Amnesia? Perhaps from the beating he was given? It was the only answer that made sense.
“You may leave a message with me. I will see that it reaches His Grace,” Mr. Ambleside said in a voice that trembled with excitement.
“Tell the new duke that Alex Wheaton will be wed to Lady Katherine MacKinnon in three weeks, after the banns are read. Tell him we willna be waiting here anymore like sheep for the slaughter, that we’ll be going to London to fight him in court. Tell him he’d better come get what’s his from Blackthorne Hall and take it back to England. Because before the year is out, the new Laird of Clan MacKinnon will also be Laird of Blackthorne Hall.”
It was a bold speech, Mr. Ambleside conceded as he watched the duke stalk out of the library, and proved once and for all that Alex Wheaton had no idea who he was. It was a well-known fact that, after his first disastrous marriage, Blackthorne had vowed never to marry again.
Could Katherine MacKinnon have realized, as he had, that Alex Wheaton and Alastair Wharton were the same person? He did not think so. He based this conclusion on the level of hatred she and her father had always exhibited toward the English. She would never marry the enemy. And yet, it was a sure way to gain Blackthorne Hall.
Such speculation left Mr. Ambleside with a great deal of food for thought. How long would the duke’s amnesia last? Hours? Days? Weeks?
He could not afford to waste any time. He needed Blackthorne dead before Katherine MacKinnon married him in the kirk and got pregnant with his child. To be on the safe side, he might as well take care of Lady Katherine at the same time. An accident perhaps. He would find someone who could do the job right this time.
Alex had waited with bated breath for Mr. Ambleside to look up from his desk and had watched closely for any sign of recognition in the man’s eyes. There had been none. Alex had come and gone from the library without the slightest sign from the duke’s steward that he was anyone other than the stranger he had claimed to be.
However, Alex had experienced another one of those damned flashbacks, one in which Mr. Ambleside appeared. Only, the steward was a much younger man. He’d had a full head of hair, instead of being almost bald, and it was dark brown, instead of streaked with gray. And Mr. Ambleside must have thickened in the middle as he’d aged, because in the vision he looked more fit.
Alex had been a child of perhaps six or seven.
The brief glimpse of the past had come and gone so quickly, Alex hadn’t noticed what the two of them were doing together. The instant the library door closed behind him, he brought the memory back into focus to examine it further.
Mr. Ambleside was handing him something. A wooden box with a brass clasp. He opened the box and found … knights on horseback. He smiled with pleasure, then turned to show them to …
Nothing.
Alex blinked his eyes as though that would make the scene continue, but the image stopped as though he had come to a stone wall.
Who am I? What connection do I have to this house? Why did Mr. Ambleside pretend he didn’t know me, when obviously we have met before?
Perhaps he had been a guest and the present had been sent by someone else and delivered to him by Mr. Ambleside. Maybe it had been a brief encounter a long time ago, and Mr. Ambleside didn’t recognize him as an adult. What other possible reason could the steward have for not admitting the connection?
Alex had no answers for his questions, but any thoughts he might have entertained about being the duke were cast in serious doubt. There was no reason he could see for the duke’s steward not to welcome the duke with gladness.
Unless the steward had recognized him as Blackthorne, realized he did not know who he was, and had chosen not to enlighten him for nefarious reasons of his own. But that scenario struck him as farfetched, based on Mr. Ambleside’s lack of agitation in their recent meeting, and he discounted it.
Who am I? The answer was not forthcoming.
At least the trip had not been wasted. Alex had seen for himself the letters from the duke authorizing the increased rents. They were testimony to the duke’s ruthlessness. It was apparent Blackthorne had intended the tenants to be driven off the land and didn’t care how much harm he caused in the process. Alex was going to take great pleasure in taking Blackthorne Hall away from such a monster.
As an unexpected dividend of his visit, Alex had discovered where Mr. Ambleside kept the duke’s money. He had carefully noted where the hidden lever was located when Mr. Ambleside moved the bookcase to reveal the secret compartment. All he had to do was figure out a way to steal the key to the safe from Mr. Ambleside, and there would be funds enough to feed the entire MacKinnon clan until the courts returned Blackthorne Hall to its rightful owner.
Alex was walking to the front door of the castle when he smelled apple and cinnamon and pastry. His mouth began to water, and he saw another vision.
Himself as that same small child. Cook slapping his hand with a spoon as he reached for an apple tart fresh from the oven. Cook warning him he’d burn his fingers if he didn’t let it cool first.
Alex reversed course and headed for the back of the house, following the delicious aromas to the kitchen. The door was open, and the moment he crossed the threshold, the heat hit him like a wave. He inhaled deeply and experienced a vivid memory of the kitchen. He knew exactly where the tarts would have been laid to cool—on the windowsill. The room was sweltering hot, and his muslin shirt stuck to his back as he took another step forward.
He looked toward the open window, but the tarts weren’t there. He glanced back toward the stove and saw an ample rear end bent over the oven. A young girl stood nearby, ready to help.
“See, Alice? Just right,” Cook said. “Now we let them cool over here by the window—”
As Cook turned, her mittened hands holding a hot tray of tarts, Alex came into her line of sight.
“—and they’ll taste—” Cook froze as her eyes lighted on him. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water before her eyes rolled up into her head and she fainted dead away.
Alex leapt toward her, catching the tray of tarts before it fell on her and burned her. The metal was hot enough to blister his fingertips, and he yelped and slung the tray onto the wooden counter beneath the window.
He knelt beside Cook and lifted her head. “Help me!” he ordered the kitchen maid who was staring at him, horrified.
“What can I do?”
“Get me that cloth to put under Cook’s head,” he said, gesturing toward a drying towel. Given some instruction, the girl was able to move. As Alex settled Cook’s head on the towel, he said, “And some water.”
Instead of a glass of water to revive the cook, the girl brought him an entire bucket. He took advantage of the opportunity to dip in his hand and cool off his burned fingers, then used them to flick water into Cook’s face.
The splashing liquid brought her around, and she began to moan piteously.
“What’s wrong with her?” Alex asked. “Is she sick?”
“I dinna think so, sir,” the girl said.
“Why did she faint like that?”
“I dinna know, sir.”
Alex thought he did. She had recognized him. All he had to do was get her to take another look and tell him who he was.
Her eyes flickered open, then widened. She began to moan. “Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“Easy, now. Easy,” Alex said. “Do you know who I am?”
“Came back for the tarts, ye did. Out of the sea. Oh, dear Jesus, save me.”
Alex frowned. “What?” He turned to the girl. “Can you make out what she’s saying?”
The girl shook her head and backed up a step.
“Tell me who I am,” Alex demanded.
“A ghost, come back to haunt me,” Cook said in a feeble voice.
“Whose ghost?” Alex demanded, leaning close so he could hear her quavery voice.
“His Grace,” the Cook whispered. “His Grace, the Duke of Blackthorne, that drowned in the sea.”
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Alex felt the blood leave his head. He thought he might faint himself. “You’re mistaken,” he told Cook. “ ’Tis a resemblance only.”
She looked at him from wary eyes. “Ye’re as like him as can be. Except fer the bump on yer nose.” She reached out with a shaking hand but did not quite touch his face. “Ye canna be real,” she whispered.
He grabbed the counter to pull himself upright. “Take care of her,” he ordered the girl.
He felt as if iron weights were attached to his legs, and he had to drag them to make them move to the kitchen door. He squinted as he let himself out into the sunlight.
He felt the heat from the sun and the cool breeze from the sea and heard the seagulls that fought over the offal thrown down from the cliffs. The world had not stopped.
But he felt dead inside.
He could not be the bloody Duke of Blackthorne. He could not be that ruthless, rapacious man! Yet why would the old woman lie? What purpose would it serve?
Perhaps she was mistaken.
Perhaps she was not.
He felt like walking right back inside and demanding that Mr. Ambleside tell him whether he was Blackthorne. But if the man had denied him once already, he had done so for no good purpose.
Alex remembered the raw wounds on his wrists where his hands had been bound. Remembered the beating he had suffered. Someone had thrown him into the sea. Someone had wanted him dead.
But if the steward was involved, why hadn’t he looked more frightened to see Alex alive and well in the duke’s library? Why hadn’t he thrown up his hands and demanded mercy when Alex came through the door?
Because he’s a clever man.
It was smarter—safer—Alex decided, to leave and lick his wounds in private. If he was this despicable duke—and he wasn’t ready yet to concede that he was—then he had some decisions to make. He wished he had not seen the letters. The letters were proof of the duke’s guilt. Otherwise, he might have been able to blame the high rents on someone else. But the letters had been signed by Blackthorne. By him, if he was the duke.
He would make amends somehow.
He could not bring Kitt’s Leith back from the dead. And Patrick Simpson and his family were long gone to America. But he could lower the rents. And feed the starving children.
Alex wondered if perhaps there was a reason he had forgotten his past. Perhaps he did not want to remember it. What other harm had he caused? What other deaths were on his conscience?
Good God. If he was Blackthorne, he had a brother … Lord Marcus. He remembered from the conversation between Carlisle and Mr. Ambleside that Lord Marcus had not believed the duke was dead because he was too good a swimmer to drown. Well, he had not drowned, in fact, though his hands had been tied. Perhaps he should count that as one more tally in favor of him being the duke.
He had to find out more about himself—Blackthorne, that is. But how could he do that without raising suspicion? Mick, of course. Mick could ask all the questions that needed to be asked.
That was one bright spot, at least, Alex thought. If he was Blackthorne, he would be able to help the boy and his family. Assuming Michael O’Malley would take help from him, considering what a bastard he seemed to be.
If only he could remember. If only the past would come back to him. He supposed he could leave here and return to England and find the answers he needed there.
But what if it was someone in England who wanted him dead? He might be putting himself right into the hands of his enemies.
At least he had friends here. Mick. And Kitt.
Bloody hell. Did Kitt know who he was? Was that why she had suddenly been so anxious to marry him? Had he told her who he was when he was delirious with fever?
It was something he had to consider. Alex remembered the desperation in her green eyes the day she had said, “I would have married the devil himself to save my people.”
He remembered how she had planned to seduce the duke and get herself with child. He had made love to her more than once. The deed might already be done.
Alex felt sick inside.
Please let it not be true. Please let me be anybody but that bastard Blackthorne.
Chapter 16
Kitt had tried to talk Alex out of seeing Mr. Ambleside, but without success. She was sure the man—or someone else at Blackthorne Hall—would recognize him as the duke. She paced the floor of the cottage waiting for Alex, half-believing that he would not return.
Finally, Moira took pity on her and said, “Stir this syrup of holly bark while I go outside and gather some ivy leaves.”
Kitt sat on the bench before the hearth and took out her frustration by stirring the cough remedy that was brewing over the fire.
“Anybody home?”
“Alex! Thank God, you’re back!” Kitt dropped the wooden spoon into the pot and threw herself into Alex’s arms. They closed tightly around her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Has anyone dared—”
She kissed him to silence him. He had no way of knowing how dangerous the venture had been, and there was no way to explain either her anxiety or her relief without revealing her deception. But a woman could greet her man with a welcome-home kiss.
Kitt got a great deal more than she bargained for. Alex raked his hands through her hair, scattering the pins that held it in a knot at her crown and pulling her head back so he could kiss her more deeply. His tongue invaded her mouth and ravaged it. He drove her back against the wall, knifing his knee between her legs to spread them wide and shoving his hips against her belly. He was ready for her.
Kitt was reeling from the attack. Although that seemed the wrong word to use, since she and Alex were handfast and he had the right to take her.
But not like this. Not with violence.
She jerked her mouth free and said, “Alex, no!”
He groped her hair, drawing her head back at a painful angle, and stared down at her. “I thought you wanted this.”
His gray eyes were dark with arousal, but his lips were set in a grim expression.
“Why are you so angry?”
It was a dangerous question to ask, but Kitt was glad she had when he shuddered, then loosened his hold on her hair and rubbed her scalp soothingly. His hips remained between her thighs but the pressure eased.
That caused a different sort of problem. He was barely brushing against her, but it was enough to tease her body into wanting him. Kitt resisted the temptation to brush against him, but she was like a bit of dry moss on the edge of a very hot fire, and it would not take much for her to go up in flames.
She pressed her face against Alex’s chest and kept her arms around his shoulders. What had gone wrong? Something, she was sure. Had Mr. Ambleside recognized him? Was he aware now of how she had deceived him? She felt her stomach clench with fear and with dread.
But Alex was holding her gently now, as tenderly as a lover would. He was nibbling on her earlobe and kissing her neck. He was trying to seduce her.
Kitt felt like crying. Strange as it seemed, it was her duty to lose this battle. She must couple with Blackthorne as often as she could until she knew she was with child. She should not have stopped him.
And she must encourage him now.
She lifted her face just enough so her lips rested against Alex’s throat. He tasted salty. She kissed her way up his neck to nibble on his ear, as he had done with her. He made a feral sound, and his arms tightened around her. He pressed his hips against her, nudging her body, urging her to shift closer.
He did not have to do much urging.
Kitt slid her hands into the thick, silky hair at Alex’s nape and encouraged him to kiss her by turning her face up to his. She kept her lips slightly apart, wanting him to taste her, wanting to taste him. He tasted of the blackberry tea she had made for him before he’d left to visit Blackthorne Hall.
His hands left her hair and slid around to cup her breasts. She arched her body toward him, offering herself to him. “Alex.”
He lifted her skirt and tore at her underclothes, then freed himself from his trousers and thrust into her. Standing up. Against the wall. It took only a few thrusts before he threw his head back, an expression of agony and ecstasy on his face, and spilled his seed inside her.
Kitt was left unsatisfied. She was glad. It was some small penance for the pleasure she normally took. Loving him should not be so easy, she thought. She should be enduring the act only for the sake of the child that he would plant in her womb.
She made the mistake of looking into Blackthorne’s eyes and saw his regret for what he had done. She did not want him remorseful. She did not want another reason to like him.
“I left you behind,” he said, between panting breaths. He reached down between her legs and touched her in a place that made her body quiver in response.
She grabbed his wrist, but he shook his head and said, “Let me touch you.”
She turned her face away, unable to look at him, and let her hands drop to her sides. She tried to absent herself from her body, which responded as a violin to a master fiddler’s bow. Her throaty cries of pleasure, provided a gravelly counterpoint as her body made beautiful music for him.
He teased her mouth open and thrust his tongue inside in time with the movement of his hand below, until the pleasure became rapturous pain. And she sang for him, a grating sound of satisfaction that became a wail of despair. He had brought her joy, and she could repay him only with more deception.
Her knees buckled, and Kitt would have fallen if Alex hadn’t slipped his arms around her to hold her upright. She leaned her head against his shoulder to hide her eyes because she was afraid they would tell him too much.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She could hear the concern in his voice. “Well enough,” she answered, trying to smile.
He looked around and said, “Where’s Moira?”
“She’s gone to look for some herbs.”
“So she could be back at any moment,” Alex said.
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