Entrancing the Earl

by Patricia Rice

  As if summoned from Iona’s thoughts, Winifred clinked her silverware against her crystal wine glass and called, “Quiet everyone.”

  While the soup was served, Iona glanced down the table to find the older lady had elected to sit at the right hand of the marquess on the opposite end.

  “Rainford is about to tell us of the missing children,” Winifred announced.

  Missing children? Iona waited for explanation.

  “The description did not give age,” Rainford corrected. “I have telegraphed friends in Edinburgh for more details. Young heiresses is all I know, and that they’re Malcolms. So we thought you should know.”

  Iona chilled but pretended interest in her soup.

  “Surely there is more, my lord,” Winifred demanded. “Heiress and Malcolm are often synonymous.”

  “My informant only mentions blond and blue-eyed daughters of the Earl of Craigmore.”

  Iona’s stomach rebelled against the little soup she’d imbibed. Still, even in her fear, she noticed the error. Her stepfather—or Arthur—didn’t even know what color their eyes were.

  The marquess continued. “I thought Ives might be interested in the reward of ten thousand pounds.”

  Ten thousand pounds? The entire house, land, and contents of Craigmore weren’t worth ten thousand pounds. She was an heiress in title only.

  Iona longed to sink lower in her chair as every head turned in the earl’s direction. Instead, she sipped her water and watched the Earl of Ives and Wystan like everyone else.

  Her host merely shrugged. “Blond, blue-eyed, and female describes almost every Malcolm in existence.”

  Which was why, when they first set out, Isobel had dyed her hair black and Iona had trimmed hers short enough to cover with a cap and pretend she was a boy. It had grown out a little since then, but no sun touched it under her old-fashioned bonnets, leaving it mostly light brown.

  She and Isobel didn’t have to change eye colors. They had their father’s golden-brown instead of their mother’s blue. So, maybe the old goat had remembered his wife had blue eyes and assumed her daughters did also.

  “Were they abducted? Is there a ransom note?” the earl asked. “Are they old enough to run off with suitors? Is Craigmore a drunkard to lose his daughters?”

  “Oh, the famed Ives cynicism,” one of the gentlemen at mid-table said. “If they’re Malcolms, won’t the Malcolm genealogy tell us more?”

  “Not ours,” Mrs. Merriweather, the loyal librarian, said serenely. “Craigmore is a Highland estate. They’ve established their own library, although I can write Lady Abbott and inquire.”

  How long would it take for all the pieces of the puzzle to fall in place? Worse yet, where could she run when they did?

  And a reward? That had to be the American’s doing. She should have killed him when she had the chance, but she’d not thought him much of a threat then.

  “If you would write, Mrs. Merriweather, that would be appreciated,” Ives said with his usual indifference. “I do not like the thought of two innocents in the hands of scoundrels. But if they’ve merely run off with suitors, I want no part in it.”

  Iona sensed a whiff of interest, but the earl truly was cynical and not particularly worried.

  “Your own mother ran off, did she not?” Rainford inquired. “Malcolm women are known to be headstrong.”

  Iona had known the earl had a Malcolm mother but had not considered the ramifications. No wonder he wasn’t too concerned about the missing heiresses. She almost smiled at his confidence that they could take care of themselves.

  “Only because so many men are weak,” Winifred retorted. “If you find those children, I insist that you bring them here, where we can assure they’re safe. Children do not normally run away without reason.”

  “They may have been abducted,” the marquess insisted. “We don’t know yet.”

  Ignoring any suggestion that a Malcolm might be abducted, Simone spoke. “Has anyone inquired of the ladies at the School of Malcolms? Edinburgh is much closer to Craigmore than here.”

  “I’ve wired Max and his librarian wife for more information,” the marquess said. “They’ll inquire at the school.”

  So much for hiding in plain sight, Iona thought, mind racing. Could she disappear into the company and hope whoever searched here wouldn’t notice her? Surely, they’d be looking for twins?

  “But you rode for Wystan instead of finding out the details—why?” the earl asked, finishing his soup.

  “Rain’s sisters were on the way,” one of the other gentlemen answered.

  Beside Iona, the earl snorted inelegantly. In his starched white shirt and formal attire, he looked the part of imposing earl—or what Iona imagined one should be. Her stepfather did not count.

  “Do you hide your sisters from your friends or protect your friends from your sisters?” Ives asked in amusement.

  “Both, most likely,” Rainford admitted in resignation. “My youngest sister wishes to have a séance. I trust that will not be the evening’s entertainment here?”

  “We have ghosts,” Mary Mike declared. A tall, tastefully tailored lady in her thirties, her dark hair more brutally cut than Iona’s, she did not often speak. “The original keep is six hundred years old. It’s unavoidable.”

  “But the old ones mostly wink in and out,” Simone said reassuringly. “Only Ceridwen still speaks, and that’s only in emergencies. Really, after millennia of human habitation, the world is an ocean of spirits. Hunting for just one is foolish.”

  “Malcolms have come to Wystan for centuries to ensure the safety of their childbirth and in hopes the infant will be born with the spirit of their ancestors,” Grace, the spinner, said with odd formality.

  Lady Alice wasn’t a Malcolm. Iona glanced in her direction, but the lady sipped her wine with a jaded air of disinterest.

  “Oh yes, Ives, that’s how the legend says your great-grandfather finally sired a son,” Mrs. Merriweather chirped. “Your great-grandmother wrote that a spirit entered her, and she bore the first Malcolm boy in a century.”

  “Because my grandfather was an Ives, and Ives only had sons at the time,” the earl said in boredom. “I know the legend well. It doesn’t appear to have carried forward since I have only sisters. I doubt spirits have a great deal to do with conception.”

  “Enough,” Winifred declared. “Our concern should be for these missing children. We should have a plan.”

  The discussion of spirits and childbirth and conception rendered Iona uneasy, but listening to the company plot her capture put her off food entirely.

  Seven

  Rainford’s group had ridden hard all day and planned to ride on in the morning, so the dinner party broke up shortly after the ladies left the table. Even then, when the men joined the ladies to say their good-nights, half of the ladies had already gone to their own beds.

  Gerard didn’t see the little beekeeper among the women who remained—but Lady Alice was waiting like a spider to pounce. He excused himself and left Rainford to her delicate claws.

  The beekeeper—Nan—had been remarkably quiet all evening. He supposed she might be unaccustomed to dinner parties. He would ask about her, except that would indicate interest—always dangerous in this crowd. No, he should ride with Rainford in the morning and make his escape while he could.

  But he had the appointment with Avery to hold him back. He’d wait for additional information before searching for heiresses. If he’d been told they were the daughters of one of his servants, he’d be out all night searching. But these were the wealthy daughters of an earl and Malcolms. They’d most likely be found in the house of friends or family a thousand miles from here. He remembered one of his cousins, at six, following some whim, catching a ride with a neighbor, and ending up almost fifty miles away by sheer force of personality.

  He wasn’t terribly worried about heiresses, but the talk of ghosts and ancestry had left him restless. He was past thirty and aware that his duty was to settle
down, marry, have children, and run for one of his father’s minor boroughs.

  He had no particular interest in children, but the thought of conceiving them. . .

  Made him restless. He needed a willing woman to work off his frustration, but not here. Lord help him, but the family legends would put him off even bringing a bride here. He should be back in London in a week or so. He could wait.

  Silver moonlight spilled across the courtyard, illuminating a slender figure gliding through the garden gate. Gerard halted to watch her vanish to the other side.

  What did a beekeeper do in the middle of the night? Didn’t bees sleep? Without giving thought to what he did, Gerard strolled past his tower and followed.

  She had changed into a more sensible gown than the one that had kept him distracted all evening with the sight of creamy, rounded shoulders. For someone so slender, her breasts mounded nicely above the bodice.

  He had no right to be thinking like that.

  Treasure, the spirit voice murmured tauntingly

  “What the devil are you doing here?” Gerard located the ancient piece in his waistcoat pocket where he most definitely had not put it. “I’m tempted to fling you into the pigsty.”

  But he didn’t.

  And then, more ominously, the voice added, Danger!

  “What the devil does that mean?” he asked. The voice didn’t answer.

  Gerard would normally abandon the foolishness of treasure and danger, only the talk of missing heiresses and a reward almost verified the spirit’s admonitions. What did he know about the beekeeper? Nothing, except she called herself Malcolm and wasn’t immediate family. She could be lying, but her behavior with the bees said otherwise.

  He couldn’t let a female wander alone at night, he told himself. He didn’t even bother rationalizing why he didn’t call out to her.

  She settled in the clover she’d no doubt planted as a tasty carpet for the bees. A stone fence behind the hives provided shelter from the prevailing wind, but the night breeze still lifted her cropped, honey-colored hair. She’d removed the heavy chignon. He preferred her bare, slender nape.

  Feeling like a voyeur, Gerard leaned against the trunk of an apple tree and listened. She was talking to the bees.

  Treasure, the spirit repeated in satisfaction.

  Gerard snorted his disgust for listening to pieces of silver and concentrated on the whispers on the wind.

  “It will be winter soon,” she told the bees. “I need to leave before travel becomes difficult.”

  Gerard frowned. Leave? Why?

  She seemed to listen to the breeze or maybe the bees. He hoped the bees were smarter than spirits.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” she said mournfully. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to return.”

  Why the devil would she leave? Had one of Rain’s men insulted her? Or made her an offer she couldn’t refuse? If she were that kind of woman, he’d happily offer more. He was aroused just watching her, which was patently insane and proved Wystan’s weird magic was sapping his wits.

  He lifted his shoulder from the tree and prepared to turn away.

  “Isobel must be frantic,” she continued, tensely. “I have to send word to her. If only we’d had time to earn the fare for Canada!”

  Gerard froze. There were two of them—Nan and Isobel?

  She was running away. And they were afraid.

  “If I let them find me elsewhere, you’ll be safe here.” That sounded like a promise. “And maybe I can come back someday. He only wants the title, after all.”

  Gerard couldn’t bear it. With a disgruntled sigh, he entered the moonlit clearing, feeling a bit of a fool in his dinner clothes. “Who is he and doesn’t he understand how titles are passed on?”

  He was almost certain Joan of Arc had the same expression when she was captured—facing the inevitable with sorrow and relief.

  “My lord,” she said stiffly. “You had no right to listen to a private conversation.”

  “You’re talking to bees, for pity’s sake.” When she didn’t rise, he was forced to sit beside her. In his dinner clothes. His new valet would be rightfully appalled. “If you’re one of the heiresses, tell me.”

  He didn’t know where that had come from—except the warnings in his head.

  Now she really looked alarmed. Her eyes were more golden-brown than Malcolm blue. So maybe he had it wrong. Or maybe the idiot offering the reward did.

  “I am no heiress,” she said with venom.

  He’d best beware of bee stings.

  He nodded, accepting her declaration. “And you’re a Malcolm living in Wystan, so that makes you doubly safe from me. As one of my tenants, you are protected. Why run?”

  She narrowed her pretty eyes in suspicion. “I smelled your interest in the reward. It’s a fortune.”

  He considered that. “You smelled my avarice?”

  “And your lust,” she added. “You should have chosen Lady Alice for your attentions.”

  Ouch. She knew he lusted after her? That was a trifle humiliating but nothing unexpected in his family. He wanted to ask if she lusted after him, but that was asking for a slap. “I’m civilized,” he insisted, wondering if that was the truth. He wanted her—very badly, in all sense of the phrase. “I can control myself. Curiosity, unfortunately, is my besetting sin. Who do you flee?”

  “My stepfather and the hapless fool he wants me to marry.” With resignation, she turned to face the hives again. “My queen understands. If you’ll have someone treat her with respect, I’ll try to pay you back, but I’m in no position for promises.”

  “I told you, you are safe here,” he said with a trace of the anger he usually hid.

  “No, I’ll never be safe as long as my stepfather lives. I don’t suppose you could loan me a pistol?” She rose and brushed off her skirt.

  * * *

  The restless unease Iona had suffered since dinner only escalated with the earl’s presence. Despite his outward aloofness—or perhaps because of it—she found him much too attractive, and his offer of shelter weakened her defenses. Now that he knew her secret, though, she itched to escape. Men had a bad habit of taking control without understanding the complexity of a situation.

  “No, I will not loan you a pistol,” the earl said firmly, standing and tugging her hand through the crook of his arm as if they were going into dinner. “Killing people isn’t a solution.”

  “Of course it is,” she replied belligerently, because she was terrified, angry, and reacting to his desire like any foolish woman. And he was behaving like every other man in the universe—taking charge without understanding. “If a man attacks me, I am helpless against his strength unless I have a weapon.”

  The earl’s proximity didn’t help clear her thinking. She was actually thinking about kissing him! She longed to know what it would be like to be kissed by an attractive man who actually desired her. She tried to tug her hand away but his hold was solid.

  “You’ll be worse than helpless if they send you to prison. The better solution is not to put yourself in jeopardy. I could have been an itinerant stranger just now. Perhaps you should learn to make friends with the dog. At least he’d be some protection.”

  She frowned and kicked a clod of dirt. “I never had pets. My stepfather’s half-starved hounds were trained to kill prey, not defend.”

  “The Earl of Craigmore, you mean?”

  She shot him a look of fury. “My grandfather was the earl. The pig who uses the title now does so without authorization.”

  “That’s not possible,” he said in a tone of patience and authority. “Parliament would never give him patent if he could not prove his right to it.”

  “He married my mother, who by right of patent inherited her father’s title. Everyone assumes she petitioned for the scoundrel to have the title as she did for my father. She did not. Since Mortimer hasn’t the coin to go to London and vote, no one cares. The locals prefer dealing with a man instead of a woman. No one wants
a countess giving orders.” She didn’t even try to hide her bitterness.

  She had to leave. She’d never see the earl again. She could spill her anger freely without consequence. Years of holding her tongue, of hiding who she was, boiled to a froth. It felt good to release a little of her pent-up fury and anguish.

  “Ah, now I see the problem,” he said without surprise at her heat. “The Scots should never have allowed women to assume titles. It confuses too many issues, as evidenced by your predicament. Had the title simply died without issue—”

  The moonlight and his closeness were having a dangerous effect. It was a good thing he made her too angry to react. “The Crown would have claimed the land after my grandfather died. My mother’s title protected our family trust.”

  “Things are different now,” he said in that same annoying, patronizing tone. “A man can own the land and pass it on to whomever he wishes without the crown’s interference.”

  They were back in the courtyard. As much as she might hope he’d help her, she knew better than to expect a man to go out of his way. And really, there was little he could do. “Different now didn’t help my mother then. Short of shooting my stepfather, it doesn’t help me either. I thank you for your hospitality, my lord. I won’t impose on it much longer.” She tugged her hand free of his arm and started for the house.

  To her alarm, he caught her arm and held her back. “Don’t be a stubborn fool. Where can we go to talk privately, without my interfering relations developing the wrong ideas?”

  Anxious as she was, it took Iona a moment to grasp his request. When it dawned that he feared being implicated in a romantic entanglement with her, she almost smiled at his predicament. She had only to stand on her toes and kiss him, and the nuptials would be practically sealed. The ladies would see to it. No wonder he practiced indifference and avoided Lady Alice.

  “You cannot relax and have a conversation with any of your guests, can you? I can see why you don’t linger here.” She studied the house, uncertain she wanted a conversation with him or anyone else. “I am accustomed to taking care of myself. I don’t need your help.”