Highland Rebel Page 15

  “Thank you. Just leave it on the table and bring us some sack, would you?”

  They fell to the meal with gusto, tearing at the capon and washing it down with the cold dry wine, their conversation temporarily halted. Jamie finished first, and watched with undisguised admiration as Catherine devoured the remnants of the bird, daintily licking her fingers when she was done.

  She caught him watching and paused, the tip of her finger still in her mouth. Her cheeks burned crimson as she reached for a napkin. “What? I was hungry.”

  “I can see you’re a woman of strong appetite. I’m waiting to hear you belch.”

  “Can’t you be serious, Jamie? I’ve offered you a proposition that can help us both. I want to be free. I’ve no wish to be any man’s chattel. I don’t want to submit to the dictates of someone else, be it brother or cousin or husband. I want to choose my own path. I think you want the same. I can give you enough money to do whatever you wish.”

  “Ah yes… the money. How would that work?”

  “We’ll agree upon a sum, sign a contract, and I’ll transfer you the funds once the marriage is terminated.”

  “So… nothing will change between times. Your fortune remains your own, and though we’re wed, you don’t want me to fu—bed you. Or do you?” he asked, a curious gleam in his eye.

  She blushed and turned away.

  “It amazes me that a woman who’s been to the French court and roamed the wilderness with a horde of wild barbarians, sword and pistol by her side, should blush as often as you do.”

  “It amuses you to provoke me, Sinclair. I hope it’s some consolation that although I’m not all you desire, I’m at least a ready source of entertainment.”

  “It’s a great consolation, love. You’re very good company. I’ve been bored since we parted.”

  She looked up in surprise, astonished he’d think such a thing, let alone say it. “I’ll not be altogether useless, you know. I’ll pay off your creditors and settle any reasonable debts. I’ll provide for your household and pay your expenses, and I’ll sing your praises to the king and anyone else who may inquire. You need only play your part.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “That of a reasonably attentive and indulgent husband. One who, if not faithful, is at least respectful and discreet. Can you play such a role?”

  “A reasonably attentive husband? No. That’s too boring. It would be far more amusing to play a besotted one.”

  They spent the rest of the evening ensconced in the library, hammering out an agreement. Jamie put up a token resistance when Catherine insisted they put it all in writing, to be witnessed and signed by their respective solicitors, but despite his arguments and protests, he recognized she was being remarkably generous, and he knew the advantage was hers. He was puzzled, uncomfortable, and grateful. He’d never expected much from others. His rescue of the chit had been a wild, quixotic impulse, one that had later embarrassed him and he’d blamed for most of his troubles, but it seemed that his battlefield wife was going to prove useful after all. He knew she had ulterior motives for helping him, she’d been clear about that, but she also offered friendship and alliance at a time he badly needed them.

  In the end, a bargain was struck. They shook hands and agreed to formalize it in the morning. The next day Jamie’s solicitor and one of Catherine’s London lawyers reviewed it. It was signed, with Sullivan as a witness, two days later. Shortly thereafter, James and Catherine Sinclair, Lord and Lady Carrick, Earl and Countess of Carlyle, made their debut.

  Fifteen

  The Sinclairs’ surprising reunion had been the focal point of gossip among London’s cynical elite since Sidney had scampered from their table five days earlier. Between him, Buckingham, whose delight in wild speculation was exceeded only by his joy in creating mischief, and the curious spectators who’d caught a glimpse of Catherine riding in Hyde Park, the entire court—including the king—was buzzing with curiosity. The few days Catherine and Jamie had gone to ground to work out the details and finalize their contract had only whetted the appetite of bored and jaded courtiers who were constantly on the lookout for any new diversion. Everyone was talking, everyone wanted to see for themselves, and within days of her arrival, Catherine, along with her husband James Sinclair, Earl of Carrick and Carlyle, were summoned to Whitehall.

  Catherine was received in the banqueting hall. The light and airy two-story room, with its crown glass windows and glorious ceiling panels by Rubens, ref lected a refined Italianate style. It was a great honor, signaling James’s interest in cementing relations with one of the more powerful Highland clans, and his appreciation of Catherine’s gift of thirty-six barrels of Speyside whiskey, which, with its unique fruity f lavor overlaid with a taste of honey, was far superior to anything London had to offer.

  Dour and serious, the new king disapproved of drunkenness, dueling, and the relaxed manners and frivolity that had characterized his brother’s court, but he was far from immune to the attractions of the opposite sex. His warm reception gave Catherine hope that a charter to supply whiskey to His Majesty’s court would soon follow.

  A curious throng crowded the room—absent Lady Ware, who’d left for the country in a fury, deeply affronted that Jamie was recalled to court. They stood to either side, murmuring excitedly, heads bent in avid curiosity as Catherine advanced through the room. Jamie stood back and the room quieted as the king motioned her forward. Conscious of her status as a creature of gossip and innuendo, and mindful of the king’s taste, she’d dressed in a magnificent outfit of sapphire Chinese silk, cut in the mannish style popular among the queen and her ladies. Performing a deep curtsey to both king and queen, she met James’s smile of interest with a demure one of her own.

  He welcomed her graciously to London and his court and motioned Jamie to join them. “Where have you been hiding, Sinclair? You’ve been absent from court for far too long. It’s Carrick now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, a gift from your brother, if you recall.”

  “Yes, quite,” the king snapped, suspecting the remark was meant to chide him for his own refusal to reward the man and his banishment from court. The effrontery! One didn’t reward arrogance and failure. Nevertheless, the Drummond girl might prove useful, and she was a handsome chit indeed. More than his interest stirred as he watched her. “There’s no doubt you served my brother well, despite your recent negligence to me. You’re a rascal and a rogue, sir, but it pleases me that you’ve given up your rakish ways to settle into marriage. Where have you been hiding this pretty jewel? Why didn’t you tell us who she was? Were you afraid someone might steal her?”

  “My husband is not the sort to be jealous, Your Majesty,” Catherine said with a winsome smile, wishing she might smack her arrogant husband on the back of his over-proud head.

  “Nonetheless he hid you from us, madam. I’m hard-pressed to forgive him.”

  “It’s not he, but I, you must forgive, Your Majesty. If he seemed negligent in his duty it was because of my foolishness. He rescued my life and honor, and offered me marriage when he found me trapped on a battlefield, but I thought he played me false and so I ran away.”

  “Led him a merry chase then, did you girl? The vixen f lees the hound?”

  Catherine looked down modestly. “Indeed, sir. I thought he’d follow me all the way home, but it seems he lost heart, so I had to come and fetch him.” She looked up again with a mischievous grin.

  James II, known for his serious demeanor, burst into delighted laughter. “God’s blood, Sinclair! The minx appears a handful! Are you sure you can manage her?”

  “I shall endeavor to do my best, Your Majesty.”

  “Good! Don’t lose her again. Keep a watchful eye on her and be sure to bring her with you whenever you come to court. The Queen has arranged a play tomorrow evening. We shall expect to see you there, and you may join us at banquet tonight.”

  The audience was over. Jamie bowed low, collected his wife, and together
they walked from the hall. “Be careful, mouse,” he said, close in her ear, guiding her through the throng of courtiers and well-wishers pressing forward to greet them. “He thinks himself a lion and he’d love to have a taste of you.”

  “I’m hardly a sufficient morsel for one so grand, but let him try my whiskey and he’ll be my slave,” she said with a happy grin, leaning into him so he could hear her.

  Putting his arm around her waist, Jamie tugged her sideways into a short passage, then another and another, passing through a warren of small corridors and hidden stairways, until they were in a long gallery that led to treed garden set with rose bushes and rows of statues.

  “You certainly know your way around, Sinclair.”

  “Please, my love. Try Jamie, or husband, if that doesn’t suit.”

  “Very well, Jamie. And you might try calling me Cat. That went rather well, don’t you think? Although you certainly didn’t help matters by baiting him. How is it we escaped that mob so handily?”

  “I know every secret passage in this place, love.”

  “Oh? And how did you learn that?”

  “Hiding from suspicious husbands, how else?”

  “Ah! I thought perhaps you’d been a spy.”

  He gave her a sharp look. “Think you so?”

  “Well, one wonders how and why an aristocratic Englishman acquired the skill to pass himself off as a tinker and a Highlander,” she said with a shrug, following him to a bench and sitting down.

  “Amateur theatrics, my dear.”

  “If you say so. Damnation but I hate these dresses! My corset’s so tight I can scarcely breathe. No wonder all the ladies totter about on the arm of some man or another. A stiff breeze would knock them f lat.”

  “You’ll be missing your boots and breeches, I suppose.”

  “Perhaps I’ll take to wearing them and shock your wicked friends.”

  “I have no friends.”

  “You have Sullivan and me.”

  “You’re both family. I hate to disappoint, my love, but it’s been done before. Hortense Mancini was wearing just such garb when she arrived to take London and Charles by storm, and James’s wife Mary has had her portrait done dressed much the same. It’s been the fashion on and off among some ladies of the court, a thing both Charles and James were partial to, though those women were mere poseurs, while you my dear, are an original. Wear them and you’ll melt James’s heart if you haven’t done so already. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you in trousers and boots, my dear, and can assure you that while your dress accentuates the perfection of one set of curves, your breeches do the same for another.”

  His finger traced a path along her décolletage as he spoke. Her breath caught in her throat. She closed her eyes and shivered, knowing she should slap his hand away, but his husky voice and light caress entranced her, and as her breasts swelled and hardened, she leaned into his touch. He spread the fingers of one hand through her hair, drawing her to him, while the other roamed the smooth silk of her dress, caressing her waist and gently squeezing. His lips touched hers in a feather-light kiss, then nibbled at her jaw and earlobe. Alive with sensation, she pressed close against him, threading her fingers through his hair, unable to stop a moan of excitement as he deepened his kiss. She gasped when his fingers brushed the pebbled peaks that thrust against the thin silk of her bodice, wanting to feel the heat of his skin on hers, eager for his touch.

  “Easy, love,” he murmured. “Not here, not now. Good Christ, but you’re a bounteous handful for any man!”

  Mortified, she slapped at him, pushing his hands away, her struggle growing more heated when he clamped his hand over her mouth.

  “Well, that’s deuced strange! Where have they got to, do you think, Carlyle and his Scottish hoyden?”

  Catherine stopped struggling and he let her loose, holding a finger to his lips in a gesture for silence.

  “Damned if I know. Has the devil’s own luck though, doesn’t he? Seems the camp follower’s turned into a countess, and just when Caroline Ware thought she’d got her revenge.”

  “Ha! A rich countess with gold and whiskey and the ear of the king. How’d a faithless rogue like that ascend to such heights?”

  “By being a faithless rogue.”

  “I was speaking of the girl. How did he find her? She’s freakish tall.”

  “Aye, fitting prey for Dismal Jimmy. Do you reckon he brought her on purpose, to dangle in front of the king?”

  “He wouldn’t be the first to pimp a wife or daughter to a Stuart. Many a fortune’s been made that way. The father an earl and the offspring duke and duchess!”

  As the sounds of their laughter drifted away, Jamie returned his attention to Catherine. “Sorry, love, old habits die hard.”

  “To which do you refer? Your penchant for lewd behavior or your penchant for spying?”

  “Why, to both, dear child. You mustn’t let them bother you. This court depends on gossip and malice as its life’s blood. You’re not a success until they loathe and envy you.”

  “Why hasn’t it worked for you?”

  He gave a startled laugh. “You’ve a clever wit, Catherine. If Charles had met you, you’d have five or six royal bastards and be a duchess by now.”

  “You judge me by your own lax standards, Sinclair. I’m no one’s mistress but my own.”

  “There’s no need to hiss and spit, hellcat. I meant it well. You take things too seriously at times. I’m baff led how a woman can have so much wit and so little sense of humor.”

  “You’re trying to provoke me again, Sinclair. I’m baff led that a man surrounded by enemies, who claims he has no friends, insists on taking everything as a joke.”

  Catherine was still annoyed with Jamie a few hours later when they joined the king and his guests at banquet. How dare he assume she’d been so eager for him that she had to be restrained? “Easy, love. Not here, not now.” Arrogant, conceited oaf! And to think he mocked her sense of humor! Her sense of humor was as good as anyone’s! She simply had a Scottish sensibility, one more attuned to subtlety and irony, not the Sassenach penchant for ribaldry and broad farce. Perhaps he’d like to see her get drunk and juggle, then fall on her behind.

  “Still angry, my love?”

  “To be angry I’d have to value your opinion. Why do they call him Dismal Jimmy?”

  “It’s a sobriquet given him by Nellie Gwyn, because he’s so dour and humorless.”

  “Ah! Just like me.”

  “No, mouse, never,” he said with a laugh. “You’ve a sparkling wit. One that delights and entertains. No one’s ever said that of our Jimmy.”

  Mollified, she allowed him to guide her to her seat, pointedly ignoring the curious looks and spiteful comments sent her way. If they’d hoped to find entertainment at her expense they were quickly disappointed. She was richly dressed, her clothes ref lected the latest Paris fashions, she was better educated than most of her peers in the English court, and her manners had been polished at Versailles. It didn’t stop them whispering, though. It was a commonly held prejudice amongst the English and lowland Scots that Highlanders were barbarians. They called them the wild Irish and imagined them unsophisticated, savage, ungovernable brutes that delighted in warfare, pillage, rapine, and murder. “I may enjoy pillage and murder, but I defy anyone to say I’m nae a sophisticated man,” her father had once protested in mock indignation, but even he had been wary of the isolated clans that lived deep in the mountains farther to the north.

  Her father had taught her well, and she was far more interested in observing than being observed. If she were to live among these people, she’d do well to understand them, and as they milled about or took to the dance f loor, she watched them as avidly as they watched her. The men strutted about in their red, high-heeled shoes, many sporting matching ribbons and red bows under their long cravats. With their full wigs, and feathered, wide-brim hats, they towered over their ladies, though none besides her husband rivaled the king in height, who at si
x-foot tall was still three inches shorter than his brother Charles.

  She looked at her husband and smiled. His own dark hair hung loose about his shoulders and he wore his cavalry boots, complaining “men’s heels have grown so ridiculous a fellow can neither fight, nor run, nor sneak about in the damn things.” He was wearing an elegant suit of dark silk with matching coat and breeches, a silver-trimmed waistcoat, and a ribbonless cravat. He has no need to accentuate or conceal. He’s strikingly handsome, quite beautiful, in fact. He caught her look, returning it with a dazzling smile, and her heart beat faster. Careful girl. He’s likely had half the women in this room. It’s all a game and you’re but one among many. No wonder several of them regarded her with daggers in their eyes.

  ***

  As Catherine learned the ways of the English court, Jamie returned to the obligatory rounds of social functions, dancing, cards, and light f lirtation, with his Highland wife in tow. He found himself enjoying her company more and more, though her frankness and honesty were somewhat disconcerting. It wasn’t the way of a courtier, it wasn’t the way of the women he knew, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. It seemed to demand the same in return, and that was something he wasn’t comfortable with. Still, it was novel at least, even refreshing, and he supposed if employed judiciously it would do no harm. Bit by bit, he lowered his guard.

  Although he was free to pursue other women, provided he was discrete, he found he’d little interest in it anymore. He’d also lost interest in gambling and carousing and many other pastimes that had filled his days and nights before Catherine came. It was far more entertaining to bait her and tease her and show her the city. As he accompanied her to the theatre and dinner parties, fetes and balls, concerts and fireworks on the Thames, things he’d once found dull and boring now excited him, provided she was there.

  Catherine was as bemused as Jamie was. She hadn’t expected him to be so congenial and amusing. She hadn’t expected to find him so accepting and attentive. She hadn’t expected to find him so damned attractive! She wondered why he bothered. The contract had been signed. He’d have his freedom and his money soon and there was nothing to be gained by charming her, but he insisted on playing the besotted husband. In the process, he was always touching her, placing a hand on her elbow or the small of her back, or an arm around her waist or shoulders. When they sat side-by-side, talking in the library, gossiping at the theatre, or taking a private moment in company, he always sprawled beside her, his big body solid and warm against her own.