Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(79)
Aulay couldn’t keep his eyes from Lottie. He wanted to speak to her, to touch her. He wanted the circumstances to be entirely different. He was not a vengeful man, but he was quite certain he could never forgive her.
He wished he could claw out of his well, but in his version, he’d come up from the hold of a very big ship, and she’d be on the deck. Diah, he’d turned into a maudlin, overly sentimental man. Is that what the loss of his ship did to him?
His mother suddenly tapped her spoon against the goblet of wine. The fiddlers stopped playing and his father stood. Everyone stopped eating and the hall grew quiet, all eyes on the laird. Even the giant seemed to understand he was to pay heed.
Aulay’s father held his goblet aloft. “A tragedy has befallen us in the loss of the Reulag Balhaire,” he said solemnly.
There was a murmur through the crowd, and several glances thrown in the direction of Aulay.
“Aye, but ’tis no worse than the tragedies that have befallen us before.”
“No’ true, laird!” someone shouted from the back. “The source of our tragedy dines at our table!”
“Och, Charlie, they are fellow Scotsmen, are they no’? They’ve suffered as we have, and they did what they had to do. Was it no’ so long ago, then, that we avoided the excise men? Leave them be—they’ll pay the price for their crime, they will. But we’ll no’ allow their foolishness to bring darkness to us. No’ us. We are Mackenzies!”
“Aye!” Iain the Red shouted.
“We are Mackenzies!” his father said again, only louder.
“Aye!” more men shouted.
“We are strong, and we persevere!”
“Aye! Aye! Aye!” The room began to shout their agreement, cups banging the tables. The Livingstones looked around them uneasily. Only Duff was smiling. The giant had covered his ears, and the young whelp Mathais had picked up a cup and was banging it, too, as if he were a Mackenzie.
“Music, Malcolm! Give us the pipes!” Aulay’s father bellowed, and resumed his seat. His wife beamed at him, her mission of this gathering clearly accomplished in her husband’s speech—rally the clan.
In the midst of the shouting, Aulay’s gaze met Lottie’s. She smiled uncertainly, then glanced away.
He sighed. His heart had dried up and cracked, a ship’s hull left too long for repair in the sun.
The music began and several Mackenzies were quick to dance a reel. Aulay watched from the dais, drinking his ale in a vain wish to drown his thoughts, if only for the space of an evening. But then Aulay noticed, through a haze of a wee bit too much ale, something that required his immediate intervention. Men—Mackenzie men—were looking at Lottie. And he could see that Iain the Red and Beaty were bating young Billy Botly to invite her to dance. He could see Charlie, who had just spoken out against the Livingstones, eye her and very nearly lick his chops. That would not be born. Aulay had his own issues with the Livingstones, and Lottie in particular. But he’d be damned if any other Mackenzie would touch her. He came to his feet and strode off the dais, tankard in hand, down to the table where the Livingstones were seated, staring down Billy Botly who dared to approach. The lad turned about and scurried back to the laughter of Beaty and Iain.
Lottie glanced up, startled by the sight of Aulay suddenly looming over her. “Captain Mackenzie?”
Aulay was aware that everyone in the hall was watching him, whispering. Well then, he’d done it, and he’d come down from the dais. “Miss Livingstone, will you do me the honor of a dance?”
“Oh! Ah...” She glanced around her.
Good God, she’d not refuse him—
“Aye,” she said, sounding as if she were agreeing to stick her hand in a flame, and rose from her seat. Aulay offered his hand; she hesitantly slid hers into it. Her small, elegant hand. A memory of that hand caressing his face flashed across his mind’s eye, and he closed his fingers around hers as he led her to the area cleared for dancing.
They joined a reel. Lottie was a spirited, graceful dancer, but her movement seemed almost wooden. She didn’t smile, she scarcely even looked at him. He missed her smile, he realized. The brilliance of it, the way it radiated into his heart.
Diah, but Aulay had never had so many treacly thoughts or flowery metaphors in his mind. He’d had too much ale, that was what. He was not this utterly besotted fool.
When the dance came to an end, Aulay said, “Shall I bring you an ale?”
She was looking at his neckcloth. “No, thank you, then. Thank you for the dance, Captain.” She dropped her gaze and bobbed a curtsy, then turned about and headed back to her clan.
Many eyes followed her, Mackenzie and Livingstone alike as he stood stupidly in the middle of the room. When she reached her clan, all of them smiled, every man. The woman who had kicked him, had held a gun to his head, was the bright star among them, the light under which they all blossomed. Could she really be both women? More important, could Aulay be so wholly aroused by both of them? Damn her.
He returned to the dais and drank more ale, sullenly watching the dancing. Lottie didn’t dance again and, in fact, none of the Livingstones did. They remained huddled at the table, warily watching the Mackenzies around them.
Aulay’s mood turned blacker. What did they have to be so bloody gloomy about? They were being treated like kings.
The evening, like so many nights at Balhaire, began to draw to a close in the wee hours of the morning. There were only a few left in the hall when Aulay, swimming in his cups, stepped off the dais and walked to the Livingstone table. Lottie was still there, her head propped on a fist, her finger tracing a line around the rim of her cup.