The Laird's Lady. Joanne RockЧитать онлайн книгу.
at the time. Why would the steward bother with a female who would have no use for such learning? Ye insult us with yer tales.” He swiped a few cherries from Gerta’s basket and grinned. “Ye grow excellent fruit, however.”
“I do not lie, Ian McNair,” she huffed, yanking the basket out of his reach. “You may choose not to believe me, but do not call me a liar before you have tested the truth of my words. Ask Lady Rosalind what she knows about the harvest and she could well weary your ears till dawn.” Gerta scurried away as quickly as her aging legs would take her, muttering about the lack of manners in arrogant Scots.
Ian watched her depart for a moment before he exchanged a wink with Jamie. “I am thinking Malcolm would rather enjoy the opportunity to listen to the fair Rosalind till dawn.”
Malcolm glowered at them, frustration building every day he spent holding a keep that he didn’t know how to run effectively. “Lady Rosalind is a coldhearted English noblewoman, nae some pleasing Highland wench to pass a night with.”
“’Tis nae only the English who are coldhearted, McNair. Yer Isabel has been wed nigh on four years. Ye shouldna let yer bitterness over her prevent ye from enjoying the warmth of another’s arms.”
“I havena spared her a thought since her unfortunate marriage.” The conversational turn made Malcolm remember one of the few reasons he sometimes preferred wartime to peace. Running hell-bent for your life to keep an arrow out of your arse ensured there would be no discussion of women.
Ian jabbed Malcolm in the ribs with a brotherly shove. “I suppose ye were nae thinking of her when ye risked yer neck to free her from her English cage?”
“I am sworn to protect our people from the English fury.” Refusing to think about his failed attempt to free Isabel, Malcolm banged his boot against the rock wall to loosen caked soil from the sole. “I feel nothing for Isabel anymore except admiration for her courage and pity for her captivity. But as I know her well, I dinna fear for her. She will find a way to be free of the English king whether her blackguard husband helps her or nae.”
Malcolm had done all he could as a warrior to save her, but since the woman remained in English hands, he’d found it difficult to come to peace with his efforts. Hellfire. He’d grown as morbid as Ian of late, and without half as good a reason.
“Think ye there is any truth to Gerta’s words?” he asked, eager to leave behind all talk of Isabel. Perhaps speaking to Rosalind would cheer him. She might be as ruthlessly ambitious as Isabel, but Malcolm took perverse comfort from knowing that at least Rosalind was safe under his watch. “Might the good lady of Beaumont know something of the harvest?”
“Very likely.” Ian laid out a row of cherries on the rock wall, enticing a little bird to hop closer and closer to him.
“Then ye were cruel to call her a liar,” Malcolm admonished, wondering how Ian could be patient enough to let wild creatures come to him.
“Aye, but riling her surely yielded some useful insights.”
Grudgingly, he had to admit Ian could be very wise at times. Malcolm only hoped he could maintain some of the family wits about him tonight when he confronted Rosalind. He would need to be clever if he wanted to extract information from the stubborn former mistress of Beaumont.
Malcolm finally sought Rosalind’s solar some hours later, hoping he had not delayed the task so long she would be abed.
Rosalind engaged his thoughts all too often this past sennight. He had almost enjoyed his last visit with her, though he knew she had not. She was practically hissing by the time he departed.
It was unfortunate they were on opposite sides of the Scots-English dispute, for he had to admit she would be an admirable ally. She was a fierce fighter, a loyal kinswoman and, if Gerta were to be believed, exceedingly sharp.
But those same reasons kept her his opponent. She would never forsake her English heritage to swear loyalty to him, he realized. He could lock her upstairs until doomsday and she would not relent.
Candlelight shone from under her solar door when he reached it. Anticipation gripped him as tightly as he clenched the master key in his hand when he inserted it into the lock and turned.
A tempting vision greeted his eyes. All traces of the bow-wielding warrioress vanished, Rosalind now stood in the center of her private chamber surrounded by flowers of every hue. Like a forest sprite with only nature to adorn her, she presented a charming picture.
She held delicate blue flowers—damned if he knew one clump of petals from another—in one hand as she arranged another bunch of spiky red blooms in a tall vase. A basket of pale yellow blossoms sat at her feet. Other containers, already filled and arranged, were perched on every available table and chest. The room smelled heady and sweet, like a hothouse at midsummer.
This gentle creature was his ambitious, blade-wielding enemy? He could scarcely reconcile this woman with the Rosalind who’d cursed and railed at him the week before.
For a long moment, she did not hear him, absorbed as she was in her task. The flowers, the scents, the feminine chamber—even the lady herself—fit into his recurring dream of a home.
Home.
His heart ached with longing for the domestic pleasures a woman could gift a family with. Rosalind’s slippered feet tread on sweet-smelling rushes, her cutting knife moving deftly from one stem to the next. He could not see the whole of her face from the side, but he could tell she bit her lip as she worked, seemingly caught in thought.
She trimmed the stem from a long rose before plunging it into a hammered silver urn, then looked up. If he’d surprised her, she hid it well.
“Good evening, heathen.” She smiled charmingly before returning to her work.
She wished to pretend his arrival was of no consequence to her? Point one for the lady. She’d managed to rile him already.
“Ye’ve stuffed yer rooms full of greenery with nae a holy day in sight.” For that matter, even on holy days, he’d never seen a chamber so lavishly appointed with nature’s bounty. “What are ye up to?”
“Because you have seen fit to lock me indoors, I have brought the outdoors inside where I can enjoy them.”
“Where did ye find all these?” Malcolm asked, wandering around the room to study the blooms. There were at least a dozen shades and shapes of wildflowers and roses.
“My mother’s garden.”
“I have seen no blooming garden. Ouch.” He sucked a drop of blood from his finger. “Yer foliage is dangerous.”
“I must choose my opportunities to inflict a small measure of pain upon you where I can.” The wench grinned unabashedly. “The garden is surrounded by one of the crumbling walls of the south tower.”
“We will begin rebuilding the walls on the southern side tomorrow.” He joined her at the plank table where she worked.
“So I have heard. That is why I have chosen to pick as many flowers as I could before your men trample my plants.”
“How do ye know our plans?” Malcolm plucked the small shears from her hand, preferring to leave the unpredictable maiden unarmed. “And who picked all of these?” He knew very well she had not left her chambers all week. Her door remained guarded.
“I told you at your last visit, McNair, there is much you do not know about the keep.” Arching a brow, she peered at him over a vase of spotted yellow lilies. Lilies? Hell, they could have been some kind of fancy herb and he wouldn’t know the difference. “I picked these myself and I heard your men talking about their plans to fortify the southern walls.”
“Ye lie,” Malcolm told her, employing Ian’s tactic.
She merely smiled.
He tossed up his hands in disgust, lacking his brother’s patience. “I refuse to get trapped in a discussion of petty nonsense. Ye will