Graham followed the path as it skirted a grove of slender elms. A swish of movement to his right caught his attention. He turned, jaw hinging open, at sight of the lengthy blonde Englishwoman he’d found in his bed the previous afternoon.
“Mister McKinley.” She waved.
Normally, the sight of such perfect, porcelain skin, glowing blonde tresses and willowy grace would halt Graham in his tracks, but he snapped his mouth closed and maintained his stride. Still, it took a long moment, during which she strode free of the grove and matched her stride to his, for Graham to sort out enough coherent thought to say, “Miss Ingram. What the devil are you doing hiding behind our manor?”
“Hiding?” She sniffed, clearly offended. “I was not hiding.”
“What else can you call lurking about in a man’s elm grove?” Askance, he noted her blush.
“If you must know—”
“Aye, I must,” he cut in, unable to resist. In reward, she cast him a sharp, pouty look, and oh, how those lips could pout.
“As I was saying,” she spoke louder this time, as if to drown out any further interruption aborning, “I was not hiding, or lurking. I’m looking. I’ve lost my necklace and it’s very dear to me, being my late mother’s. I was certain we came through that grove the other evening.”
Graham frowned. He often drank, and when he drank, it was often a lot. Never before had he experienced such an utter lapse in memory. His last recollection of that evening was his usual club and his usual whisky, surrounded by the same mix of friends, hangers-on and acquaintances as always.
He simply could not recall meeting Miss Anastacia Ingram. Certainly not bringing her home. Nor could he fathom how, no matter what level of inebriation he’d achieved, he could wake up beside a woman with a body like hers to find them both fully clothed. Hardly even rumpled. Aye, he’d reached his third decade, but the scenario was well-nigh impossible.
“Have you seen a necklace about?” she asked. “Gold, with moonstones and pearls?”
Graham shook his head in an effort to rattle his brain back into place. “Nae, and I have no time to look. I shall inform the housekeeper.”
“Would you?” she asked brightly. “That would be splendid.”
They reached the kitchen door. Graham turned and offered a quick bow. “Consider it done,” he said, and pushed the door open.
“That’s very kind of you.” She followed him inside.
Graham halted. How did one politely tell a beautiful woman to get the hell out?
She offered a cheerful smile, blue eyes shining. “I will just pop up and take a look about your room. Fear not, I know the way.” In a swirl of powder blue skirts, she disappeared up the servants’ stairs to the right.
“What do you mean, they are missing?” James’s voice roared from deeper in the manor.
Graham whirled toward the sound. He frowned at the anger in his brother’s voice, but started after Miss Ingram.
“Davina, Elizbeth, Margarette.” James’s call ricochet through the home.
Graham changed his trajectory. Had everyone gone mad? Davina and Margarette flying across the field as if the devil himself chased them. Beautiful Englishwomen popping out of the woods and running off to his rooms, sans him. James shouting like a dockhand.
Graham quickened his pace to a jog. Somewhere near the front of the manor, he could hear his brother’s angry railing. He would attend to Miss Ingram later. With any luck, she would still be in his chambers.
Graham found James in the foyer with a smattering of servants and a tall, well-built young man. Graham blinked back surprise, for the young man’s dress and manners appeared abundantly French. A cold dread snaked through his gut. James actually meant to carry through with this madness? Was that the impetus behind Davina’s and Margarette’s precipitous flight across the meadow? But… Elizbeth would return soon. Despite his race home, her carriage wouldn’t be far behind.
Before those in the foyer sighted him, Graham slowed his pace and ran a quick hand through his hair to set his dark locks in disarray. He adopted a lackadaisical expression, then sauntered from the sheltering hall.
“James, my good man, what is the ruckus?” Graham blinked at the French youth, as if noticing him for the first time. “Who is your pretty friend?”
The boy stiffened and Graham hid a grin. The Frenchman was easily provoked and easily read.
“I am Seigneur Faucon, sir,” the lad snapped. He pivoted toward James. “Is this how you permit all of your underlings to address you?”
James’s scowl deepened. “He is not my underling. This is my brother.”
The pup’s expression suffused with chagrin. He swept an elegant bow in Graham’s direction. “My pardon, sir. I beg you claim no offence.”
“With you, seigneur, never.” Graham returned the opulent bow. “James here, on the other hand, needs to explain why he’s shouting at so ungodly an hour.” Graham swiveled to face his brother. “Forsooth, man. ‘tis not even noon.”
“Some of us rise before evening, Graham,” James returned. “Davina, for instance, and my daughters.” James made a sweeping gesture that encompassed his staff. “I am told they are nowhere to be found.”
Graham scratched his head and affected an expression he privately called, thinking makes my skull pound. “They can hardly be nowhere, James. Did you look in their rooms?”
“Of course.”
“What about the school room?” Graham suggested, knowing the reference would elevate James’s anger, and inhibit clear thought. “The girls keep up with their lessons, do they not?”
James leveled a hard look on him. “You know full well Davina is responsible for their lessons. We haven’t hired a new instructor since the fourth one you seduced.”
“Me?” Graham shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like the sort of thing I would do.”
“It is precisely the sort of thing you would do,” James snapped, face going a fascinating shade of crimson.
Arrayed about the foyer, the staff and the French pup alike watched with wide, worried eyes.
“If I did do such a thing,” Graham temporized, “it was for the good of my nieces. We do not want women of loose moral fiber, easily swayed by a dashing, handsome gentleman, rearing the girls, now do we?”
James eyed him. Seconds ticked away. Graham had to get out of the foyer and back on a horse. He couldn’t let Elizbeth walk into this mess. Not until he could sort out what James intended, and reason with him if he, indeed, plotted the worst.
“You weren’t wearing that vest at dinner last evening,” James said.
Graham issued a real frown, unsure at the change in topic. “Wasn’t I?”
“Nor that jacket. Or Cravat.” James jammed a finger at Graham’s chest. “You did not sleep in those clothes. You have been out. This morning.”
A jolt went through Graham. He hadn’t realized his brother bothered to observed so much. James had been so preoccupied since Maryanne died.
“Have I?”
James’s eyes flashed. He drew himself up. For a moment, he truly did look like a king of old. An angry, vengeful king. “Where are they, Graham? Only Davina and the girls could cause you to rise before noon.”
Graham locked eyes with his brother. His thoughts floundered, dodged and skittered. He couldn’t grasp a single reasonable one. The trouble, his greatest flaw…he never lied—not directly, at any rate. And James knew it.
“I cannot find my necklace,” a dulcet, abundantly English voice said somewhere above.
Every head in the foyer snapped up.
Appearing even taller and more slender than ever from Graham’s vantage point in the foyer, Anastacia Ingram stood at the top of the steps. Blonde curls spilled over one shoulder onto a creamy décolletage. Her blue eyes were round with surprise as she looked between him and James.
“I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt…” Her eyes flicked between them again. “…family business?”
An easy grin, born of relief
, settled on Graham’s face. “If you must know—and I know you must—I was somewhere more or less in the elm grove this morning, with Miss Ingram.” He permitted his grin to take on a devilish cast. “You see, dear James, Miss Ingram has an uncanny ability to make me rise before noon.”
James snorted. Derision replaced the suspicion and anger on his face. “I should have known.”
“But this is an Englishwoman,” Faucon hissed in French. “Here, in your home.”
James offered a dismissive gesture. “She’s one of Graham’s la catin,” he answered in the same tongue. “They rarely last more than a day or two.”
“She could be a spy,” Faucon whispered, voice urgent.
“Should I, ah, wait for you in your chamber, Mister McKinley?” Miss Ingram called down to Graham.
“No need.” Graham shook his head. “I am coming up.” He would take a quick look at Davina’s room in the hope of guessing her plans. The more he knew when he reached Elizbeth, the better. He offered James a bow, then issued another to the pup. As he straightened, he said in French, “Worry not. I shall keep both eyes, and both hands, on her at all times. She won’t interfere in your business, Seigneur.”
“She best not, sir, for my business is of the utmost importance.” Faucon faced James. “You know where I may be reached when you locate your womenfolk.” The pup bowed low to James, cast Graham a look of suspicion, and swept from the manor.
Graham hid his relief in a shrug, then spun and jogged up the grand staircase. Miss Ingram watched his approach with a look of incredulous confusion. He could feel James’s eyes on them as he took her elbow and ushered her down the hall. He’d deposit her back in his rooms, stop by Davina’s, then make all haste to his mount. Elizbeth could not be allowed to reach home. Not with that Frenchman lurking nearby.
“What is la catin?” Miss Ingram asked as they walked. “My French is fair, but I do not know that word.”
Graham let out a startled chuckle. “Nae. It is not a word anyone would teach a lady.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding shocked. “Oh,” she reiterated, this time in anger. She yanked her elbow from his grip. “I will not be insulted by your brother. How dare he? I am leaving this instant.”
She stomped off down the hall. Graham reached for her, then recalled Elizbeth and let his arm fall. He did indulge in a long moment of watching Miss Ingram storm away, finding her equally appealing from behind. Graham gave his head a shake and set out toward Davina’s room at a jog.
He’d go stop Elizbeth’s carriage. What he did with her after that would depend on what he discovered in Davina’s room, though he’d doubted clues would come in the form of anything as simple as a note. He had the ride to form a plan, though. That was, if he could keep his mind off Miss Ingram. Devil take him if she wasn’t the first beautiful woman to be in his bedchamber once, let alone twice, that he hadn’t seen naked.
Chapter Six
Elizbeth stared out the carriage window at the blur of passing countryside. This was the first time in her life that she’d cried in front of a servant. Well, aside from those months after her mother’s death. But that hardly counted. She’d certainly never cried in front of a servant over a man. In truth, she’d cried only twice over men—if they could be called that—once at thirteen, the other at seventeen. Now, however, she couldn’t halt the tears.
What had happened? She’d been so certain Robert loved her. Even Davina had said he was smitten. Father said he knew instantly when he set eyes on their mother that he loved her. Was it possible she’d misread Robert—Mister McFarlan? He had told her that ’one day’ he hoped to be worthy of petitioning her father to court her. He’d said he loved her. Well, what he’d actually said was that he couldn’t declare his love until he had permission from her father to court her. A man who wanted to court a woman should care about her safety.
It would serve him right if her father sent her off to France to marry a Frenchman. That would teach Robert a lesson. He would never forgive himself then, would he? Her heart lurched. But then it would be too late. She would be lost to him forever…and him to her. She stared out the window of the carriage, her handkerchief pressed to her mouth to muffle a sob. What did it matter? What did any of it matter?
He believes you lied, her mind whispered.
The hurt she felt when he looked at her, accusation hard in his eyes, stabbed anew, harder…deeper. The pain twisted with an intensity she hadn’t known possible.
‘Wild tales,’ he’d called her words.
“Is this nonsense an attempt to induce me to elope with you?”
Shame burned. He was right. She had envisioned but one scenario: Robert sweeping her into his arms and riding to the nearest priest to marry them. The too-familiar dream rose of her curled in his arms in front of a roaring fire, his chin resting on her head as they debated names for their second child—sure to be a girl—while their son slept in his basinet beside them.
A sob lodged in her throat.
“Miss,” Rosie said.
Elizbeth only shook her head and kept her gaze out the window.
She hadn’t made up the story about her father. She hadn’t. Last night, Father sat at the dining table and told them that they were the Cardinal Duke of York’s decedents. Robert might have been right about her believing he would act upon the news that her father had gone insane, but that didn’t give him the right to think she would tell such terrible lies. What he must think of her to believe she would do something so despicable.
Wild tales.
Wild tales.
Wild tales.
She would never forget those words.
When the truth about her father became known, Robert would regret calling her a liar and sending her back into danger. He would be sorry.
She swiped at the tears with a gloved finger. It mattered not what he might feel an hour from now or a day from now. How could she possibly forgive him for believing that she would make up such a treacherous lie? A lie that could get her father hanged. Never in a thousand years would she have believed that the man she’d known the last fourteen months could be so callous.
He hadn’t been callous a month ago when he’d pulled her close and pressed his lips to hers. She shivered with the memory. She would never feel those strong arms around her again or breath deep of the citrus cologne he favored.
Her heart twisted. She swiped at the tears again and willed them to stop. No more tears for a man who thought so little of her.
Despite her resolve, her eyes stung with the need to cry more. How would she face Aunt Davina? She would know something was wrong. Elizbeth had never been able to hide anything from her. She didn’t want to see Davina. She didn’t want to see anyone. She had to go straight to her room and claim a headache. With the pressure building in her head she wouldn’t have to pretend. By the time they reached home, she would be in the clutches of a megrim.
The carriage turned a familiar bend in the road home and Kaerndal Hall came into view up ahead on a hill to the right. They would arrive soon. Could she compose herself enough to reach her room without the staff realizing something was amiss? She could count on Rosie to keep silent. Elizbeth could get out of her dress and into bed where she would sleep for a week.
Would her dreams be filled with Robert? Her throat tightened. She would never see him again. Nae, that wasn’t true. He did business with her father. How would she bear being in the same room with him? Foolish. Once it became known her father thought himself the King of Scotland, Robert would have nothing to do with him.
Her mind cleared. Was that why Robert had sent her away? Did he want nothing to do with a woman whose father was a traitor? That had to be the answer. He’d never loved her. He loved her father’s money. Oh, how could she have been such a fool? Her mouth hardened. Mister Robert McFarlan could go to the devil. Someday, she would find a real man, a man who loved her.
Fear stabbed. What if her father truly intended to marry her to a Frenchman? Robert wouldn’t save her. Bu
t Uncle Graham would. He would never allow anything to happen to any of them. In fact, if he learned of how Robert had treated her, he would challenge Mister McFarlan to a duel. Her heart constricted. That wouldn’t do. Nae, she could never tell Uncle Graham what had happened. She wouldn’t tell anyone.
A shout went up from the driver. The carriage lurched into a breakneck speed.
“Sweet God,” Rosie cried.
“Matthew,” Elizbeth shouted out the window, “what has happened?”
The pounding of horses’ hooves cut into her awareness.
Rosie drew a sharp breath and Elizbeth snapped her gaze onto the maid. Rosie stared out her window.
“What is it?” Elizbeth demanded.
Rose turned wide terrified eyes on her. “Highwaymen.”
Elizbeth’s heart leapt into her throat. They hadn’t had brigands on this road in years.
***
Graham stared down at Davina’s empty jewelry box and cursed. She must have seen Faucon’s arrival and deduced James’s intentions. She’d been right to flee. But where she might go? She wouldn’t go anywhere James would immediately suspect. Any friends would be too obvious. She would contact him, but when?
He replaced the jewelry box in the drawer. He could count on Davina to find a way to hide—at least temporarily. It was Elizbeth who concerned him, now. Frustration mingled with fear caused him to shove the drawer shut.
Graham’s earlier approval of McFarlan showing enough backbone to shove Elizbeth back into her carriage soured. Graham had seen how the fop’s shock and rejection had cut Elizbeth. It was obvious that even if McFarlan accepted her ridiculous tale, he wouldn’t have the nerve to protect her.
Did Davina know that Elizbeth had gone to see McFarlan? Davina had left no note. She’d had no time, of course. By God, Graham wished like hell she’d heard him calling. He shook off the thought. There was no use wishing. First order of business; find Elizbeth. He spun and headed for the stables.
“Graham,” James’s voice called as Graham’s foot hit the second floor landing two minutes later. A glance found James still in the foyer.
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