fight?'
The master took the flagon and walked over to an oak chest to lock it away. 'What do you think the real reason was?'
Toby rubbed his throbbing jaw. 'I think the king has hexers after him. He needs gramarye on his side. I think you put on that fight to see if my guardian demon would come to my aid.'
'Partly, perhaps.'
'Not a very nice thing to do to an innocent sailor, who thought he was just going to earn a few marks at fisticuffs.'
'Oh, spare me! He was a brainless buffoon. He had too much pride to let his shipmates see a kid beat him. He died of his own stupidity.'
'And it didn't work, did it?'
Rory laughed scornfully. 'Not that I noticed. It isn't much of a guardian if it lets you get smashed to pulp.'
That was comforting. It was not good to have killed a man in what should have been a friendly bout of fisticuffs, but to know he had slain him with his bare hands felt better than to have cheated by using gramarye. 'So why does King Fergan still want me?'
'I told you he's an idiot. He saw a man who wasn't smart enough to know when he was beaten, and his romantic soul was thrilled by this display of courage. Display of stupidity, I call it.'
Toby sighed. It was what he had been afraid of. He had been taken on as royal hexer, and he had nothing to offer.
'And that wasn't the only reason for the fight,' Rory said, leaning an elbow on the mantel.
'What else, then?'
The silver eyes shone in the firelight. 'As I recall, you were very insistent on our travels together that Kenneth Campbell of Tyndrum had placed his daughter in your care.'
Toby froze. Bugles sounded danger in the back of his mind.
'So?'
Rory showed most of his teeth. 'You claimed to be her guardian — on an unofficial basis, of course.'
The big bumpkin was being outsmarted here somewhere, somehow. He just knew it. And mocked, too. 'What do you mean?'
The smile became a sneer of triumph. 'I mean, Tobias Bastard, that I have the honor to ask you for your ward's hand in marriage.'
Toby was too stunned to say more than,
'Marriage. My request is purely a formality, of course. Her parents will be here by tomorrow for the ceremony. To my future happiness!' The master of Argyll drained his goblet and tossed it into the fire.
'Meg has agreed to this?'
'Oh, yes! Even if she didn't, I am sure her family would persuade… but she has agreed. She plighted me her troth, as they say. Right after the fight, it was.'
The fight where Toby Strangerson had shown himself to be a brainless, murdering brute, not merely getting himself pounded to porridge, but going on to kill his opponent. That had been the real reason for the fight all along.
'If you feel so inclined, you may congratulate me on my engagement,' Rory said generously. He examined his fingernails. 'Your trouble, Longdirk, is that you are a cynic. You don't believe in love.' The silver eyes looked up challengingly. 'Do you?'
'Sometimes.'
'But not this time? Or do you accept love in women but not in men? Well, this time you must believe. My intentions are perfectly honorable, for once. The problem you cannot avoid, Longdirk, is that I am rich, I am handsome, I am the most eligible bachelor in all Scotland. By your primitive standards, I am probably a thoroughgoing scoundrel, but I have fallen so much in love with a tanner's daughter that I am going to make her my wife instead of just bundling her in the hay. Your cynicism can't handle that, can it? My grandmother was rather shocked, too, I admit, until she got to know Meg. I think she fell for her about as fast as I had — ten minutes, twelve at the most.'
Meg in Inverary Castle, dressed up in Lady Lora's castoffs…
'It was the lute,' the master sighed, admiring the nails on his other hand. 'She sat beside me on the rock in the moonlight. I played the lute and she sang.'
'And she fell in love?'
'No, I did. I thought she was the most incredible girl I had ever met. She was totally innocent, yet she had fire, and gaiety, humor… I suddenly imagined life with Meg for company all the time and I sank without trace! Of course I could hardly announce my feelings at that point, although I was sure of them. And she could talk of nothing except the big, handsome Tyndrum lad who had saved her from the Sassenach. Then you came shuffling out of the darkness with a broadsword on your back, trailing your knuckles…'
Toby leaned back in the chair. Now he understood what had happened between them that night. 'That was when the trouble started!'
'Indeed it was! Love is not all that can happen at first sight.' Rory chuckled. 'But now the trouble is over. I have won.'
A penniless vagrant against the heir to Scotland's premier earldom? Even when Toby had begun to realize what the contest was, the match had never been fair. 'Does that really surprise you?'
'I suppose not. No, it doesn't surprise me. My father is going to burn me at the stake, of course. He expects me to marry a flat-faced, flat-chested, flat-footed MacDonald frump. But Grandmother will handle him.'
Bitterness would be useless. 'I want to speak with Meg.'
'You have a boat to catch.'
'I have time to say good-bye, haven't I?'
'You punched a man to death in front of her eyes. Why would she want to speak with you?'
'Which do you fear: that I will carry her off, or that she will run away with me?'
'Watch your tongue, boy!'
Toby rose. 'I am the king's man now.'
'That king is a throneless mirage!' Rory pouted. His gaze wandered to the minstrel gallery and then returned to Toby. 'What exactly do you wish to discuss with my fiancee?'
'To tell her I am overjoyed at her good fortune. To wish her happiness.'
Obviously Rory did not trust him, even now. 'You do understand, don't you? She is a tanner's daughter. I shall inherit an earldom, a thousand armed clansmen, Argyll, seven or eight castles, estates in England, houses in Edinburgh and other cities. You are nothing, and will always be nothing. She had a juvenile crush on you, I admit. I can forgive that, because she is very young. But you are only beef, Longdirk. You are unlikely to live a week now, and even if you do, you have no future, nothing to offer a woman. You do understand that, in the real world, she had no choice?'
'I understand that very well, Master. I never told Meg I loved her. I won't now. I will say nothing to upset her.'
Rory hesitated, then said, 'Wait here, then.' He strode off along the hall.
All his vicious jibes were true. No girl in her right mind could be expected to turn down a rich and powerful — and handsome — noble for the sake of an ignorant, musclebound, penniless outlaw. He liked Meg, enjoyed her company. No more than that. If he loved her, he would have told her so, wouldn't he? As a friend, he must rejoice in her good fortune.
Why did it hurt so much? Was he just sore at losing? He hadn't even been playing the game, had he? So why care if he had lost?
When he was sure Rory was out of earshot, he looked up at the minstrel gallery and said, 'Scram! You'll have company in a minute.' There was no answer.
He heaved himself stiffly out of the chair to stand and gaze at the fire.
