The Heart Queen

by Patricia Potter

  He’d thrown himself, instead, into managing the land, first for the old marquis, then Rory and finally himself. He’d found a sense of worth in it. He’d also found a kind of release. He hadn’t had to be anyone but himself. He did regret the fact that he’d not learned, if indeed it could be something that was learned, to be at ease with others.

  Only Janet had drawn him out. Only Janet had found in him qualities he’d never known existed. Only Janet had accepted, and loved him, for what he was inside.

  But that was eight years ago.

  The window was open, and he took a deep breath of fresh air. He knew he was playing with fire. He knew that nothing had changed—for him—in those years. It was as if he had just stepped backward in time.

  He was rushing toward disaster, but he was unable to save himself. He knew that he was telling himself he was trying to help her, that he was trying in some way to redeem himself. But it wasn’t true. He was doing it for himself.

  He finally lay down, but he knew he would not sleep. He could only think of seeing Janet in a few hours. Of spending several hours with her. It might be all he ever had.

  Grace was reluctant when Janet asked if they would like to go on an outing with the marquis. She had an abiding distrust of men. “I want to stay here,” she said reluctantly.

  Hiding behind children. She should be ashamed of herself.

  “Can we take Di’lah and Samson?” Annabella countered.

  They had finally decided on names for their new pets. Rachel, the small scholar, had indignantly declined the names of Princess, Baron and Ginger. Like Annabella, she believed the new additions for the family were extraordinary and as such should have special names.

  Since the children had just heard the tale of Samson and Delilah, Rachel decided the new pup had to be named Samson despite the fact he was all awkward legs. So then Grace decided on Delilah for the kitten, which was probably among the homeliest orange kittens ever created.

  Pleased that they had finally agreed on something, Janet had tried to keep the twitch of her lips barely visible. But whenever she heard Di’lah called, she smiled inside. The lasses loved them so, and even Colin, who was crawling everywhere, kept going in their direction, oblivious to a smooth wet tongue and a scratchy one.

  But she might well be pushing her luck if she added the two to today’s mix. The marquis might well refuse to take any of them, but she had not wanted to present them at his door if they did not want to go.

  Rachel’s gaze went from Grace to Annabella, then to Janet. Janet could almost feel the want in her warring with fear. They had been little more than prisoners themselves these last months. “He’s very big,” Rachel said. That apparently had been her one impression of the marquis.

  “Aye,” she agreed, “but he willna harm you.”

  “Does he want us to go?” Grace asked, putting her finger on the crux of the matter.

  “I have not asked him. I wanted to know if you would like to go first.”

  “How?” Grace asked again.

  “We would have to take the pony cart,” she said, planning for the marquis to ride his horse beside them. That way she would not have him by her side, not be tempted by wayward feelings.

  “Do you want us to go?” Grace asked.

  Leave it to Grace to ferret out her intentions. And she would not lie to them. She’d had too many lies in her own life. “Only if you want to go.”

  Rachel stood. “I will go.”

  “Di’lah?” Annabella insisted.

  “We will see,” she said, wondering how much tolerance the marquis had.

  Annabella pouted for a moment, then gave Janet one of her angelic smiles that would melt the heart of anyone except her own father. “Awright.”

  Grace nodded solemnly.

  Janet left them to their morning meal. Now to convince the marquis.

  She wondered whether he was up yet. It was an hour past dawn, but her husband, and even Reginald, rarely were up this early. But when she went into the kitchen she found him, and a lad she did not know, eating at the servants’ table, much to the obvious chagrin of the cook and her helper.

  The marquis stood and the lad scrambled to his feet. “This is Tim,” he said. “He and I shared a ride from Braemoor. I have employed him as a groom and dismissed the former groom. And a man named MacKnight.”

  “When …”

  “This morning. I rode to Tim’s village. We brought back some oats for the horses.”

  He must have left in the wee hours of the morning. “You woke the merchant?”

  “We woke the merchant,” Braemoor said, a small smile tugging at one side of his mouth. “He did not protest overmuch when we paid the bill.”

  She could not help staring at him. His hair was tousled, his clothes still damp from an early morning mist. He had not shaved yet, and dark bristle shadowed his face. He looked like anything but a marquis this morning, except, perhaps, for the gleam in his eyes.

  Janet suspected he was waiting for her to protest his high-handedness in employing someone without her consent, but at the moment she was simply pleased that at least the horses would be well fed today and the stalls would be cleaned. This was not a battle she wished to fight. She suspected there would be other, more important ones to come. Choose your battles, she warned herself. Do not let your attraction to him make you choose unwisely.

  So she merely nodded and took perverse satisfaction in the sudden puzzlement in his eyes. “About this morning, my lord …”

  “Aye?” he asked cautiously.

  “I was hoping we could take my daughters with us. They have been out so little, and this would be a grand adventure for them.”

  She watched as the gleam sharpened in his eyes. They glowed like a polished onyx.

  “And how, madam, do you propose that we ride the estate with young lasses?”

  “We could take the pony cart. You can ride alongside.”

  He raised a dark eyebrow. “’Tis not exactly what I had in mind, my lady. There is much to see, and a cart will slow us considerably.”

  “There is a family … not too distant that can probably tell you more than you could see riding the entire estate.”

  He studied her for a moment but if he was disappointed, she did not see it in his eyes.

  “Very well,” he said. “If I am not satisfied, I can always delay my return and we can ride out tomorrow or the next day.”

  Mate and checkmate.

  He sat back down. “Will you join us for the meal?” he said, challenging her.

  She looked around the kitchen. The cook looked stunned; families did not eat with their servants. But Janet had always liked the warmth of the kitchen compared to the cold formality and long table in the small dining hall.

  Reginald and Louisa would have apoplexy.

  She sat down, avoiding his eyes, knowing she would see triumph there.

  She comforted herself by acknowledging she had won at least one of her battles. She would not be alone with him. Today, at least.

  And for some reason she wanted to coax a smile from him.

  But to smile, you had to have a heart.

  And she’d discovered years ago that he had none.

  Chapter Seven

  Neil realized what she was doing, that she had no interest in being alone with him, that in truth, she would go to great lengths to avoid it.

  He shouldn’t have expected anything else. She thought he had betrayed her years ago, and now again. He only wished it did not leave such a persistent ache inside him.

  He tried to ignore it as he and Tim had found the governess cart and backed a mare into the traces. He ran his hand along its long, rough neck. “Tim will groom you when we return,” he promised, “and you will have some fine oats for supper.” The mare nickered as if understanding. Animals often did understand, he thought, and far better than humans.

  He’d always been comfortable with animals but he’d never let himself love one. ’Twas only lately that he allowed him
self the luxury of caring. But even then he had something inside that held him back.

  If you care about something, it will be taken away.

  Like his mother. Like his dog when he’d been whisked away from his mother’s home when he was a small lad. Like a horse that had been his but which Donald had admired and taken. And then when he’d thought he might have a chance to marry someone he loved, that, too, was taken from him.

  Even now he resisted selecting a favorite horse or owning a dog for that reason. How many times had he told himself he did not need anyone or anything.

  It was enough that he had come to believe it, even though it left an aching hollow place inside.

  He’d also steeled himself against his own acts, those he’d once thought he’d committed in the noble purpose of loyalty. There had been nothing noble about those few hours at Culloden. Nothing honorable about obeying orders to kill every Jacobite, wounded or not. He kept remembering his contempt toward Rory when his cousin had thrown his sword down and walked away. He, too, had believed his cousin a coward when indeed it was himself who was the coward.

  It had taken him far too long to discover that courage was not might, that it was going against might.

  He’d basked in self-hatred for a long time after Culloden, after the slaughter there. After Rory left, he’d found his own path to redemption. But redemption, like real courage, was a quiet, unheralded thing. It had also taken him a long time to understand that, too.

  When the cart was ready, he stabled the horse he’d ridden earlier, then turned to Tim. “Take care of the horses, then see if you can find a lad named Kevin and bring him back to help you. This stable requires more than one groom.”

  “Aye, my lord,” Tim said.

  “And see what you can learn about this family,” he said.

  “Ye wish me to spy?”

  “Not if you are not comfortable with the role,” Neil said. “But if you discover anything I should know to help rebuild Lochaene, I would be appreciative.”

  The lad’s face smoothed out. “Aye, I can do that.”

  Neil studied him for a moment. “Keep those principles, lad. They will serve you well.”

  The boy turned several shades of red, then shuffled off back to the stables where there was far too much work to do.

  Neil waited patiently, wondering if all the children would be coming with them. He had hoped to see most of the estate. That would be impossible with the governess cart, which could only travel established roads. Using the cart meant he would have to stay at least another day. He had no intention of leaving until he felt Janet had the people she needed to run the estate.

  What he really wanted to do was whisk her away to Braemoor where she would be safe and well cared for. But that would be unfair to her and to her son. He intended never to wound her again.

  He heard a shrill puppy bark and looked toward the door. He winced as he saw the parade. Janet was still dressed in a dark dress with a high neck and long sleeves. A gray shawl finished the somber costume. She held Colin in her arms and three little stepping-stone girls followed them. A gangly black-and-white puppy rushed toward the cart and barked at the pony, which stamped his left hoof as if to bolt. An orange kitten was clutched tightly in the arms of the youngest lass. Trailing behind them all was a young woman, obviously a maid, clutching a big basket.

  He sighed. He had no idea how to talk to bairns, and the dog was yapping at the pony. The kitten wriggled her way out of the lass’s arms and dropped to the ground to chase the dog.

  “Samson,” Janet said, stamping a black booted foot on the ground, raising dust to float in tiny particles around them all.

  Neil leaned down and caught the kitten. “Samson,” he said dubiously.

  The smallest lass shook her head in disgust. “No … Di’lah.”

  Neil turned his gaze to Janet who was regarding him solemnly, waiting, apparently, to see if he was going to kick the puppy or drown the kitten.

  “I should have known,” he said wryly and placed the kitten back in the grasping arms of the littlest lass. “Miss Annabella, I assume?”

  She gazed at him uncertainly for a moment, then grinned with a mouth devoid of two front teeth.

  He could not help but smile back. He reached out and picked her up, kitten and all, and set her in the cart. He went back to help the others, but the oldest lass had already scrambled up and the middle one shrank back against Janet. Instead he picked up the puppy, which reached up with his tongue and tried to lick his face.

  Neil held him away. “Is he to go, too?” he inquired.

  “Aye,” she said. “The children would not leave them. And this is Clara,” she said. “She is nurse to the children.”

  His eyes went to the basket. “’Tis not for us,” Janet said. “’Tis for the family I mentioned. They are in need of food.”

  It was a challenge again, as if she dared him to refuse to take food to a hungry family. Bloody hell, but her opinion of him was obviously as low as that of a snake’s belly.

  He took the basket from Clara and placed it in the front of the cart, then reached for Colin. For a moment, she clutched the bundle closer to her.

  “I do not harm children,” he said softly enough that the others could not hear.

  Her eyes searched his, then she nodded. She handed Colin to him, then stepped into the cart. She reached down to get her son, her fingers touching his briefly as she took the lad, then she jerked away as if his hands burned her.

  Neil dropped his hands, then helped Clara up. She looked surprised as he offered his hand. Flushing all shades of red, she took it as she stepped up into the seat.

  Neil looked at the full governess cart. Janet had the reins while Clara held the bairn. One of the lasses had put the kitten in a basket. Another—the middle one who had shied away from him—clutched the puppy as if her life depended on it. None of them looked at him with friendly eyes.

  He sighed. It was going to be a long day.

  If Braemoor had been displeased at Janet’s tactics, he did not display it. She recalled how angry her husband used to get when she did anything to interfere with his plans, whether she knew she was doing so or not. He’d been particularly angered when she’d placed herself between him and the children by sending them on a false errand or some other such distraction.

  Now she was placing the children between herself and Braemoor. And except for some obvious awkwardness on his part toward the lasses, he seemed perfectly amiable toward the situation.

  Braemoor mounted a large gray gelding. For the barest of instants, she recalled the ride they had taken together so many years ago. Neil Forbes had been an easy rider, comfortable in the saddle and thoughtful of the animal. They had raced across the low hills before stopping at a loch where he’d kissed her. She’d never felt so free, so joyous, so natural.

  And then she discovered it was all a lie.

  A lie. Remember, you cannot trust him, no matter how pliable or amiable or accommodating he appears to be. Remember how gentle he had been. And it had been a lie.

  No, she did not want to remember that at all.

  She forced her gaze away from Neil as Annabella squirmed into the seat between Clara and her.

  “I like him,” Annabella said.

  Annabella rarely expressed a good opinion about anyone, mayhap because she’d not been around that many people she could like. She did like the vicar.

  The vicar and Braemoor. More like an angel and the devil.

  Why was he being so accommodating?

  “Do you?” Annabella tugged on her arm as she posed the question.

  Janet looked down at her. The small pixie face gazed up at her with such complete guilelessness and trust that she wanted to say, “Aye.” But the word simply would not come. “We do not know him that well,” she said cautiously.

  “He’s big,” Rachel said as if that said it all. Big, to her, was frightening. Her father was big. Her uncle was big. And Braemoor was larger than both.

&n
bsp; “That doesna mean anything,” Grace said with big sister knowledge.

  Janet was always amazed at Grace. She was a quiet, slender lass who said little but when she did, it was always unexpected. And, usually, some little piece of wisdom popped out.

  “You are right,” Janet said. “It doesna mean anything. Deeds are always more important than appearance.” She instinctively flinched at the primness of the statement.

  “He does have nice eyes,” Grace ventured.

  Janet had thought so once, too. But she was startled that Grace, who had shied away from Braemoor, had noticed.

  She had not been looking at his eyes. In truth, she had been trying to avoid them.

  She fervently hoped that Braemoor, who was riding ahead of them, had heard none of the conversation, but then he was too far away. All the saints above, she wished her heart would not continue to beat erratically when she looked at him. How could she still feel this way when she knew what he was? When she knew how faithless he was? And how do you warn children to protect their hearts? She did not want them to doubt everyone they met. Nor did she want them to accept everything.

  There was such a fine line between hope and heartbreak.

  She had given him directions toward the croft she’d visited just a few days earlier. But with the large cart, it was far past noon before they reached the croft. No chickens scratched in the dirt. No pig wallowed in a pen. The croft appeared deserted until they stopped just feet from the door.

  The door half opened and a small face peered outside.

  Janet watched as the Marquis of Braemoor dismounted. So easily. So fluidly. She closed her eyes. She did not want to admire anything about him. But then he was next to the cart, lifting Samson down, then Annabella who held out her arms to him.

  The croft door widened further, and the older man she’d met earlier came out and stood belligerently, hands at his hips. “What do ye want this time? To take more of our food?”

  Janet felt the man’s hostility. She understood it. She’d understood it before.

  This time Janet took Braemoor’s proffered hand as she climbed down from the cart. He’d taken the riding gloves from his hands, and the heat of his skin seared through her own thin gloves. For a fraction of a second, she felt his protection, even his warmth, and she wanted it. Dear God, how much she wanted it.