Page 54 of Highland Fire

His eyes were searching, probing; and it required all of her powers of concentration to give him back a clear-eyed look.

He spoke carefully. “As I said, it’s best to do nothing.

Lady Margaret and I are of the same opinion.

She feels the awkwardness as much as you do.

In another day or two, after this infernal ball is over, we can all go our separate ways. ”

His words astonished her. “Am I to understand that you have discussed this with Lady Margaret while I, your wife, whom it concerns most nearly, have not been taken into your confidence?”

He answered her in the same infuriatingly reasonable tone.

“In the first place, I did not know you were aware that Lady Margaret was once my mistress. The last thing I wanted was to embarrass you by divulging the nature of that relationship. In the second place, there is nothing here to excite this exaggerated passion. The affair is long over. My mother hoped to revive it. She knows now that she made a blunder. For everyone’s sake, we must put a face on it and act like civilized people. ”

Exaggerated passion; civilized people . The English were masters at delivering the veiled insult, and Highlanders were masters at translating it into their own tongue.

They should be. They’d had centuries of practice.

In short, he was telling her that she was little better than a savage governed by unruly passions.

So be it! Bloodless he wanted, bloodless he would get.

Across the width of the table, her idle glance chanced to catch her mother-in-law’s eye.

A silent exchange took place, and a moment later Caitlin signaled the servants to serve the next course.

She was at the foot of the table in the place that rightly belonged to the dowager.

That first night, she hadn’t wanted to usurp the woman’s place.

She would have been more than happy to lose herself somewhere in the middle of that endlessly long table with thirty or so guests seated around it.

Lady Randal, herself, had insisted that Rand’s wife take precedence.

The gesture, however unwelcome, had touched Caitlin.

But that was before she had known that Lady Randal had invited Rand’s mistress to Cranley in the hope of reviving their affair.

What kind of mother, she asked herself, would invite her son’s mistress to her home, where her innocent young daughters were likely to strike up a friendship with the woman?

Innocent my eye! some inner voice remonstrated.

Martha and Mary could probably teach Rand’s mistress a thing or two, and that was no exaggeration.

They ought to be able to. They’d made a study of their brothers’ scandalous careers, as Caitlin was to discover when she’d agreed to go for a walk with them that afternoon over the downs.

There was no malice in them. They were merely as inquisitive and as mischievous as young puppies and could nose out a scandal faster that Bocain could nose out a fox.

A shiver passed over her. Bocain. Her thoughts drifted to Scotland, and to the snow-capped mountains towering over the lonely moors.

She could see herself as clear as day, with Bocain at her heels, striding out over the Larich Gru with a knapsack containing bread and cheese and a bottle of her own spring water to break their fast. It was inconceivable that even here in the bosom of Rand’s family, with the intimate buzz of conversation going on all around her, she should be pining for the moors of Scotland and the wild calls of curlews on the wing as they circled overhead.

What was wrong with her? Dear God, what was wrong with her?

She made a sound, a small, inarticulate murmur, and her eyes flew down the length of that interminably long table to collide with Rand’s.

He had not heard her. She knew he had not heard her.

But he sensed the beginnings of the hysteria that was beginning to ravage her composure.

She had to get a grip on herself. Bloodless .

That was what he wanted her to be, that and the freedom to use her body whenever it suited him.

She had been drinking too freely. She was not used to champagne, or the servant at her elbow who watched like a hawk and made to replenish her glass as soon as it was half-empty.

She was slightly tipsy. Raising her glass in a silent tribute to her husband, she drank lustily, uncaring of the brooding we-shall-get-to-this-later look Rand’s eyes burned into her consciousness.

His cool composure was slipping, and that did not disturb her one jot.

Bloodless . They would see who could best carry off that game. She turned to the gentleman on her right. Sir Henry was in his mid-sixties and, as she recalled, a former crony of Rand’s father. He was snoring softly into his cravat, but from where Rand was sitting that could not be seen.

“Tell me, Sir Henry,” she said, smiling down the length of the table at her husband, “What was your first impression of my husband’s house?”

The question raised a few eyebrows in the vicinity, but Caitlin did not trouble herself about that.

Her husband would see only that his wife was exerting herself to overcome her shyness and make herself agreeable to his guests.

And really, it was no labor. Sir Henry would not judge her and find her wanting because her accent was as thick as a Scottish mist. With Sir Henry, there was no possibility that she could fail to please. It made her quite the coquette.

Leaning slightly toward the elderly gentleman, she said, so that no one else could hear her, “Do you know, that was my first impression precisely? I don’t mind telling you, the population of Ballater could fit quite nicely into Cranley, yes, and with room to spare.”

As though Sir Henry had plenty to say on the subject, she tilted her head at an angle and listened intently.

After a suitable interval, she went on, “Do you know, I am of the same mind as you? I know that Cranley is reputed to be a family dwelling, but really, what family has need of four wings and over one-hundred bedchambers.” Warming to her subject, she continued, “Cranley, as you must know, was conceived and constructed at one stroke between seventeen thirty-four and seventeen sixty.

Yes, you are quite correct, Sir Henry, when you say that it is a great Palladian palazzo .

But, do you know, in spite of the luxury to be found here, in spite of ‘Capability,’ Brown and his magnificent natural landscaping which owes nothing to nature, I hanker after my own little shielding in the shadow of the Cairngorms and Grampians?

“What is a shieling?” Her eyes grew misty. “A shieling is what we Scots call a but-and-ben, that is, a two-room cottage. Happiness, you see, does not depend on the opulence of one’s surroundings. Deeside…”

After dinner was completed most of Cranley’s guests trooped off to bed, while a few of the gentlemen engaged in an unexciting game of billiards.

Rand was enjoying a solitary smoke on the terrace when he was joined by Lady Margaret.

He made no move to evade the lingering kiss she pressed to his lips.

“Your bride is charming, Rand. My heart is quite broken.”

He chuckled softly. “Your heart is not so fragile, Margaret, as we both know.”

She smacked him playfully on the shoulder with her closed fan. “Speak for yourself, rogue! You know how fond I am of you.”

When he made no reply to this, but merely stared out over the sweep of the gardens and lawns, she went on archly, “We shall all miss you when you return to Scotland.”

“That won’t be for some time yet.”

She had his full attention now, and she made the most of it.

With a slow, languid movement, she reclined gracefully against a stone pillar, arching her back slightly.

The pose set off her magnificent figure to advantage.

Rand’s eyes were warmly appreciative. Her own eyes reflected his admiration.

She knew that they would make a stunning spectacle to anyone observing.

They were both tall and with hair like spun gold.

He was all in black; she was a picture in pale diaphanous muslins that floated around her long legs.

She smiled. “From something your wife said, I understood that you were considering taking up permanent residency in Scotland.” She cocked her head at a provocative angle. “Somehow, Rand, I just can’t see you as a Highlander in kilt and plaid and all that.”

His steady gaze was unreadable. “What has Caitlin been telling you?” he asked pleasantly.

“This and that. I think the poor girl is homesick, and she has hardly been here a week!”

He smiled. “Everything is unfamiliar to her. It’s no easy task, taking over as mistress of Cranley.”

Lady Margaret’s smile hardened at the edges when she thought of how close she had come to snatching the prize for herself.

But Cranley was the least of it. If she could not have Rand with his ring on her finger, and she had hardly dared hope for so much in spite of the dowager, she would take him any way she could get him.

She was sure that her confidence was not misplaced.

It was not unusual in their circles for a man to marry for heirs and take a mistress for pleasure.

Lady Margaret thought she had fathomed the intricacies of the match Rand had made for himself.

To her, it seemed a dynastic alliance between the English Randals and the Scottish Randals. There was nothing to fear there.