by Eliza Knight
The earl let out another small growl, slamming his hands into the stone. She wished there was something she could do for him. He was obviously in distress. It was on the tip of her tongue to call out to him. To approach him as if he were a wounded animal. But she knew better. He wasn’t just any wounded animal, but more like a rabid wolf, she’d say. He might bite her head off.
Giselle bit her lip to hide her laugh at such imaginings.
When she was in a mood such as the one that appeared to be plaguing him, the last thing she wanted was for anyone to bother her at all.
So she sank deeper into the shadows, trying not to make any noise, and watched him. She felt a little odd doing that. As if she were intruding. His shoulders rose and fell violently. And she had the disturbing notion that he was either crying or breathing very heavily.
A grown man, a soldier at that, crying?
Nay, he must be breathing very hard. And that would make sense after punching a wall. He was likely quite out of breath from the exertion and whatever emotions had motivated him to such violence.
Another growl reached her ears from where he stood, and she had the sudden haunting notion that he reminded her very much of Beast from La Belle et la Bête by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont.
That made her smile to visualize him that way, and she knew it was silly. But she supposed he did have a lot in common with that tortured prince. A curse forever altering his features, meddlers demanding he fall in love if he were to find true happiness ever. It was all so very romantic. Giselle sighed.
“I can hear ye breathing,” he said gruffly, his head swiveling in her direction.
Giselle peeked at him from behind the tree, wondering if he could see her and also wondering what color his eyes were. Despite his scar and crankiness, he was still very handsome.
If she held her breath, would he determine that he’d heard wrong?
She held her breath to see.
“Why are ye hiding? Who’s there?” He stood straight now, hands fisted at his sides as he took two steps toward her.
Giselle bit her lip. She could come out and tell him who she was, but if she did and anyone saw the two of them alone in the garden speaking, it could be a whole scandal, and she was not ready to be married, let alone gossiped about. This was, after all, only her first season, and she’d not even experienced her first kiss.
There was no way on earth she was going to be tied down to the first man she happened to be alone with. Not that she would have minded so very much being attached to the beastly Alec Hay. She’d be a countess, and he was exhilarating. Attractive and tall. From what she could see of his legs encased in woolen hose to the knees, he was formed well too. Striking in a kilt. The ninnies feigning horror at his face were stupid. Didn’t they see the rest of him?
Scars mattered little to her.
What did matter was his penchant for punching walls. He was not entirely stable, and that, she decided, was not the type of man she wanted to be tied to. She needed stability. After all, her parents were the opposite of stable. Always arguing, and her mother was so controlling that Giselle was lucky if she could sneeze without asking permission first.
“Dammit, come out of the shadows, or I swear to God I will yank ye out.” Alec’s voice was full of threat, and it almost made her scurry around the front of the tree to reveal herself.
But she did have some semblance of self-preservation left, and so she tiptoed backward, deeper into the garden.
“Coward,” he called out to her, obviously hearing her retreat.
Coward? Giselle snorted. Maybe she was when it came to saying no to her mother, but in any other circumstance, this was the last thing anyone would say about her.
What did he know? She whirled around, prepared to tell him that, but caught herself in time, clamping her lips closed. She turned back around to face the great house, prepared to march inside and tell her mother her head ached when her entire body collided with solid muscle.
“Oof,” she said, very unladylike. Her hands came up involuntarily to press against the stony expanse of male chest. Nay! The earl. “Oh. Pardon me.”
“What are ye doing lurking in my garden?” The Earl of Errol, or perhaps she should call him the Beast of Errol, made no move to get out of her way, nor did he retreat from her touch.
Giselle yanked her hands away from him, suddenly feeling heat creep its way up her limbs and onto her face.
“I was out here for a moment alone. Much as I suspect ye were, sir.” She tilted her head back and glared at him. If he were going to act the beast, she would put him in his place. Striking green eyes—or were they blue—glared down at her in the moonlight. Oh my. “I did no’ try to insert myself in your time alone. I was, after all, here first. I think it would behoove ye to treat me in the same manor. Now, if ye will excuse me.”
She made to step around him, but he stepped in her way, blocking her once more. Definitely, his eyes were green as they raked up and down her form, sending chills of something not altogether unpleasant racing along her skin.
“What did ye see?” he asked.
“What?” She wrinkled her brow. That was not a question she’d expected, and she didn’t even know how to answer it.
“Ye were watching me. What did ye see?” He brought his face close to hers as if trying to intimidate her. But he obviously had no idea who she was, for she would not be intimidated. And also, he smelled delicious. Spicy and woodsy.
Giselle looked him right in the eyes, lifting her chin. “I saw nothing.”
In the light of the moon, she watched his brows narrow. She should probably be worried, but the truth was, she wasn’t scared at all, only annoyed. The headache she was going to pretend to have was quickly coming true.
“If ye will excuse me, now, sir.” She again tried to skirt around him. This time he not only stepped in her way, but he also grasped her arm. Warmth shot from the spot where he held her. Exactly the opposite sensation she was certain she should have. “What are ye doing?” She stared down at where his long fingers curled around her arm. What would happen if she slid his hand down to her own and entwined her fingers with his?
Oh, stop, ye stupid fool. The man was angry and not at all in the mood for wooing, and her imagination was running wild again.
“Ye’re no’ afraid of me,” he stated.
Och, nay. Had he noticed her curiosity, read in her thoughts that she liked how he smelled, and wanted to hold his hand? “Of course no’. Why would I be?” Again she lifted her chin, going for obstinance.
“Every wee lass is.”
“I’m no’ a wee lass then, I guess.” Even if she was a mere nineteen years old. What did it matter? Age was only a number, and she’d had her fair share of issues in her short life not to worry about a man’s fit of temper while he was alone. It was none of her business, besides.
“Do I know ye?” he asked, cocking his head as he again raked that delicious gaze over her.
Dear me... “I’m afraid we were no’ introduced.”
“Why’s that?”
“I came late, and when I was announced, I met only your mother.”
“So ye know who I am?” His voice lost some of its edge.
Giselle’s gaze flitted nervously back toward the house. It was only a matter of minutes before they were discovered. “Aye.”
“Seems fitting that I should know ye, then.”
“I think no’ since I’m leaving.” She tugged her arm out of his grasp, and he surprisingly let her go.
“Why are ye in a rush to leave?” He crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at her, giving her pause.
“Because I did no’ want to be here to begin with.”
“What better thing did ye have to do than go to a ball?”
That was an irritating question, as was his accompanying sneer. Did the beast think that lasses only cared about frivolous things? Giselle decided to be completely honest with him. “I wanted to finish my book.”
He seemed
stunned by her admission. “Book?”
“Aye. I was just getting to the good part when I had to set it aside to dress for this.” She waved her hand in the air, absent-mindedly dismissing the soiree held in his honor.
“I’m dying to know, Miss...what was your name?”
Well, that she didn’t feel like sharing. Not so he could tell someone he’d been alone with her in the garden and ruin all of her plans to remain unattached. “My name is no’ important as ye’ll no’ need to know it going forward. Probably safer. Now, what are ye dying to know?”
“Well, now, I’m intrigued by your lack of name. But before, it was the title of the book.”
“Do ye read, sir?” She somehow doubted it, him being a military man, and as handsome as he was. Most of the men she’d met who enjoyed books were not as appealing as Alec Hay.
“I have been known to pick up a book now and then.”
Giselle had searched the house when she first left the ballroom and found no library. And so she assumed he must be lying.
“Well, if ye must be enlightened, I was reading Sense and Sensibility.”
“I’ve no’ heard of that.”
“I’m no’ surprised. It’s quite new. It is also a novel with romantic notions, and being ye are…”
“A dullard?” There was laughter in his words as if he expected her to agree.
Giselle tried to keep the frown from her face, as her mother had advised that frowning aged a woman dramatically, and she’d been frowning quite a bit in his presence. “A man. I’d no’ have expected ye to be interested.”
“Perhaps I am.”
What was he up to? “Then ye should get yourself a copy.”
“Perhaps I will. Who is the author?”
“A lady.”
“And her name?” Again his green eyes raked over her with interest, sending heat scurrying up her spine to wrap around her throat, making it hard to form words.
“She is anonymous, sir,” Giselle finally managed to say.
“Ah, as ye are. The two of ye have much in common. Perhaps she is ye.”
Giselle shook her head, swiping at a blonde curl that tapped against her cheek. “Nay, she is no’. I like to read, but I have no’ the talent for storytelling.”
“Have ye ever tried?”
“I have no’.”
“Then how do ye know?”
This conversation had gone on long enough. If she didn’t extricate herself soon, she’d be in trouble, for every moment that passed with her in his presence unchaperoned was another moment they could be discovered, and her future ruined.
“I need to go, sir.”
“Home so soon? But there is more of the ball to be had.”
Oh, what did he care? He too was avoiding it. “If ye must know, I’ve had it with these ridiculous balls. I’m tired. I’m bored. And I’ve no intention of getting married any time soon, so going to them and flirting and hoping to catch the eye of an eligible bachelor is silly at best. Now, if ye’ll excuse me, I must go back inside before anyone sees us together out here.”
“Why’s that? Ye do no’ want to be seen with me?”
“Well, sir, if we are seen together out here, likely we will be forced to be seen together for the rest of our lives.”
That got him moving. Quite quickly, as a matter of fact. He leapt backward as if she’d slapped him, and Giselle had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
“I see we understand each other.” She tried hard not to roll her eyes, but it was a feat she did not succeed in. “It was no’ my pleasure to meet ye, sir. In future, if ye do no’ wish to irritate the fairer sex, try no’ to act as though being linked to one is a nightmare.”
“As if ye would no’ think the same for me,” he scoffed, then touched his face, his finger tracing over the large scar there. How vain could he be to think such a thing would matter?
“What reason would I have? Except for maybe your rudeness.” With that, Giselle lifted her skirts and hurried across the garden toward the side door that she’d slipped out of previously, hoping that no one saw her.
Once inside, she made her way to the ladies’ retiring room, and then swiftly out again, making certain to ask the first person she saw if they’d seen her mother, the Countess of Bothwell, so that she could have a witness to exiting the retiring room if anyone did decide to put her in the garden with the Beast of Errol.
She was quickly pointed in the right direction. Her mother had finished a conversation with one set of friends and taken a champagne glass from a passing footman, intent on inserting herself in another conversation when Giselle intercepted her.
“Mother, please, I must go. I’ve been in the ladies’ retiring, trying to get rid of this megrim.” Giselle touched her forehead with the back of her hand and feigned pain for good measure.
“Oh, dear. Well, I wondered where ye’d gone off too. Though I did no’ see ye in there when I checked.”
“I do no’ know how ye missed me.” Giselle shrugged and let out a long-suffering sigh.
Her mother narrowed her eyes, but taking in Giselle’s person, must have decided she didn’t look as if she’d been mauled by anyone or been out having an assignation. There was no other choice but to believe her.
“We shall go,” her mother finally consented. “We have to be up early tomorrow anyway for the morning service.”
The morning service was what Giselle was subjected to quite often, and it had nothing to do with the church. Instead, the morning service was when she volunteered her time with the older ladies of society as their companion, doing menial tasks like writing letters and reading to them. Her mother seemed to pick the crankiest ones each time.
“I do hope my megrim is gone by morning,” Giselle said.
“It will be,” her mother quipped as if she could control such a thing.
Out they went into the night. For the rest of the season, Giselle searched for signs of Alec Hay, The Beast of Errol, mostly so she could avoid him, but he seemed to have disappeared from society.
2
May 1817
Three years later
The road to Boddam Castle near Aberdeenshire, Scotland was bumpy and wet. Giselle and her family had been traveling for two days from Edinburgh, continually stopping because of the storms that raged outside.
Already, they’d had a broken axle that had almost killed them and an unfortunate touch with lightning that left one groom incapacitated for bordering twelve hours. Poor bloke. He was lucky to have made it after that.
And still, her parents were insistent they continue when all of nature compelled them to cease their journey northward. Giselle was prepared to consign herself to death. For that was how this treacherous journey seemed doomed to end. “Ah, there’s the castle in the distance.” The Earl of Bothwell pointed out the rain-streaked window toward a looming shadow that rose from the misty moors.
What looked like towers on the north and south sides of the structure jutted menacingly into the clouds.
Lady Bothwell swished the curtain covering her window out of the way and glanced outside. “Nay, dear, that is Slains, the Earl of Errol’s residence. We’ve still several miles to go, but we’ll be there within a couple of hours, I predict. If we do no’ run into any more trouble.”
Any more trouble... That seemed a statement that would only tempt Fate to see it done. Giselle stroked her hand over her book, wishing she were back in Edinburgh in her library. The jostling of the carriage made reading impossible unless she wanted to get sick.
“Ah, Errol,” her father mused. “I’ve no’ heard that name in some time.”
“He’s kept himself holed up here for nigh on three years now. His poor mother.”
The Earl of Errol. Giselle also had not heard that name in as long. She pressed her face to the glass, squinting through the dripping rain and trying to part the murkiness with her mind to get a better look at his castle in the distance. It’d been years since she’d thought of the Beast of Errol. Nor h
ad she seen him since that fateful night they’d met in the garden of his Edinburgh residence.
The gloomy castle seemed very fitting for him.
Shifting her gaze toward the cliffside fortress, she imagined him brooding on battlements, staring over the land as if some medieval warrior, waiting for his enemy to come calling. Except his enemies seemed to be maidens and their meddling mothers. A small smile touched her lips as she recalled the night they’d met and the way he’d assumed she’d find him hideous or scary. How vain he was to think she’d find him anything at all.
After that night, the rumor was that he’d gone north and not come back to civilization since. Was he there now, stomping around the glum castle?
No light illuminated the massive pile of stone. Did he hide in the dark as he had in his garden?
“Giselle, have ye heard a word I’ve spoken?” Her thoughts were interrupted by the shrill and sound of her mother’s voice.
Giselle glanced back at her mother, whose lips were pursed as though she’d eaten something sour. “Pardon me, Mama, I was fascinated by the...shore,” Giselle lied, as she couldn’t see the shore at all but didn’t want to tell her mother she’d been thinking about the castle’s owner. There weren’t enough hours in the day to explain the unexplainable, nor did she have an infinite amount of patience when it came to her mother.
“Whatever may have caught your fascination, it is imperative we get right the introductions.” Lady Bothwell wrung her gloved hands in her lap as she said it, overthinking things.
A trill of butterflies in her belly—and not in a good way—reminded Giselle of why they’d gone out in this terrible weather in such a hurry and without stopping. She was going to meet the master of Boddam Castle. The man she’d be forced to marry imminently if her parents had their say.
Sir Joshua Keith resided there. They’d had the misfortune to meet this past season, and the baronet had formed an unhealthy attachment to her, a fancy that she did not return.
