“And donna think for a moment I’ve no’ noticed the gaping hole in the bed linens!” he called after her. “That hole is the size of a dinner plate! How could one possibly create a hole so large?”
By working very hard at it, Mared thought, and bit back a triumphant laugh as she threw open the doors to his wardrobe. “If ye donna care for my laundering and ye are incapable of dressing yerself, then perhaps ye might hire a valet, milord!” she shouted at him from the dressing room.
“I am perfectly capable of dressing myself, provided the clothing is laundered and properly pressed!”
“Bloody hell ye are,” she muttered beneath her breath and dug through the various coats and waistcoats and shirts and finally found a pristine white linen shirt. She removed it from the wardrobe and returned to the master chamber, and paused, curtsied deep, then held the shirt up for his inspection.
He snatched it from her hand and pulled it over his head, then shoved one arm into it. “Ye are fortunate that ye found this shirt, ye are.”
“Oh, aye, I am so very fortunate!” she said with a roll of her eyes. “And what might ye have done had I no’ found it, pray tell?”
He laughed darkly and slipped the other arm into his shirt. “No’ what ye’d hope, ye wee banshee. I’d have turned ye over me knee, bared yer bottom, and spanked ye like a child since ye insist on behaving like one.”
That certainly brought a provocative image to mind. “Honestly!” she scoffed. “Ye may have kidnapped me, but ye’ll no’—”
“Kidnapped ye? Rubbish!”
“Aye, ye did!” Mared insisted, unable to keep her gaze from his hands as they disappeared into his trousers to tuck in his shirttail. “Ye hold me ransom from my family, and that is kidnapping!”
“I hold ye as collateral on a debt. That is no’ kidnapping, that is mercy on yer family.”
“Say whatever will allow ye to sleep at night,” she answered primly.
“I sleep quite well, never fear.”
“Do ye indeed? And who makes yer bed in the morning? Ye donna sleep—ye struggle.”
He scowled at her as he buttoned his trousers, unnoticing as her gaze followed his hands. “If I donna sleep at night it is because a madwoman closes the rooms of my house and ruins my clothing and hides the silver to avoid polishing it and lies about as the housemaids perform her work! Fetch me a neckcloth. A white neckcloth.”
“Fetch this and fetch that,” Mared mimicked him and walked to the bureau, opened the drawer, and stared down at a row of neatly folded neckcloths. Only three were suspiciously blue. “I never claimed to be a housekeeper or a laundress,” she reminded him. “If ye seek yer laundering from the likes of me, ye shouldna expect it to be done properly.”
“I expect ye to learn it!”
Mared snorted. “Aye, that’s a man, expecting so much,” she said. “And it’s just like a Douglas to expect a Lockhart to do his bidding!”
“It should be the pleasure of the Lockharts to do my bidding when the Lockharts owe me three thousand pounds with interest!”
He walked to where she stood, pushed her hand aside and reached in, gathering the three bluish neckcloths in his big hand, and held them up to her. “Mo chreach, what have I done to deserve such torture?”
“I beg yer pardon, but what have I done?” Mared responded and handed him a perfectly white neckcloth.
Payton shoved the three blue neckcloths at her. “Ye’ve added another day to yer employment, that’s what ye’ve done, for I shall need to replace these. Are ye pleased, then?” He pushed them against her chest.
With an indignant sniff, Mared took the blue neckcloths from his hand and dropped them carelessly in the drawer.
Payton’s gaze locked on hers…long enough for it to resonate throughout her entire body. But then he abruptly looked away, stalked to the bed, and tossed the white neckcloth down with his coat and waistcoat.
Diah, but he looked so regal and masculine, and his courtly appearance was stirring something inside her. She foolishly thought of the day on the bank of the pool and imagined him touching her like that again…and touching him.
As he pulled the cuffs of his shirt to straighten them, Payton glanced up and nodded at a lacquered box on the bureau. “Ye’ve had no reason to destroy my gold crest, I should hope.”
Mared shook her head to clear it. “No’ as yet,” she said and turned around before Payton could see the heat he generated in her.
She lifted the lid of the box; within were several jeweled pieces. She picked up the Douglas crest pin. “There ye are,” she said cheerfully. “Unscathed and unimaginative.”
“Hardly surprising ye’d take issue with the Douglas crest after ye’ve taken issue with all that I am.”