The Intended Read online

  Than I with pen have skill to show.”

  His face suddenly pensive, Surrey reached over and wrapped a hand around his cup of wine. “Though I’ll deny ever saying it, my friend, that is a tall order for Edward.”

  And how could you not think so, the Highlander thought silently, when he himself—Malcolm MacLeod—was not man enough to deserve her.

  The music began again, and those in the Hall hushed immediately. Malcolm’s eyes never left Jaime’s face as the performers continued with their display of beauty and song.

  Surrey’s eyes were fixed on Malcolm’s face when the music paused once again. “Do you mean to press him with a challenge for her hand?” the earl asked, studying his face. When Malcolm glanced at his hosts, Frances was pretending not to hear the two men’s talk.

  “Now, that would be between your brother and myself, don’t you think, m’lord?”

  Surrey paused and raised his wine to his lips, speaking his words into his cup. “He plays quite dirty, Malcolm, and I should hate to see your head stuck on a pole at Norwich Castle, simply because you underestimated my brother.”

  This time it was the Highlander’s turn to smile as he nodded silently in response to the earl’s words. “I can assure you that I am already well attuned to his methods. And I agree completely with your concerns.”

  The sound of children’s voices rising once again silenced the two men in the midst of their discussion. And Malcolm pushed aside all thoughts and turned body and soul to the woman before his eyes.

  He knew that Edward would never accept a challenge from him for Jaime’s hand. But one thing he hadn’t mentioned to Surrey was that getting his cowardly younger brother to agree to a challenge would be nothing compared to convincing Jaime that he truly loved her. Indeed, fighting Edward would be far simpler than getting Jaime Macpherson to trust, once again, in the power of his love.

  Chapter 25

  Quite remarkable how he’d mended, Master Graves had said, considering how battered and close to death Malcolm had been only a fortnight earlier. The Welsh physician had then nodded his head thoughtfully and given the Highlander an emollient to speed the healing of the jagged scars on his chest. Sending his apprentice out ahead of him, Graves had stopped to ask Malcolm if he needed any questions answered.

  Malcolm had simply shaken his head. He did not think the physician knew how to ease wounds of the heart.

  So, with a kindly nod of the head, the older man had left him. It was only a short time later that Malcolm had spotted the letter on the floor near the entrance of the bedchamber.

  Pulling on his shirt, the Highlander crossed the room and picked up the letter.

  “...and various ladies and gentlewomen from the Pole family, as well! Servants and grooms? She must have fifty in her entourage now! Can you imagine? And in addition to all these people, she has brought in with her dozen personal maids!” Mary wrapped her hands about her waist and twirled on her toes, watching the swirl of her skirts. “What I would do with so many people attending to my needs! But how can she keep them all busy?”

  “Perhaps she’ll ask you to join her circle, Mary. Conceivably, you could then have them to see to your needs. After all, there are plenty of them to go around!” Jaime’s ironic tone was not noticed by her cousin, whose eyes were suddenly drawn to one of the windows and the stained-glass rendition of the Howard coat of arms that adorned the top of each of the music room windows. In spite of the darkness of the night beyond, the colors of the stained glass were vibrantly red and gold.

  “Can you imagine what life would be like, progressing through the kingdom with the king and his devoted and beautiful queen?”

  Jaime paused to consider the thought, then dismissed it with a crooked halfsmile and a shake of her head. But Mary was still gazing at the window, at the crown that sat above the shield and plumed helmet. Shrugging her shoulders, Jaime placed the stringless lute she was carrying against the wall by the door before moving back to her worktable to inspect one of the other instruments that had been piled on it.

  “I would be a very useful member of her circle,” Mary said dreamily. “I can easily imagine Catherine taking me back to court. I shall be one of her gentle ladies in waiting! Oh, the courtiers and knights I will meet then! They shall all be vying for my hand.”

  “Very useful,” Jaime repeated, scowling at the breeze that had suddenly sprung up through the window beneath the colorful coat of arms, ruffling the music sheets stacked beside her worktable. Laying a small harp on top of the music, she quickly moved to the window and pulled it shut. The rain was coming down in torrents, and the wind pushed at the window in her hand. Like a summer storm in the Highlands, she thought with a smile. Jaime turned the latch before closing the window completely, causing it to stay slightly ajar. She had a wee bit more work to do, and she didn’t need to suffocate doing it.

  “But do you think he’ll miss me?” Mary asked, plucking a harp string absently. “Do you think he will be upset by Catherine’s decision to take me to court?”

  Running her hand over her rain-spattered skirts, Jaime looked up quickly and stared into her cousin’s face. For an instant she was afraid to ask the question, but then it was too awkward for her not to ask. She straightened up and pasted on her most indifferent expression. “Who, Mary? Who will miss you so dreadfully?”

  Mary affected a nervous glance in the direction of the closed door before whispering her answer. “Malcolm, silly. Who else but my wild Highlander?”

  “Of course,” Jaime answered shortly before walking to the worktable. “How ridiculous of me to not realize you were referring to your Highlander!”

  Mary giggled. “Then you think he would miss me!”

  Jaime yanked the harp unceremoniously from beneath her cousin’s fingers, not deigning to so much as lift an eye to the excited expression she knew must be on Mary’s face.

  “Please, Jaime, answer me! You do think so, don’t you?”

  “I hardly know what to answer, you foolish creature.” Jaime turned the harp over in her hands and then stalked over to the door, leaving it on the floor with the others. “I hardly know him.”

  Mary cut Jaime off and grabbed her by the shoulders on her way back to the table. “But I know him. In fact, sometimes I lie awake in bed and think I’ve known him all my life. There has never been a man who has affected me as he does.”

  Trapped, Jaime looked into Mary’s pretty face and drew on all the patience she had in her. In a moment, though, she thought, I’m going to knock her right on her affected arse.

  “Jaime,” Mary said with note of sisterly empathy in her voice, “now I know the torture you must be going through with Edward away at court. Oh, the loneliness you must feel when he is away!”

  Jaime stood stock-still in Mary’s grasp and felt a knot rising in her throat. She lowered her eyes, staring at her cousin’s button of a chin. How wrong could one woman be? she thought, pressing her lips together.

  “But, coz, did you see him tonight?” Mary asked, her voice rising excitedly as she abruptly turned the discussion back to her Highlander. “Did you see how devastatingly fierce he looked? In that long, black velvet tunic Lord Surrey had the tailors make for him, I could almost imagine him standing in his kilt on some windswept moor, his dark eyes flashing, his hair flying about his face.”

  Jaime drew in a deep breath. She had avoided looking at him all night. But in her mind’s eye, she had no need to imagine him looking so gallant. Her memories were quite vivid.

  Mary suddenly dropped her hands to her side. Then, with a quick glance at Jaime’s face, she turned slightly, her bottom lip protruding and giving her face the pout of a spoiled child.

  “But did you see Catherine?”

  Jaime shook her head and silently moved past her cousin toward the table.

  “Oh, it was disgraceful the way she pushed me out of the way to get the seat next to Malcolm. She certainly did not look like a woman on the verge of marrying the King of England! And to thin
k that I had my eye on him long before anyone else around here, and Catherine...Catherine, just arriving tonight...”

  Jaime had no interest in listening to things that made her heart wither in her chest. “Forgive me, Mary, but I still have a great deal to do,” she said quietly, picking up the two remaining lutes from the table and turning back toward the doorway.

  “Do you need help carrying these?” Mary asked breezily.

  Jaime glanced over at the instruments already organized by the door and then back at her cousin.

  “These are the last of them,” she answered, moving away. “But you can put those loose sheets of music on the worktable.”

  “What are you doing with all these broken things, anyway?” Mary walked around the table, and picked up the harp that Jaime had placed atop the music. She held the instrument as if it were diseased. “They are good for little more than kindling, aren’t they?”

  “Nay!” Jaime corrected, turning sharply. “Most are only missing some strings. These others simply need a new finish.”

  “But what are you doing with them?”

  “The instrument maker from Norwich is coming down in a few days,” Jaime answered, taking the harp from Mary’s hand. Bending quickly, she put the stack of music on the table, and put the harp in the appropriate stack. “We’ll have them repaired.”

  “But why? We have so many fine, new instruments. The music teacher—the one whom Catherine, well, the one who left—he needed only half as many as...”

  Jaime was in no mood to have an endless chat, so she just raised her hand, interrupting her cousin. “I am having these repaired for the children who are not living here in the house. I intend to have them take the instruments with them to their own cottages.”

  “You mean to borrow?” Mary asked in shock. “Do you trust them to...”

  “Nay, cousin, I mean for them to keep the instruments!” Jaime answered.

  “But, Jaime, these are valuable instruments. You just can’t...”

  “Hold for a moment, Mary,” Jaime scolded, happy to find—finally—a way to vent her anger. “You just said they had no more value than kindling, not worth saving. But now, finding out they can be useful, perhaps even bring some happiness into the lives of some poor children--these pieces of wood have suddenly become precious in your mind. Which is it, dear cousin? Shall we discard them as worthless? Or shall we simply let them rot in that chest in the corner? Why don’t you let me know what you would prefer, rather than what I was planning to do to them?”

  “Jaime, I just...I just thought...” Mary spluttered to a halt and, blushing to the roots of her blond hair, waved a hand in the direction of the instruments, as if shooing them from her presence. “Do whatever you will with the things! I don’t care anything about them. I was just trying to say that you have already given so much to these ungrateful brats. And...”

  “Cousin, please don’t make this worse. I only ask that you not meddle in my affairs.”

  “Meddle? I?” With a toss of her head, Mary marched toward the door. “I wouldn’t dream of meddling.”

  Jaime watched, somewhat relieved that her cousin was leaving. But Mary never made it to the door. Her steps faltered halfway across the room, as if she’d just remembered something important. She stood still for a moment. Then, as Jaime busied herself at the worktable, her cousin went on a meandering tour of the music room. By the time she’d returned to Jaime’s side, it seemed she had completely forgotten their disagreement.

  “I believe I should talk to him,” Mary announced with an air of decisiveness. “I shall take the first step. It simply wouldn’t be right to let him hear from someone else that Catherine could be taking me back to court.”

  Jaime didn’t answer, but instead looked around the room for a way to distract herself. The stack of loose sheet music definitely required resorting, and she turned her attention to the task.

  “Surely, being a prisoner and a Scot, he would deem himself unworthy to approach me openly with signs of his affection.”

  The slam of Jaime’s palm on the tabletop caused Mary to jump with alarm. “Aye, Malcolm is a Scot! What of that? What is wrong in being a Scot?” Jaime snapped. Her eyes burned into Mary’s flushed face. “Do save such idiotic snobbery for Catherine and those who relish such idle and pretentious chatter. I care nothing for it, Mary.”

  “Really, Jaime, you have no reason to become so upset. Just because...”

  “I have every reason to be angry!” Jaime’s voice shook as she spoke the words. “Malcolm MacLeod might be a prisoner of Edward’s, but he is still an honorable man. The laird of his people. Surrey and Frances have seen fit to treat him as a guest and not as some barbarian; certainly, you might see fit—see it as your duty—to treat him in the same fashion.”

  “I have been treating him...”

  “Mary!” Jaime interrupted her. “I just don’t know what’s gotten into you. One moment ago you called him a prisoner and a Scot as if he were a criminal or in some way disgraced. Apparently, you think him unworthy—simply because of your elevated—and imaginary—status. And that came immediately after telling me how you must fight for his attentions. And that, after praising him for his looks, his manners. Which is it, my dear? Is he false, or is he true? Is he the lowly cur, or is he the noble hound? Tell me how you will have it, Mary--will you hate him, or will you love him?”

  Her eyes spilling over with tears, Mary stood gaping at her cousin.

  “I love him,” she whispered before turning and running from the room.

  As the door slammed shut, Jaime sank to her knees beside the table. The noisy tears that Mary was shedding en route to their bedchamber bore little resemblance to the silent sobs that were wracking the frame of Jaime Macpherson. Burying her face in her hands, Jaime finally unleashed the pent-up power of her sorrow. Tears fell onto her dress as she huddled in that music room.

  Jaime turned her eyes toward the windows. The rain continued to beat mercilessly against the glass, and her heart began to sink under a crushing weight of misery, the like of which she had never before known.

  Chapter 26

  As he pulled open the window, the wind and rain abated momentarily, and the Highlander stepped silently into the room.

  She neither raised her head nor moved, but remained as she was—huddled on her knees with her back to him. Jaime continued to cry; he could see her shoulders hunched forward and quaking a bit. Without taking his eyes from her, Malcolm reached behind him and pulled the window shut. The wind and the rain picked up again, and the sound of the drops beating against the diamond-shaped panes, along with the dropping of the latch penetrated her solitude, and her head snapped around to face him.

  Her look of surprise quickly gave way to relief and—dare he even think it!—happiness as recognition set in. But there was also something extremely vulnerable in her attitude, in her face. He took a step in her direction and then stopped as Jaime came quickly to her feet and glanced nervously at the music room door. Though he had certainly given her every reason to fear him, the last thing Malcolm wanted now was for Jaime to run away from him.

  With a quick look over her shoulder, Jaime crossed the room to the door. Malcolm nearly called out to her, but hesitated, suddenly uncertain about what to say. He had been waiting outside the window, wishing Mary Howard out that very door, but he knew that if Jaime truly wanted to go, there was nothing he could say that could stop her.

  She reached the door in a moment, and then paused. Jaime dropped the latchbar in place as Malcolm felt a sense of relief wash over him. She wasn’t running from him. She wasn’t going for aid. She wasn’t afraid of being alone with him. He watched as she turned around and rested her back against the door.

  “I had to see you, Jaime,” he said finally.

  Her voice was husky from crying. “You came down the wall—you could have continued on into the night. You could have escaped.” She quickly wiped away the streaks of tears from her face.

  Malcolm knew the trut
h would sound hollow and false after what he had done to her, so he held his tongue. How could he admit that for him, there was no leaving this place, unless she left with him. “How far would I get on a night such as this.”

  “True,” she whispered. “And with no one to help you to get onto the north road.”

  The feel of the stiff parchment inside his boot reminded him of those who would help him, but this was not the time to bring that up. In truth, he’d only brought the letter in the event that she would reject his presence outright. He certainly didn’t want her to think that the letter had anything to do with why he’d climbed down the wall to see her.

  “Are you unwell?” he asked quietly, looking at the dark circles under her eyes.

  She shook her head, clearly unenthusiastic about dwelling on herself. For the first time, she lifted her eyes to his wet hair and drenched clothes, and whispered her concern. “You are soaking wet.”

  Malcolm looked down at the pool of water around his boots and pulled the wet linen of his shirt away from his skin. He grinned sheepishly. “‘There’s a wee bit of fog out there. Made the climbing a bit of an adventure, as well.”

  “You’ve...you’ve been outside for a time, then,” she said, looking down at her tightly clasped hands.

  The Highlander could see in her face that she was trying to remember all that had occurred, all that he might have heard of the earlier conversation between her and Mary.

  “Aye, a lovely night for a stroll...but for the howling of the wind and the rain, and the occasional clap of thunder to rattle about in a man’s head. Though ‘tis a poor excuse for the real storms we have in the isles, wouldn’t you agree, Jaime?” His words were a lie, but he hoped they would ease her discomfort. “But I must admit, I was thankful when at last I saw that silly cousin of yours departing from the room.”

  The Highlander could feel her gaze upon him as he moved in toward the crackling fire in the hearth. He turned his head as she pushed away from the door and took a couple of steps toward him.