The Rogue of Islay Isle (Highland Isles) Page 12

  All gazes fell on her. “Ye know of abortive brews?” Joan asked, her brows raised.

  “Ye’re remembering things,” Cullen said, stepping closer.

  Rose leaned down to look in Ava’s startled face. “Did you drink pennyroyal?”

  “No.” She shook her head and peered past Rose to Grace. “That was raspberry leaves.”

  “Drink,” Tor ordered and passed her a cup of watered-down wine. She did while Charlotte instructed Ellen to hurry back with a cup of boiled water for Joan’s raspberry leaves.

  “How do ye know about abortive brews?” Agnes asked, her tone soft but clipped. Beatrice stood beside her, staring with wide eyes and thin lips to match her mother.

  Rose shook her head. “I don’t know. When she mentioned pennyroyal, I felt…ill.” She met Cullen’s concerned gaze. “That is all, not really a memory. More of a feeling. Pennyroyal and tansy or…black hellebore and savin boiled in milk. That they are dangerous, poison.”

  “Ye felt ill, like ye’ve taken it before?” Agnes asked, making Beatrice gasp, her hand flattened to her breast.

  “I…” No definite memories came to Rose. Only the herbs and how to mix them. “I don’t think so.”

  “There now, I already feel better,” Ava said and set the cup on the table. “I’m merely tired. Perhaps I could lie down.”

  Charlotte clasped her hands. “Of course. I have a room one floor up for you and Tor. I thought Joan and your companion could share.” She glanced toward the third lady who had golden hair, Mairi, Tor’s sister. “I didn’t know ye were coming, Mairi. I will need to find another bed for ye.”

  Guilt plucked at Rose. She was taking up a fairly large room. “You are welcome to share with me,” Rose said. “The bed is wide enough for two.”

  Mairi met her gaze and nodded. “Thank ye.”

  Maybe with Mairi as a bedmate, she’d have reason enough not to run to Cullen’s room at night like a wanton. Despite the pleasant mask she wore, Rose’s stomach clenched with disappointment.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cullen waited in the dark alcove by the twisting stairs, listening to the light cautions given by Rose as she and Mairi came down after changing for dinner. With the Macleans arriving, he hadn’t been able to speak with her. Or kiss her. And now she was sharing a room with Tor’s sister, so he couldn’t come knocking tonight. He exhaled in a gust of frustration.

  A small gasp issued from the bottom step. “Who is there?” Rose asked, and he stepped out of the shadows.

  “Do ye always hide about in dark corners, Cull?” Mairi asked. “Or were ye specifically trying to scare us into falling down your uneven steps?”

  He laughed, still remembering Tor’s sister as a freckled young girl who used to tag along after Tor and him. Luckily, they had been able to rescue her from a disastrous predicament when her husband died a month ago. “If I’d wanted to do that, I’d have hidden at the top for a much greater tumble.”

  Mairi gave a soft snort. “Ye probably would push me, too.”

  Rose looked back and forth between them, and Mairi laughed. “Not really,” she said. “But growing up, Cull’s always been wicked.”

  “Wicked?” Rose asked.

  “Playing tricks, always leading a group of lasses around by the memory of his kisses, breaking hearts to leave them floundering on the ground like gulping fish.”

  Och, he could kick the woman. Rose’s eyes widened. “That is quite the visual illustration,” she said.

  “Why don’t ye find your mother?” Cullen suggested without hiding his terse tone.

  Mairi’s head snapped between them both. “Hmmm… Interesting.” She stared and tucked an errant curl into the bun under a small hood. “Very well.” She turned to enter the hall. “But guard your heart, Rose. No need to let it flip-flap around in the rushes.” She fluttered her hand this way and that as she walked away, leaving them finally alone.

  Cullen turned to Rose who was watching Mairi leave. “I like her,” Rose said, her gaze sliding to him. “She hides nothing.”

  “Oh, she can hide things when she wants to,” Cullen said, but let it go. He didn’t want to talk about Tor’s sister in the short time they had alone. “And she exaggerates about the lasses.”

  “It seems she has the same opinion about you as Broc.”

  He stepped closer and inhaled her clean floral scent. It brought back a rush of memories from last night. “I regret my sordid youth, and I aim to prove that I’ve changed.” The heat between them surged a tightness up through his gut.

  “So my heart won’t be flip-flapping in the rushes?” He watched her dainty hands turn upward and down like Mairi’s fish.

  He caught one of them, softly kissing her knuckles. “I would never let ye flap in the dirty rushes.”

  She canted her head to the side. “A clean floor before a fire?”

  An image of Rose, naked and sprawled on a soft fur spread on the floor of his room before the hearth, filled his head. All thoughts of talking with her about their night of play crumbled to ash. He stepped closer, knowing she wouldn’t retreat, because her face turned up to meet his kiss.

  Her mouth was soft and open under his, tasting him as much as he consumed her. She pressed forward against the hardness of his body, molding herself intimately along his length as much as her heavy skirts would allow. Had she spent the day thinking of last night like he had?

  The thorough kiss ended, but they remained entwined, foreheads touching. Cullen kept his breath even despite what Rose did to his pulse.

  “I missed you this morn when I woke,” Rose said softly.

  “Och, I had much to do today, but I thought about ye.”

  She smiled. “Me or my nibbles?”

  He cupped her head in his hands and stroked one thumb over a cheek, reveling in the fact that she didn’t pull away. “Both.” He slid his hands to her shoulders, his lips caressing a spot below her ear. “And much more.”

  A small sound came from her lips, like a purr heavy with passion. How did she do that? With only a noise, he felt ready to toss his vast responsibilities in order to whisk her away. In every association he’d had before with a lass, he’d been the one leading the dance. But not with Rose.

  “We should go in, else Mairi imagine the worst,” she whispered.

  Muscles tense, Cullen managed to guide her hand to rest on his arm and lead her out of the dark. Bloody hell, he’d have to avoid close contact with anyone lest someone notice the rigidness under his kilt. Halfway to the table, where everyone was gathering to eat, he realized he hadn’t said or asked Rose anything he’d planned. He ran a free hand down his clipped beard. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she were a witch. You don’t know better. He shoved the thought away and brought her to a seat toward the end of the table by Mairi since the seats in between were already full, except the one waiting at the head for him.

  Mairi smirked up at Cullen like she wanted to blab her suspicions to the world and was plotting for the most dramatic timing. He sent her a small frown, hoping the fact that he’d taken them in for Christmastide would tame her tongue.

  Ellen and Jillian brought in a cauldron of steaming stew. Broc walked behind them, carrying two platters with filleted fish. Agnes appeared with her tarts on a wooden board and Beatrice brought a woven bowl filled with chunks of herbed bread and crocks of freshly churned butter.

  “We will have a much larger feast for Christmas,” his mother said.

  “This is very gracious,” Joan said. “And smells delicious.” Murmurs of agreement melted his mother’s stiff shoulders.

  Broc claimed his seat down the table from William, Farlan, and their guest Hamish, Tor’s second-in-command, who had come with the family from Aros.

  Agnes and Beatrice, whom his mother must have asked to stay, sat on either side of Errol down from Broc. So both of his cousins and Beatrice sat across from Rose. Beatrice glowered whenever her gaze fell on Rose while Broc grinned and whispered across the table to her. Cullen
frowned. Formal table hierarchy was maddening.

  Tor lifted his tankard beside Cullen. “Thank ye for your hospitality, Cullen.”

  “Certainly,” Cullen said. Tor continued on, but Cullen barely heard him. What was Broc saying to Rose? Would he hint at his suspicions? Regale her with lurid stories of Cullen’s past? He should have warned him not to before dinner, but that would have confirmed that Rose was the one with whom he’d been meddling. Not that what they’d shared was a simple romp. It was delicious and somehow deeper than mere flesh. How could he feel so wrapped up in a woman with whom he hadn’t thoroughly tupped?

  “We should invite the English over for the Christmas feast,” Tor said.

  Damnation. Was that a blush rising in her cheeks? He should have sat her next to him at the head, to hell with what everyone thought. Then he could be inhaling her sweet floral scent instead of ignoring Farlan’s gas. He took a bite of the stew but didn’t taste it.

  “Toast the captains,” Tor said.

  “Hmmm…”

  Broc was leaning halfway across the table to talk to her.

  “In fact, I’m thinking of giving up the chiefdom of Aros and swearing fealty to jolly King Henry,” Tor said, leaning so his gaze imitated Cullen’s, staring down the table.

  Someone laughed, but Cullen watched both Broc and Rose turn their attention toward him. She looked perplexed. “Sounds splendid,” Cullen answered when the long pause prompted him to respond.

  Tor snorted and grabbed Cullen’s shoulder, shaking him slightly. “Cull?”

  “What?” Cullen dragged his gaze away from Rose.

  Humor twitched the corners of his friend’s mouth while Ava held a handkerchief to her lips. “Call her down here to sit with ye,” Tor said.

  “Who?”

  Ava lowered her handkerchief and whispered, “Really, Cullen? The lovely mademoiselle you can’t keep from staring at.”

  “I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen ye look more than two seconds at a lass,” Tor said. “Usually they’re chasing ye.”

  Cullen took a drink of the ale next to his plate. “Rose doesn’t chase anyone.”

  “Ah,” Ava said. “The charming rogue has met his match.”

  Was that why he couldn’t stop thinking about Rose? Because she was a challenge? Was he drawn to her mystery instead of her graceful confidence and unflinching courage?

  Ava leaned forward to look on the other side of Grace. “Lady Charlotte?” she said.

  “Aye.”

  “I was wondering if your guest from France could come closer to this end of the table so I might practice the language conversing with her. Both Grace and I learned French as girls back in England, but I haven’t had a chance to use it since.”

  “Certainly,” Charlotte said, nodding to Rose.

  Rose stood with the grace of a regal princess. Her face was a mixture of agreeable interest and gratefulness. Broc stood, too, being the nearest man to her. He’d never shown such manners before Rose came to Dunyvaig.

  “There’s no room for her up here,” William complained. “Ye should go down to that end.”

  “Nonsense,” Charlotte said. “We will make room.” She shooed people to slide their chairs down until there was room for another chair beside Ava. Cullen met Rose’s gaze as he walked toward her to retrieve her chair, his boots clipping on the wood planks.

  “Here, set the chair on this side of me,” Tor said, putting Rose right next to Cullen. “I cannot be parted from my bride even for the space of a meal.”

  “’Tis true,” Mairi called from the far end. “They are disgustingly happy.” She grinned to soften her words, though a bitterness laced them. “And rarely apart.”

  Rose lowered into the seat, and Cullen helped her push in. Immediately Ava began to talk to Rose in French, with Rose responding, her smile natural. Occasionally Grace would laugh beside Ava, the only other person able to understand.

  Ava said the word amour and glanced toward Cullen. What was she saying to Rose about love? Was Ava talking about something as trivial as loving the views or something that Rose said didn’t exist?

  “Give me that,” Beatrice said from her spot and grabbed for the cup Errol held away from her.

  “Ye should drink something other than whisky, Bea,” Errol said, setting the cup down on the other side of him near her mother. She hissed something back in a quieter voice, her bottom lip protruding in a pout.

  Rose ate in between varying discussions with Ava in French. Both of them seemed content. William and Farlan watched the exchange with narrowed eyes, listening for traitorous plans, no doubt. When Tor leaned in to talk to his wife, Cullen took the opportunity to speak near the perfect curve of Rose’s ear. “We need to talk in private, lass.” He needed to ask her about their night together.

  She turned her face to him, and he watched a glimmer of worry tighten her brows. “Oui, yes, but now I have a bedfellow,” she whispered.

  Och, he wanted to be her bedfellow instead of Tor’s sister. “Before ye retire.”

  Beatrice’s voice rose up above the polite chatter. “She entices men from their duty, struts around like a harlot, too good to work with her hands, and she knows how to kill a bairn. What else could she be but a wicked courtesan?”

  The low cadence of conversation around the table cut off. Beatrice’s face reddened, and Errol grabbed her reclaimed whisky cup out of her hand, draining the rest of it himself.

  “Agnes,” Cullen said. “I think Beatrice needs to find her bed early this eve.”

  Beatrice snorted softly. “Finding beds,” she murmured. “I’m sure she remembers how to find a bed.”

  Cullen pushed up from the table, as did Agnes and Errol, who grabbed Beatrice under the arm to encourage her to rise. Beatrice’s comely face contorted with bitterness.

  “Enough, Beatrice,” Agnes said, and looked up the table at Cullen. “Although, it would be good to know what type of woman we have welcomed into the heart of Dunyvaig. Having a working knowledge of abortive herbs makes one wonder.”

  William nodded but seemed to know better than to speak it aloud. Farlan swallowed, wiping his mouth. “Aye,” he said. “The scant information we have could indicate a sinful past.”

  Silence sat along the narrow planks of the table, as if the diners were gathered to pass judgment. Rose perched on the edge of her chair, eyes forward, still as stone. Nothing in her posture denoted a defense against the accusation. Could she possibly worry that Agnes’s words were true, when they couldn’t be?

  Cullen’s gaze went first to Farlan, and then farther down the table. “Rose is not a courtesan and has never been one.” The flames from the candles in the chandeliers above their heads flickered with the drafts, and the wind whined outside, adding an ominous backdrop to the strain in the room.

  “A richly dressed woman, without the rough hands of a midwife or healer, who knows more than one way to kill a fetus within a woman…” Agnes let the rest of the sentence finish in everyone’s own minds.

  “Precisely,” Beatrice added with a nod. “And yet there she sits, surrounded by your honored guests, beside the chief of the clan, making a fool of us.” She crossed her arms over her chest, shrugging off Errol’s staying hand like a petulant child.

  Charlotte stood, her lips tight. “This is not the time or place to discuss such—”

  “I repeat,” Cullen said, his voice low and full of restrained power. He leaned slightly forward where he stood, his hands fisted and propped on the table before him. “Rose is not, and never has been, a courtesan.”

  Rose touched the sleeve of his shirt, yet kept her gaze across the table, not connecting with anything but the far stone wall. “Since I have no memory, we do not know that for certain.”

  “Exactly right,” William mumbled beside him, but Cullen kept his focus on Beatrice’s face, a sneer of dark jubilation lighting it.

  “I know for certain,” Cullen said.

  “If she herself doesn’t know,” Beatrice contin
ued the volley. “How could ye?”

  Lord forgive him. Rather, Rose forgive him. “Because she was and still is…a virgin.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Virgin? She is full of lies,” Beatrice said. “Ye can’t believe a word from her lips.”

  Rose leaned back and let the chair hold her up as an icy numbness claimed her body, her breath held captive behind her ribs. A virgin? She was a virgin, and Cullen knew? Before she knew herself? But how did she know so much about bed play? What a virile man, such as Cullen, would like? She looked up at him, but he still watched Beatrice, the muscle in his jawline tensing.

  Rose’s cheeks burned, and her stomach rolled with the stew she’d eaten. When he’d touched her so intimately, he’d known. So he hadn’t joined with her despite her obvious desire. Tears pressed at the back of her eyes in a rush of relief. He’d stopped from loving her because of honor, not because he thought a Frenchwoman could become with child and demand he wed her. And Dieu merci, she wasn’t a courtesan, giving her body to men for money.

  Rose kept her gaze fastened to Cullen’s strong stance. Hands fisted at his sides, he stared down the woman who still didn’t realize she was losing this very public battle for Cullen’s affections. Her mother either didn’t care or was too shocked to come to her aid.

  “Don’t ye see, Cull,” Beatrice said, unaware that Errol held his arms ready to lift her from the floor. Did he wait for a signal from his chief? “She lied to ye about that. She must be a courtesan, a French whore. It is the only explanation that fits all the pieces.”

  “God’s teeth, Beatrice MacDonald,” Charlotte snapped. “That’s not the only explanation available. And again, this isn’t the place—”

  “I know she is a virgin,” Cullen said. “Without her saying as much.”

  Mon Dieu. Rose could see the explanation forming pictures in heads around the table. Grace turned pink, Mairi pinched her lips tight, her eyes wide, and Ava wiped her mouth with a handkerchief, her brows rising high. No one ate, not even the uncles, sitting silently in judgment across from her.