Page 17 of Highlander’s Lust

Jean looked sad but sat down daintily, thanking him in a soft voice as he pushed the chair in for her.

“What’s the matter?” He wanted to know why her eyes were suddenly glittering with tears.

“‘Tis only that...this side of the table has always been me mither’s at home. And Faither on the right side of me. And I remembered she’s ill and Faither had to leave…”

These feminine emotions were unfathomable to Laird Brisbane. He had grown up in a very masculine environment, never bothering to understand how the female mind worked. Jean’s tears made him nervous. He signaled for the footman to pour them all a drink. The footman, a servant of long-standing in the Brisbane household, poured Gavin and Charlie large glasses of whisky, and then set a small tasse of Rhenish wine next to Jean. Jean took a small sip and then placed her glass down. By the time she had done that, Gavin and Charlie had already quaffed down their entire serving of whisky and were calling for more. She looked perplexed but did not think to question the drinking habits of her betrothed and his friend. Maybe things were done differently here. Maybe growing up surrounded by whisky distilleries had jaded her palate for the golden liquor.

It being so late at night, the kitchen fires had already been damped down. They were served bread freshly baked that morning with as much butter, preserves, or cheese as they wanted and with fruit from the estate for sweet. Jean was starving and tucked into the meal with appreciation. After devouring a bowl of summer fruits spread over lavishly with thick yellow cream, she began to feel more normal.

Gavin and Charlie must have supped at an earlier time because their plates stayed empty, but their glasses did not. Jean was unsure how many times their glasses had been refilled while she was eating, but from the way the two men were behaving, it must have been more than a few. They were laughing loudly and their hand gestures were large and careless, indicating a very fair degree of inebriation. Gavin’s eyes were squinting and bloodshot; Laird Brisbane was slouched down in the armchair with his long legs stretched under the table in a slovenly manner. When he saw Jean observing him, he raised a shaking glass in her direction as if to toast her and then drank deep, slamming the glass down on the table so hard after he had finished that the thin vessel shattered.

“Och, will ye look at that,” he slurred, as the footman rushed to clear away the shards. “I mus’ remember to be more gentle wi’ me hands.”

And after saying this, he gave an unsteady wink in Jean’s direction.

She had seen her brother and his cronies in such a drunken state before so was not shocked by the effect the whisky was having on Laird Brisbane and his amiable friend. What shocked her was the fact that both men seemed to have no qualms in behaving in such a wretched fashion in front of a lady. Such manly mischief was meant to be done behind closed doors!

She pushed her heavy chair back from the table. “I can see ye’re badly jug-bitten, Laird, so will see meself back to bed. Good night.”

And on those words, she was gone.

Charlie tried to stagger after her but found his body unwilling to cooperate with this new objective.

“Leave the lass,” Gavin slurred. “Gi’ her time to cool off. Come to the tavern wi’ me. A comely wench will take yer mind off things.”

And Charlie was too drunk to disagree.

The next morning, Jean had another question for Eby.

“Why are there only elderly maidservants here at the castle? Have ye heard any reason given for this downstairs?”

Eby gave a grim smile. “Ye have already heard the reason, Miss Jean. The auld laird was a notorious bedswerver, during his marriage and even more so after his poor wife’s passing.”

Jean sat up straight at these words, almost causing Eby to poke her mistress’s head with a pin.

“Och, Eby! What if Charlie is cut from the same cloth as his faither? Should I send a message to me faither and ask for him to include other terms into the marriage contract?”

The maid sighed and patted Jean’s shoulder to comfort her. “I’m afraid ‘tis too late for that now, dear. The contracts have been signed. We can only pray that the master will drop his unsavory habits after ye are wed, and hope to heavens he does nae seek to follow in the auld laird’s footsteps when it comes to Inverness geese.” Eby saw Jean look confused, and amended her statement. “Geese signifies wanton ladies of the night, ye wee innocent.”

Since arriving back at Brisbane Castle, Jean felt as though her world was in a continual state of upheaval. First, her father had left due to her mother’s illness. Then she had discovered his lairdship found it convenient for him to enter her bedchamber whenever he wanted as though she were simply another piece of his property. And now she was having to debate whether her betrothed was likely to leave her bed cold after they were married so he could cavort with Inverness geese!

“Please, Eby, d’ye have any womanly tricks I can use to disabuse Charlie of his propensity towards those habits which I find most repugnant?”

Eby stood back to check Jean’s hair in the looking glass perched on the dressing table. After judging the myriad of curls piled on top of her mistress’s head a triumph of beauty, she replied, “If yer mither were here, she would in all likelihood tell ye to act the lady and turn a blind eye.” She saw Jean bristle at this suggestion and smiled. “But, I don’ hold with such nonsense. I say, if a man even so much as steps one foot in the direction of another woman, ye must break him of the habit immediately!”

“By doing that thing in the bedchamber ye told me about...withholding me affection?” Jean wrinkled her nose to talk about such a delicate subject but was determined not to become another Lady Brisbane, cuckqueaned by her husband.

Eby nodded in a very decided way. “Aye, miss. Cruel to be kind. Rather a woman does that than waking up every other year to a Brisbane bastard putting its head around the corner. I hear the auld laird had a few, mercifully absent from the castle keep, and I would spare ye, me poor lamb, from experiencing such an ugly aftermath of an affair.”

Personally, the whole thing felt to Jean like a maelstrom of confusion. The husband cheats, the wife freezes him out of the bedchamber and berates him like a shrew, so the man is pushed to cheat again. But she kept this observation to herself, silently cursing her father for failing to protect her from these kinds of behaviors. But with the betrothal coming so swiftly after her mother’s pregnancy announcement and the need to marry their daughter off with haste, it was easy to forgive him this oversight. The barrage of settlement offers coming from Laird Brisbane had proved too tempting for the Macanroy clan to resist.

“Break him of the habit,” Jean parroted back to Eby.