The Scottish Companion

by Karen Ranney

  Before bringing her dinner, Michael had moved an armoire and a vanity into the room. On orders of the earl, he’d said, bowing to her. She hadn’t been surprised at either item. Grant was evidently determined to keep her here, but her prison would be luxurious.

  She put the tray aside and slipped from the bed. Someone had placed her dresses inside. The bottom drawers were filled with her chemises, stays, and stockings. Had Michael performed such an intimate chore? Her face warmed as she thought of the footman handling her garments.

  In the vanity drawer were her silver-backed brush and comb, a gift from her parents on her eighteenth birthday and one of the few items she’d taken from her childhood home.

  She found a wrapper and donned it, feeling slightly dizzy as she raised her arms. Gillian realized she didn’t have any energy, but that was to be expected after being so close to death.

  Who would want to hurt the Earl of Straithern? Or had someone tried to poison her? She brushed her hair, wishing that whoever was kind enough to fetch her clothing also had had the foresight to acquire hairpins. But she removed a ribbon from one of her chemises, and tied back her braid as well as she could.

  She looked like a schoolgirl, someone innocent and without knowledge. None of the experiences of the past two years seemed to show in her eyes, as if being poisoned had wiped grief, sorrow, and disillusion from her memory.

  She needed to be brave and go in search of Grant. She needed to tell him that she had to go back to Rosemoor immediately. It would not do to have rumors accompany her to Edinburgh or Inverness. Being the Earl of Straithern’s mistress was hardly suitable experience for employment as a milliner or a seamstress.

  That would be the proper course of action, the right thing to do. She should leave Rosemoor at once, seek employment, and begin her life over again.

  She must see Grant and tell him so. She’d demand that he allow her to return to Rosemoor. Once there, she’d simply tell Dr. Fenton and Arabella—and the countess as well, she supposed—that she had been too ill to return earlier. They would never need to know about that afternoon. But she would, and she’d keep that memory forever.

  What was this excitement she was feeling? Her chest seemed to vibrate with the pounding of her heart, and her breath seemed tight with anticipation, all because she was going to see Grant.

  She should run in the other direction, as quickly as her feet would allow her. She had to leave Rosemoor with all possible speed, and become the demure Miss Cameron once again. Gillian of the wild thoughts and abandon must disappear forever. Again.

  Grant was not strictly to blame. Her own nature was at fault. She stared at herself in the mirror and wondered at the brightness of her eyes.

  Gillian, you cannot have him. Even on a temporary basis. Even if he compels you to remain here, you cannot love him. To do so would be the greatest foolishness of all.

  She had begun to care. Worse, she had begun to care for a man who was too high above her, a man who was to be married soon.

  But oh, there was something about the way his hands moved, something about the curve of his lips when he was amused. He was a marvelous lover, and there had been no awkwardness between them, only joy.

  She stretched out her hands and remembered how she’d wrapped them around his manhood. She could still feel how hot and large it had been. Her cheeks warmed, and she was not surprised to see a blush appear in her reflection. She was no virgin, but in some ways she was still innocent, perhaps. But innocence had never protected her from the world; it had made her, instead, unprepared for life.

  Once, when she’d consulted Robert about plans for their wedding, he’d quickly changed the subject. At the time, she’d thought it was just because men were not as interested in ceremony or social gatherings as women. The subject had evidently bored him, and she’d ended the conversation by smiling at him fondly. That was before she’d learned of Robert’s perfidy from his sister.

  What a coward he’d been, to let someone else tell her that he’d been a liar and a cheat.

  She, at least, would summon her courage and face Grant.

  Gillian stood and pushed back the bench and then replaced it. Let her find the strength to leave him. She didn’t even notice that she said the words aloud, or that they sounded oddly like a prayer.

  He extinguished the last of the lamps and left his laboratory, closing the door harder than it required. Sound traveled well in the palace, especially stripped of furniture. She would know that he was done with his experiments. Would she expect him? Or would she insult him again? Or, even more troubling, would she tell him a truth no one else dared?

  He found himself walking too quickly, and his knock on the door was peremptory and impatient.

  At the sound of her voice, he grabbed the latch and pushed it in. She was standing by the vanity he’d brought from Rosemoor, facing the door. Her hair had been combed and plaited loosely, the braid tied with a pale blue ribbon. Tendrils had escaped to frame her face, and by the glow of candlelight she looked exquisitely lovely and too fragile to touch.

  “I came to see you,” he said foolishly.

  “I was coming to your laboratory,” she said, her fingers plucking at the wrapper she wore.

  He’d retrieved the garment from Rosemoor himself, and remembered sliding his hands over the needlework. The embroidery was in raspberry and lemon and plum colors, something almost essentially Italian and not at all Scottish. He wanted to tell her that, but the words simply stuck to the roof of his mouth and refused to be given voice.

  He came into the room and closed the door softly behind him.

  “How did your experiments go?” she asked.

  At this moment, he couldn’t remember what he had done all day. He stared at her blankly as if his wits had gone begging. “Some magnetizing work,” he said, and hoped she would not ask any questions. He’d stammer, he knew it, or worse, sound like a blithering idiot.

  When had he become so inept?

  “You look well,” he said. “Better than you did earlier.”

  “I’m still weak,” she said, and shook her head as if to chastise herself for it.

  “It’s to be expected,” he said. “You nearly died.”

  “Did you bathe me? The day it happened, did you bathe me?”

  He’d never seen her blush before and suddenly wondered if her demeanor was different around him. Was she freer in her emotions, and in her speech? She was nowhere near as quiet with him as she was in other company. Nor had she ever been.

  “In a way,” he said. “But I’m surprised you remember. I dunked you in a shallow pool. The water was cold, and I was trying to keep you breathing.”

  She nodded as if he’d solved a riddle.

  “I can’t stay here, Grant.”

  So, she was determined, was she? He was as obstinate.

  “I thought we had already discussed this point. I have no intention of allowing you to leave here, especially since I’m not certain you’re safe.”

  “From someone who wants to poison me or from you?”

  He began to smile, charmed by her irritation. “Are you asking if I’m yearning for you? Of course I am. But you’re hardly well enough to be my mistress.”

  “I won’t be.”

  “Then our discussion is ended.”

  She folded her arms and regarded him somberly. “You’ll let me return to Rosemoor?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “So speaks the earl.”

  “Or the lover,” he said. “I think, perhaps, it’s more the lover than the earl. But however you wish to interpret it, it remains the same. You’re not leaving the palace. Discussion will not work, charm will not, even arguments will have no effect on me. You’re not leaving.”

  “You really are insufferable,” she said.

  “Do you know that you’ve insulted me more in the last month than anyone has in the last five years?”

  “Have I?”

  “Should you be looking so inordinately pleased at that
fact?”

  “I do believe you need to be teased a little from time to time, Grant. There are moments when you are too much the earl.”

  He studied her, wondering if she were speaking truthfully now, or still teasing.

  “My title comes to me through birth, and not because of anything I’ve accomplished on my own. Unless, of course, you count simply surviving as an accomplishment. Which, given the state of my two brothers, should not be completely discounted. My title also exists to pin the whole of the responsibility for Rosemoor and the rest of the estate to me, to one person. I am the titular head of my family, and the person to whom all responsibility ultimately leads.”

  “I have angered you, haven’t I? For that I apologize. I did not mean to do so.”

  “Do you truly think me a dilettante?”

  She glanced up at him. “No. But what you said also explains something else.”

  “Should I ask?”

  She smiled. “You work with electrics to leave your name to something, don’t you? You want people to remember you as more than the 10th Earl of Straithern.”

  He stared at her, wondering how she’d come to know him so well.

  He smiled. “When you’re feeling better, you’ll have to see the magnetizing work I’ve done. I’d be very interested to show it to you.”

  “You’re trying to charm me.”

  “Of course I am,” he said perfectly agreeably.

  When she didn’t respond, his smile broadened. “Come now, you can’t tell me you have no interest at all. You’re thinking to yourself: What can he positively want me to see? What can he have been doing all day?”

  “I am not thinking any of those things,” she said.

  “Have I remarked upon your stubbornness? It’s an admirable trait to have, especially as a scientist.”

  “I am not a scientist,” she said.

  “You have the curiosity of one. In addition, your intellect is deep and broad enough to encompass almost any subject you choose.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She unfolded her arms and held them behind her. A more approachable stance, perhaps, but he knew better than to move closer.

  “Because of your choice of reading material.” He nodded toward the chair where he had placed all the books he had found in her room at Rosemoor.

  She looked where he gestured, and then glanced back at him, her face turning a very delicate rose. “It was you,” she said. “You went through my things.”

  “There are some chores I do not leave for my servants, Gillian. I didn’t want to send Michael to pack your belongings.”

  “So you did it yourself.”

  He nodded. “I was very impressed by your readings of Camus.”

  “I also read novels,” she said. “If you think that I’m given only to elevated pursuits. I adore novels. Lurid gothic tales.”

  “Heroines in distress?”

  She nodded.

  “What would one of those heroines do in this circumstance?”

  “Scream.”

  “Do take pity on Michael,” he said, amused. “He works very hard and retires early.”

  “I didn’t say I was going to scream.”

  “You don’t envision yourself as the heroine?”

  “Occasionally,” she said, elevating her chin just a trifle higher. “Especially when my own life seems either too boring or too painful to experience. I like to slip into some other person’s life occasionally. Don’t you?”

  At his silence, she smiled. “Of course you don’t. You’re the Earl of Straithern. Who would ever want to exchange your life for a fictional character’s? Who wouldn’t want to be you, I wonder?”

  “I don’t know if you’re correct about that,” he said. “Especially during the last year.”

  Her blush faded and her face became unnaturally pale. Her gaze looked stricken.

  “I am sorry. How foolish of me to have forgotten.”

  “You aren’t a foolish woman, Gillian. In fact, you’re the least foolish person I know.”

  “Stop being charming, Grant. Stop trying to snare me with words.”

  He took a few steps toward her. She stiffened but otherwise didn’t move.

  “Is that what I do? I snare you with words?”

  “You do, and it isn’t well done of you. Your voice becomes low and your eyes almost gleam and I forget everything but how handsome you are.”

  “All that?”

  He took a few more steps toward her. She frowned at him.

  “Stop.”

  “I shall,” he said gently. “I will attempt to be as ogre-like as possible.”

  “No, I mean stop where you are. Don’t come any closer.”

  “I should like to buy you all sorts of perfume,” he said. She looked startled by his pronouncement. Good, it was about time she was disconcerted by him instead of the other way around. “Something woodsy and elemental, I think. From the Orient. Something that hints at spice.”

  “I will refuse your gift,” she said. “That would be the wisest thing to do.”

  “You are more disciplined than I. I cannot imagine ever turning down a gift that you might give me.”

  “Oh, but you see, that is where you and I differ. You have the power to ignore what society might say about you. I don’t.”

  “What if I gave you some of mine? I have enough power for both of us. I shall let it be known that no one will speak ill of you. That you are to be accorded all the rights and privileges of a…” His words stumbled to a halt.

  “A mistress? A friend? A constant companion? A beloved intruder? Who shall I be to the world, Grant?”

  “Is it important that you are anything to the world?”

  “So says the earl.”

  “No, that was most definitely the lover.”

  He was close enough that he could extend his hand, his fingers threading through the hair at her temple. She didn’t move away, didn’t implore him to cease his actions. If anything, she leaned into his hand, and for a second she closed her eyes as if she were somehow savoring this moment, keeping it safe for her memory.

  “Don’t leave me,” he said.

  Her eyes flew open. Her gaze locked on his.

  “Do not leave me, Gillian. I am not a man given to begging. I don’t believe I’ve ever had to. But this is the closest I will ever come to it. I will offer you reason, and rational words, and money if necessary. I will give you excuses, or platitudes, or even outright lies. Whatever it takes to keep you here, I am more than willing to do.”

  “Please, Grant.”

  “Give me a day. Two days. A week.”

  “For you to find the killer?” she asked.

  “That would be the wisest answer, wouldn’t it? I should tell you that’s exactly what I will be doing, and time is what I need. But it wouldn’t be the truth, and I find myself wanting to give you the truth, if nothing else.”

  “Why?” she asked softly.

  “So I can get the taste of you out of my mind. So I will not dream of you any longer.”

  Her flush was back, her cheeks pink.

  “Am I being too charming again?”

  “You know you are,” she said.

  She lifted her hand and brushed her fingers delicately across his cheek. “You really have no right to be so handsome. It doesn’t seem quite fair that nature bestowed on you rank, wealth, and masculine beauty.”

  He felt his face warm at her words and felt like a young boy in the throes of his very first love, uncertain and desperately eager.

  “While you have the power to unman me with a smile,” he said gently. “Nature granted you beauty, character, wit, and intelligence, Gillian. Who is to say which of us the more gifted?”

  “No one would ever expound to you about the virtues of my character, I’m very much afraid.”

  “Now it’s your turn to stop,” he said firmly. He grabbed her hand to place a kiss on her palm, and then folded her fingers over as if to keep the kiss sealed inside. He hel
d her fist within the cradle of his hand. “I will not have you speak about yourself that way. I will not have you say those things. What happened to you was unfortunate. Perhaps it was a scandal, certainly it was a tragedy. But do not make it the cornerstone of your life, Gillian, nor measure your character because of it.”

  “Then what makes the measure of a person?”

  “The way they treat others,” he said easily. “The way they can think of others before themselves. The way they empathize with those who do not know the meaning of the word.”

  She covered his hand with her free one, and they stood there for a moment linked by their touch. She lowered her head until he couldn’t see her expression.

  “Stay with me,” he said again.

  “I should be the one to beg you,” she said softly. “Beg you not to offer any more blandishments, or promises, or a future.” She didn’t say anything further for a moment. When she lifted her head, he was shocked to see her tears.

  But before he could speak or enfold her in his arms, she stepped back, pulling her hands free.

  “Please, Grant.”

  “Will you stay?”

  She sighed, and didn’t answer. But a moment later, she nodded, just once.

  He would be content with that, for now.

  The Countess of Straithern’s chamber overlooked the entire east lawn of Rosemoor, a sweeping vista that led down to the groves and beyond that to the marsh Grant was so fond of exploring. The suite consisted of three rooms: a drawing room, a bathing chamber, and the bedroom. She would not like to relinquish it, but she had always known that the time would come when she would have to do so.

  How wonderfully ironic that she must surrender her home to Arabella Fenton.

  But first she wanted to ascertain if she was correct, after all. The first shock had passed, and there was nothing more to do but face the truth squarely. She’d never been a coward, for all that the world thought her possessed of a retiring nature.

  One of the maids told her where she could find the girl. Not in the library, as she had supposed, or in her chamber, intent on one of her ubiquitous books. No, Arabella Fenton had surprised her and was sitting on the veranda overlooking the western view of Rosemoor, and the curving road that led to the palace and beyond, to Edinburgh.