Heat Of The Knight. Jackie Ivie

if she stalled. It was only going to loom larger, and the MacHughs would be the ones paying. They’d start hating what they were doing, they wouldn’t have anyone to turn that emotion onto except her, and if she wasn’t available, they might turn it on themselves.

      Lisle wasn’t going to allow that. She was going to dress in her wedding finery, and she was going to act like she wanted to do it. She hoped God was listening to that part of her plan, too.

      She pulled the nightgown off her and bent to wring out the cloth they’d given her in order to sponge off. She wasn’t going to worry over her hair. It had been in a bun since yesterday, and beneath that, it was in two braids. That should be sufficient once she had it undone and combed through.

      She wrapped the dry cloth about her before walking to the gown, lifting the satin skirt and finding the chemise, real stockings of silk, and petticoats that she’d kept hidden beneath the long, seed-pearl embroidered skirt and train. She heard Angela’s reaction as the needles stopped their incessant clicking noise, and a smile appeared on Lisle’s lips.

      Lisle slid the chemise over her head, sliding her hands along the satin-feel of it, and frowning a bit at how it clung to her breasts, but fell from everywhere else. She’d sewn it exactly to her own proportions, but a year of toil had slimmed her. There was no explanation for the increase in her bosom, however. It was enough that the gossamer weave of tatted lace at the center of the bodice was stretched wide, holding her in place, and creating a valley of shadow where she’d never noticed it before.

      She wasn’t going to be able to wear the stockings if she couldn’t stop the broken blisters from weeping. She went over to the white linen sheet, pulled a corner from the bottom of the mattress, where it wouldn’t easily be seen, and ripped at the sewing that wasn’t ever supposed to come undone. She had to resort to picking at it before the hem gave, but she had her strips of linen. She didn’t look up to see what reaction Angela had, and she couldn’t hear if there was one over the sound of ripping material. The linens had come from her hope chest, they belonged to her, and if she wanted to use strips of them for bandaging, it was for her to decide, not any of them.

      She sat to wrap her heels, tying little bows above her ankles, before she could pull the stockings on. She only winced once as she connected with the bruise on her right buttock from falling on it the other night, when she’d helped rescue the MacHugh war chest. The memory of that time warmed her, calming her incessant shivering for a few moments. That box had a place of honor in the center of the family, and they all had to admit that without her, it would have been lost.

      The stockings were sheer to the point she could spot flesh beneath them. They were also too large, and weren’t going to stay up without garters. That was also odd, but she didn’t bother with the reason. Her legs looked more slender than before. It wasn’t surprising. Everyone looked like they were slowly starving, and getting thinner was the first sign of it. Well, that was changing, and it was Lisle that was making it happen.

      The shivering restarted. She stood and went to fetch the light blue garters that she’d sewn into the petticoat, so they’d not get lost. She tied them both on, ignoring Angela’s watchful eye, since there wasn’t one click of any knitting needle happening, and then she stood to put the petticoat on.

      If Angela thought the dress overworked and laborious, she wasn’t going to have a description for the petticoat. Lisle had used every bit of skill to embroider small blue butterflies all over the garment, using the stitches to add thickness by quilting a layer of stiffened lace to the underside of it. The extravagance was even more stunning nearly four years after she’d designed and started creating it, and especially after the time they’d just gone through.

      “That’s absolutely beautiful,” Angela said, showing that despite her best intentions, she was female, and had a feminine appreciation for such things.

      Lisle smiled across at her. “My thanks. I designed it myself.”

      “You did?”

      “Aye. And if you like I’ll help design one when you—” Lisle’s voice stopped as a pained, shuttered expression shut down her stepdaughter’s animation of a moment before. “Forgive me,” she said, after clearing her throat. “I wasn’t thinking. You won’t want anything to do with me once this is over. I understand. I do. Please let everyone know. Will you do that for me?”

      Angela looked across at her, and for a moment, Lisle could have sworn she saw the glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes, before she blinked them into nonexistence again. That was a good sign. This wasn’t killing off every bit of her capacity for love. Lisle didn’t want that to happen. Someday, the girl facing her was going to wed some upstanding, righteous Scotsman, if there was still one of marriageable age alive, and she was going to bring future MacHughs into being, and the last thing Lisle wanted was to know Angela wasn’t a loving mother because of something her second, and final, stepmother might have or have not done.

      She buttoned the petticoat into place, although it didn’t fit on her waist like it used to, and would probably rotate about, and then she reached for the gown.

      Angela was there before she was, reverently taking the dress from the wooden hook it had been hanging from, and sliding her fingers over the creasing that hanging in such a position for so long had made in the shoulders, in order to take the worst of it out. Lisle watched her and then lifted her eyes to meet Angela’s. There were definitely tears in the depths, and it took the most severe effort of Lisle’s life to suck the answering moisture in her own eyes back in. It was better to be numb and nonemotional, and listen to Angela trying to be assertive. The smile she gave was shaky, as was the girl’s answering one.

      “Let’s get this over with. Fair?” Lisle asked.

      The girl nodded, and lifted the dress to get it over Lisle’s head. It was a good thing they hadn’t undone her bun and brushed out her hair yet, for the dress would have ruined every bit of it with how it clung to and scratched everything it touched. Lisle lifted her lip into a slight smile as she remembered that part of it. Such embroidery and seed pearl enhancement came with a price. Inner threads that itched and caught on strands of hair and on the lace centerpiece of the chemise, regardless of the satin she’d lined the inside with.

      Then she was standing, facing the window as the sun moved into a position heralding dusk. She’d slept the entire day away? It didn’t seem possible, but it was just as well. She didn’t want the others trying to be hard-shelled and stiff-backed, and she didn’t dare put her numbness through much more testing.

      Angela’s fingers gained competence as she started at the waistline, sliding the hundreds of little loops Lisle had sewn onto the pearls that would hold them, until she ended at the top of Lisle’s neck. Then her fingers were unwrapping the bun and unbraiding the hair. Lisle let her. The girl was taller, making it simpler, and she guessed this was Angela’s way of asking apology for her curtness earlier.

      Lisle knew her hair was going to be like a wave-rippled section of the loch, and wasn’t surprised to find it was so, even to where the ends grazed her hip. There wasn’t a veil. They’d used it up as bandaging when Angus had first reached home…after Culloden. That was all right.

      “You look beautiful, Lisle.” The girl breathed the words. “It’s a shame…” Her voice dribbled off.

      “That it’s to be wasted on Monteith as my groom?” Lisle supplied.

      The girl nodded.

      “I had a good look the other day. It’s not too onerous. He’s a right comely man, if one gets past what…he is.”

      “That’s na’ going to be easy. He’s immense. I’ve heard tales. He’s evil. He’s frightening.”

      Lisle frowned. “I ken as much,” she whispered.

      “I doona’ envy you,” Angela said softly.

      “I’ll just have to keep my mind on his handsomeness, and not on what it hides.” She took a deep breath. “He does have that, you know.”

      “I know. I saw him.”