Heat Of The Knight

by Jackie Ivie

Genres: Historical Romance; Scottish & Highlander

Synopsis

In 1747 Scotland, treachery looms as battle lines run deep between the proud, struggling clans and the Highland Rangers who torment them. Here a young widow fights to save her honor--and her life. . . A Headstrong Widow Since Lisle MacHugh lost her husband in battle, her clan has barely survived. Now, the MacHughs can reverse their ill fortune if they agree to give Lisle's hand in marriage to their greatest enemy: the notorious Black Monteith. A Powerful Laird The wealthy Langston Leed Monteith, aka the Black Monteith, has returned to Scotland after years of banishment. With his father's misdeeds leaving the family name in tatters, no decent lass will marry him. But when Monteith sets eyes upon the fiery Lisle, he knows he must have her. . . Two Hearts United Once wed, Lisle resists her fierce attraction to the man she loathes. But she has found her match in Monteith, who introduces her to pleasures she never dreamed possible. When their secrets are revealed, Lisle and Monteith will confront their greatest challenge, testing their union as husband and wife. . . "[A] sexy, lively take. . .romantic and complex." -- Library Journal on The Knight Before Christmas "Wonderful. . .with a heroine every woman will admire." --Heather Graham on Lady of The Knight

Release date: October 8, 2013

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 385

Sample

AD 1747

He remembered the smell…the feel; just about everything.

“Jesu’!”

Langston sucked in a breath full of peat, fog-blessed chill, and damp dirt. Shivers of reaction ran all along the six-and-a-half-foot frame he’d matured into, making even his hands tremble on the reins. He let the breath out and smiled wryly before pulling in another, testing the air for the lingering notes from what had sounded like a solitary piper. It must have come with the memory. He shrugged, and then the yelling started.

“Angus MacHugh! You auld fool!”

The woman behind the noise appeared, coming straight at him, shoving her hair from her shoulders with one hand, while the other held up her skirts, and the sky-blue eyes she looked at him with went all the way through him.

That wasn’t the reaction he got from most women. It wasn’t a response he got from any woman. Langston moved his horse sideways as she passed, swirling the mist with her skirts. She was fantastic enough to be drawn up from his imagination: gorgeous, full-figured, reckless, wild…. He blinked. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a pistol tucked into her waistband, too.

“There you are! You’ve got to stop!”

She had obviously reached her prey. Langston couldn’t decide if he pitied or envied him.

“The rangers are at our steps! And you’re the wretch that brought them!”

“But Lisle—”

“Don’t ‘But Lisle’ me! I’ll not stand for it! We’ve got but two shillings left to our name, and they’ll want that for fines and such. Like as not, they’ll take your pipes, too! They might even take you! You know the penalty. What will I do then? How will the lasses cope?”

“I dinna’ mean to start anything. I only—”

“I already know what you wanted. We all want it. It’s not going to happen. Scotland’s lost, and we’re the ones that lost it…now move! Back to the bog with you. Get your trousers back on and hide that sett a-fore you lose your hand, or worse! Stick to the rocks and doona’ let anyone else see you!”

Her voice had softened, belying the harsh words she was using. Langston moved his horse slowly…going one step closer, then another. They weren’t far; they couldn’t be, but fog made the ground beneath his horse’s hooves look fathoms deep, and the distance was impossible to guess from the sound of their words.

“Hush, Angus! What was that?” Lisle whispered.

Langston had heard it, too, and he pulled on the bridle, lifting his horse’s head with the movement. The sound hadn’t been him. It was something else. Someone was coming…someone big.

“Quick! Give me the pipes! Nae, I’ll na’ hand them over. What do you take me for, a Monteith? I can’t just let you get caught with them! That plaide’s going to get you in enough trouble. Quick! Hurry home. There’s four Highland Rangers sitting in the kitchen, awaiting scones as we speak. They seem to think we can fry them from thin air, and serve them with sunlight for a topping. Stupid, arrogant, thoughtless men. I’ll be right behind you. I promise. That’s a love. Watch your step, now.”

Langston smiled at her description of Captain Robert Barton’s troops. They were every bit of all that, but she’d forgotten to add flirtatious. That was why they were stopped at that goddess-woman’s step and visiting with the lasses she’d referenced. It wasn’t for any scone. It was to receive a smile and a soft word or two from that mouth. Now that he’d just heard them, he wanted to stand in line and receive the same.

Their hooves weren’t making much sound, but bridles hadn’t the same muffling benefit on the soft moor. Langston backed his horse two steps up the hillside and was swallowed by mist almost the moment he did. It was a troop of Highland Rangers, riding single file and with deadly intent. He could barely make them out, and held his breath as not one looked his way. His ears told him how many there were. He just hoped they hadn’t heard what he just had.

“Why…Mistress MacHugh. Fancy seeing you out and about.”

“Captain Barton,” she answered with a curt, barely polite tone.

Langston could envision how she’d look. She’d most likely hidden the pipes and pistol. To do anything other was inviting her own penalty.

MacHugh, he thought, letting the lineage run through his mind. There’d been a MacHugh in this glen since the infancy of the world. Theirs was a clan spewing out chieftains; all large, healthy, red-headed, and boisterous—all loyal to the Stuart, even unto death. He didn’t know which MacHugh the auburn-haired goddess named Lisle could be. The fact that she’d just been addressed as mistress wasn’t possible. It didn’t seem conceivable that she was wed. She’d looked too young for such a thing, especially if it was to the elderly-sounding Angus fellow.

He eased his horse closer, turning a rock with a hoof. Langston heard it cascade onto the chipped rock path they’d used, before going over the other side and continuing down the hill. This Angus had chosen a well-placed hilltop to play his pipes. He’d chosen a good foggy morn, too, perfect for cover, and for muffling the skirl of his pipes. He’d been lax in not checking first with the auburn-haired woman, though.

“’Tis a foul morn to be out, Mistress MacHugh.”

“I think it’s quite lovely,” came the instant reply.

“There’s nothing lovely about it. There’s not even enough span in front of a man’s face to see if ’tis lovely or not.”

“That’s exactly as I like it. Keeps me from seeing certain things…like vermin. Our hills are being overrun with such.”

She was audacious and bold, Langston thought. He wondered if the captain would catch her meaning. With the tight tone of his next question, he knew the man had.

“Have you a reason for being out and about?”

“Is it illegal to take a walk now? I’d not heard that of the Crown’s displeasure with us.”

“Things change quickly at the king’s court, Mistress.”

“It’s not enough that you take away our right to wear our own setts? Now you’re taking away a morning stroll on Scottish soil?”

There was a long silence after her snide remark. Langston was at the back of the battalion. He started circling them. The sun was moving, the air was warming, and the mist was dispersing, making it easier to see the ground, and the amount of soldiers the MacHugh lass was facing. He admired her courage and audacity, even if it was a classic case of Highland bravado and stupidity.

“A stroll about the moors is one thing. The playing of pipes is another entirely. We heard pipes, and such a thing is illegal.”

She laughed merrily. Langston’s heart twinged with the sound. That was a new experience, and made him catch the reins up, stopping his horse.

“A woman doesn’t play pipes, Captain. It would require more hot air than any woman possesses.”

“We heard pipes.”

“In Scotland’s bogs and marshlands, beset by fog, it’s easy to hear any number of things, Captain. Why, if you venture near Drumossie Moor, I’ll wager you’d hear screams and groans if you’re so inclined. Or so it’s been said. I haven’t tested it. I’m na’ brave enough.”

“Are you saying there was no piper?”

“I’m saying naught. I’d a bit of a brisk walk under my belt, enjoying the solitude and getting a good dose of fresh, mist-laden air, and for that I get accosted by a Highland regiment? You say you heard a piper? Well, I simply state it couldn’t have been me.”

The mist was slimming into fingers of opacity that were caressing the scene in front of him. The lass, Lisle, was atop a flat boulder, making her level with the man on horseback that she faced. She had her shoulders back, and her hands were on the belt on her hips. A MacHugh…she was a MacHugh. Langston ran the information through his mind. There’d been MacHugh clan at Drumossie Moor, where the Battle of Culloden had been fought. There had been scores of them, all decked out in their red, black, and gold plaide…all dead. They were all dead. Langston groaned softly.

“You saw no one else out here?”

“Dinna’ you understand the word solitude, Captain?”

“Very well, actually. It’s the gift we give prisoners of the Crown…when they deserve such, that is.”

Langston knew a threat when he heard one. She did, too. He had to give his grudging admiration to her, if she didn’t have it already. She was brave. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, looked at the Captain levelly, and smiled. It didn’t look to have much merriment to it.

“That is not what I’ve heard about your prisons,” she replied.

“Are you ready to tell us where he went, then?”

“Who?” she asked.

“The piper.”

She sighed audibly. “I must not be making sense. I saw nae one out this morn.”

“No one?”

She shook her head slightly. “Nae one.”

“You’re certain?”

“Perhaps you should take your helmet and remove it from your ears, Captain. That way you’d not continually ask questions you’ve already received the answers to. It might improve your looks, too.”

“We heard pipes.”

His voice was telling of his nonamusement over her gibe. Langston didn’t have to see it, although the sun finally rising over the mountain range behind her was making it easier to do so. It was also turning her hair a brilliant burnished copper sheen.

“Well, I heard naught. Now, allow me to pass. I’ve bread in my oven, and four daughters to see fed. Not to mention my retainers, my uncle, three frail aunts, and my servants, such as they are.”

“Answer me first.”

She has four daughters? Langston repeated it to himself in disbelief. Impossible. She looked about sixteen…maybe seventeen.

“You Scots are forever for the doing, before the thinking. That’s the reason, you know.”

She didn’t act like she wanted to ask it, but her curiosity got the better of her. “The reason for what?” she asked finally.

“Your loss at battle, your loss of a country, and your loss of the right of your men to wear their own…skirts.”

“They’re not skirts!” she replied angrily, giving Barton what he wanted.

“Where are the pipes, Mistress?” The captain’s voice was jovial.

“I saw nae pipes, nor a body fit enough to play them!”

“Then what was it you were about?”

“She was meeting with me.” Langston said it loudly, and moved his horse through the mounted troops. They parted easily. It wasn’t due to anything other than surprise and the size of his horse. He didn’t bother with the why of it. He always surprised people, and he’d chosen the stallion, Saladin, for just such a reason.

She moved her head slightly, and Langston caught a breath as their gazes met. Crystal-clear, sky-blue eyes met his, then dropped to the vicinity of his chest. He tried to tell himself that at least she’d looked at him this time.

“Lord Monteith.” Captain Barton announced it.

“Nae,” she whispered as she heard the name. He hoped she wasn’t bullheaded enough to disclaim him.

“You have a reason for disturbing us?” Langston asked, arriving finally at the boulder. Captain Barton had moved his entire line back more than two horse lengths as he approached. Although it was expected, it was still gratifying.

“The mistress—”

“I already told you. She’s meeting with me. We’ve business.”

“Business?” the captain queried.

“Of course. Why else?”

The captain cleared his throat. It was a nervous gesture, confirmed by the accompanying finger he used to pull his collar from his neck. “You conduct business on a foggy morn? Out on the moors? In sight of any number of Scot marksmen?”

“I’m dealing with a member of the MacHugh clan, Captain. There’s no place better,” Langston replied easily. “I’m not exactly welcome at their table at present, and you already know Highlanders wouldn’t be about with a weapon to shoot at me. It’s as illegal as the playing of our pipes and the wearing of our…skirts.”

His remarks got him a bit of amusement from the ranks, and he sensed them relaxing. The woman was silent. She could be in shock. He knew why. She wouldn’t want to be within sighting distance of a member of Clan Monteith, let alone being asked to agree that they were meeting. It was almost amusing.

“This is true, Mistress?” The captain asked it as a matter of course. He didn’t really need an answer. Monteith’s word was enough. His leanings were known. He was loyal to the English Crown. His lips twisted.

“I—”

They all heard the pistol shot, interrupting her words.

Langston saw her whiten. It was especially noticeable with how wide her eyes went as they met his again. He put out his hand and she took it, surprising him almost as much as how much thigh she was showing as she hitched up her skirt and launched herself onto Saladin’s flanks.

“Ride! The bog!” She hissed the words into his ear. At least he thought that was what she hissed. It could have been anything, for the touch of her breath on his neck gave him a feeling he’d rather forgo.

He tightened his knees and Saladin obeyed. If she was impressed, he didn’t note that she showed it.

“You shouldn’t have given him the pistol,” he remarked over his shoulder as they covered the rock-strewn grass, easily outdistancing the troop. It wasn’t entirely due to superior horsemanship or horseflesh. It was because the Highland Rangers wouldn’t move unless, and until, they were ordered to do so. The captain was woefully late in giving the order, Langston thought.

“You’re…him,” she said.

“Oh, I am definitely a him,” he answered.

“No, I mean…you’re him,” she replied, emphasizing the word this time.

Langston chuckled, and the movement made her hands slip from where they were clasped about him. She refastened them and slid closer, pulling herself more securely to him. He was grateful he’d worn the black, woolen jacket atop a like-colored, knitted tunic. It made it easier to feel her. Actually, he amended to himself, it made it easier to imagine he was feeling her.

“Thank you for clearing that up,” he said, tossing the words at her.” Now, hush! We’ve got to find him a-fore they do. It’s not going to be easy, either.”

“But—you’re the Monteith,” she answered him.

He grabbed at her entwined hands before she had a chance to act on her knowledge. “Aye. Now hold to me, I’m putting Saladin through his paces. He’s very impressive. Watch. Feel.”

The Arabian stallion was more than impressive. He was horseflesh with wings. The bog was upon them before another word, and then Langston had to put his attention to speed without breaking one of Saladin’s legs. It wasn’t easy, and she appeared to know it as they dodged and ducked branches and decay and bits of moss hanging from outstretched tree limbs.

Through it all, the woman clinging to his back moved with him, making herself an extension of the horse, just as he was. Langston gave Saladin his head more often than he controlled it. Not because he wanted to, but because the thought of her breasts shoved against his back, the feel of her fingers clinging to his abdomen, and the idea that her bare thighs were pushing against the backs of his, was starting to interfere with his horsemanship. He’d never thought that possible before.

Mud splashed with each step, coating his boots, and flecking the black leather of his trousers, too. Langston ignored it. The stallion’s heaving breaths were transferring to him, making his own chest fill and empty with the expenditure of energy and strength. The woman was doing the same movement at his back, and the thought of that was driving him mildly insane.

“Angus!”

She was pointing, accompanying a voice that he barely heard. Langston shook his head to clear it, and pulled on the reins before they ran over the small, wizened-looking fellow. She was off before he was, and bending over the fellow at Saladin’s hooves. If that was her husband, she’d wed poorly, he decided.

“Forgive me, lass. I dropped it.”

“Where?”

“In the bog. Over yonder.”

“Not that! Where are you hurt?”

“I’m na’ hurt.”

“But we heard a shot.”

“The pistol fell. It discharged. You should na’ run about with a loaded weapon like that, lassie. Think of the consequences.”

“Angus MacHugh, I’m going to take the entire verse of Saint John and screech it into your ear! Do you hear me?”

“I believe everyone can hear you,” Langston replied dryly. “Including the Highland Rangers we just escaped.”

“Sweet Lord! What are you doing with the Monteith? Devil spawn! Get back! And take your devil horse with you!” The old man leapt to his feet and spat toward Langston.

He was spry for his age, whatever that might be, Langston thought.

“You ken what this means to us…to me?” The man called Angus was pointing at the woman, and then at him, and his voice warbled as he asked it.

“I had nae other choice!” she replied, too loudly once again.

“Nae Highlander worthy of the title consorts with a Monteith anymore. Especially this Monteith. He’s black as pitch. Blacker.”

“Your regard warms my heart,” Langston said with an even drier tone.

“He gave me a ride to save you!”

“And as you can see for yourself, I’m right as rain. Or I will be once I’ve a dram or two beneath my belt, and…where is my belt, lass?”

The girl opened her mouth to howl out what sounded like absolute frustration. Langston was on the ground, had his arm looped about her, pulling her up into his chest, and a hand over her mouth before she finished. She twisted. She kicked. She bit him. The pain and stunned reflex was what got her mouth free. It didn’t last.

“Unhand me, you—you—!”

He had her mouth again. “Rangers,” he hissed, the word stopping further struggle. With one arm about her waist, and the other crossing between her breasts, he felt every bit of her anger, fright, and indecision. And every bit of her womanliness. That was disconcerting. He knew what she was debating, too, and his lips twisted into a shaky smile. Her nearness was intoxicating, but she was almost more willing to pay the penalty to the rangers than to continue it.

“Let the lass go. We’ll na’ trouble you further.” The Angus fellow had lost his bravado. He seemed to shrink in the process. Langston frowned.

“I’ll unhand the lass if she’ll keep her voice low. These trees hide many a tale. They’ll hide us, too, but not if you announce where we are. Nod for aye.”

At her nod, he released his hand, then both arms. She flung herself from him and stood, bent forward with her hands on her knees, panting. That was an even more impressive sight. The girl was gifted with every bit of curve and softness that the Lord could have provided. She was also flushed in the face, making the azure of her eyes more vivid and piercing, although it clashed with the orange-red streaks in her hair. It was a true shame she was already wed. Even with what Langston thought of the institution, he’d consider it, if the bride was her. He shook his head to clear it. Marry a Highland lass? he wondered. There wasn’t one outside the Monteith clan that would have him.

“What do you want?” she asked when she had control of her breathing. There wasn’t one emotion on her face as she stood there asking it either. Langston folded his arms and considered her.

“A graceful ‘thank you’ would be appreciated,” he replied, keeping his features as stone-stiff as she was hers.

“I’d rather thank a snake,” she finally said.

“Very well. An ungraceful, begrudged thanks, pulled from the depths of your gut. That will do,” he responded.

She looked like that was what it would take. One side of his lip lifted.

“Perhaps your spouse isn’t so stubborn. What say you, Angus? Will you say a proper thanks to me?”

She snorted at his words, sounding like it cleared her nose. Then she caught her middle and held onto the merriment. Langston had never seen withheld laughter so vividly displayed before. He was beginning to think there wasn’t anything she did that wasn’t vividly and intensely done.

“He’s not—I mean…we’re not…wed. He’s my uncle. Through marriage.” She was getting the words through wheezes of breath.

“Where do I go to find him?”

“Where do you find whom?” she asked, putting an emphasis on the last word.

“Your husband. There must be some man on this continent capable of making you obey. So, where is he?”

Her merriment died before his words ended, finishing off with several indrawn breaths held to the point of pain, before she let them out. She wasn’t looking at him with anything other than unveiled dislike and absolute disgust. Langston pulled back despite himself.

“He’s beneath the sod at Culloden. Rotting beside every other Highlander that possessed honor and bravery and strength. Exactly where you should be,” she replied.

Everything went completely solid, still, and quiet, and very focused. Langston swallowed. He raised himself to his full height before bowing mockingly to both of them. Then he turned and mounted Saladin before he said something he’d regret. The sound of his leather saddle creaking and the slight clink of his reins were the only breaks in the stillness. She watched him, and it didn’t look like she blinked the entire time.

He knew exactly what he was going to do: the same thing he did with every other stiff-necked, pride-filled, arrogant, and judgmental Scot. He was going to make the MacHughs an offer they couldn’t turn down.

Ornate, sealed, Monteith messages started arriving the very next day. Lisle sent every one back, unread, and once the emissary started leaving several of them behind, she resorted to putting them in with the smoldering peat they used for a cook fire, adding a strange odor to everything that came out of their oven. She’d have used a real fire to burn them…if she had one with which to do so. Building a fire took wood. Everything took something else; something that they didn’t possess and couldn’t afford. It was dire.

She knew just how dire it was when the west hallway collapsed, sending a wall of rainwater into a hall where royalty had once walked, and waking everyone except the youngest lass, Nadine. That lass could sleep through a war, Lisle thought as she shoved her arms into the thick, woolen, unbending fabric making up the sleeves of the housecoat that doubled for indoor and outdoor use. There wasn’t anything else she could use. The trousseau that she’d spent so many years laboriously putting minute stitches in adorned her stepdaughters and aunts, unless it was of more use as a drapery or bed linen. That included every lace-bedecked, satin, and gossamer…

Her thoughts stalled the moment her feet did. The hall roof had finally given into a rain that chilled and pelted and stole breath. She was experiencing all of it as she picked her way along the bricks and sod, the broken, rotted beams that had made up this section of the MacHugh ancestral castle.

“Oh, my God!” The screech accompanied Aunt Fanny as she launched her skeletal, white, bridal-satin-clothed body through the rubble. It was Lisle that had to stop her headlong flight before she twisted an ankle, or worse.

“Aunt Fanny! Stop that! You’ll injure yourself.” She was putting the same amount of volume into the words, but a mouthful of rain and wet hair muffled them.

“The chest! Doona’ let it get the chest.”

Aunt Fanny hadn’t much energy left in her body, and what she did possess, she’d just used. Lisle held to her and assisted her back, over chunks of indecipherable debris: an upturned chair—that was easy to identify—and what had once been a beautiful, grand tapestry depicting a faded, ancient battle that a Scotsman might actually have won, for a change.

Lisle had to swipe a hand across her eyes to make out the safest path back to the broken-off eave, where a sleepy-eyed mass of MacHughs huddled. She was grateful for the coat, since there wasn’t much that could penetrate it, rain included.

“Here. Take Aunt Fanny. Aunt Matilda? Come on, love. She’s distraught.”

“Poor dear. Come along. I’ll get you a bit of spirits. It will do your body good, it will.” Aunt Matilda had an arm around the frailer aunt, and was trying to turn the woman away.

“I canna’ go yet, Mattie. You doona’ recall it? I’ve got to get the chest. It’s priceless.”

There was nothing priceless in the entire castle. Lisle looked back over her shoulder at wreckage that glimmered in what light was available.

“What chest, love?” Aunt Mattie asked.

“The war chest. Laird MacHugh’s personal effects. You remember it?”

“Calm yourself. There was nae chest in that entire hall.”

“Was too! It was in the deacon’s bench! She’s got to get it! I canna’ rest if she does na’ get it!”

Her words ended on a wail, and they’d just gotten her over an illness that had lingered for months. Lisle set her hips and her shoulders.

“If there’s a deacon’s bench in there, I’ll find it. I promise. Get to the fire—” Lisle stopped her own words, but it wasn’t soon enough. All the MacHughs were shivering and rubbing their hands over their arms, and hugging each other, and she’d just reminded them all of it. There wasn’t a stick of wood worth burning in the entire place. There hadn’t been since early spring. She swallowed and turned back to the mess that used to be the west hallway. There was wood now, once it dried out enough to burn.

“Angus!” she shouted, but it wasn’t necessary; he was already at her elbow.

“Aye, lass?”

“Get me something to lift…this.” The pause came as she stumbled over a rain-soaked piece of something, ripping her coat, splashing everything else, and jarring her knee against a beam, paining her enough to make her cry aloud. She didn’t. She’d learned years ago that crying, sobbing, and self-pitying didn’t do much, except gain one a sore throat and an aching head, and sometimes both.

“We’ve na’ got anything like that. If it had a use, we sold it.”

“Then fetch the ladder!”

“We’ve got a ladder?”

Laughter was bubbling in her throat now, taking the place of any desire to cry. “You were using one to pretend to clean the rafters just this morn, Angus. When you thought I wouldn’t know you were actually running about, trying to discover where I’d hidden your pipes.”

“I—? My pipes? Oh, bless me, lass, you’re right. I’ll be back directly. Directly. That ladder’s na’ much good, but we can use it for leverage and such.”

“And I dinna’ hide them in the rafters, Angus!” She shouted it after his retreating back. He didn’t hear it. None of the others did, either. Those still interested in watching had gathered blankets about themselves, covering over the remnants of Lisle’s French-inspired trousseau they were wearing. She sighed and ran her hands along her hair, plastering it to her head with the motion. It was easier to see that way. It was actually a good thing her husband, Ellwood MacHugh, the last laird of the MacHughs, had filled his nursery with nothing save daughters. God alone knew what she would have used to clothe a boy.

Angus was back, sending her stumbling several steps backward with the awkward way he held what was their ladder. They’d already bartered off the serviceable one, just as Angus had said. There was nothing left. The villagers wouldn’t take credit anymore. She couldn’t afford wood to cook and warm them, or flour to eat. They were almost reduced to eating barley soup without even barley in it.

All of which made it strange that she sent every unbidden letter from the Black Monteith right back, unopened. The last time, Nadine had tears in her eyes at her stepmother’s stubbornness. They didn’t know what it contained. She did. Monteith was buying up land and property at an amazing rate, accruing his own personal kingdom. The MacHughs would rather starve to death before taking one thin shilling from the man.

The ladder wasn’t but six feet in length, maybe seven. Lisle eyed a promising-looking beam, draped over with pieces of thatch and what looked to be plaster, and some of that old, worn-looking tapestry. Of course, it could be anything else, but in the rain-blurred night, that’s what she decided it would be.

She was actually grateful it was night. This might be enough to make her sit down and wallow in self-pity, if she actually saw it in the light of day

“What are you standing about for, lass? Let’s get to rescuing the war trunk so we can find a spot to dry out in!”

Lisle gained as many slivers in her palms as there were calluses and cracks, but she had the thing beneath the beam, and then she was shoving on it. Nothing happened. She tried putting her entire body weight on it, testing the ladder’s tensile strength. That got her a bit of sway to the pile of rubble, and a groaning sound that transferred from the wood along her palms and into her spine.

She went back down. The stack leaned back, an inch or two from where it had started. She only hoped this chest, that Aunt Fanny was desperate to own, was beneath this chunk of old roofing and decayed beams. Someone should have taken the time and funds years earlier and redone some of the castle. Maybe then, when there were only MacHugh daughters alive to inherit it, there might be something left to inherit.

Lisle was being stubborn. She should open the Monteith missive, sell off the lot for a whole bunch of his dishonorable gold, and buy them a smaller place; one with some land worth farming, or raising sheep or cattle, or anything that might bring some coin into the family coffers, rather than sending all of them flying out in the opposite direction.

She took a deep breath and launched herself onto the ladder again. The beam swayed up, dangling pieces of unrecognizable debris, and she kicked with her feet to get it to move a little farther this time before she came back down. The ladder did the same creaking motion, although the wood in her hand shivered along with it, but when she came back down, the beam had moved, and none the worse for it. She was almost in buoyant spirits the third time she tried it, absolutely amazed that something she was trying was working.

“Good work, lass. I see it. I ken what she wants now.”

“What?” Her teeth clenched, and the word was whistled through them as she jumped up again, bruising her ribs a bit with it, and gathering even more slivers in her palms.

“The MacHugh war chest. It’s hid in the deacon’s bench. If it’s what I think it is, I know why the woman will na’rest without it. It’ll contain the family Bible. That’s what she wants.”

“What…why—?” Lisle held herself up, kicking her feet with a swinging motion, and moved the beam another good foot to one side. Her query didn’t make much sense with the amount of air available to her to use on it, but he understood it.

“I said, it contains the family Bible. All the history. All the names. All of them, lass. Every hero. Every chieftain. Every Celt.”

“I mean, why are you keeping it in the west hallway, buried in a deacon’s bench, and being nibbled on by rats?” She didn’t pause through the entire sentence, because that would mean she’d have to suck in more air, and every breath was so laden with rain mist, she might as well be swimming. That also meant she had to wait before coming up for more air.

“Because the chapel’s lost to us, years past.”

That much was true. It was already roofless, and full of ghosts. No one went in there anymore, even the ones pretending to be religious. That was all right with her. She hadn’t managed to get on her knees and say one prayer since leaving the convent school what felt like years ago, but was actually only one.

The Sisters would be mortified. That was all right with Lisle, too. She did her praying standing up; she hadn’t time for any other way. Such was the punishment for being in the midst of one problem or another since becoming a MacHugh, and God wasn’t listening, anyway.

She scrunched her lips together, launched herself up onto the ladder’s edge, and swung her legs back and forth easily this time, since the beam’s weight was putting her higher off the floor than before.

The ladder was offended, and the wood was telling her every bit of it, as it shuddered and groaned in her hands, making it impossible to hang onto for any amount of time. Her own arms were stiff, and her elbows locked, and the shaking of her perch loosened her grip and weakened any kind of hold.

“I’m coming down, Angus!” She was trying to shout it in warning, because he’d ducked beneath the mass of tapestry-draped beam, and she couldn’t stay aloft much longer.

He was dragging something, and not about to let go.

“Angus!”

Th. . .