his captain.

“Aye,” Aylin added as he appeared behind her. The noose suddenly went flying as he pulled it up and over her head and sent it onto the bricks. “Besides, she’s Catholic. All the older English titles are.”

That appeased many in the crowd. They nodded and looked on as the leather binding her hands was sliced.

Her tormentors weren’t willing to see all of their fun ended just yet. “Well then,” one said. “Best get on with wedding her quick, Laird, before she slips away again.”

It was a public stab at Diocail’s ability to control her and the Gordons. The crowd seemed quite eager to test their new laird’s mettle.

Diocail didn’t show any signs of weakness.

“Aye, can nae be undoing a consummated union,” his fellow hangman added with a vulgar thrust of his hips.

She was shaking her head, but Aylin tugged her over to the edge of the scaffold as another of Diocail’s men offered her a hand. Between the two, she was put on the horse with one of the retainers without any effort of her own. Diocail had his hands full dealing with the men of the village, and Muir was watching his back. Having been denied a hanging, they were pressing him for a wedding.

“Best to get the lass inside, Kory,” Aylin said to the retainer behind her.

The crowd didn’t intend to be denied. They clustered around Diocail, which allowed Kory to break away by guiding his horse around the other side of the gallows. When they arrived, the common room of the Hawk’s Head Tavern was empty.

Kory didn’t trust her to make her way inside though. He grasped her upper arm and took her through the door as people came up the street behind them. Diocail came in behind her, cursing in Gaelic.

“Why did ye tell them I want to wed her?” He turned on Muir as he pointed at the window. “Listen to them.”

The crowd had taken up position outside the tavern. They were calling for a wedding, some of them already playing music in celebration.

“The world has gone completely mad.” She meant to think the words, but they crossed her lips as she stumbled back and landed on a bench.

Niven was suddenly there, pressing a horn mug into her hand. He actually lifted it toward her lips as she sat there frozen.

“Drink up, there, mistress,” Aylin encouraged her. “Ye need to collect yerself.”

She drank deeply and gasped as the liquid burned a path down her throat. “Christ, what was that?”

“Gillanders claimed it was his finest whisky. Maybe I poured ye the wrong one. Try this…”

The mug was swapped for another one, and once more Niven lifted her hand up to her mouth. She thought to argue but was distracted by Diocail stepping up and jabbing his finger in the center of Muir’s chest.

“The woman tried to run the second she could. Does that sound like someone I need as a wife?” he demanded.

“The lass just needs to settle in,” Muir responded as he pressed Diocail back. It was part wrestling, part argument.

“Ye’re insane, man,” Diocail ground out. “I’ll no’ be wedding her.”

“Listen.” Muir turned his laird toward the window. “Does that sound like a village that will be forgetting ye did nae make good on yer word?”

Niven tipped the mug against her lips, and she opened her mouth because she was absorbed with the way Muir was fighting with Diocail. Lachie joined in with the captain.

“Normally I would support ye, Laird,” the secretary declared in a soft voice. “But it does seem that in this matter, a wedding would solve a great many dilemmas. There is the state of the kitchen to consider, and with winter closing in, another bride will not be simple to obtain, much less with the conditions at the castle and, of course, how unstable yer own position is as laird. No’ many fathers will agree to a union with a suitably educated lady. Yet we have one here, and her father is no’ close enough to raise an objection.”

Niven was swapping out her mug again when Jane felt the first wave of whisky hit her brain. Somehow, she’d downed two mugs already, and her empty belly was making certain she felt the alcohol quickly.

But Niven was pressing yet another mug to her lips.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, slipping down the bench and getting to her feet before Niven and Kory managed to surround her. Aylin joined them, creating a solid wall.

“Drink up, lass,” Aylin encouraged her in a tone Jane was fairly sure he’d use on a chicken right before he wrung its neck.

“Aye, it will settle yer nerves,” Kory added with a smile too bright to be sincere. “So we can get on with what needs doing. It’s a good match, and we’ll be happy to have ye on Gordon land.”

“Better than yer father’s house, for certain. Judging by what I’ve heard of yer last husband, best no’ let yer father choose ye a second one,” Aylin added.

“I am not getting married to anyone,” she insisted, but Niven wasn’t relenting in his attempts to get her to drink more. He tipped some of the contents of the mug into her open mouth as she spoke.

Jane recoiled and fell on the bench, which just made the three retainers bigger and more imposing. They leaned down, clearly intending to keep pouring whisky into her. Desperation made her slip to her knees and crawl past them.

She ended up facing Diocail as he tried to dodge around Muir and Lachie. They both jerked to a stop a single pace from one another. What Jane didn’t expect was to see Diocail in nearly the same condition as she was. His eyes were wide, his face flushed from arguing.

She doubted he felt trapped like she did, but his men didn’t appear to be finished with their attempts to convince him of their plans. Now that Jane and Diocail were facing each other, Lachie tried to take command of the situation.

“I can draw up a contract of marriage quickly.”

Jane shook her head, but the crowd outside the window was growing. Someone opened the door, giving them a glimpse of Diocail and Jane facing each other, and a cheer went up. Diocail flinched, but he drew himself up stiffly and wiped the emotion from his expression.

“I will await ye both in the church.”

Jane turned her head, realizing the priest had come inside to discover whether his services would be needed. While she was struggling with her horror, he opened the door and raised his hands.

“The wedding will be in a bit.” The crowd quieted to listen. “After the contract has been drawn up.”

The door shut behind him as a cheer went up. Jane was shaking her head, closer to fainting than she’d ever been in her life and equally near to screaming in rage.

“I refuse to wed again.” Her head was starting to spin, but that single thought was solid.

“Ye’d leave our laird to face his people as a man who did nae keep his word?” Lachie asked.

“There’s a fine way to be after he kept ye from being raped and fed ye when ye were starving,” Muir added as he sent her a stern look from next to Diocail’s shoulder.

“He’ll be called a liar and worse,” Niven added.

“Aye, he’ll be known as a man who was taken to his knees by a woman,” Kory spoke up.

“No’ fit to be laird,” Aylin said solemnly.

“Enough,” Diocail growled at them all. He grasped her wrist and tugged her toward him, sheltering her with his huge body as he shifted to one side so that he was facing all of his men.

How had she never noticed how much larger he was than herself? She was reduced to peeking around his arm.

“Listen to the lot of ye,” he chastised them. “Sounding like a pack of orphans needing a mother.”

None denied the charge. Lachie and Muir grinned back at their laird unashamedly.

“Sorley will have the kitchen fixed by the time we return, but that will be for naught if there is no’ a mistress to see to the running of it,” Lachie exclaimed, looking like a hungry child. “Mistress Jane is an educated woman, and as a fourth daughter, she can nae be complaining too much about having to take her new house in hand.”

“She’s got the spirit for it too,” Muir added. “Most females would have taken Gillanders’s offer over being turned out in their shift.”

“You cannot simply decide to take me to your home,” Jane declared.

Her outburst caused a round of confident smirks that made her step away from them. Somehow, her refusal struck them as a challenge, and they were a determined bunch.

“Christ,” Diocail muttered. He reached back and grasped her wrist, tugging her toward the stairs. His men took his move as an agreement. Their smiles brightened, and they muttered congratulations to one another as Niven and Kory quickly fetched Lachie his traveling writing desk.

She gasped, her feet sliding against the floor, locked in frozen horror. Diocail turned on her. “Ye prefer to oversee the writing of the contract?”

There was a crinkle of paper as the secretary laid a new sheet out. Jane grabbed her skirts and lifted them. She dashed around Diocail, which was a task considering his size and the narrowness of the stairs. But once she reached the loft bedroom, he came in behind her and kicked the door shut.

It slammed, and he grunted at it before fixing her with a hard look. “If ye had stayed in this room, mistress, that crowd would no’ be out there.”

It was the truth. Still, she faced off with him, confident in her choice. “How was I to know your people would be so bloody suspicious?”

“So a Scottish woman would be welcome in the village near yer father’s house?” he cut back. “No one would question a stranger’s appearance?”

Jane let out a huff in defeat. “Yes, they would.”

It was the truth. Strangers were always noted. No one could afford to lock all their doors and windows, what with the price of locks, so the village relied upon the eyes of its citizens to prevent thieves from making their way into their homes.

“So why did ye leave?” he pressed her. “Ye’ve been treated kindly, Jane.”

“I know,” she answered back, shamed by the truth of his words.

“I asked naught of ye.”

“Which is why I had to go,” she exclaimed, frustrated by Fate’s desire to see her at the mercy of everything around her. Including her own values.

“Ye do nae make any sense, woman.” He turned and paced to the other end of the room.

The reference to her gender needled her. “As a woman, I should just expect to be kept? Well, I won’t be weak.”

He stopped and turned to face her, his eyes narrowing as he contemplated her. “No, I suppose ye would be opposed to taking something ye do nae consider yer due.”

She nodded, relieved he understood. “I truly meant to honor your kindness by leaving.”

He let out a snort and moved closer, pointing toward the street where the muffled sounds of the crowd could still be heard. “The world does nae always respond well to kindness, Jane.”

She tipped her head back and scoffed at the ceiling. “Oh, I know that very well, Diocail Gordon. Fate has never had anything but sharp edges for me.”

He’d intended to lecture her more on the topic but stood still as she agreed. He let out a long breath. “I know that side of Fate meself.”

She believed him. For a moment, their gazes met, and she realized once again how alike they were. Both were trying to survive on their own terms. Perhaps she did not know the details of his life, but clearly he had been shaped by circumstances hard enough to make him strong. His forearms were cut with hard muscle, which only came from practicing with the sword currently strapped to his back. His demeanor declared it as well—the way he masked his emotions, carefully guarding his feelings. Sometimes, it was best to take the pain of the flesh and console yourself with the knowledge that your emotions would be spared because you had kept them buried deep inside yourself.

“Is your home truly in such dire straits?”

She likely shouldn’t have asked him. It wasn’t the sort of thing any man would like to admit, much less a laird who was trying to establish himself.

He grunted and crossed his arms over his chest. “It is. The last laird was a miser who let the place fall to ruin while squeezing his staff nearly to death in his attempts to hold onto what he perceived as his.”

“That’s why you give some of the rent back.” She’d seen him do it quite often.

“Aye,” he nodded. “I expect loyalty, but give due consideration in return.”

“And now I’ve given the villagers cause to doubt you.” She breathed out a low sigh. “I am sorry for it.”

He contemplated her for a long minute. She felt the muscles along her neck tightening as his gaze sharpened.

“Ye’ll just have to be facing what yer actions have brought upon us both,” he said with a nod.

“I don’t understand…”

One of his eyebrows rose. “Do nae ye, lass?”

Her breath froze in her chest, her belly twisting with a very strange sort of sensation. She might have labeled it excitement, except for her absolute abhorrence for marriage. No matter how attractive the groom might seem.

She was shaking her head, her lips moving, but no sound made its way out of her mouth.

Diocail only cocked his head to one side in the face of her blunt refusal. He pressed his lips into a hard line before he turned and walked across the chamber to the table. A bottle of whisky sat there; he pulled the rope stopper from it and poured a generous amount into two mugs. He tossed one serving down his own throat before he looked back at her.

“I do nae believe either of us has much of a choice in the matter. I can take ye back out there and declare ye a spy or stand firm with what Muir said about ye fleeing a match with me. If I try to tell them ye ran because ye have reservations about being kept, they will declare ye unnatural and burn ye as a witch.”

“You and your men can ride away,” she argued, “and drop me on the road. These are villagers, not trained retainers such as your men. For all that they might yell at us, their horses are not trained as yours are. They will be left behind.”

“True,” he agreed. “But I do that, lass, and word will spread far and wide that I am no’ a man of me word. That I consort with English spies and set them free.” He answered her in a tone that made it clear he had no doubt he spoke the truth.

An ugly truth at that.

“In case ye do nae understand just what that means to a clan such as the Gordons, allow me to explain.” He refilled his mug and drank its contents in one swallow again. The bite of the whisky made his lips tight when he lowered the mug. “The clan will split, and there will be fighting over who is to take the lairdship. After me, there are at least five men with equal claims. Blood will flow in the spring until one faction takes enough lives to silence the others.”

More than an ugly truth—a horrific one, it would seem. It left them staring at one another. Jane felt the weight of the burden and witnessed it in his brown eyes. He might easily have left her to the justice of his people, but he stood there, willing to share circumstances with her.

“So.” His voice was low, and she realized it indicated he was trying to hide his emotions. “What do ye want to do?”

She looked away and heard him close the distance between them. He reached out and tipped her chin up with two fingers. The connection made her shudder.

“Do nae look away, Jane.” Her name came across his lips like a caress. “Answer me.”

“I don’t understand.” She shifted away from him, feeling his presence so intensely it was impossible to remain close and maintain her wits.

“Ye ken well what is happening,” he corrected her.

“No, I mean to say”—she lifted her gaze to his—“I do not understand why you are sharing my fate. Only my sisters were ever my compatriots against harsh circumstances.”

“Ye do nae mention yer husband.”

She stiffened. “No, I did not.”

Jane turned around, determined to maintain her composure, or at least renew her grip on it before she turned back to face Diocail. She’d laid enough on his shoulders.

But she ended up facing the bed. She stiffened, looking at the place where Henry had taken her as his rights allowed him and then she had woken to him informing her she had a customer to satisfy in exchange for his gaming debts.

“Here now, just a tumble that you will hardly remember come morning…Lord knows I never earned so much coin for so little work as you will on your back…”

Diocail cupped her shoulder and turned her back to face him. “He’s dead.” There was a note in his voice that hinted that he wasn’t sorry either. “And ye bled last week, so his grip on ye is broken. For good.”

Heat teased her cheeks at the mention of her courses. Yet it shouldn’t have surprised her—the man had the keenest senses.

There was a thump on the door before it was pushed open. Muir peeked in, looking at the bed before he spied Diocail and tugged on his cap. The captain stepped to the side, showing that Gillanders’s wife was behind him with her arms piled high.

“The tailor has seen fit to send over his wife’s best dress for the occasion,” Muir declared jovially.

There was a rustle of silk as the woman bustled into the chamber and her daughters followed with hot kettles of steaming water. There was a bump on the stairs and a muffled word of profanity in Gaelic, and then Niven and his comrades were carrying a tub through the door. They had to raise it up and tip it so it fit sideways through the doorway, but they beamed with victory as they succeeded and set it down.

More of Diocail’s men followed with buckets of cold water that they poured into the tub with bright grins. They all reached up and tugged on the corners of their bonnets before they left. Muir was the last one, supervising the work until the last Gordon left.

“The tailor is waiting below to get a look at ye so he can find ye a fine doublet to wear to church,” Muir said to Diocail.

Diocail reached down and plucked the second mug he’d filled off the table and chuffed it. Muir’s lips twitched with amusement even as the captain maintained his respectful expression. Diocail shifted his attention to Jane for a moment. “What is yer name, lass?”

It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say.

“Yer full name, for the contract.”

The loft room was so silent she’d have heard a mouse sighing. All eyes were upon her as she hesitated. Gillanders’s wife looked as though she pitied her, while her daughters blinked in curiosity to see if she would bend and take the man everyone agreed was the best match for her.

But it was the way Diocail, laird of the Gordons, stood and waited for her answer. He didn’t growl or narrow his eyes, but waited.

“Jane Katherine Stanley.”

* * *

Diocail felt something strange.

It was moving through his gut, leaving him, well, he’d say giddy, except that sort of emotion was suited only to young lads such as Bari.

Diocail made it three steps down the stairs before he heard the rise of conversation in the common room.

“She’ll have the kitchen running smoothly inside a month…”

“No more fighting for our fare at supper…”

“Likely knows a thing or two about healing…”

“And the stench in the passageways, she’ll banish that as well…”

His men were desperate. Diocail cursed Colum again for the ruin in which he’d left the Gordons. Muir was in front of him. When they reached the bottom floor of the common room, his captain smiled.

“I should smash yer balls with me knee,” Diocail growled as he passed Muir.

All he gained from the captain was a snort, a very unrepentant sound that left Diocail’s pride smarting while his men turned hopeful looks his way.

Damned bunch of orphans.

And yet they looked to him. It sobered him, tempering his wounded pride, leaving him with the trust they seemed to have in his ability to bring them a better life. For all that his mother had believed he was due the position because of his blood, he had always wanted to be more in life than a birthright.

He wanted to earn his place, not simply take it.

Well, they were waiting for him to take to wife a woman who would serve them as dutifully as they would protect her and her children.

He swept the room and found Gillanders. “Fetch up that load of wine her last husband brought ye.” Diocail tossed some gold onto the tabletop. “We’ll be needing it for the celebration.”

His men cheered, and Lachie smiled as he dipped his quill into his inkwell for Diocail to sign the newly written marriage contract. The sound of the quill scratching against the paper filled the common room, and everyone looked on until it was done.

“I need a bath.”

His men hooted with amusement, the jesting at his expense beginning.

And may God have mercy on them all.

* * *

“How lucky to have just finished yer courses.”

Gillanders’s wife had no reservations against frank speaking. Her youngest daughter blushed, but not the older ones.

“Yer last husband was a poor one to be sure,” she continued. “Better to know for certain ye will nae have the trouble of raising up his child and worrying it will be too much like its sire.”

She turned and clapped her hands. Her daughters seemed to be used to such commands. They surrounded Jane, plucking laces from where they were tucked and popping open the knots while she twisted and tried to evade them.

And where will you go? Back to the gallows?

The feeling of the noose was once again as strong as if it were still resting against her collarbone.

So close…

She truly had come as close as one might to being hung, and she had survived. The faces of those jeering at her were burned into her memory, and it nauseated her to think that those same villagers were all looking forward to watching her wedding.

It made no sense…

Her clothing fell away, puddling at her feet as Gillanders’s wife supervised with her hands on her ample hips. She snapped her fingers, and two of the girls lifted the kettles to add the hot water to the tub.

“In with ye now,” she decreed. “Wedding the laird, ye’re fortunate indeed. Make sure ye thank God in yer prayers for the parents who saw ye educated in the running of a house.”

There was a splash and then another as the girls began to wash her. Jane shied away from their hands, but they had her surrounded, so she gave up and let them bathe her. The soap was sweetly scented with lavender, and they scrubbed her from head to toe, rinsing out her hair twice before there was a double clap from their mother and she was allowed to rise.

Her skin stung, but in a pleasant way because she knew she was clean. Bathing was an indulgence for which she admitted to having a fondness. Let the church preach that it was a vanity; she honestly couldn’t see how having feet that stank brought her closer to Christ.

So she’d washed her toes every night in the privacy of her room and taken turns watching at the mill door while her sisters had snuck down to bathe with the aid of the waterwheel that also drove the grinding stone.

“The dress is made of silk.” Gillanders’s wife was petting it lovingly. “Ye will look like an angel with the candlelight on it.”

An angel. Better than being one in reality.

That thought kept her still as they dressed her in a robe so her hair might be brushed out and dried in front of the fire. One of them produced the chest from the wagon she and Henry had traveled in that contained her hairpins and other personal items.

They braided and rolled her hair, weaving ribbons into it. After that came a delicate chemise that was nearly transparent and floated down to cover her skin like a sprinkling of flower petals.

“Lace stockings…” There was another sigh. “I hear the English queen wears naught else.”

The stockings were threaded onto her legs carefully and secured with more ribbons. A pair of red heeled shoes was next, just a trifle too small for her feet.

“Ye’ll no’ be in them long enough to care.”

They pulled her to her feet and laced a corset into place before they tied a hip bolster around her hips, and then a farthingale was lifted high over her head so that she had to raise her arms before it was lowered. It was a slip with stiff hoops sewn into it to keep the skirts out wide.

The underskirt had a front panel decorated with thin strips of velvet. Jane couldn’t resist petting one.

“Aye, it’s no’ often any of us has any reason for such finery.” Gillanders’s wife herself was bringing the overskirt, with more of the same velvet. “The tailor, he goes down to the lowlands every now and again, to the court, to keep his skills sharp on what is in fashion. This dress was for his daughter when he took her the last time. Showed her off, he did. Maybe by next year, she’ll have herself a grand match.”

The girls made little sounds of envy as the skirt was secured and the farthingale held it out. The bodice was cut low, showing off the plump swells of Jane’s breasts. The girls eased the sleeves up her arms and used ribbons to secure them in place.

When it was all done, Jane didn’t have the heart to do anything but smile. They all appeared to be enjoying the moment in that way women found pleasure in helping one another. She wasn’t English in their eyes; she was a bride, and they were part of the celebration.

Life had too many harsh moments to squander the happy ones. Except that marriage had only been another bitter disappointment. She held that knowledge close to her heart, hiding it with a soft smile she had learned to maintain even when she had misgivings.

You will not be weak…

But it did appear she would be Diocail Gordon’s wife. God help her.

* * *

“Get in there!”

The door to the loft room was kicked in, and right after it hit the wall, Diocail stumbled across the threshold, Muir and Kory grinning at Jane before they yanked the door shut.

“I’ve a bloody good memory, ye pair of swine!” Diocail growled at the door.

“As do I.” She hadn’t meant to agree with him, but Diocail turned to look at her and slowly grinned.

“Good, because they are doing this to keep ye, and I’ll warn ye now, lass, it will not be a simple thing to take the house in hand.” He growled in a very menacing way before he shrugged and righted his doublet. The garment was half down his arms, trapping them against his body. It too was made of fine velvet and really too small for Diocail’s shoulders because the men in the village didn’t practice sword fighting as much as he did. It stuck, earning a snort from him as he struggled.

“Here now,” she said, moving toward him. “You don’t want to tear it. I imagine the tailor will charge you more than it’s worth because you will have no honorable recourse but to pay if it is damaged.”

“Waste of coin,” he groused as he flicked open the tiny buttons that ran down the front of it. He shrugged, and she caught the garment as it slid down his arms. “I’ve never worn something so frivolous in me life.”

Jane set the doublet on a chair and sat down to tug at one of the shoes. “I know exactly how you feel.”

She held it up, showing off the two-inch heel with a narrow foundation that had kept her teetering throughout their wedding. The leather was worked in a lace pattern that must have taken days of labor to create. “Good for nothing except standing about and being admired. One little sneeze would have sent me stumbling.”

Diocail took the shoe from her and contemplated it. When he looked back, she was pulling the other one off her foot with a sigh.

“Well, that is a relief.”

She looked up at him as she rubbed her ankle.

“I thought ye were wobbling about near to fainting.”

She sent him a narrow-eyed look. “I have a stiffer backbone than that.”

He rolled his arms, and she heard his back pop. “It served a purpose though.” He jerked his head toward the door. “The villagers are quite convinced that ye fled me.”

Jane decided to hold her tongue and rubbed her other foot. They were left in an uneasy silence, while she was far too conscious of the reason they had been sent abovestairs.

To consummate the union, of course.

Below them, music was being played as wine flowed. Laughter came in bursts as people started dancing. None of them would leave until they knew the vows were sealed.

God help her, she simply didn’t think she could lie in the same bed with Diocail as she had with Henry. And yet it was his right.

“Ye truly care naught for such things?”

Lost in her own thoughts, she was startled by his question and had to look at him for a long moment before she realized he was still holding the shoe.

“Not one bit.” She pointed at his boots. “I’d rather have footwear like yours that keeps my toes from turning numb.”

His lips twitched. “Well, ye’ll no’ have any trouble getting a pair on Gordon land. No’ if ye truly have the education yer skill with the needle hints at.”

With the velvet doublet discarded, he was wearing only his shirt and kilt. The moment was far more intimate than she was accustomed to seeing him. The reason they were both there was suddenly foremost in her thoughts, bringing heat to her cheeks.

He noticed her color, his gaze going to the stain spreading across her face. There was a glitter of victory in his eyes that struck her as very personal.

“In fact,” he muttered as he came closer, reaching out to stroke one side of her face. “I might just have more than a few things ye will find to yer liking in me home, Jane.”

There was a promise in his tone, and it sent a shiver down her spine that curled her toes. She was warm, overly so, and envious of his lack of attire. The dress felt too constricting as he drew his fingertips along her cheeks, stunning her with how much she enjoyed his touch.

There was a thump on the door before it was pushed in. Gillanders’s wife and daughters were already moving into the room before they realized Diocail was there. They froze and lowered themselves.

“Yer pardon, Laird,” Gillanders’s wife hurried forward. “I did nae think ye’d be up so soon. We’ll have her out of that dress and inspected in just a wee bit. Best ye go below.”

Several older women were making their way into the room, clearly there to witness her health and lack of witch marks. It might be distasteful, but the idea of being accused of being the devil’s harlot was far more so. The feeling of that noose was too fresh in her mind; she would not even consider refusing.

Diocail didn’t want to move. She watched his eyes narrow with frustration and felt a prickle of it herself for being parted from him.

But the women were not going to give way. They gently slipped between him and her, pushing him back with their numbers until she heard him grunt and watched him turn toward the door.

Whatever the odd sensations had been, they dissipated as the women began to strip her and inspect her body. She recalled the cold detachment needed to stand still through the process very well from her first wedding.

* * *

“There ye are.” Muir reached out and grabbed Diocail by the shoulder. “I’ve someone for ye to meet.”

A mug was offered up by Lachie as the secretary shooed the other men away from a table in the far corner of the common room. The woman sitting at the table was pretty; as Diocail took a second look, he realized she was wearing face paint. A distinct scent of rose water clung to her, and she noticed him taking a second look, leaning slightly forward so he could catch a glimpse down her bodice.

He stiffened, frowning when he realized he was backing away. He’d never been a man to squander an opportunity to enjoy a fair lass when she was in the mood to offer him a look. Tonight, though, her loose moral standards didn’t interest him the least bit.

Muir slapped him on the shoulder, pushing him close to the woman. “Here now, Janet here is just the sort of…ah…”

“Woman,” Lachie supplied with a slight squeak in his tone.

Muir nodded. “Woman to help ye make certain yer new wife is…well…content.”

“I would suggest satisfied,” Janet purred as she swept a fan in front of her face in a lazy motion to make sure they all smelled how sweet she was. There was a little curve to her lips that suggested she was very conscious of her effect on the opposite sex.

“Ye brought her.” Diocail glared at Muir. “A woman of…” He ended up making a gesture toward her while he struggled to find a word that wasn’t offensive.

“Experience and knowledge.” Janet spoke the pair of words with a touch of heat that wasn’t lost on any of them.

“Aye,” Muir crowed with victory. “Maybe the castle is rough, but ye can make sure the lass finds yer bed very nice to be in.”

“Precisely,” Lachie added as he flattened his hands on the table. “Janet knows what a woman desires and is bold enough to tell ye.”

Janet’s eyes slanted in a purely sensual way. Her experience and ease with the topic were plain, and it pissed him the hell off because Jane didn’t belong in a conversation of that sort.

“I admit, me patience is worn near thread bare,” Diocail growled. “To suggest I need guidance in how to please me wife!”

“Every man does.” Janet delivered her opinion with a delicate, knowing smile.

Muir was nodding, Lachie grinning from ear to ear when Diocail sent his fist into Muir’s jaw.

Fight, well, he knew how to do that very well.

* * *

“Mistress… Mistress!”

Young Bari was halfway into the room before he heard the other women hissing at him. He looked up with the innocent, wide eyes of youth, blinking as he failed to comprehend that Jane was in nothing but her chemise and corset.

The women clustered around her as she crossed her arms over her breasts. “Out!” One of them pointed him back the way he’d come.

Bari pulled his thoughts together. “I need the mistress…below…there is blood. The laird needs…stitching.”

With the door open, Jane was suddenly aware of the lack of music and laughter. The common room had gone silent far too early in the evening. It could mean only one thing.

A fight.

“Men,” Gillanders’s wife groused.

“Never content,” another woman agreed, echoing the same disgusted tone.

“Best get dressed.” One of the women tossed Jane her skirt as Gillanders’s wife’s heels made pounding sounds on the stairs.

“Sweet mercy!” floated up from the ground floor as Jane struggled to tie the waistband closed and pull her bodice on.

She looked rather off with her hair still braided with ribbons while wearing common wool, but the moment she caught sight of the men, she realized her appearance was of no concern.

The common room was a disaster. Tables overturned, benches tossed everywhere, including one that had landed too near the hearth and caught fire during the fight. Ale and wine were splattered everywhere, the scent of the liquor mixing with those of fresh blood and smoke.

There was profanity in the air as Jane swept the room, trying to decide who was the most injured.

“Here, mistress.” Young Bari was back, pressing the roll of canvas that held the medical supplies into her hands. “I brought yer sewing one too in case ye need the needles.”

“Good job.” She praised him as she tugged on a table and turned it upright with the help of one of Gillanders’s daughters.

“Someone will have to pay for all this damage…” Gillanders was sprawled on his backside, his huge kilt spread around him while his pudgy ankles and knees were on display. His wife and daughters flocked to him when he took to complaining. Jane decided he was making too much fuss to be dying.

Her new husband, on the other hand, had bright red blood staining his shirtsleeve, and was enough to have her scurry over to him.

“It’s just a cut,” he informed her.

“One that is deep,” she argued as she tried to pull the torn fabric away from the wound to see it better.

Diocail made a sound in the back of his throat that made it clear he didn’t think he needed attention. He tried to rise off the bench he was sitting on, but Muir was suddenly there pushing him down by his shoulders. Diocail growled something at him in Gaelic.

“Ye damned swine,” Muir replied. “I was only trying to help.”

“I’ve had enough of yer ideas for one day,” Diocail declared ominously.

His meaning was clear, and his tone slapped her across the face with how little he cared for their forced union. No one in the room missed it either. The rest of the Gordon retainers looked away from her as they stood around waiting their turn for her attention. The fight had included them all, by the look of them. Diocail realized he’d publicly insulted her, his eyes narrowing as he groaned.

“I need a chest from the wagon I arrived in,” she said softly. Better to tend to them than dwell on her circumstances. “It has more supplies than you brought with you.”

Muir nodded once before he was off and through the door, looking relieved to have a reason to escape.

“Here now, that chest does nae belong to ye,” Gillanders argued. His family had him off the floor and sitting in a chair. “Yer husband lost it to me playing at dice.”

The landlord had made a fatal error in judgment. The Gordons were all looking for anything to soothe the guilt they felt over her treatment, and Gillanders had just made a very large target of himself.

“Ye are a blood-sucking leach!” Diocail declared with a growl. “I’m ashamed to call ye a fellow Scot!”

Niven and Kory were moving toward the landlord, their fingers opening and closing into fists.

“Fleecing an Englishman is one thing,” Niven declared. “A woman is another matter.”

“Aye,” Kory echoed the sentiment. “Ye’ve been unchristian toward the lady, and that’s a fact.”

“She’s English,” Gillanders said in his own defense.

“She’s me mistress, man,” Kory exclaimed.

“And a woman,” Niven added. “Ye turned her out to starve when ye’re the size of me horse!”

“She refused to work for her keep.” Gillanders snorted, indignant.

“I declined to earn my way in your bed.” She likely should have keep her mouth shut, but the day had been too long and far too draining.

Gillanders made the mistake of lowering his gaze to her cleavage, on display because she was leaning over to get a closer look at the cut on Diocail’s head.

Diocail let out a snarl and lunged across the space between him and the landlord. There were squeals as the women recoiled, and some of the male members of the staff made an effort to protect their employer.

There was a thump at her feet as Muir dropped the chest. He looked at Bari. “Get yer mistress out of the way, lad!”

A moment later the captain was part of the fray. The sound of flesh hitting flesh was harsh as men grunted and tried to beat one another senseless.

“Mistress,” Bari implored her as he tugged on her skirts with a surprising amount of strength.

The fight ended as abruptly as it had begun. Gillanders was flat on his back again, his head lolling to the side as his eyes closed. The Gordon retainers all had rather satisfied looks on their faces even as they hunched over and cradled injured parts of their bodies.

“We’re leaving,” Diocail declared as he wiped the blood off his face with his sleeve and nodded at the unconscious form of Gillanders.

“Aye,” Muir agreed. “And none too soon, to my way of thinking.”

Kory and Niven were already heading toward the door to fetch the horses.

“And tell yer father,” Diocail pointed at Gillanders’s eldest son, who had blood running out of his nose. “If I hear even a whisper about me owing this family even a copper penny, I’ll be back to settle accounts, and he will no’ like it one bit. I promise ye that.”

Diocail turned to Jane. “Fetch yer things.”

Diocail had tempered his tone, making it even and respectful, but there was a core of solid authority that made it clear he was the laird. She nodded to him out of habit before she turned and ran up the stairs to the loft room. It took only moments to collect her meager belongings. Their wedding finery caught her eye as did the turned-down bedding.

At last, Fate was offering her hope. With no consummation, the union might be annulled. Diocail’s tone suddenly struck her as a ray of sunshine instead of an insult. The man clearly didn’t want to be saddled with her for a wife.

Good.

She refused to consider the tiny prickling of disappointment attempting to dissuade her from being happy about them parting ways.

Clinging to him would be weak, and her resolve to remain strong was still the only thing she had left to call her own. She wouldn’t be giving it up in order to force Diocail to keep her.

No, she would not be weak or take enough leave of her senses to do something so rash as stay in a marriage that saw no contract signed with her family. Diocail might cast her out at any time if he didn’t fear her family. For all that Alicia ran a stern house, she’d never allow Jane to be treated in such a manner.

No, the only true security lay in returning to her family. No matter the temptation to stay.