Heat Of The Knight. Jackie Ivie

walked to him, but when she reached for this one, he zipped it out of her grasp the last moment he could.

      “You have to earn this one,” he said softly.

      She reddened. At least, that’s what she thought was happening. Nothing in her past six years at the French Catholic school had taught her anything about it. Well, maybe the whispers of the other girls had, but beyond that, she hadn’t a clue.

      “I have to do nae more than watch you leave,” she replied finally, as all he did was hold the letter to his chest and wait for her.

      His lips answered for him as he smiled, a soft, slow smile that seemed to be tying every bit of her belly in knots. Then, he opened his jacket and pulled out more of the letters, all identical, all written with exquisite script and sealed with wax. It pained her to move her gaze, so she had to move her head to watch as he made a fan out of them and placed them on the kitchen table.

      “You really should read at least one of them a-fore you burn them,” he said. “I’ll call again on the morrow. Nae. I’ll wait another day. You won’t be up to visitors until the day after. And you really should get some cool water for that eye. Take my advice.”

      No one said anything in reply. There wasn’t anything to say. They all watched him leave, the open door seeming to suck the warmth and glow of the room out into the rain-filled night before it shut again.

      It looked much worse in daylight, or what daylight the Lord was letting them have. Lisle sat on a rock, laboriously picking out slivers with one of her needles, and scanning occasionally with her good eye, at what was left of the west side of the old, humble-looking, MacHugh castle.

      The rain had stopped, but the sky was promising more of it. Lisle tipped her head back. The clouds looked like some giant had taken fistfuls of shorn wool and shoved it into place up there, to hang clinging to every other handful. Every so often, a gap came, letting every living thing in this glen the MacHughs called home see the clear blue sky that was being denied to them. All of which fit her mood perfectly.

      Monteith hadn’t given her a respite. She should have known to add knave to his other titles. He’d started manipulating and conniving the moment her nose woke her, smelling breakfast. The fact that her eye was almost swollen shut, her head was thudding with every pulse-beat, and her palms were itching and paining with slivers hadn’t stopped her from rushing into her dress and going down to find out how it had happened.

      The entire family was circled about the covered garden gate that doubled as a table, since the ancestral one had been bartered away months earlier, and they were feasting on what could only be ham and biscuits.

      “Where did we get ham…and biscuits?” she asked, keeping the condemning tone from her voice with a lot of effort.

      Angus answered her, once he swallowed. “’Twas on the steps—with that.”

      He gestured with his fork to an arm-sized bundle of Monteith missives. Lisle’s eyes went wide and then she had to slap a hand to cup the injured one.

      “It seemed a shame to let it go to waste,” Angus finished.

      Lisle’s lips thinned, making it easier to ignore her own belly’s growling. She turned to the stack of letters, tied with a beautiful, green ribbon with gold edging. It was very expensive. It had to be. He’d used his family’s colors. Wasn’t that nice? she asked herself.

      The bundle of letters wasn’t any heavier than a small load of linens that needed washing. She picked the entire mass up and headed to where the log he’d given them last night was little more than coals.

      “I was wondering what I was going to use for firewood once this burned,” she announced loudly, and bent forward to push the still-wrapped bundle into the center of the ashes.

      “Now that’s wasteful, Lisle.”

      It was Aunt Matilda reprimanding her. Lisle stood and turned to face her.

      “How so?” she asked. “They were all addressed to me. I know it. You know it. I also know what he wants, and I’m not selling. Not one speck of land, nor one drop of the loch. I doona’ care if we starve. He’ll not get his hands on MacHugh soil.”

      “I mean, that was a waste of a good ribbon. We could have used that.”

      Lisle’s lips curved and her eye smarted again, this time with moisture. She ducked to hide it, and that just made her head thud. She’d never had a black eye before, although her brothers had suffered through enough of them; back when she was growing up, and long before Laird Dugall had sent her away to become a proper young lady, and not the lad she wanted to be.

      All of which had obviously failed, she told herself.

      “I’m taking a walk,” she announced. “To inspect the damage.”

      “I’ll accompany you, lass. Just let me finish,” Angus answered her.

      Lisle spun. She had to get out of there before the smell of ham, accompanied by fresh biscuits, made her forget her principles and give into her empty belly as she joined them.

      All of which explained why she was out on a rock, picking at her palms, between surveying the remains of the castle, watching clumps of gray clouds, and wishing herself back into the confines of the French finishing school that her father had sent her to. Life had been simpler, then. A lot simpler.

      “It’s na’ so bad,” Angus said, fitting himself onto another rock at her side and pushing his heels into the sod, like she was.

      “It is, too. We may as well make that tower into its own free-standing building. That hall’s beyond repair.”

      “I mean, the eye.”

      Lisle smiled in reply.

      “Although it’s strange-looking and probably hurts like the devil, I’ll wager the swelling will be gone by evening. You may even find it useful to you again, then. Trust auld Angus. I know these things.”

      They didn’t say anything for a bit. Nature decided they needed sprinkling, but it was a soft-starting one. Lisle couldn’t even feel the drops misting the air about them. She could smell them. “Did you get your pipes?” she asked.

      The grin he gave her creased his face, combining with the raindrops to make it look like he was sparkling. Lisle looked at him and felt her breast tighten. She no longer felt her eye, her slivers, her bruises, or even her hunger. She swallowed so she could speak.

      “Take a bit more care where and when you play them next time.”

      “Not to worry. I’ve learned a lesson. I’ll keep them by my side and nae one will hear a peep. Nary a one. You can trust me.”

      “I wouldn’t have given them back to you, otherwise,” she replied.

      They looked back at the castle. The clouds had gotten lower, nearly touching the tops of the MacHugh towers, although now the west one looked like it was being orphaned.

      “It looks like the courtyard wall’s still intact,” Lisle said.

      “Well, that hall was in need of a good cleaning.”

      Lisle chuckled.

      “We were in luck when Ellwood set his sights on you, Lisle Dugall.”

      “He never even saw me a-fore the ceremony. You know that. He had his sights set more on my dowry. It was considerable, you know.”

      “I was trying to honey-coat it.”

      “Doona’ bother. I already know the why of it. I just wish there was some left of it. That way I’d not have to consider what the Monteith offers.”

      “You consider it?”

      She turned her head sideways. “If you promise not to speak of it, I’ll confess. It gets harder and harder to toss his letters into the fire. He knows it. He knows how dire it is. The only bright spot is that