Audrey sniffed. “I expect he’ll drop dead of embarrassment as soon as he hears of his daughter’s barbaric behavior. What more can be expected of a recluse girl raised by a fraud?”
Glenna stepped toward Audrey Keane, eliciting a trio of shrieks from the women. But she was stopped by a tight hand on her arm, and Tavish Cameron pulled her back to his side, turning her with a jerk to face him.
He glared down at her. “Go to your chamber,” he said through his teeth.
“I’ll not allow her to slander me or my father.” Glenna turned her head to look over her shoulder. “Speaking of fraud as though she wasn’t but a festooned tinker’s brat.”
“And so you will go to your chamber,” Tavish repeated, shaking her arm to draw her attention once more.
Glenna’s angry trembling increased to accommodate her confusion. “But you wished for me to—”
She was cut off by Tavish Cameron’s curt “Excuse us.”
He pulled her through the hall, keeping her tight against his side as the crowd parted for him and leaned down to speak near her ear. “I wished for you to entertain the guests, aye. But not by creating gossip and bringing shame to me.”
She jerked away from him, and he let her go with a glance around, obviously not wishing to attract more attention than they already had. He herded her through the doorway and into the cooler corridor between the two flights of steps.
Had she shamed him? Her father?
“That is still my hall,” she insisted, shocked at feeling tears come into her eyes.
“For all your insistence that you are a lady, princess, your behavior and appearance say otherwise. You’re dismissed to the upper floors.” He turned and abandoned her there in the corridor, his wide back disappearing into the bright slashes of laughing and talking guests, the servants milling about with their clean, buff-colored skirts and white caps, their sturdy, shining leather boots.
Glenna looked down at her kirtle again and saw it now as compared with the bright silks and embroidery worn by the wealthy merchant class of Edinburgh. She raised her face to regard the hall once more and realized with horror that the kitchen maids Tavish Cameron had hired were dressed far better than she.
Her hand still holding the forgotten chalice of wine dropped to her side; she heard the liquid pouring out, felt the droplets on the tops of her feet, revealed by the skirt that was still too short. Her fingers went limp, and the chalice fell with a clang.
Glenna turned away from the feast and began to climb the steps.
* * * *
It was well past midnight when Tavish ascended the eastern tower, leaving behind the last lingering guests who seemed intent on finding the bottom of each wine cask now housed at Roscraig. Tavish himself had drunk more than his share. He was feeling fine, still enjoying the effects of the boisterous singing and dancing that had taken place in the hall. Audrey had not surprised him very much when she had demonstrated her talents of voice in a duet with the hook-nosed Miss Haversham—even Captain Muir had whistled and stomped his feet after their song. And she and Tavish had been paired more times than not in the dancing—a fact that Tavish knew was not mere coincidence.
Audrey’s abilities and popularity among Edinburgh’s wealthy merchant class had not surprised Tavish. After all, she’d been stolen away from his and Muir’s games in the alleys of Edinburgh years ago to be groomed by the very best in the city. She would bring wealth and connection to whomever her father chose for her, and Master Keane himself had already hinted at the generosity he would bestow upon his new son-in-law.
He arrived at the upper corridor and nodded to Alec, who—while he did answer up a curt “Laird”—did not meet Tavish’s eyes.
Tavish opened the door and saw a tumbling pile of rags straighten from the middle of the bed to stand upon the floor. He could feel Glenna’s petulant glare on his back as he shut and bolted the door. When he turned he saw the tray of food upon the coverlet, picked at, perhaps, but the sampling of the dishes enjoyed at the feast still largely intact.
“Mam catering to you again?” he asked, the drink making the already snide words uglier than he’d intended.
Glenna immediately reached out and took the tray from the bed, sliding it into the shadows covering his wide table. She kept her back to him while he walked toward the fire, surprised to find his cup still in his hand. It was mostly full, and so he drank from it while he looked into the flames.
“Do you think you might somehow shame me into marrying you?” he demanded.
“What?”
He ignored her feign of ignorance. “Poor Lady Glenna—so hungry and poor and beautiful. You mocked me tonight. Goading Audrey before her friends. Coming to the hall in the garb of a peasant; as if I commanded you to wear such rags.Triumphant conqueror!” he bellowed, raising his cup. He chuckled in the back of his throat, shook his head, and then drained his chalice. She had said nothing, and so he turned to look at her.
She was staring at him, the flickering light barely reaching her cheekbones, forehead, the tip of her nose.
Her silence was maddening. He set the empty chalice on a table with more force than was necessary, and then walked to the tall wardrobe and opened it. “What have we here?” he said and reached out to take hold of the long drape of material. He shook it before him and saw that it was nothing more than the old gray shawl she’d worn the day he arrived. He tossed it on the floor and then reached back inside the cabinet.
He pulled out the faded, striped kirtle; it soon joined the shawl. But when he went to retrieve another garment, his hand met bare wood. Tavish stepped back, allowing the firelight to illumine the inside of the empty wardrobe.
“Are you looking for the gray gown?” Glenna asked. “It’s across yonder chair near the fire, drying.”
“Where are the rest of your gowns?” he demanded, turning to her.
