by Julia London
“Think nothing of it.”
“I must look a fright, aye?” she said cheerfully as she removed her cloak.
“No’ at all,” Hamlin said. In fact, she looked so bonny that he had to remind himself to ask about the others. “I beg your pardon, but have you come alone?”
“I have,” she said, and handed her cloak to Stuart, then tried to smooth her petticoat. “Have the others no’ come, then? I was to Crieff today and arranged to meet them here. Beg your pardon, sir,” she said to Stuart, “may I take something from the pocket of my cloak?” She reached into the pocket and removed a small book, tied with ribbon. “As it happens, the bookshop in Crieff had precisely what I was looking for. I’ve a gift for Miss Guinne.”
Her smile was sinking into Hamlin and taking root. She was dressed in a gown of pink-and-green silk with tiny white roses embroidered throughout and across the stomacher. The sleeves ended with fine white lace that matched the color of the tiny roses. Her hair was artfully arranged, a cascade of slender curls down her back and around her face, the rest of it piled atop her head and woven through with pearls. She was so bloody bonny to him that he was left momentarily speechless. His head was filling with images of that very lovely gown peeling off her body, one piece at a time.
“It’s a book,” she said. She leaned to one side to see around him. “Has she come down?”
“No,” he said, finding himself once more. “She, uh...she has taken ill.”
“Ill! Mi Diah, nothing serious, I hope.”
“I donna know,” he said, frowning. “She’s fevered.”
“May I see her? Please,” she said earnestly. “I’ve brought her a gift, I have, and I should like to look in on her.”
He nodded. “It would cheer her.”
He escorted Miss Mackenzie to Eula’s rooms, knocked softly on the door and opened it. Miss Burns was seated in a chair with the light of a single candle to illuminate her sewing. She stood up, curtsied.
“Good evening, Miss Burns,” Miss Mackenzie whispered. “How is our lass, then?”
“She’s got a bit of a sneefle,” Miss Burns said.
Miss Mackenzie went to Eula’s bedside.
“Keep your distance, Miss Mackenzie,” Hamlin warned her, and came behind her, leaning over her to touch Eula’s forehead.
Miss Mackenzie went down on her knees beside Eula’s bed and stroked her cheek.
“Miss Mackenzie,” Eula said sleepily.
Miss Mackenzie gasped softly and picked up one of the kittens. “What’s this, then?” she asked. “You’ve a kitten!”
“I’ve two,” Eula said. “But Walter doesna like to show himself. This one is Perry.”
“Walter is here,” Miss Mackenzie said, and reached over Eula to pick up the second black kitten. Both of them began to mewl. “Aye, what bonny kittens. They’ll make you fine companions.”
Eula nodded. She pushed herself up on her elbow. “Is that for me?” she asked, having spotted the ribbon-bound book.
“Aye,” Miss Mackenzie said as Hamlin collected the kittens from her arms. She held out the book to Eula. “I went all the way to Crieff to fetch it, I did, because I know you’ll be verra well diverted by it. It’s called The Governess; or, The Little Female Academy, by Miss Sarah Fielding. It’s about a boarding school for lassies just like you.” Miss Mackenzie handed her the package, and without a moment’s hesitation, Eula yanked on the ribbon, let it flutter to her bed and opened it.
“Thank you!” she said.
“Perhaps we might save the book till the morrow, Eula,” Hamlin said, and stroked her head. It pained him to see her ill, to see the light from her eyes replaced with fever. “You need to rest.”
“Aye, that you do, Miss Guinne,” Miss Mackenzie said. “Promise me you’ll wait until the morrow to read it.”
“Mmm,” Eula listlessly agreed, but she held the book to her chest as she sank back into her pillows and closed her eyes. Miss Mackenzie touched her hand, then pushed herself to standing.
“Should I summon a doctor?” Hamlin whispered.
Miss Mackenzie shook her head. “She’s come down with a cold, that’s all.” She turned to Miss Burns. “Chamomile tea if she wakes, to settle her belly. If she’s hungry, send for a broth made from chicken, roses and grain meal, aye?”
Miss Burns nodded.
Hamlin opened the door to the hall, and Miss Mackenzie slipped out before him. He turned back to Miss Burns. “Send for me if she worsens.”
He escorted Miss Mackenzie down to the drawing room. “You have some knowledge of healing, do you?” he asked as they descended the stairs.
“Only what I’ve learned at the abbey. There is always a sick child among them, but the women, they’ve learned the remedies, they have.” She looked up at him. “You worry for her, aye? I think there is naught to fear. The bairns, they fall hard and rise quickly. She’ll be chasing kittens down the halls in a day or two.”
Hamlin prayed she was right.
They reached the drawing room, where Hamlin noted it was almost eight o’clock now, and still no sign of the others. He nodded at a waiting footman to serve wine. He needed something to help dull his awareness of this woman and her slender neck. He moved away as the footman served her wine, and looked at the rain coming down in sheets.
“It’s dreadful weather,” Miss Mackenzie said from somewhere behind him. “I hope the driver hasna met with trouble. I was longer in Crieff than I meant to be.”
“It’s no’ far to Dungotty,” he assured her. Although it had felt like an ocean existed between Blackthorn Hall and Dungotty these last few days, a wasteland between him and his desire.
Miss Mackenzie joined him at the window. She leaned across the sill, craning her neck in the direction of the road. Hamlin’s gaze was on her figure, plump in all the right places, one delicious curve after the other. He so longed to touch her skin that his hand itched with it.
“They ought to have arrived by now,” she said.
Personally, Hamlin hoped they’d be delayed a week.
A loud crack of thunder sounded, followed by a release of more torrential rain. With a start, Miss Mackenzie drew back from the window and turned a wide-eyed look to Hamlin. “I’ve no’ seen a storm as bad as this.”
“Blackthorn Hall has stood for more than one hundred years, aye?” he said soothingly. “We’ll no’ float away.”
She smiled self-consciously.
He put his hand on her arm. “Donna be uneasy.”
She looked into his eyes. “I donna think,” she said, her gaze falling to his lips, “that I could be more at ease.”
He meant to speak. To tell her he was at ease, too, that she put him at ease in spite of his initial instincts about her, in spite of his fears about her and her intentions. But he was startled by a loud banging on the front door, someone pounding with determination.
Miss Mackenzie started. “Oh!” she said, and laughed with relief, her hand over her heart. “At last, they’ve come, determined to make a grand entrance, aye?”
Hamlin didn’t think that sort of pounding was the way the Wilke-Smythes would enter Blackthorn Hall. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, and went to investigate.
His suspicion proved true—it was not the Wilke-Smythes dripping on his floor, but a diminutive man in a mud-spattered coat. “Beg your pardon, your grace. An urgent message from milord Norwood.” He reached inside his cloak pocket to withdraw a soggy folded letter.
Hamlin took the letter and read it. When he’d finished, he carefully folded it again. “Thank you,” he said to the man, and to Stuart, “Give him supper and a place to sleep, aye? He’ll be our guest tonight.”
The man glanced around him, his gaze wandering to the massive crystal chandelier. “Thank you, your grace,” he said, his voice full of awe and, Hamlin guessed, relief that he would not be forced bac
k into the storm.
But it was he who ought to be thanking him, Hamlin thought as he returned to the drawing room. He was grateful that he would not have to suffer the English family or the Russian countess. The perfect evening, his private dream of an evening, had just opened up to him.
Miss Mackenzie turned expectantly when he entered the room. “Have they come, then?”
“No.” He handed her the note. “’Tis from your uncle.”
Miss Mackenzie read the letter from Norwood, in which he’d written that the river was rising and there was water standing on the roads, making it impassable in places. None of them could possibly venture out and sent their deepest regrets. Norwood also asked if Hamlin would be so kind as to shelter his most favored niece for the night at Blackthorn Hall. He very much regretted the imposition, but it was not safe for her to travel home.
“Oh, dear,” Miss Mackenzie said when she’d read it, and looked up at Hamlin. “What am I to do?”
“As your uncle asks, aye? It’s no’ safe for you to go out. You are verra welcome here, of course.”
She looked around the drawing room. “But...is there no one else here, then?”
Had he misread the kiss between them completely? He had thought she might be as desirous of time alone as he was. “Are you frightened of me?” he asked, prepared to explain to her that she had nothing to fear from him, that the rumors were not even remotely true.
But Miss Mackenzie surprised him with a burst of laughter. “Of you? No, your grace, I’m no’ afraid of you. I merely wondered if perhaps we might have that game of chess after all.” She smiled devilishly.
Something unmoored in Hamlin and set sail into uncharted waters. He smiled, too, could feel that smile shining in him. “Indeed, madam, we will have that match. Shall we dine? Aubin has gone to a great deal of effort, and I’d no’ harm his feelings. He’ll be offended well enough that the party has been reduced to only two.”
She laughed. “Aye. I’m ravenous.”
He offered his arm to her. Miss Mackenzie laid her hand lightly on it, the weight of it no more than a feather, and Hamlin imagined escorting her to the supper table every evening. His mind was racing, turning over on itself, redesigning the evening he’d planned. He had precisely what he wanted; he had this woman to himself. A little more than a week ago, he’d thought her too bold for her own good. Tonight, he thought her the best company he could possibly ask for, and felt almost desperate that she feel the same way.
It was not until they turned the corner that he realized the black shadows he saw from the corner of his eye were the two kittens, racing after the train of Catriona’s gown, trying to catch it.
He was like those tiny kittens, trying to catch her spirit and hold on to it. He hoped he was at least as successful as the tiny felines, but he privately feared the secrets that weighed him down would cause him to stumble and watch her slip away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE MEAL WAS SUPERB. Catriona was certain she’d never tasted food so well prepared, and she was not shy about eating what was served. The goose was succulent, the asparagus a pleasant surprise. And there was a wonderful cake to finish the meal.
The Blackthorn Hall dining room was not as large as the one at Norwood Park—that one would seat three dozen—but she preferred this one. It was intimate and warm, and the fire in the hearth thankfully drowned out the sound of rain lashing at the windows.
The extra place settings had been cleared away, and the two of them sat at one end of the table. Stuart and a footman served them in perfect unison. They spoke of Miss Guinne’s illness while they dined, of childhood illnesses they had endured. Montrose claimed he had never had an ague.
“Impossible!” she cried.
“Entirely possible,” he countered.
“Perhaps if you were an only child. Were you an only child, then?”
“I’ve a younger brother, the Viscount Brownglen. But as the heir, I was separated from him if he fell ill.”
“Ah. I’ve three brothers and one sister, and if one of us was struck down, all of us were,” she said. She told him about a room at the top of Balhaire, long and narrow, where the five of them would lie in their sickbeds to keep from infecting the rest of the castle. “We use it still,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve many nieces and nephews.”
“Your childhood sounds as if it was idyllic,” he remarked.
“It was,” she agreed. “It was before the rebellion, of course.” She shrugged, thinking back to the time of greater fortune than what her family enjoyed now. “We’ve always been together. And what of your childhood, your grace? Was it idyllic?”
He glanced thoughtfully at his plate and shook his head. “My mother died when Charles and I were verra young. My father was stern and scarcely around that I recall. We were left to the care of governesses and tutors.”
“Oh.” She felt a swell of sorrow for him. Her family was tight-knit, particularly during the dark days following the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1745. “I’m sorry for you.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Thank you, but that’s the way of a duke’s family, as I know it. The duke produces the obligatory heir and the spare, and leaves them to the seat to be reared properly.”
She knew enough from her mother’s upbringing to know that was true. “Has your father been dead long, then?”
“Thirteen years.”
He didn’t say more, and she didn’t press him. She had the sense it was not a pleasant memory for him and turned the conversation to horses.
When they finished the cake, Catriona leaned back in her chair and put her hand over her belly. “That was delicious, your grace. I must compliment Aubin the next opportunity I have. I’d no’ have thought him the sort to turn out a meal such as this, aye?”
Montrose chuckled. “He came to Blackthorn Hall claiming to have great culinary skill. I said he must prove it was so. I made him prove it for a full week before he demanded an answer from me.”
Catriona laughed roundly, then smiled at him with genuine, earned affection. How could anyone suspect this man of anything untoward? “What shall we do now, your grace?” she asked him. “Shall we prove our skill at chess?”
He looked up from his brandy, and in the light of the fire, his eyes were as black as the deep of the night. Those dark eyes moved over her, lingering here and there. “Nothing would delight me more,” he said quietly.
Catriona’s pulse quickened—she was enthralled. She couldn’t think of anything that would delight her more, either.
They strolled to the salon, wandering along through the wide hall, Catriona pausing to examine paintings and vases on display on consoles beneath the sconces, Montrose happy to tell her a brief history of the pieces.
A footman had gone before them to the salon, and the gaming table had been placed directly before the hearth. The fire provided a warm glow, and a candelabrum with a trio of beeswax candles provided the light for the match.
Montrose pulled out a chair for Catriona, and as she was taking her seat, he casually ran his hand down her arm. He might as well have touched fire to her skin—it could not have felt any less a flare.
He sat across from her and moved the chess pieces to their beginning places. The footman stood across the room, his back to the wall, his gaze set on a spot well above their heads. And yet, when Montrose raised his index finger, the footman instantly moved to pour wine for them.
“Thank you, Adam, that will be all for now,” the duke said, his voice sultry and low. “Tell Stuart that I should like the blue guest room readied for Miss Mackenzie.”
“Aye, your grace,” the footman said, and went out.
They were alone. Blessedly alone.
A clap of thunder rattled the windowpanes and her bones, startling her. She looked to the windows. “I hope all is well at Dungotty,” she muttered, rubbing her arms.
&nb
sp; “You were determined to leave Dungotty after a fortnight rather than face a summer filled with the possibility of balls, as I recall.” He glanced up, his eyes shining with amusement.
“What a fine memory you have, your grace,” she said laughingly. “My uncle was determined to have me for a time. He needs me to assist him if he is to stop the forfeiture of the abbey.”
“What a curious abbey it is,” he mused as he finished setting the pieces.
Yes, the abbey. Catriona was suddenly struck—she’d not thought of the abbey in two days. “You donna approve, is that it? I’m no’ surprised—gentlemen of your standing rarely do.”
He paused and looked at her again. “Gentlemen of my standing? Do you mean dukes, then? You do me a disservice, Miss Mackenzie. I happen to believe your devotion to your abbey is an extraordinary feat of courage and compassion.”
She stared at him with surprise. Was he teasing her? Making light of what she’d done? But he steadily held her gaze, his expression not one of disdain, but interest. “Do you, really?” she asked, incredulous.
“I’d no’ say so if I didna mean it.”
Desire for this man began to sizzle in her. For so long she’d heard nothing but despair or condemnation for the abbey. But this dark, dangerous duke had just called it an extraordinary feat. She gazed at him unabashedly. The air seemed to crackle around her. She was fascinated with the way the light shone on his face, how in this light, his eyes didn’t look so forebodingly black, but fathomless. As if there was a vast landscape beneath them, with peaks and valleys and rivers and dark corners and sunny meadows, all places no one had ever seen.
“Thank you,” she said when she remembered herself. “I would that your good opinion was shared by others.”
“I recognize there are those who donna wish to see the sort of people you house at your abbey, Miss Mackenzie. But you must believe there are more men, good men, who’d no’ care to see the less fortunate wandering the earth in search of shelter. Particularly the weaker sex and their fatherless children, aye?”
