Free The Intended by May McGoldrick Page B

chuckle under
his breath. “Just yesterday in the garden—I was up helping myself
to a few words with Tess, the master gardener’s girl—I seen Lord
Edward a-mauling the mistress. Like a baited bear, he was. His
hands and mouth was all over her—and I don’t think she was minding
it much. I was getting a might randy just a-watching them from
afar. Hell, I don’t think she cares a jot for no filthy Scot to be
messing with no...”
    “Ye are a fool, Jo,” Davie put in.
“This ‘filthy Scot,’ as ye call him, is the property of Lord Edward
now—thanks to Mistress Jaime. She was the one as pointed him out to
the master. “An’ if he dies, I heard old Graves say, Lord Edward
stands to lose a pretty sum of gold. So even if he ain’t worth so
much as a dog to us, he has value to the masters. So if ye was a
bit sharper, Jo, ye’d best...”
    The sound of the physician returning to the
cell silenced the two men. And Malcolm continued to lie still,
wondering if in being taken to the house he would have access to
“Mistress” Jaime.
    With all his soul, he couldn’t wait for the
opportunity of putting his hands around the wench’s throat.

Chapter 9
     
     
    Peering through the diamond-shaped panes of
the upper gallery window, Jaime winced each time she saw Malcolm’s
body shift in the approaching cart. She could see the physician
upbraiding the carter each time his human cargo jounced, but from
the vacant expression on the driver’s face, Master Graves’s words
hardly seemed to be penetrating the thick-necked man’s bald
head.
    “Go slower,” she said quietly, unaware of the
auburn-haired woman coming up behind her. “There’s a hole ahead. Go
to the right of the lane. Don’t you see it? Go to the...Oh! By the
Virgin, are you trying to kill him?”
    “Aren’t they doing a satisfactory job of it,
Jaime?” the countess of Surrey asked, looking out the window as the
cart lurched out of view beneath them.
    Jaime blushed crimson, embarrassed at having
forgotten the presence of the earl of Surrey’s wife in the gallery.
It took her a moment to find her voice. “I believe Master Graves
has done all he can for...for the prisoner.”
    “You know the man, I take it?”
    “He...He’s a great laird in the western
Highlands. Many know him.”
    “And he’ll fetch a great ransom for Edward, I
understand.”
    “Aye...if we can restore his health. He’s
been horribly wounded, and he took a severe beating in the castle
at Norwich.”
    “So I understand.” Frances’s eyes sparkled
mischievously as she took Jaime’s hand. “But how on earth did you
manage to convince Lord Surrey to allow the Scot into the manor
house?”
    Jaime flushed at the question. She had gone
to the earl, knowing of his kindness but with little hope. Nursing
Malcolm back to health in the stable cell seemed an impossible
task. Master Graves had said as much himself. Malcolm had a fever.
And the physician could hardly be expected to watch over him
carefully there. And the idea of her going to the stables every day
was sure to create a ruckus. So Jaime had to ask. The one question
she would never had dared to put to Edward, she felt quite
differently posing to the earl of Surrey.
    “It took no effort at all, Frances,” Jaime
said softly, speaking truthfully. “Your husband knows the man. When
I told him the prisoner’s name, his face lit up immediately. It
seems that Malcolm MacLeod visited his old teacher Erasmus at a
time when Lord Surrey was under the old scholar’s tutelage.”
    Frances shook her head with a smile. “Leave
it to Surrey to have a bond of friendship tying him to one whom
Edward considers a foe.”
    Jaime looked up and studied the soft features
of the countess’s face. The affection for her husband glowed like
embers in her eyes. Frances caught Jaime’s gaze and returned a
smile.
    “Surrey tells me that we will soon be
sisters,” Frances said casually, glancing out the window. Without
waiting for an answer, she