Heat Of The Knight. Jackie Ivie

that amuses you so?”

      “Langston and Lisle,” she replied, dropping her tongue on the beginning consonant so it rolled. “You doona’ find it funny?”

      “Nae,” he replied, and the word hadn’t a bit of amusement or humor attached anywhere to it.

      “Well, I won’t allow any child of ours to have a name beginning with an L, then,” Lisle continued. “We’ll be worse than laughingstocks.”

      The sigh that came from his side of the coach must have been his reply, for he didn’t say anything for long enough that she had to fill in the gap. “Is that your acquiescence?” she asked.

      “You’ve been formally schooled,” he replied evenly…too evenly. The lamplight was swaying slightly, highlighting him and then moving away, so she couldn’t tell why he sounded so different.

      “Of course. Ellwood MacHugh dinna’ betroth just any lass,” she said to that, lifting her chin slightly, so he could tell his insult had been taken and replied to.

      “Perhaps we’d be better off partaking of wine.” He was speaking, but it didn’t sound like his self-assured, bored voice, nor did it sound like any voice he’d used before. It sounded young, and in a higher pitch than before. She wondered why.

      “Wine?” Lisle asked.

      “What wedding coach comes complete without wine?” he replied.

      “I’ve never drunk wine,” she said.

      “Never?”

      “I’ve na’ touched whiskey much, either.”

      “Nae?” he responded.

      “Does wine have the same effect as whiskey?” she asked.

      “Some say ’tis worse.”

      “Good. I’ll take two doses of the stuff, then.”

      He laughed, and it was such a surprise that Lisle couldn’t keep from staring. He didn’t look like he was in league with the devil. He looked like he was a handsome, young man. Young, she repeated in her thoughts.

      “How auld are you?” she asked when the sound of his laughter had died.

      “That would probably depend on how auld you are,” he replied softly.

      “What? Why?”

      “I would na’ wish to frighten you.”

      “I’m not frightened of you,” she announced loudly.

      “You look frightened.”

      “You doona’ know me enough to judge such,” she replied.

      “True,” he said, finally.

      “So…how auld are you?” she asked again.

      “Twenty-eight.”

      “Nae!” The shock in her voice had him laughing again. Lisle reddened, and had to turn her face away before he saw anymore of it.

      “Too auld for you?” he asked.

      “My first husband was fifty-seven,” she replied to the wall.

      “Ugh,” was his response to that. She almost matched it.

      So, Langston Monteith was twenty-eight. Young, by any standards, and especially youthful to have amassed the fortune he was spending. She wondered if he’d stolen it. That was probable to the point of being likely. He was a pirate. That was it. He’d stolen it from good, sea-faring folk, taking their ships, stealing their gold, and then sending them to the bottom of the ocean. That’s where the gold must have come from, she told herself.

      “You’re mumbling to yourself. Here.” He was holding out a slender, crystal goblet, filled at the bottom with a dark liquid that rolled back and forth with the carriage’s movement. She wondered where he’d gotten it, and why she hadn’t even seen it.

      “Is this all I get?” she asked.

      His lips curved into a smile, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Not when he handed the goblet to her, or when he touched it with the side of his own, since she hadn’t been able to move her hand, or when he brought his own to his lips, took a draught, and then swallowed it.

      Lisle wasn’t able to prevent her own throat from doing the same motion. She dropped her gaze to the goblet she gripped with two hands now, to still its trembling. She didn’t know what was happening to her, but it wasn’t good.

      “Until I see how well you handle it…aye,” he said, filling the coach with the smoothness of his voice again.

      “What?” she asked.

      “You were asking if that’s all you get. That’s my answer.”

      “Oh.”

      “I’ll not have it said my wife’s a drunkard.”

      “What?” she asked. The words were insulting, but the tone was slick and warm and masculine, and making strange rivulets of something she didn’t know enough about to define run her spine and then return, crawling up into the circlet of flowers still at the crown of her head before dissipating, like bubbles of froth at a fast-running burn. That wasn’t good, at all, she decided.

      “Take a sip. It’s not lethal.”

      Oh, if only something was! Lisle lifted the glass to her lips and made the same motion he had, although the wine was sour-tasting and acrid, and made her nose wrinkle with distaste before she swallowed. She didn’t like a thing about wine.

      “Does it meet with your approval?” he asked.

      “What?”

      “The wine. It’s a very good stock. From France. Expensive. I drink only the best and pay well for the privilege.”

      “Will you cease flaunting this wealth? ’Tis unseemly!”

      “To whom?” he asked.

      “Every Scot that’s without it,” she whispered.

      Her answer settled into the carriage, changing the atmosphere so subtly that if she wasn’t so attuned to it, she’d have missed it. It was colder, too. She reached to touch the bundle of bagpipes on the seat beside her for strength and courage, and to curb the fright she’d just claimed she didn’t have.

      “I really hadn’t given it much thought,” he finally said, making her gasp with the words.

      She lifted the goblet and gulped it down, making a wince at how it tasted at the back of her throat, and then she held it out for more. He didn’t say a word; he just lifted his eyebrows, before tipping the bottle and pouring her another dollop of it.