Temptation

by Jude Deveraux

  “Accidentally.”

  “What?”

  “It was an accidental death, remember? Not murder. It wasn’t as though he picked up the pistol and shot her.”

  “Sure. Right. But I wonder who it was who had the pistol in the first place? Did he threaten her with it? ‘You tell me where the things you bought are or I’ll blow your head off,’ that sort of thing.”

  “Remind me never to go to America,” he said absently as he flipped through an account book for the fifth time. “Do you think Grace knows what Gavie did with the accounts he found?”

  “She didn’t say. You should go ask her. I’m sure you know where her bedroom is.” At that Temperance froze. Why had she said that?

  James didn’t look up. “That’s the second time you’ve acted jealous of Grace. Are you sure you don’t want to stay here in McCairn?”

  “Jealous?” she said. “Don’t be ridiculous. And there are people in New York who need me. Look, I’m going to bed. We can look for whatever you hope to find in the morning,” she said as she stood up. “It’s just too bad that your grandmother didn’t return your love enough to entrust you with the knowledge of what she’d put where.”

  “Sweet Mother of—” James said under his breath.

  When Temperance turned to look at him, his eyes were wide in shock. “What?!” she demanded when he just sat there saying nothing.

  “She gave me a pack of cards.”

  “She was buying great works of art and all she shelled out for her beloved grandson was a pack of cards? Didn’t she know you weren’t the gambling brother?”

  “That’s just it,” James said softly. “She told me to hide the cards from Colin and my grandfather or they’d take them from me and lose them and they were very, very important cards.”

  Temperance’s mind was racing. “If she’d given you anything else, you would have played with it and worn it out, but you’ve kept the cards hidden and safe all these years?” Hope made her voice rise on the end.

  “Yes,” James said, and the sound was barely a whisper. “In a box in my bedroom.”

  At that Temperance made a leap for the door at the same time that James jumped up and started running. They reached the doorway at the same time, and both tried to go through it at once. Temperance was determined to win, so she pushed hard, her body slammed up against James’s as they were wedged in the doorframe.

  It was after several moments, when she wasn’t making any progress, that she looked up at him. He was smiling down at her, with that one-sided smirk of his. The front of her body was wedged up against the front of his body, and he was toying with her, keeping her from getting through the doorway.

  She narrowed her eyes in threat at him. He laughed, then stepped back to let her pass. “You may be bad at entertaining the children, but you’re certainly keeping me amused,” he said.

  Temperance didn’t bother answering him as she ran up the stairs to his bedroom. At the doorway she paused; he was right behind her. She looked into his bedroom, then back up at him. “You touch me and I’ll put sand in your food all next week,” she said.

  “After what I found out from kissing you, I’m not even tempted,” he said, then moved past her to enter the bedroom.

  For a moment Temperance stood outside the room frowning. She’d never met a man who could make her as angry as he could. Part of her wanted to turn away, go to her own bedroom and get some sleep. Let him unravel his own family mysteries by himself!

  But then she saw him digging inside a big old chest that she was sure some medieval ancestor had carried on the Crusades, and she went into the room to look over his shoulder.

  “Here!” he said as he pulled out a little box, then carried it to the bed. “Get that candle, would you?”

  One of the “girls,” Eppie or her sister, had lit a single candle in his bedroom, so Temperance carried it across the room to set it on the table by the bed. “No, put it here,” he said, frowning, meaning for her to sit on the bed beside him.

  She was so interested in what he had in his hands that she didn’t hesitate, but climbed up on the high bed, put the candle in its pewter holder down on the heavy velvet spread, and looked at what he held.

  “I haven’t looked at these in years,” he said, leaning on one arm toward her. “My grandmother gave these to me when I was nine, only a year before she died.”

  His voice was soft, and the heavy hangings of the bed made them seem as though they were isolated. Suddenly, all her annoyance with him was gone. It was as though she could see the little boy who had grown up among gamblers and a grandfather with a “ferocious” temper.

  As he opened the box, he spoke softly. “She told me these were very, very valuable and that I was to keep them always.” He looked up at Temperance, their heads mere inches apart. “She said they were my future.”

  Temperance thought of about a dozen things she wanted to say to that, but she bit down on her tongue and kept quiet.

  “I thought they were fortune-telling cards, but I couldn’t figure out how to use them.”

  By the time James spread the cards out on the bed, Temperance’s heart was pounding. He spread them out in a perfect fan, and from the formation she could tell that he wasn’t a stranger to a deck of cards.

  But as soon as she saw the cards, her heart steadied. There was nothing at all special about them. They were red-and-white on the back, one of those intricate patterns that card makers seemed to love. Nothing at all even interesting.

  When she looked at James, her disappointment showed on her face.

  James gave her a tiny smile, then looked down at the cards. Slowly, he turned one over.

  On the face of the card was a picture of a diamond necklace. In the corners were the symbols for the ace of diamonds.

  The next card he turned over was the three of hearts. It had a picture of a small golden cherub.

  Slowly, Temperance picked up the card and held it to the candlelight. “Looks Italian to me,” she said, then looked back at James. He was smiling at her as though he were waiting for her to figure out something.

  Looking at him, trying to read his mind, she suddenly had a thought. Turning, she reached down and flipped the whole curved fan in one gesture. When the other side was exposed, she saw works of art and jewelry and silver serving dishes.

  “Oh, dear,” Temperance said. “Do you think that these are the things she bought?”

  “I always thought so, but I could find no verification. And of course my grandfather wasn’t telling. That’s why the reciepts Gavie found interested me.”

  “But in all those years you found nothing?”

  “Not really. A couple of times we found some things like dishes, like you found, but nothing else. The first time we showed the dishes to my grandfather and he smashed them. After that we had to keep anything we found secret and we had to keep our searching a secret. He didn’t like any reminder of his wife.”

  “Can’t imagine why. Guilt maybe?” She held up one of the cards and looked at it. There was a sapphire ring on the four of diamonds. “Except for some of the silver pieces, everything seems to be small, and all of it’s nonperishable, no oil paintings that would rot. All of these things would hold up over long storage.”

  “Any idea where she stored them?” James asked.

  “That’s the question I should ask you. Remember, you’re the laird and I’m the visitor.”

  “Right,” he said, smiling, as he picked up another card. The six of spades showed a small bronze statue, probably Greek, probably ancient. “So now that we have an inventory, how do we find the goods?”

  “Did she leave you anything else? A map maybe? Think hard.”

  He knew she was making fun of him, but he still laughed. The treasure was part of his childhood, and since he’d become laird, he hadn’t had much time to think of anything but work. As he gathered the cards up and put them back into the box, he said, “I can’t see that we’re any closer to finding the treasure than we were
before.”

  There was something about the way he said “we” that suddenly made her aware that they were alone in a house where the other occupants were sleeping. They were alone in his room on his bed.

  Quickly, Temperance rolled to the other side of the bed and put her feet on the floor. “I think I’ve had it for one night.” She gave a fake yawn as though she were dead tired. Truth was, she seemed to have lost her sleepiness.

  Lazily, James rolled off the other side of the bed. “That’s right. You have to go into Edinburgh tomorrow, so you’d better get your sleep.”

  “Edinburgh?” she said, not having any idea what he was talking about. “Why—”

  “You said you and Grace had to buy something for the house, remember?”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” she said. She’d forgotten the lie she’d made up to explain why she and Grace were going to the city. Tomorrow was the day of the secret luncheon when they were to wear Grace’s hats. “Shopping. I nearly forgot.”

  “I have a few things you can pick up for me. Tobacco. Sheep-dip. A couple of wolf traps. A bit of horse harness.”

  With each word, Temperance’s face became more contorted. “Wolf traps?”

  “Sure. You can take the wagon and a couple of the men. You’ll need the wagon if you mean to pick up produce, so why not get the other things at the same time?”

  “Are wolf traps part of the housekeeper’s job?” she asked.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should go with you. It would do me good to get out of here. I’ll see if I can find some trousers and—”

  “No!” she said, trying to think of a reason why he couldn’t go. But she’d had too little sleep to be able to think clearly.

  “No trousers? I can see why a woman would want me to have bare knees, and if you insist—”

  She was just too, too tired to think of a lie of any sort. “I don’t care what you wear, but you’re not going with me. I want a day away from this place and from you. And no wolf traps. Or sheep harnesses. Or—”

  “Dip. Sheep-dip. Horse harnesses.”

  She saw then that he was teasing her again, and she doubted that he’d ever meant to go with her into Edinburgh. From what she knew about him, he’d probably rather walk across barbed wire barefoot than spend a day in a city. And she doubted if he ever wore trousers. Or underwear, for that matter.

  She walked to the door, opened it, but he stopped her before she could close it.

  “Thank you for what you did for the children today,” he said softly. “That was kind of you.”

  She tried to keep from blushing with pleasure at his praise. “You’re welcome. They’re nice children and I enjoyed it.”

  “Me too,” he said, and he sounded so like an enthusiastic little boy that she laughed.

  “Good night.”

  “Yes, good night, and if I don’t see you before you leave tomorrow, happy shopping.”

  “Yes, thank you and good night.” She started to close the door, but she opened it again. “James,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “What happened to your village girl? The one you said you were in love with?”

  “My mother felt sorry for her, so she sent her to school in Glasgow. I heard she married some old man a few years later.”

  Temperance wasn’t sure, but there still seemed to be some bitterness in his voice. But then, she’d heard a thousand women tell her that they never got over their first love. So maybe it was the same with men.

  “Well, good night,” she said again, then quietly closed the door behind her and went to her own room. She was asleep minutes later.

  Thirteen

  “We did it!” Temperance said as she leaned back against the hard seat of the old wagon.

  “You did,” Grace said softly as she held the reins of the horses. “I had nothing at all to do with it.”

  Temperance ignored her words. “Remember the smug look on that awful woman’s face when she said good-bye to us? She thought she’d pulled something off, didn’t she? The House of Grace. By tomorrow all of Edinburgh will have heard of you.”

  “Not me, you,” Grace said insistently. “I did nothing.”

  “Only made the most beautiful hat I’ve ever seen, that’s all.”

  “But what does that matter? Many people have talent. Brenda tells wonderful stories and Lilias makes liqueur from seaweed, but they aren’t selling their talents in Edinburgh. They aren’t making money from what they can do.”

  “Oh, well, it just takes a bit of conniving.”

  “No,” Grace said solemnly. “It takes a belief that you can do anything in the entire world, something that we don’t have here in McCairn.” Her voice lowered. “And something I don’t know how we’re going to do without once you leave.”

  “Pish posh,” Temperance said, embarrassed by Grace’s praise. She just wanted to think of the triumph of the day and nothing else. “Right now we both need to think about how we’re going to hide your business from the people of McCairn. Somehow, I can’t see Hamish condoning a woman earning money, especially not the kind of money that I think you’re going to make. I’ve seen it in New York a hundred times. I’ll help a destitute woman with a do-nothing husband and kids to support find a way to earn a living; then, when she’s on her feet, the man’s ego will be crushed, so he’ll stop her from earning. Hundreds of times I’ve seen it.”

  “Do you think James will want to stop me?” Grace asked as she held on to the reins. Even though it was dark, with only the moonlight to guide them, the horses certainly knew the way back to the stables.

  “You know him better than I do,” Temperance said, then frowned at herself because she didn’t like the little pang that went through her when she said that. So she was attracted to the man. It wasn’t the end of the world, was it?

  “Not really,” Grace said. “I know I’ve shared his bed, but I’ve never seen him talk to anyone the way he does to you.”

  “Really?” Temperance said, then turned away so Grace couldn’t see the broadness of her smile. “He’s a nice man. I mean, there are things he shouldn’t do, like toss women out of windows and threaten to murder them, but, all in all, he takes care of a lot of people.”

  Grace was looking at her with her head cocked to one side. “Murder?”

  “Oh, it was nothing, just something he said. You had to be there to understand. Look, are you sure you want to try to conduct your business here in McCairn? I know my mother could find you a nice little shop in Edinburgh.”

  “No, thank you!” Grace said firmly. “Do you forget that I grew up in that city? If I lived there and I were to die, there would be no one to take care of Alys. But here . . .”

  “Yes,” Temperance said softly, “I know. She was born here, so she will always have a home here.” And that sentiment was something that Temperance was coming to truly like about McCairn: The people all seemed to be pulling for each other. No one was isolated or left out. Even Grace, who’d become the laird’s mistress, was as much a part of them as anyone else was. Yes, Temperance thought, smiling, she liked that attitude very much.

  “My goodness, but it’s late,” Temperance said loudly, breaking her reverie. “Once I hit that bed, I’m not going to get up for a week.”

  Just then they turned a bend in the road, and the old stone McCairn house came into view. On the first night Temperance had seen the place, there had been a single candle burning in one room. But tonight it looked as though the whole place was alight.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said quietly, then louder, “something’s wrong.” With a jerk, she snatched the reins from Grace and yelled, “Hiyah,” to the two tired horses; then, when they wouldn’t move fast enough to suit her, she stood up, grabbed the long whip from its holder by the seat, and cracked the thin leather over the heads of the horses.

  Beside her, caught unawares, Grace flew backward over the seat and slammed into the wagonbed. Her side hit something hard and she groaned. But she didn’t have time to
think about pain because if she didn’t catch hold of something, she was going to go flying out the back onto the road. Her hat fell down over her face, so she had to feel for the side of the wagon. When she found it, Grace pushed her hat up and looked up to see Temperance silhouetted in the moonlight. She was standing in the front of the wagon, looking like something Grace had once seen on a circus poster, swinging the whip over the horses, the sound splitting the air.

  When Grace saw how fast they were approaching the house, she was sure they were going to hit it. To prepare for the coming blow, she rolled herself into a ball and tried to wedge herself between the side of the wagon and the bags of whatever Temperance had bought and put into the wagon.

  But just before impact, Temperance used her entire body to pull back on the reins. Grace was sure the front feet of the horses came off the ground. Then, before they had fully stopped, Temperance jumped down and ran into the house.

  Shaking from fear and the ride-through-hell, Grace got down from the wagon and went into the house.

  Dearest Mother,

  It is late at night and I am dead with exhaustion, but I must tell you about what happened tonight. I apologize that I didn’t get to see you while Grace and I were in Edinburgh today, but we had so very much to do that there was no time.

  First of all, Grace’s hats were a great success. We were seen and noticed, and she now has a contract to produce twenty-five hats as soon as she can make them. I told the owner of the shop that it will be extremely difficult to get enough of the old fabrics that Grace uses on the hats, so she raised the price she was offering by nearly half. Considering the acres of rotting curtains that James has in this old place, Grace will be able to make hats for the rest of the century.

  When we returned to the house, every window was ablaze with light. If you knew how frugal all of McCairn was, you’d know how unusual this is. I was terrified that something horrible had happened, so, without thinking, I grabbed the reins of the horses and made them run. Remember how Daddy taught me to stand in the wagon and crack the whip? I remember that the one and only time I showed you what he’d taught me to do, we had to use smelling salts to revive you.