Nicholas scratched behind his ear. “I’d like to remind you of the conversation we had about this—”
Gillian huffed out a breath. “Aye, I remember. I’m forbidden. I didn’t summon him, though. He came to me.”
Nicholas unfolded her arms and took her hands in his. “Gillian, I pray you. Forget this ghost rubbish. Youknow what the clergymen say? That there’s no such thing as ghosts and that those who claim to see them are communing with demons. What does that make you?”
“A witch.” Her voice was stubbornly defiant.
His grip on her hands tightened. “I vowed to your father that I would protect you, but I need you to help me by not begging for trouble. We have enough to worry about, with two attempts on your life, without you announcing to the world that you think you’re a witch.”
Gillian stared down at the velvet coverlets. He spoke wise words, but she still didn’t like them.
“You’re angry with me,” he said.
She shrugged, her mouth pursing, unhappiness filling her. “It’s not you . . . it’s just not what I thought it would be.”
He sat back. “What’s not?”
“Being a countess. Oh, Nicholas, I’m the worst countess ever!” And suddenly the wretchedness and confusion of the past day bubbled up inside and she burst into tears. “I don’t know what I’m doing! Sir Evan hates me, and my servants are killing themselves, and now someone wants me dead, and you think I’m crazy.”
She covered her face with her hands. Nicholas pulled her into his arms.
“I don’t think you’re crazy . . . maybe a little dotty. . . .”
Dotty?Despair hit her anew, and she sobbed harder. Maybe shewasdotty to interpret opium dreams asghostly visitations—but she didn’t want to be dotty. That’s not what she wanted him to see when he looked at her.
“I mean that in a good way,” he said, his voice strained, hands stroking over her back. “And I’m sure Evan likes you. How could he not? He’s that way with everyone. Dull as a stone— that’s why I like him. He doesn’t annoy me with mindless chatter.”
“Like me!”
He groaned. “No, not like you. And what else . . . you’re a beautiful countess, a perfect countess.”
She sniffled against his shirt. “Liar.” But she felt better that he’d said it.
“I mean every word of it.” When she had calmed down somewhat, he asked, “What’s this about your servants killing themselves?”
She told him about Aileen, growing a bit tearful again and ending with, “Sir Evan said the servants kill themselves because they’re so miserable. We must do something to improve their lots, Nicholas, something to make them happy so they want to live.”
He let out a breath. “Very well, aye—if it makes you happy, improve the servants’ lots, but I vow my servants do not go about killing themselves. I’ve never mistreated them.”
She sniffed and nodded. She hadn’t thought he mistreated them, but maybe he didn’t pay enough attention to them. She knew some people considered their servants some sort of different form of life, like a talking horse.
“Has anything else happened while I was gone?”
“Sir Evan has a sweetheart. I saw them kissing.”
“Sir Evan has many sweethearts, sweetheart.”
The endearment broke through her melancholy. She smiled at him.
He tilted her chin up with the edge of his hand and kissed her, his mouth soft and warm. Gillian closed her eyes and sighed, leaning against him. She was glad he was home.
“Are you sorry you wed me yet?” he asked. “Someone has tried to kill you twice in the short time we’ve been married. Not a very auspicious beginning.”
“I’m not sorry.” She kept her face buried in his shirt. “I’ll never forget how you appeared out of the fog to rescue me. Averyauspicious beginning, methinks.”
He pressed her back on the bed, his hands sliding eagerly into her dressing gown, and he made love to her, bright sunlight streaming through the windows.
They spent the afternoon in bed, talking and making love. She told him about her foster parents and the border feuds, and he observed that borderers didn’t sound any different than Highlanders—they both loved to feud. Once while she was talking, he caught her hand in one of his.
