The Scottish Companion

by Karen Ranney

The idea had just come to him, and the more he thought about it, the more appealing it became. He would send her there, and after he’d made arrangements for Arabella, he’d send for her.

  Life was suddenly a great deal brighter than it had been a month ago. Or even a moment ago.

  Would she marry him?

  It wasn’t honor that kept him silent, but instead a curious reluctance. She couldn’t refuse.

  “I have a villa there,” he said instead. “Where I lived before I returned to Scotland. It would be safe for you. Lorenzo will escort you, of course.”

  She placed her hand on his bare chest as if to restrain his thoughts.

  “I don’t want to leave,” she said.

  “And I want you to do so, in order to remain safe. Which of us will win, I wonder?”

  “So says the lover?”

  “No,” he said, reaching for her. “So says the earl.”

  Rosemoor was too large. Despite the fact he’d been here for weeks, Lorenzo found himself lost twice before finally finding his assigned chamber. The first time he didn’t mind being directed by a young, comely maid. The second time, a tall and rather supercilious footman haughtily announced the directions, managing to annoy Lorenzo greatly.

  All in all, he preferred Italy, his comfortable home with the sound of children and not all these trappings of wealth.

  His stomach burned, and Lorenzo grabbed at it, thinking himself constitutionally ill-equipped for Scottish food. But at least it had been spicier than the pap he’d been forced to eat in London. Perhaps because Grant employed a French cook.

  He probably had eaten too much of the bouillabaisse, but it had been exceptionally good. Or perhaps he shouldn’t have had the last glass of wine. Elise would have fussed at him about the lateness of the hour and his consumption of spirits.

  Elise. How he missed his wife.

  Once in his chamber, he sat down on the edge of the bed and pressed a hand to his stomach, letting out a small groan of discomfort.

  He belched, but there was no attendant release of discomfort. His stomach felt like it was on fire, and so, too, did the base of his throat.

  Uncomfortable still, he stood, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it down. Instead of helping with the pain, it seemed to make it worse.

  He was never ill.

  His scientist’s mind began to piece together what was happening to him. An ulceration of the stomach? He would have experienced signs before tonight. He’d always been able to eat anything he chose without any kind of ramifications. No, tonight’s pain was different, something altogether unique.

  How very odd that he’d gotten sick after drinking bitter wine.

  His stomach spasmed and he doubled over, falling to his knees at the end of the bed. He grabbed on to the curved footboard and pulled himself up, only to be felled by another paroxysm of pain. It felt as if a dozen spears had pierced his body, and he was bleeding. He even tasted blood as he wiped his mouth.

  He doubled over again, and this time nearly lost consciousness. He would have shouted for help, but he found himself curiously unable to speak. He staggered backward, holding on to the bedpost.

  Realization came to him then, and the horror of it nearly felled him. Lorenzo reached for his case, for the brown bottle he’d taken to the palace. His vision was blurry; so much so that the rug only inches from his eyes seemed so very far away.

  He thought of Elise, but then the pain came again and he could only concentrate on the agony.

  Dorothea, Countess of Straithern, stared in horror at Dr. Fenton.

  It had been twenty years, but she felt just as she had the night she’d discovered the truth about her husband.

  The evil was back. The evil that had once permeated Rosemoor and had been banished for the last two decades because of her fervent prayers and a benevolent God had returned.

  “Tell me,” she said. When the only answer she received from the doctor was a sympathetic glance, she spoke again. “Tell me the entire story, Ezra.”

  The man wouldn’t look her in the face. But a few moments later, he began to speak.

  She felt her eyes widen and a sound almost like a groan emerge from her before she cut it off with a handkerchief and her fist. It would not do to become hysterical at this moment. An excess of emotion never accomplished anything.

  “Dear God,” she said. “Why did you never say anything?”

  “My wife and I decided that it would be wiser if no one knew. Until you asked, Your Ladyship, I thought the past well and truly buried.”

  It was a very good thing that she knew this parlor intimately. She took a series of steps backward, hoping that the chair was where it normally was kept, beside the marble table at the left of the fireplace. She felt the seat against the backs of her legs and subsided gracefully into the chair, placing both hands on the wooden arms and waiting for the light-headedness to subside.

  She wanted, very much, for Dr. Fenton to leave, but good manners was the habit of a lifetime. An ability to retain one’s aplomb is what separated the upper classes from the lower. She leaned back and focused on her breathing, wishing she hadn’t instructed her maid to lace her quite so tightly this morning. She looked quite well in her black, but appearance didn’t matter if she disgraced herself by fainting at Dr. Fenton’s feet.

  Perhaps she should adopt the fashion of an eccentric older woman and simply walk around her home attired in nothing more confining than a loose, sack-like dress. Perhaps she might ask Grant to build her a small house on the estate, someplace where she would be content to be odd and deranged.

  “Did you not think that bringing her back to Rosemoor might awaken some memories for her?”

  “She has lived not an hour away from Rosemoor all her life, Your Ladyship.”

  “How delighted you must have been when Grant proposed the match.”

  “Not delighted,” he admitted. “Although a part of me thought that being the mistress of Rosemoor would be a fitting reward for what she’d had to endure.”

  “We have seen a great deal over the years, have we not, Ezra?”

  “Your Ladyship,” he said, bowing. “You know you only have to call upon me and I will be at your side.”

  How very odd that it seemed almost like a romantic declaration.

  Perhaps it was the light-headedness that brought about the thought. Strange, she had never thought of Ezra in that way. She had never thought of any man in that way ever since her husband died. How very curious to feel the rapid beating of her heart. No doubt it was the effect of the shock she’d received.

  “I, too, had thought the past well buried, Ezra,” she said softly. “But I do not think it is.”

  His glance was troubled. “Nor do I, Your Ladyship.”

  She smiled, and bless the man, he understood it was a gesture of dismissal and bowed once more, nearly backing out of the room as if she were a royal personage. A queen, perhaps.

  The queen of disaster.

  Sometime later, Gillian rolled over to face him. He lit the lamp so he could see her more clearly.

  “There are not that many people who would wish me harm,” she said. She looked at him for a moment as if she were considering something. Then she turned and reached for the lamp on the table. She fumbled for something in the bottom drawer, and then handed it to him.

  “My list,” she said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I had to consider that I might well have been poisoned on purpose, Grant.”

  “So you made a list?”

  She nodded.

  He held out his hand. For a moment, he didn’t think she was going to surrender the paper to him. Would they argue about it? He hadn’t had a quarrel with a girl since he was in short pants. Normally his title and his charm prevented the necessity of one, but he and one of the village girls had tossed clods of dirt at each other, until she’d been reprimanded by her mother, a woman who’d spoiled Grant’s fun by appearing terrified that he would tell his father. He had agr
eed to remain silent, not telling the woman that he rarely even spoke to his father, let alone confided in him.

  How odd that he would think about that now as he waited patiently for Gillian’s cooperation.

  Perhaps he thought of her as that long-ago girl, the only person in his childhood besides his brothers who had been unimpressed with his consequence.

  She finally surrendered the paper, and he looked at the list.

  “It’s not very long,” he said. “I believe you’re right. I have more enemies than you.”

  “That’s because you’re older than I am,” she said blithely. “Much, much older.”

  “Do not try to pass yourself off as having just escaped the schoolroom, Miss Cameron. I put your age as substantially past that.”

  She looked a little affronted. “I’m an ancient crone,” she said finally, evidently deciding not to take offense. “I’m old as water.” She squinted at him. “And you, Your Lordship? How old are you?”

  “Old as knowledge, and as wise as experience,” he teased.

  “Perhaps you only look old because you’ve had a very full life. A great deal of wine, a great many women, a great many experiences, all in all.” She sat back against the headboard and regarded him.

  He wasn’t about to respond to that goad. Instead he turned his attention back to her list. He knew only one name on the list, and it surprised him. The remaining two names were strangers.

  He knew who Robert McAdams was—the man she’d loved, the father of her child. When he did speak, it was to ask a question about the next name on the list. “Mary McAdams?”

  “Robert’s sister. She believed that I was trying to trap Robert into marriage. I don’t believe she liked me very much.”

  “Do you actually think they would do you harm?”

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t begin my list that way. I didn’t ask myself who would wish me dead. Instead, I thought of the people who would be relieved if I were dead.”

  “Arabella is on the list,” he said, and turned to look at her.

  “Yes.” It was the only comment she made.

  “Have you no names on your own list?” she asked in the silence. “No enemies or would-be enemies?”

  “On the contrary,” he said, glancing over at her, “my list would take pages, I’m afraid. Competitors, people I knew in Italy, perhaps even a relative or two.”

  “Any women on that list?’

  “One or two. Perhaps we might as well add Arabella to my list.”

  She truly didn’t want to hear about other women he’d loved and left behind in Italy. But she asked anyway, because she was curious, because he was looking at her expectantly, and because asking about the Italian women meant she didn’t have to think about Arabella.

  “Have there been very many? More than two?”

  “Three,” he answered. “I was in Italy for five years.”

  “One must evidently replace a lover periodically. Do they wear out?”

  He laughed long and heartily, but she noticed that he didn’t answer her question.

  The knock on the door subdued them both. They looked at each other like naughty children caught in the act of stealing biscuits from the kitchen.

  “Stay here,” he whispered.

  She gathered up the sheet, refraining from mentioning that she was effectively trapped in the bed since her clothing was either still in the laboratory or across the room in the armoire.

  “Your Lordship?”

  Grant stepped from the bed, uncaring that he was naked. What a glorious physique he had, and such a lovely bum. She forced herself to look away. Now was not the time to indulge in a bout of lust.

  Michael called out again, his voice sounding breathless, and afraid. Was he ill? But it wasn’t disease he brought to the palace.

  The door opened, and his mother stood there. His mother never came to the palace.

  Grant turned, hurriedly grabbed his dressing gown and held it in front of him.

  She didn’t say a word for a moment, simply stared beyond him to where Gillian lay in the bed.

  Before he could demand a reason for her presence, or why she’d invaded his privacy, she turned to look at him. His questions faded beneath his surprise. His mother, the indefatigable, the strong, had tears in her eyes.

  “It’s your friend, Grant. Lorenzo.”

  “Lorenzo?” he asked. A sick feeling spread through him as one single tear rolled down her cheek. “What about him?”

  “He’s dead, my dearest. Oh my dear Grant, Dr. Fenton thinks it’s poison.”

  Chapter 25

  How was he going to explain this to Elise? Or to Lorenzo’s seven children? How was he going to be able to sleep at night with this suffocating guilt?

  Grant sat at the end of the bed in Lorenzo’s room. On the floor, where Lorenzo had collapsed, was a scrawled word, carved into the wood with one of Lorenzo’s ubiquitous jewels. Bella. Beautiful in Italian. How like Lorenzo to be thinking of Elise in his final hours.

  Why the hell had he summoned Lorenzo to Rosemoor? The idea that there was a killer in his home enraged him. Who was creating havoc in his life? Who was so arrogant that they chose to act as God?

  There was nothing he could do for his friend, but as far as the others at Rosemoor, he could care for them, protect them. How? He’d done a poor job so far.

  Poison, Dr. Fenton had said. He would have to go along with the good doctor’s diagnosis. But then, Dr. Fenton had been the one who diagnosed Andrew and James as having a blood disease. Then Gillian had been poisoned, and he’d had to alter his diagnosis.

  Dr. Fenton’s ineptness concerned him, almost as much as the thought that Rosemoor was becoming a dangerous place to live.

  He stared down at the floor, at the nearly illegible word. Bella. What had Lorenzo’s thoughts been in those moments? Had he regretted being in Scotland? Had he longed for home?

  Suddenly a female hand pressed against his cheek. He looked up to find Gillian standing there, sorrow in her eyes.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “I wanted you to stay at the palace.” But he reached out his hands and gripped her hips, pulling her to him before burying his face against her skirts. “You shouldn’t be here,” he repeated, but he didn’t lessen his hold, and she didn’t move away. She placed both hands on the back of his head, as if to hold him steady. Her wrist was against his face and he kissed it gently, infinitely grateful for the silence of her compassion.

  He wanted to be anywhere but here. He wanted to be somewhere where there were warm breezes and deeply blue sky, and the riotous blooms of Italy in the springtime. He wanted to eat olives and thinly sliced ham and hard goat’s cheese on a hard crusty roll and wash it down with a raw red wine. He wanted the sound of mandolins and laughter.

  But he would never again experience those things separately or together, without Lorenzo coming to his mind.

  “This shouldn’t have happened,” he said, pulling back.

  She didn’t argue him out of his reasoning. She merely pressed a kiss on the top of his hand. A nurturing gesture and one he hadn’t expected.

  She bent and knelt in front of him. “It’s only normal, I think, to blame yourself. But unless you poisoned Lorenzo,” she said, “you were no more responsible than I am.

  “You are a good man, Grant Roberson.”

  “Am I? I am capable of so much hate,” he said, a pronouncement that surprised her, he could tell. “I have hated one person in my entire life, but that hatred has lasted me the whole of it. It’s fanned my ambition, no doubt. And my coldness. But I find I hate again, Gillian, and I’m frustrated because I don’t know who to hate. What kind of man does that make me?”

  “A normal one, perhaps. Even frightening, to some.”

  “Do I frighten you?”

  He lifted his head and stared at her. There was warmth in her gaze and in the softness of her smile. Right at this moment he needed someone to care for him unconditionally, to touch him with affection, to l
ove him.

  “Gillian,” he began, but she pressed two fingers against his lips and would not let him speak further. He didn’t fight against her gentle touch, uncertain what he would have said, but suspecting it would have been inappropriate for this moment and this circumstance.

  Instead he wrapped his arms around her, grateful for her presence, and her understanding.

  “I want you to leave,” he said. “Return to the palace and wait for me. I’ll have Michael escort you.”

  “I’d rather stay with you,” Gillian said.

  “Please,” he said, pulling back and taking her hands in his.

  “Very well,” she said, “if you insist. But is there nothing I can do?”

  “No, there is nothing either of us can do at the moment.”

  She didn’t speak, only leaned forward and embraced him.

  Finally, he stood. “Go back to the palace and wait for me. There’s something I must do.”

  She looked concerned. “Grant, come with me.”

  “I’ll join you in an hour, no more.”

  She didn’t look convinced as he hesitated at the door of Lorenzo’s room and studied her for a moment. He didn’t confide his sudden and startling suspicions to her. Not because he distrusted her, but because he didn’t want to hurt her.

  Grant turned and strode with measured steps down the corridor. His mind rebelled at his thoughts, even as he realized that his conclusions made perfect sense.

  He didn’t bother to knock, only pushed past the footman, pointing toward the door, banishing him without another glance. He marched into the Flower Room and slammed the door behind him. Only then was he calm enough to stare down at his mother.

  “Did you hate him that much?”

  She put aside her needlepoint and looked up at him. She had regained her composure in the past hour. Her tears for Lorenzo had faded, and her poise was evident again. But he noted that she didn’t seem confused as to his question.

  “Your father?” his mother asked. “Of course I hated him,” she said. “What decent person wouldn’t? But I also loved him, and for that I will always ask for God’s forgiveness.”