by Julia London
She thought of Hamlin constantly, waited impatiently for the next moment she could be with him and was never happier than when she was in his presence.
She hoped and believed that Hamlin felt the same about her.
Uncle Knox extended an invitation to Hamlin to dine at Dungotty on the occasion of the announced departure of the countess and her cousin. Vasily was finding the bucolic countryside a wee bit tedious for his tastes. He was a gambler, and he’d convinced his cousin the time had come to move to greener fields. They were to London, where the countess had a “dear friend” in whose house they might reside for a time.
“Haven’t they a house of their own?” Chasity had whispered to Catriona.
Catriona had wondered the same.
Shortly after Lady Orlov announced that she and Vasily would depart, Mr. Wilke-Smythe informed Uncle Knox that he and his family would return to England at the same time Uncle Knox and Catriona made the trip to Edinburgh. “My wife desires to bring in a dressmaker to outfit my daughter for the Season at what I assume will be a dear cost,” he’d said, clearly unhappy with the prospect.
Hamlin had accepted Uncle Knox’s invitation, and when he arrived, he had the same demeanor he’d carried the first time he’d dined at Dungotty. He greeted Catriona cordially, declined an offer of whisky. He was reserved during the course of the meal, quietly listening to the chatter, answering the questions put to him without expounding. Catriona stole a glimpse of him at every opportunity, but Hamlin was a master at keeping his thoughts and his attentions to himself. No one gathered around that dining table could possibly suspect what had been happening between Catriona and Hamlin.
It wasn’t until later, when they’d retired to the salon to hear another musicale performed by the Wilke-Smythes, that Hamlin surreptitiously touched her hand with his little finger to let her know he was there. It was a touch so small that she should not have noticed it at all, and yet it sent a shock of sparks sizzling and sputtering through her veins.
It was excruciating to be so constrained, to be prohibited by societal expectations and morals. Catriona would have liked nothing better than for everyone to know her true feelings for Hamlin, but she couldn’t possibly, not without damaging his reputation and hers.
On the other hand, having this secret was delicious and tantalizing. She thought about how Hamlin touched her, how reverent and ardent he was in his desire for her. She imagined how the people in this room would collapse with shock if they knew, and had to work to suppress her smile.
When the Wilke-Smythes had at last finished their warbling, Mr. Wilke-Smythe offered Hamlin a brandy and asked, “What do you think of the vote, your grace? Will you earn your seat in the House of Lords?”
Catriona was shocked by Mr. Wilke-Smythe’s interest. She’d had the feeling all evening that he was at last warming to Hamlin. She had the unsettling thought that perhaps he’d decided the cost of dressing Chasity for another Season in the hopes of landing her an offer of marriage was too great. Perhaps he thought she would be the perfect Scottish duchess, and would ignore the rumor that the duke had murdered his wife.
“It looks promising, aye,” Hamlin said.
That was precisely what was happening, Catriona realized—she’d been so desperate for a glance from Hamlin that she hadn’t been fully cognizant of how attentive Chasity had been of him, too. She’d tried to engage him in conversation more than once, but for heaven’s sake, Chasity was naïve if she thought that she might capture the attention of a man like Hamlin with talk of the gloves she found in Crieff that she simply must have. Hamlin preferred to speak of things that mattered, such as the banking regulations, which he’d explained to Catriona as having the potential to be unfair to Scotland. Or the freedom of Scottish merchants to trade with whom they pleased, which she also understood, as her family had been forced to smuggle in goods before the rebellion. Or how important it was to the economy to expand the markets for Scottish wool and beef.
Hamlin did not care about a pair of gloves.
Poor Chasity didn’t know about these things, but Catriona did. Her family had openly discussed national issues for years. When one’s father was responsible for a clan, one took note of the obstacles facing the clan, and those issues were always economic. Moreover, her father had always treated his daughters equal to his sons, bringing them in to discuss matters near and dear to his heart. Catriona understood Hamlin completely. She understood how a cause could root itself into one’s being. She was the one who could be a helpmate for Hamlin. Not Chasity.
A tiny voice in her thoughts reminded her that a cause firmly rooted in her being demanded her help. She was already a helpmate—to more than a dozen women at Kishorn Abbey. Was it possible to be both? It didn’t feel like it, and she pushed the tiny voice down, burying it for the evening.
When Hamlin took his leave, Catriona walked with her uncle to the door to see him off. Hamlin smiled at Catriona, took her hand in his and bent over it. His lips lingered warm and soft on her skin, and when he lifted his head, she could feel the regard flowing between them.
“Thank you so for coming, your grace,” she said, smiling at him.
“The pleasure has been all mine. I should like to return your hospitality, if I may,” he said, and let Catriona’s hand slip from his palm, his fingers tangling with hers for a brief second. “I should like to invite all of your party to dine at Blackthorn on Friday.”
“Weather permitting,” Uncle Knox said with a chuckle. “Thank you, your grace. We’d be delighted.”
“Good evening, Miss Mackenzie. Lord Norwood.”
“Good evening,” Uncle Knox said, and slipped his arm around Catriona’s waist and pulled her into his side. They watched Hamlin jog down the steps and move fluidly into his coach. The driver tapped the lead horse with his crop, and they were off.
Catriona turned to her uncle. He sighed, cupped her chin. “Compose yourself before we return to our guests, darling. Your smile is so bright they’ll think a comet has slid across our night sky.”
Good Lord, was it so obvious? She hastily ran her fingers over her cheeks, as if she could erase the heat in them. Uncle Knox was right—she was too giddy, too happy. She was giving away their secret. So what if she did? She was convinced there was nothing in this world that could wreck her happiness.
* * *
TWO DAYS BEFORE they were to Edinburgh, Catriona and Chasity took the cabriolet into Crieff. Chasity was determined to have the kid leather gloves and had convinced Catrionia she should, too. “You’ve worn through your gloves what with all the riding. And you’re getting freckles, Catriona,” she’d scolded her.
“Aye,” Catriona had said, and was unable to suppress a giggle about it.
As they moved down the road from Dungotty, Catriona driving, a lone rider approached them traveling in the opposite direction.
“Who is that?” Chasity asked, squinting at him.
The rider took his hat off his head and waved at them, as if he desired them to stop.
Catriona reined the team to a halt.
“Aye, g’day, g’day,” he said, and bowed as low as he could over his saddle without toppling off his horse, and revealing his balding crown in the process. He straightened up, returned the hat to his head and beamed at Catriona and Chasity. His coat was covered in the grime of the road, and his boots looked as worn and muddied as if he’d walked here through the moors.
“Would you be so kind as to point me toward Blackthorn Hall? I’m a wee bit turned about, that I am.”
“This is the road to Dungotty,” Catriona informed him. “The road to Blackthorn Hall is just there, a mile or so in the direction you came, aye?” She pointed down the road.
The man twisted about in his saddle and peered behind him. “A mile, you say?” he asked, sounding confused.
“Aye, a mile. Look for a row of yew trees.”
“W
ell, then, old Charles, we’ve come too far, we have,” he said to his horse, and proceeded to turn the horse about. But he was a poor rider, and it took several attempts before the old horse consented to retracing its steps. “Thank you!” he said, and spurred the horse onward, lurching and waving at once.
“How could he have missed a road so wide across?” Catriona wondered aloud.
“What business has a man like him at Blackthorn Hall, do you suppose?” Chasity asked as Catriona set the team to a trot once more.
“I couldna guess,” Catriona said. She was afraid to guess.
The man apparently found the road, for he’d disappeared by the time they passed the entrance to Blackthorn Hall. He was entirely forgotten once they reached Crieff.
He was forgotten until the next morning, when Hamlin’s secretary arrived at Dungotty. Catriona suspected Mr. Bain was the sort of man who knew he was unreadable and liked it that way. Whatever he thought of her, or anyone for that matter, he kept competently to himself. But then again, he had a way of looking at her that made her feel as though he saw right through her, knew all of her darkest secrets.
He bowed low to Uncle Knox, then with his hands clasped at his back, he said, “I beg your pardon, milord, but his grace the Duke of Montrose regrets that he must rescind his offer to dine at Blackthorn Hall this evening, as he has been unexpectedly called away.”
“Called away?” Catriona said before she could think.
“How unfortunate,” Uncle Knox said. “We were very much looking forward to the evening. All is well, I hope?”
“Aye, as far as I am aware, milord.”
“Our regards to the duke. Thank you for coming all this way to inform us,” Uncle Knox said, and nodded at Rumpel to see him out.
Mr. Bain turned to go, but Catriona blurted, “There’s no note?”
He slowly turned back, his pale green eyes piercing hers. “None, madam. He asked that I deliver the message in person.”
“Of course,” she said contritely. She was thinking too much—of course he would not send a note with his secretary, not to her directly. He would send one discreetly, with a messenger. Or a groom. A note would come, today or tomorrow, she was certain of it. He knew she would depart for Edinburgh soon and he’d not allow her to go without a word from him.
“Frankly, I am grateful” Uncle Knox said after Mr. Bain had taken his leave. “We’re at sixes and sevens as it is, what with everyone departing at once.”
What had happened to Hamlin? What could have occurred that would necessitate sending his secretary and not informing her himself?
No note arrived that afternoon. Or that evening.
Tomorrow, then. Still, that did not keep Catriona from becoming consumed with his sudden disappearance. She conjured up any number of reasons for it—it had to do with the upcoming vote. Or nothing to do with it. Or perhaps the authorities had come and taken him away for murdering his wife after all, and she’d been blind to the truth. Or perhaps he’d simply grown tired of her.
Her need to see him, to know what happened, was increasingly urgent.
It was a gift from the heavens, then, when the modiste Mrs. Fraser and her assistant, Mr. Carver, arrived unexpectedly at Dungotty the following afternoon. Mrs. Fraser had a gown for Eula. “I do beg your pardon, Miss Mackenzie,” she said apologetically as Mr. Carver positioned the gown on the settee.
“No’ at all,” Catriona said.
“I’m to fit the lass today, and I thought...that is, if you donna mind, then, would you have a look? I’ve no’ made a dress for a duke before.”
The gown was bonny, the color of it cream, adorned with pink ribbons that Eula would adore.
“Is it appropriate for Miss Guinne?” the modiste asked anxiously. “Will it suit?”
“’Tis bòidheach, Mrs. Fraser. A bonnier gown I’ve no’ seen,” Catriona said with all sincerity.
The woman blushed self-consciously and gestured for Mr. Carver to wrap it up again. “Aye, thank you kindly, Miss Mackenzie. I’m a wee bit flustered at the idea of presenting it, that I am.”
Catriona seized her opportunity. “Would you like me to come along?” she asked casually. “I’d no’ mind, if it will put you at ease.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Fraser said uncertainly.
“In the event there is any trouble,” Catriona added as she pretended to examine the hem of the garment as Mr. Carver prepared the box.
“Trouble,” Mrs. Fraser repeated.
“I donna expect there will be, mind you, but if the lass should happen to find fault—after all, she’s only ten years, aye? But if she did, I should be able to speak to her and persuade her.”
Mrs. Fraser and her assistant exchanged a look. “Would you mind terribly?” she asked.
Catriona smiled. “I’ll fetch my coat, aye?”
At Blackthorn Hall, they were greeted at the door by Stuart, who immediately showed them into the garden room, where Eula was busy at her art lessons with Mr. Kenworth. She dropped her brush when she saw who had come, and skipped across the room, excited to see her new gown.
After a suitable bit of exclamation at the gown, Mr. Kenworth saw that his lesson was done for, and excused himself. Mrs. Fraser took Eula into another room to put the garment on. She appeared a moment later, her arms spread wide, twisting and turning one way and then the other, admiring the flare of the petticoat. “It’s bonny, is it no’, Miss Mackenzie?”
“Aye, the bonniest,” Catriona agreed. “Stand still for Mr. Carver, lass,” she said as Mr. Carver went down on his knees to mark the hem and seam adjustments.
Eula stood perfectly still as Mrs. Fraser and Mr. Carver reviewed the gown, tucking it in here and straightening there.
“Perhaps you’d like the duke to see it, aye?” Catriona suggested.
“Aye, but he’s no’ here,” Eula said. “He’s gone.”
“Oh,” Catriona said. Gone? Where was he? She wandered to Eula’s canvas and tried to look at the teapot Eula had been painting. “Where’s he gone off to, then?” she asked casually, as if she didn’t really care for the answer but was making polite conversation.
“I donna know,” Eula said. “I’m to stay with Aubin and Miss Burns until he returns.”
“Aye, and when will that be?”
For some reason, Mrs. Fraser looked up at Catriona from her work on the sleeve of the gown.
Heat crept up Catriona’s cheeks. She leaned closer to the canvas as if she was studying Eula’s technique. “I only ask as he will want to approve the gowns, will he no’?”
“He said if Miss Burns likes them, so shall he.”
If Miss Burns liked them? How long did he intend to be gone, then? How could he have left without uttering a single word? What in God’s name had the strange man on the road said to him to make him leave so unexpectedly? Catriona burned with curiosity and creeping humiliation. How dare he leave her like this, as if she weren’t worthy of the slightest consideration?
When she returned to Dungotty, her head was filled with doubts. She discovered that Uncle Knox was uncharacteristically cross with her for leaving without a word. He’d planned a farewell supper for the Wilke-Smythes, and Catriona was late for it and had to rush to change into evening clothes and join them.
She scarcely slept that night, imagining the worst of everything, then abruptly chastising herself for being foolish. Did she think dukes were not called away from time to time? He was an important, powerful man, a political figure, and it was certainly possible a matter of great urgency did not leave him time to pen a note to his illicit lover.
Lover.
It was the first time Catriona had thought of herself in that way. Until this moment, they had belonged to each other. But just because she’d not named herself in this didn’t mean it wasn’t true. She was an illicit lover.
The Wilke-Smythes departed first th
e following morning. Tearful goodbyes from Chasity were followed by her father’s gruff promises that he’d invite Catriona to England. Uncle Knox and Catriona departed soon thereafter. Catriona was too despondent to natter away and feigned a headache, which her uncle believed to be the result of so much bouncing about on the pitted roads to Edinburgh.
Once they arrived, they were received at the home of the Marquis of Tweeddale on Canongate, whose father had been a close friend to Uncle Knox. The marquis, a man significantly younger than Uncle Knox, kept eyeing Catriona as if he would very much like to lick her from head to toe. The marchioness greeted Catriona with cool indifference and looked at her as if she would like to put her on a spit and roast her.
“I beg your pardon,” Catriona said. “I’ve an awful headache from the drive.”
“It’s all that bumping about, I tell you,” Uncle Knox said.
“By all means, you ought to retire,” Lady Tweeddale said, and gestured grandly for her butler. “Show Miss Mackenzie to her room and have a broth sent up to her, as well as some compresses.” To Catriona she said, “Perhaps you will have recovered by morning, Miss Mackenzie.”
“Thank you.” Catriona should have been insulted to be sent away like that, but she was relieved to be away from the Tweeddales. Unfortunately, her early retirement led to another sleepless night, through which she tossed and turned on a lumpy mattress. She rose at dawn, dressed her body and her hair, and when she could stand it not another moment, she descended the stairs and prepared to go out and have a walk about to ease the tension in her.
Mr. Hume, the butler, met her in the foyer. “If I may, Miss Mackenzie,” he said as he reached to open the door for her. “Donna go so far to the north, aye? There’s been a bit of tomfoolery near the poorhouse and the kirk. Best to stay on the Canongate.”
Catriona nodded, but her thoughts were muddled, and she paid no heed to the direction she walked. At one end of the Canongate was Edinburgh Castle. At the other, Holyrood Palace. She walked, lost in thought. So lost in thought, apparently, that she found herself in a section of the town where the homes were plain and small, and crowded in beside one another. Laundry hung in the mews, and children ran with chickens, loose dogs and the occasional pig in the street. She turned a circle, trying to find the castle so to get her bearings. When she spotted the towers of the castle, she let out a breath of relief and started back the way she’d apparently come. But as she was walking down the street, retracing her steps, a man emerged from one of the houses. He was tall and well dressed, and when he turned back to the open door of the house, she saw the black bob of his hair beneath his hat.
