The MacNaughton Bride Read online

  Kell had originally intended to put her in a non-descript guest room, but then he decided that he liked the idea of his wife to be using his bedroom, and his bed. As she looked about the room, he caught her somewhat disappointed expression, and glanced about it himself, seeing it for the first time in her eyes. MacNaughton Keep had been without a female influence for quite a while – since his dear mother’s death when he was barely out of breeks. The entirely male dominated population had done away with a lot of what they had considered feminine furniture and folderol. Kell frowned. Undoubtedly, the lady of the manor would like to make some changes, and he was fine with that idea. It would keep her busy – keep her from getting into his hair.

  There were Irish lace inset curtains as well as heavy velvet draperies, in a hunter green that echoed the green in what she assumed was the clan plaid that covered the canopied bed. There was a dark mahogany highboy dresser on one of the walls, as well as a large wardrobe, but no other furniture in the vast room. The glass windows were chalky with soot and she could barely see down to the well manicured lawns, and the ledge had dust nearly an inch thick.

  She would have her work cut out for her, she could see.

  Jenny bustled past her Lord and set Aislinn’s two ratty valises on the bed.

  “There must be more in the carriage – “ Kell found himself surprisingly uncomfortable in his own bedroom, with her eying it with obvious distaste.

  “There’s nothing more.” The words were plain and quiet – not a complaint, but a mere statement of fact.

  Already half way to the door, Kell turned and addressed the small woman . . . his small woman. “Where is your wardrobe? I left money with your Uncle – “

  Her sharp guffaw startled him, coming from such a tiny source. “I fear whatever funds you left with him greased the palms of those merchants other than a courtier – a barkeep, most probably, and then whatever gaming establishments will still grant him entrance.”

  Kell sighed, grimacing. He should have been more careful about her Uncle. Something had told him that trusting that man wasn’t a good idea, but he was in a hurry as usual, uncomfortable as always in the South and trying to get as much done as he could before coming back to more familiar ground. “Were you able to get anything at all for the trip?”

  Aislinn shrugged. “No. I came with what I own –“ she nodded towards the two cases. “That’s it.”

  Kell was astonished. Most of the women he’d known – not that there had been a thousand of them, but there had been quite a few, especially in his younger, wilder days – had had heaps and heaps of clothes, and changed four, five, sometimes six times a day, depending on what activities they were participating in. Different clothes for day, lunch, evening, riding, going out and about town . . . and here she was, his bride in two days, and all of her worldly possessions fit into two small bags.

  She was staring at her feet, obviously discomfited by how having him see how little she came to him with in the way of material possessions. Most women also had some sort of a hope chest, at the very least, or even a houseful of housewares and furniture that they inherited from their family.

  But apparently not his little bride. Kell was suddenly struck by how little he knew about her. “Your mother died when you were young?”

  “Yes – when w- I was born.”

  He wandered towards her slowly. “And your father?”

  “Drank himself to death,” she replied starkly, and Kell nodded.

  “What happened to the contents of where you lived?”

  “They went to pay his debts and bar bills when he died. Uncle took us in, but only because of the money that my Mother’s family had set aside for us – me – so that we would have a nice dowry with which to find a husband.” Aislinn bit her lip and looked up at him. Sometimes he looked almost approachable, but not often. “May I ask you how much he told you there was?”

  “Thirty thousand pounds.” Kell watched her reaction carefully, amused by her derisive snort, and the resultant bright red blush.

  “I apologize. That wasn’t very ladylike of me.” She was relieved to see his faintly amused smile. “There was at least forty-five there the last time I saw a statement, which, granted, was a year or so before Father died. I was concerned that he’d convinced the executor of my grandparents’ estate to give him the money to ‘safekeep’ while he found me a husband.”

  “I’m surprised he let you go at all.” Kell leaned against the wall, his arms folded over his chest.

  Aislinn could see the barely leashed power in the way his biceps bulged – he could barely get his arms crossed over themselves, they were so big around. She averted her gaze to the toes of her nearly worn through slippers where the peeped out from beneath her skirt. “So am I, but I made sure I was enough of an annoyance to him that he would want to get rid of me as soon as was humanly possible.”

  Kell’s bushy eyebrow rose at that statement. An annoyance, hmmmmm? Best to nip that kind of thing in the bud, he thought, his face closing tight and dark, like a storm cloud looming over rolling green hills. “Well, just in case you were thinking of continuing any sort of shenanigans like that here, I’m more than prepared to take care of it in a manner that will surely deter any further such behavior.”

  There were times in her life when Aislinn would have considered that statement to be a direct challenge. When she was younger, she was much more likely to rise to that type of bait. But life of late had dragged her down a bit. She was a little older, and hopefully a little wiser. “It was more in the manner of merely having to make my presence known, frankly – a single, unmarried female in his house discouraged him from indulging in . . . “ she hadn’t realized where she was going to have to go with this explanation, but pressed on while her skin burned like a beacon in the evening, “his acquaintances with woman . . . ahh . . . of loose virtue.”

  Chapter 2

  “I see,” he said gravely, suppressing a smile at her obvious discomfort. Kell shouldered himself away from the wall and bowed in front of her. “Well, I’ll leave you to get settled. There’s a pull in the corner that will summon a maid if you should need assistance. I will be on the same floor – two doors down to your right when you come out of the door – if you should need me.”

  But here and now, on the morning of their wedding, beyond the superstition about a groom seeing a bride on that day, to which he did not subscribe, he would have thought that she would have been deep in her own preparations for the moment when they would be joined as man and wife. Instead, she was wandering around his – their – house in her robe for some strange reason, and was apparently trying to turn the question around to him.

  It wasn’t too soon to let her know how he expected her to behave. Not too soon at all. “I want to know what you’re doing, and I want to know now.”

  Aislinn knew he wasn’t going to let her get away without some sort of plausible explanation. She could just see it in the way he held her eyes. This was a man who was used to being obeyed. He wasn’t her father, who was willing to let her do almost anything as long as she didn’t interfere with his steady supply of spirits, nor was he her Uncle, who, in her opinion was much worse than her father. At least her father had never pretended to be anything other than what he was – a weak, fallible man whose lady love had died as a result of his own lust, and whose new love was a much harsher, more unforgiving taskmistress.

  Uncle Bertram was an oily snake who presented himself as one thing to pleasant company, but showed an entirely different demeanor to anyone for whom he did not have a high regard. Anyone not worthy in his estimation – and that most distinctly included his nosy body niece – was subjected to the bite of his tongue at least, or the back of his hand at worse. He had cracked Aislinn across the face only once, and then she had been careful not to get within striking distance from that point forward, not that that had stopped her subtle efforts to make sure that he foisted her off on someone – anyone – before he ran through her entire fortune.
/>   Biting her lip, she looked up at him, her face as open as possible. “I was going to go up on the roof. I just need . . . a breath of fresh air.”

  Kell wasn’t sure whether or not to believe her, but he decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, taking her hand and turning her completely around. “You’re headed in the wrong direction. The stairs to the roof are at the end of the hall down here.” He waved his finger at her pointedly. “Don’t spend too much time up there – you’ll catch a chill.”

  “Uh, thank you.” Aislinn knew that already – one of the first things she’d done once she was sure that the rest of the house was asleep was a little judicious exploring. She needed to find a small, unused room. And in a place this sized, she hadn’t figured it would be a problem, and she was right. She’d found one on the forth floor, well away from the servants’ quarters. It wasn’t fancy, but then neither of them was used to fancy, anyway. It had a small bed – especially in comparison to the parade ground she was currently occupying, Aislinn had thought wryly – and one good-sized dresser. It was also only a few steps from the roof top.

  After spending what was a surprisingly refreshing few moments gazing out over what would soon be her homeland, Aislinn snuck carefully back downstairs, trying to keep her eyes and ears as peeled as she could. That man seemed to have eyes in the back of his head – and was hard as a brick wall to run into. She made it out to the shack near the stables, which was the first place Jenny had been able to find that would keep Adelle out of the elements.

  She was asleep atop a bale of hay, huddled under several blankets. Aislinn closed the rickety door behind her and walked over to her sister, placing her hand over that thin shoulder and shaking gently. Calling to Adelle would have been both a security risk – someone might have overheard it and grown suspicious – and useless.

  Adelle – who turned her mirrored face up to her sisters with a huge grin and threw herself into Aislinn’s arms – was both deaf and mute.

  Once she was able to set her sister – who was younger than she was by a few minutes and smaller by a pound or so when they were born – away from her, their conversation commenced at a frantic pace.

  Although Aislinn and Adelle had developed their own sign language as they grew, Aislinn had had taught herself – and then subsequently her sister – the more accepted, British version that Aislinn had hoped might help Adelle, if she ever got a chance to interact with the rest of society.

  Father had ignored Adelle. Aislinn was sure that he wouldn’t have noticed if Aislinn had disappeared, much less Adelle. Adelle hadn’t had much of a chance. Everyone ignored her – except her sister – and before Aislinn grew enough to assume responsibility for her sister, Jenny had taken care of the infant, while putting forth the rumor that although Madam Montgomery had birthed twins, only one of them had survived. Since Jenny and their Father were the only two in attendance when Sarah gave birth then died just a few hours later, Adelle’s existence – or lack thereof - was never questioned. Albert was too stunned by the loss of his wife – too deep in the bottle from that point onward – to question the servant when she gave him the sad news that the smaller, obviously weaker infant – who hadn’t made even one peep from the moment of her precipitous birth – had died.

  Despite her inauspicious beginnings – and surroundings, which were always quite secretive so that no suspicions were aroused, Adelle thrived, and it was due in large part to Aislinn, whose love for her sister knew no bounds. She did her best to teach Adelle everything she learned, never expecting that she couldn’t learn. Aislinn was a smart girl – everyone kept telling her – and Aislinn expected that Adelle would be smart, too. The girls were inseparable, even as adults, and Aislinn was fiercely protective of her sister.

  When they were all moved to Uncle Bertram’s, Aislinn was extremely careful to make sure that arrangements were made for Adelle to move, also. She wasn’t about to spring Adelle on Uncle Bertram, although she’d considered it until she got to know the man. Since things had turned out differently, she had secreted her sister in the attic and put into motion her plan to get them both out of there as soon as possible.

  Adelle was driving her sister crazy with questions about their new home. What was the house like? Was her betrothed old and gray as Aislinn had wanted? Was she being treated well?

  Aislinn answered each question patiently, stumbling a bit on the one about her betrothed being old and gray. He most certainly was not. She’d fervently wished that Uncle Bertram would marry her off to some old man who might die soon after their wedding, leaving her a widow who was free to do as she pleased. Aislinn had had so much freedom in her upbringing – however unintentional it might have been on her Father’s part – that staying with their Uncle, who had insisted on the strictest of proprieties in regards to her behavior – had had her chafing at his restraints. She could barely find time to slip away and see her sister.

  Her betrothed – Kell, he’d said when he’d executed that courtly bow before her when they’d first met – was probably less than thirty and hadn’t a gray hair anywhere near him . . . and she’d seen more of him than she’d seen of any man in her life. Even his chest hair was coal black, although distinctly thinner than the thatch on his head. She didn’t relay these disturbing facts to her sister, choosing instead to gloss over her description of the MacNaughton himself.

  Aislinn didn’t spend too long with Adelle – she did need to get back and finish getting dressed. Adelle hugged her sister when she rose to leave, then stopped her as she stepped towards the door, tugging on her arm then turning to grab something from under the blankets. It was a set of pillowcases, meticulously embroidered with the MacNaughton crest.

  Of the two, Adelle was much more adept with a needle than Aislinn, who was truly hopeless, but she knew how many hours of work this represented on Adelle’s part. Aislinn hugged her sister to her as tightly as she could, feeling the tears she’d been trying to ignore since her father’s death seeping into her eyes behind her lids. If she didn’t stop, her eyes would be swollen and puffy during the ceremony, and that wouldn’t look good.

  Although it tore at her heart for some reason she didn’t understand, Aislinn put Adelle from her gently, looking into those eyes so like hers. Silent as always, Adelle had a small smile on her face as she nodded and gripped her sister’s arms tightly, rhythmically. It was as if she was trying to support her sister in her time of need - trying to convey that everything would be all right - which was a complete reversal of their usual roles.

  Aislinn sniffed a little and turned away, slipping back into the house and up to her room without incident.

  Meanwhile, Kell was trying to deal with the exuberant spirits of his brothers. He was the eldest of the MacNaughton boys at nearly thirty one. Burke was next in line and the one most likely to give himself to the Church . . . if he could ever settle down long enough. Of the three of them, he was the most scholarly, although that was somewhat a case of damning with faint praise. But he had already confided to Kell that he felt that might be his calling, and with Kell marrying and presumably producing heirs, it was highly unlikely that the title would pass to him. Kell was the quietest – such as he was, the one least likely to start a feud or punch someone out in a public house or be caught with a whore. But if he decided you needed punching, then the job was done more thoroughly than by him alone than by the two of his younger brothers put together. All of his punches were knockout punches. Few men dared to challenge him a second time.

  Together, the brothers were a legend around the small town of Kilarnan, and well beyond the lands they owned. When they were younger, they drank, whored, and generally caroused together in Scotland and beyond, and the stories of their exploits had already taken on legendary proportions. Kell, in particular, did nothing to stop any of the rumors, especially those of their prowess in bed sport, which he found to be the most boastful and the most truthful at the same time.

  The baby of the family – all six foot three and nearly
eleven stone of him – was Grant Chevres MacNaughton, mercilessly teased and still fondly referred to as Cheesy. Their mother had had an unfortunate fondness for goats’ milk cheese during her pregnancy, and their father had been so enamored of her – and over the moon about the successful birth of his third son – that he had indulged her and let her name the infant.

  He had been the first to nickname him Cheesy, much to their mother’s distress.

  Despite the hindrance of his middle name, and two older brothers who enjoyed perfecting their punching skills while holding him down, Grant prospered, as did the entire family in general. Grant was an almost disturbingly good natured fellow who enjoyed drinking at least as much as his brothers, and women quite a bit more so than either of them. Women loved him. They flocked around his youthful good looks and wanted to mother him, and he was all too happy to let them attempt it, anyway.

  But he was also in possession of the MacNaughton temper. Kell controlled his the best of all of them. Cheesy the least – and his nose had been broken more times than any of them because of it. It took a lot to get Grant going, but once he had decided that a fight was necessary, he was as deadly accurate and adept at it as his brothers. He had to learn to be to survive the loving attentions of his two older brothers.

  There were several things that would get Grant’s ire up, but two were predominant: the mistreatment of a female – for he had the utmost respect and admiration for any woman of any rank or station – or any animal. No two things were more likely to guarantee a miscreant a thorough beating such as he had never experienced than either of those two acts.