The Tempting of Thomas Carrick

by Stephanie Laurens

  She infused enough determination into that last phrase to leave him in no doubt that she would refuse to leave if he attempted to pressure her. It only remained for her to point out, “As I see it, our goals are aligned. Both of us want the same thing—Manachan well again.”

  He didn’t argue; he couldn’t.

  But when his capitulation came, it was no real capitulation at all. “Very well.” The words were quiet and clipped. “But the instant you’ve dealt with Manachan and Alice is able to manage on her own, I will escort you back to the Vale.”

  There was little she could say to that, either. She inclined her head regally and turned to continue their perambulation back to the front door. Ultimately, him returning her to the Vale wasn’t of itself any real threat. It wasn’t the same as him leaving.

  CHAPTER 9

  The gathering about the dinner table was similar to that of the evening before. The same people sat in the same places. The only real change was that Manachan was, as Lucilla and Thomas had expected, even more worn down.

  That, and the clear impression Lucilla received that Nigel and Nolan had decided to blame her and her presence for their father’s stubbornness in insisting on exerting himself and coming down to dinner.

  The brothers were the last to arrive. On walking into the dining room and discovering Manachan already seated at the table’s head, Nigel frowned. “I’m sure, Papa, that Miss Cynster won’t be offended if you remain abed. This is too much for you.”

  Manachan slowly turned his head, and, from beneath his heavy brows, studied Nigel. Although his voice had yet to regain its strength after his slow journey down the stairs, there was no mistaking the temper in his tone when he stated, “It’s not she who would be offended by the slight, but the clan, and while I have breath and strength enough left in this aging body, I won’t shy from what I know should be.”

  Nigel clamped his lips shut. With a sour look at Lucilla, he took the seat to Manachan’s left.

  Nolan followed, taking the chair beside Nigel’s and likewise directing a look of distinct antipathy at her.

  She ignored them but seized the opening they’d given her. Under cover of the soup course being served, she leaned closer to Manachan and said, “Shortness of breath and general weakness often linger after an illness, but are usually quite easy to treat.”

  Manachan’s blue eyes fixed on her face. After a moment, he murmured, “Is that so?”

  She sat back to allow Ferguson to ladle game soup into her plate. When the butler moved on, she met Manachan’s eyes, which had remained on her face. “Indeed. There are several tonics that are effective in reversing the debilitation caused by an illness.”

  Manachan arched his brows. “What about the debilitation that comes with age, heh? Do you have a tonic that can turn back the clock?”

  Nigel was listening, of course; he snorted in disparaging agreement.

  Serenely, she replied, “The effects of age cannot be reversed, but are you so very sure that age alone is the cause of your current state?”

  Manachan paused in sipping his soup, his spoon suspended.

  She didn’t give him time to respond but rolled on, “The truth is that you cannot be sure, any more than anyone else can be certain. But, therefore, what harm can there be in trying a tonic or two to see if there’s any improvement?”

  Lightly shrugging, she returned her attention to her soup. Lifting a mouthful to her lips, she paused and softly—for Manachan’s ears only—added, “I know the clan would rejoice to see you up and about again.”

  She fixed her gaze on her plate and ate her soup. Although she felt Manachan’s gaze—and Nigel’s and Nolan’s, too—on her face, she didn’t react, didn’t meet their gazes, but left them to consider the seeds she’d sown.

  Thomas asked Niniver about the gardens on the far side of the house. Although Lucilla pretended an interest, she kept most of her attention on Manachan, waiting and hoping that he would, of his own accord, return to the subject of his health.

  They were most of the way through the main course before she was rewarded with a rumbling humph and the question, “Do you really think this godforsaken weakness isn’t just old age?”

  Shifting to face him, she met his eyes. “I’ve never known you that well, but from what I remember, bolstered”—she glanced briefly at Edgar, standing as usual within reach of his master—“by what those closer to you report, I would say that there’s a very real chance that much of the tiredness that’s holding you back has nothing to do with old age but, instead, is a lingering aftereffect of some illness.” She paused, then added, “One thing age does affect is the body’s ability to recover after an illness. It could simply be that you had some illness and have never thrown off the effects. And that sort of lingering weakness can become entrenched.”

  Manachan’s gaze bored into her eyes. She met it without flinching and just waited.

  After several long moments, he sat back in his chair, his gaze still locked on her face. “If I decided that it was time to put myself in a healer’s hands—given, as you say, that there’s surely no harm in trying a potion or two—and if you were the healer I challenged to put me right again, what treatment would you recommend?”

  He was a wily old fox. A challenge? As if he were merely amusing himself, merely accommodating a guest…but she could see how to use that, too. Letting a smile infuse her features, she leaned toward him and replied, “If I were given the opportunity to test my skills on you, I would need to briefly examine you—to check your eyes and your skin, and see what you can tell me about how you feel, and whether you can recall what illness precipitated your weakness. And then I would work up a boosting tonic for tonight.” She held his gaze. “You would know by morning if it had had any effect, and if it had, I would make up a restorative you can continue to take, which will help you to improve further.”

  Manachan studied her for several long moments. No one else about the table said a word.

  Then he pulled a face. “Why not?”

  Ferguson hovered, waiting to remove Manachan’s plate. Manachan noticed and waved; Ferguson replaced the plate with one for the poached pears in syrup that a footman had placed on the table.

  Once the fuss of changing the courses had ended and they were all engaged with eating the dessert, Manachan returned to the topic now exercising the minds of all those about the table. “As you said, no harm in trying, and indeed, one might even say that it’s my duty to the clan, heh?”

  She inclined her head, although she suspected the words were more for the benefit of everyone but her. Nigel, for instance, looked plainly shocked at the notion of his father allowing her to treat him. Nolan looked blank, Niniver hopeful, and even Norris had blinked and taken notice. As for Thomas seated beside her, she hadn’t turned sufficiently to see his face, but she could feel his relief that she’d succeeded where he had doubted she would, together with his hope that she could, as she’d claimed, set Manachan back on the road to health.

  The instant they completed the meal, Manachan laid down his napkin and beckoned to Edgar. “I’ve had enough for today—I’m going up.” He focused on Lucilla as she rose, along with Niniver. “You go off and have your tea—I’ll send for you after I’ve had my nightcap.”

  Lucilla met his gaze, smiled confidently, and nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Manachan humphed as, leaning heavily on Edgar’s arm, he turned away. “And then we’ll see if you and your Lady are up to the challenge of healing an old reprobate like me.”

  Everyone heard his soft cackling as he stumped out of the room.

  Eyes wide with hope as well as surprise, Niniver joined Lucilla. They followed Manachan and Edgar out, and headed for the drawing room.

  * * *

  Thomas remained at the dinner table with Nigel, Nolan, and Norris. Ferguson and the footmen quickly removed the platters and plates, then set the usual three decanters on the table before Nigel, along with a selection of cut-crystal glasses.

&n
bsp; Nigel reached for the whisky decanter, poured a healthy dose into a tumbler, then passed the decanter to Nolan, on his right. Nolan did the same, then passed the decanter to Norris, who somewhat absentmindedly poured himself a dash.

  Thomas seized the moment to study Norris; as always, Manachan’s youngest son’s mind seemed to be far away—on a different plane, or at least in some different place. He was increasingly getting the feeling that Norris had cut himself off from everything around him. Thomas wondered how Norris spent his days, and made a mental note to inquire…probably of Niniver.

  Norris pushed the decanter Thomas’s way. He reached out, snagged the neck, and proceeded to pour himself a restrained single finger of the rich malt Manachan favored. Setting the stopper back in the decanter, he considered the relief, and the strange pride, he’d felt over Lucilla inveigling Manachan to agree to her treating him. Sitting back, he felt his lips curve and raised the glass to conceal his smile; she had, in fact, gone one better, and allowed Manachan to couch his agreement in terms of obliging a guest with a challenge.

  But Manachan’s health was no game.

  Thomas sipped and, pretending to have no particular interest in anything beyond the taste of the whisky, waited to gauge his cousins’ reactions.

  Abruptly, Nigel drained his glass and reached for the decanter again. After sloshing another three fingers into his glass, he slumped back in his chair and looked at Nolan, who was sipping in rather more moderate fashion alongside him. “I don’t know that this is wise—allowing her to raise his hopes like this.”

  His gaze on his glass, on the light refracting through the amber liquid as he turned the crystal between his hands, Nolan shrugged. “We all know it’s just age that’s made him so. She’ll try her tonic, it won’t work, and that’ll be the end of it.”

  Thomas noticed that even Norris nodded in agreement. Thomas was puzzled. “How can you know? Has a doctor examined him?”

  Nigel snorted. “I suggested it, but you know what he’s like. He wouldn’t have it—insisted he was just poorly and would come about, but that was last September.” Nigel glanced at the glass dangling from his fingers. “I’m just surprised he agreed to letting her, of all people, treat him.”

  Nolan sipped and mumbled, “It’s all nonsense, this healer rubbish. But when it doesn’t work…” He shrugged. “Underneath it all, he knows that it’s because he’s old and his time is coming. I think he agreed because she’s a guest, after all, and he’s old-fashioned about such courtesies.”

  Thomas kept his lips shut; it would be easier all around if Nigel as well as Nolan believed that. It would keep them out of Lucilla’s, his, and Manachan’s hair while Lucilla tested her tonics. And while he was a touch surprised that both Nigel and Nolan, and even Norris if his occasional nods were any guide, had such a poor regard for the healer’s arts, it was perfectly possible that, other than with long-ago childhood ailments, they, personally, had never seen the difference a good healer could make in people’s lives.

  Quite aside from her reputation, he’d seen Lucilla act, not once but twice. There was a young girl, Lucy, who lived with her parents, Jeb and Lottie Fields, in one of the more distant shepherd’s cabins, who would not be alive if it hadn’t been for a much younger Lucilla. Likewise, the Bradshaws. He would never have thought of the well as the source of their illness. She had—it had been she who saved them.

  “Mind you,” Nigel said. “I’m rather impressed by her fortitude in remaining after stumbling on that adder. I would have thought she would have run screaming from the house and all the way back to the Vale.”

  Nolan glanced across the table and caught Thomas’s eye. “A bite from an adult adder at this time of year…” Nolan smirked, then hid the expression behind his glass. “I’m surprised, cuz, that you didn’t insist on taking her home yourself. After all, you were the one who brought her onto Carrick lands.”

  Nigel snorted. “Just think what will happen if any harm befalls her while here.” Nigel shuddered melodramatically, then drained his glass again—and, again, reached for the decanter.

  Cradling his own glass, Nolan nodded. “And—worse—think of what the situation will be if she treats Papa, but instead of getting better, he gets worse. How will the clan react to that news, I wonder?”

  There was a malicious glint in Nolan’s eyes when they touched Thomas’s.

  Thomas didn’t respond, didn’t outwardly react at all, but it took effort to keep his body relaxed, his fingers gently wrapped about his glass. Because regardless of Nigel and Nolan’s motives in sending those barbs his way, their comments held more than a passing acquaintance with the truth.

  Yet regardless, Lucilla remaining at the manor and treating Manachan was the right path—the one he had to follow for the good of the clan. Moreover, Lucilla, in her capacity as the Lady’s local representative, had insisted, and despite the impulses riding him, he had no right to gainsay her.

  Rationally, logically, he knew all that, yet his cousins’ comments still pricked and prodded that part of him that, when it came to her, was neither rational nor logical. The part that wanted her safe at any cost, and at present, he was fairly certain that meant back in the Vale and away from here.

  The Bradshaws. Joy Burns. Faith Burns. And now the adder in the still room. Coincidence could only stretch so far, and his belief in it had died long ago.

  Norris drained his glass, set it down, and rose. “I’m going up.” He directed a general nod around the table. “Good night.”

  Thomas murmured a good night in response. Nigel and Nolan just watched Norris leave.

  Thomas drained his own glass. He felt no inclination to sit with Nigel and Nolan; if he did, he might be tempted to raise issues that, at present, would be better left unbroached—at least until he saw if Manachan regained his strength as Lucilla hoped he would.

  Setting down his empty glass, he pushed back from the table.

  Nigel and Nolan did the same.

  Thomas strolled to the open doorway, went through, then paused and glanced back at his cousins. “I’m going to the drawing room. Will you be joining the company?”

  Nolan exchanged a glance with Nigel, then Nigel met Thomas’s gaze. “My apologies to Miss Cynster, but Nolan and I have important business to attend to.”

  Thomas kept his brows from rising in cynical disbelief; instead, he inclined his head and continued on his way.

  But at the far end of the corridor, before he turned into the front hall, he paused and glanced back—and in the dimness at the end of the long corridor, saw Nolan follow Nigel through the billiard room door.

  Lips twisting cynically, Thomas walked on.

  * * *

  Nolan leaned over the billiard table and lined up his shot.

  Nigel stood at the end of the table, chalking the tip of his cue.

  Nolan potted a ball into the side pocket and circled the table to line up another shot.

  Nigel stared at the tip of his cue. “Do you think Lucilla’s tonic will improve Papa’s health?”

  Nolan waited until he’d taken his shot, then straightened. His gaze remaining on the table, he shrugged. “Who can say?”

  “But she is supposed to be an excellent healer—I’ve heard people say she’s even better than her mother.”

  “She might be able to make him feel a touch better for a little while, but you know as well as I do that he’s simply old. Not even Lucilla has access to the Fountain of Youth. He’ll be better for a day or so, and then exhaust himself and slide back again—you know he will. Just like he’s done again and again over the last few months.” Nolan bent over the table again.

  Nigel glanced at him, waited until he took his shot, then softly said, “But what if he does get better?” When, straightening, Nolan met his eyes, Nigel went on, “What if he actually recovers enough to see and learn, and understand what I’ve done? He won’t approve—not of any of it. And you know as well as I do that he’ll take back the reins, and then we’ll be back where w
e used to be—with no hope of living the sort of life we’ve only just started to enjoy.”

  His eyes flaring, Nigel stepped closer to Nolan. “What if he doesn’t just overturn the changes, but does something to make sure we can’t change things even after he’s gone?” Panic had his tone rising. “What if he disinherits us and makes Thomas the laird instead?”

  Nolan appeared to consider the prospect, then shook his head. “No—he won’t do that. Regardless of all else, he’ll never admit you’re anything other than the best candidate for the lairdship once he’s gone.” Nolan drew a slow breath. “And as for the rest, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Lucilla’s no miracle worker. Papa might improve, but only temporarily. She’ll leave, and in a day or two he’ll slide back again.” Nolan turned to the table and bent over it once more. “See if I’m not right.”

  “But even temporarily might be long enough for him to get wind of what I’ve done.”

  Nolan shook his head. “It’ll take more than a day or two of improvement before he’s back in the library and leafing through the ledgers. And even then, things won’t seem to be that different.”

  Nigel brightened. “I forgot you keep two sets of accounts.”

  Nolan dropped another ball and straightened. “I told you we might need them, and if we do, everything’s there, already in place. Papa can look to his heart’s content, and all he’ll see is that you running the estate is no great change at all—that all you’ve been doing is keeping things ticking over, much as he would have done.”