by Louise Clark
Pretender’s Games
Hearts of Rebellion Series
Book One
by
Louise Clark
PRETENDER’S GAME
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“A thoroughly entertaining and sensual romance.”
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Dedication
To Muriel Whitlock Gillespie Allen
Great Aunt Boots
Chapter 1
Edinburgh, Scotland,
February 1750
There was an air of impatient hurry in the Tilton household on this late winter evening. Sir Frederick Tilton, his wife Arabella, and their two daughters, Theadora and Isabelle, were invited to the home of Judge Malcolm Denholm, for a soiree he was giving. Invitations to the judge’s parties were eagerly sought after, for Denholm was an influential member of Scottish society, and the Tilton ladies were pleased to be amongst those attending.
Sir Frederick, the general commanding the English garrison in Scotland, paced the scarlet, blue, and gold Wilton carpet that covered the floor of the drawing room. His hands were clasped behind his back, the knuckles of one slapping the palm of the other with each measured step.
An ormolu clock on the mantelpiece ticked away the passing minutes with relentless regularity. Sir Frederick didn’t want to be late, thereby insulting his host, nor did he wish to be early and appear overeager. An hour ago, when he had finished donning his suit of rich chocolate-brown velvet with a contrasting gold waistcoat, he might have worried about the latter happening. Now, however, he felt there was real danger that the Tilton family would reach Judge Denholm’s far later than would be fashionably acceptable. The cause, he fumed, his speed quickening, was his eldest daughter, Thea.
For all her intelligence and charm, Thea couldn’t grasp the concept of being on time. Earlier, he’d told her he wanted to reach Denholm’s by nine o’clock. She had opened her large brown eyes wide and promised faithfully she would be ready. Then she had smiled a mischievous smile and told him he worried too much.
Tilton reached the end of the carpet, executed a snappy, parade-ground about-face and marched back the way he’d come. Here it was, eight and thirty, and Thea still wasn’t ready. His wife, Arabella, was with her now, trying to speed the girl up. Gloomily, he wondered how much good that would do. Thea was a stubborn creature when she set her mind to something. The trait had already caused her to refuse several offers for her hand. In her obstinate way, she had decided she wouldn’t marry until she found a man she could respect and like. Being a far too lenient father, Tilton had never pressed her to accept a suitor not to her taste. That was why, at the age of two and twenty, his lovely daughter was still unwed.
Tilton sighed. Suitable matches were not exactly thick on the ground here in Edinburgh. If he didn’t find Thea a gentleman of rank soon, she would most likely remain a spinster all her life. With her vital, loving personality that would be a shame.
The clock rang the quarter hour and Tilton felt affectionate irritation rise again. Devil take the girl, would she never be ready?
*
Upstairs, seated in front of a dressing table and still wearing her loose powdering robe over her shift and petticoats, Thea critically inspected her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror above the table. Meticulously, she added a black satin patch to a point just below the corner of her wide, generous mouth. The task completed, she sat back, smiling with satisfaction.
“Thea,” her mother said for the tenth time since she had swept into her daughter’s small, airy bedroom, “you look lovely, you know you do. But dearest, can you hurry? Just a trifle?”
Thea laughed, leaning forward to dust a little rice powder over her too-healthy complexion. “In a few more moments, Mama, I shall be ready.”
Somehow Arabella doubted that. Though Thea’s burnished golden locks had already been powdered, she still had to don her elegant satin damask gown, not an easy task over panniers, the wide oblong hoops that were currently fashionable. Hurrying Thea when she didn’t wish to be hurried was like making water flow uphillâvirtually impossible. Arabella refused to say totally impossible, because miracles did happen. Unfortunately, they happened very rarely.
“I want to be certain I look my best,” Thea was saying. Her lips, the upper bowed, the lower full and passionate, curved in a mischievous smile, enhanced by the provocative placement of the black patch. Above a short, patrician-straight nose, her large, almond-shaped brown eyes danced with naughty amusement.
Arabella sighed. Few people could resist Thea’s charm when she had a mind to use it, and her mother was not one of those hardy souls. “Your father will be wearing holes in the carpet from his pacing.”
Serenely darkening her fair eyebrows, Thea commented absently, “Papa worries over trivial things. I’ll talk to him when we go downstairs. I can always rouse him from whatever ails him.”
This was the simple truth. Sir Frederick was no more immune to Thea’s particular charm than her mother was.
At that moment, Thea stood up, an engaging twinkle in her eyes. “See, Mama. I shall be ready in no time at all. Jenny, my gown, please.”
Arabella waited until the cream-colored gown was over Thea’s head and being twitched into place by the maid, before she hurried off to warn her younger daughter, Isabelle, that her sister was finally ready.
Isabelle, who had been reading a stirring tale of haunted castles and runaway heiresses while she waited, reluctantly put the book aside to don her own peach-colored satin gown over a pale blue petticoat. While Arabella, already dressed in rose silk, was fussing over the final preparations to Isabelle’s toilette, Thea appeared in the doorway of her younger sister’s room.
“Oh! Thea, you look magnificent!” Isabelle breathed.
Thea smiled and glided into the room. “Thank you, dearest.” Four years separated the sisters, and their natures were quite dissimilar. Where Isabelle had a penchant for light subjects and housewifely duties, Thea was of a more serious turn of mind. Not that anyone would dare to call her a bluestocking. Her beauty and wicked sense of humor precluded that. However, she enjoyed heated intellectual and political discussions, stating her opinions in a decidedl
y unfeminine way.
Though Sir Frederick bewailed this to his wife in private, he’d never been able to bring himself to remonstrate with his outspoken daughter. In English society such conduct would not have been condoned. The Scots, however, seemed to like opinionated ladies. Thea was one of the belles of Edinburgh society.
Now she was scrutinizing Isabelle with the critical eyes of an older and more experienced sister. Coming forward, she twitched a curl into place so it lay coquettishly over the younger girl’s shoulder. “You look lovely, Isabelle. You’ll dazzle all the interesting people at Judge Denholm’s soiree tonight.”
“Not if we don’t hurry up,” Arabella interjected practically. She smiled at her younger daughter. “Thea is right, my dear. You do look pretty tonight. I’m proud of having two such handsome daughters.”
Isabelle blushed, not used to compliments yet. She had only just entered the society Thea had graced for the last three years, and lacked her sister’s polish. There was no doubt she was lovely, though. Her skin was rose-petal soft and her features perfect. The expression in her round blue eyes was warm and gentle. Arabella had hopes of giving Isabelle a London season, and she thought a little experience in Edinburgh society would do her no harm.
When they reached the top of the wide, heavy staircase, Thea’s mischievous dimple appeared and she raised a finger to her lips. “Shh! I want to surprise Papa!”
Arabella sighed, shook her head, then smiled as she followed her two daughters quietly down the worn steps to the spacious entry hall. As one of the footmen draped Thea’s cloak over her shoulders, she winked at her mother. “I wonder what is keeping Papa,” she announced in clear tones. Her silken skirts rustled as she swept toward the open door of the drawing room. There, Sir Frederick, still deep in his somber thoughts, could be seen pacing across the thick carpet.
“Papa!” she said, halting in the doorway. “Are you not ready to leave? Mama and Isabelle and I have been waiting for you in the hall for simply ages! If you do not wish to be late, you really must hurry!”
Her brown eyes glowed with naughty amusement. Tilton, without hesitation, forgot the irritation he’d been feeling at Thea’s tardiness. It was always this way. Whenever he was faced with the vivid warmth of Thea’s personality, her faults dwindled into unimportant flaws not worth bothering about.
A smile twitched at his thin lips. “Thea, I’ll have you know, I’ve been waiting patiently for you ladies for some considerable time. I am quite ready to leave.”
“Then, Papa, should we not be on our way?” Thea’s eyes twinkled. “I would not wish to be late for one of Judge Denholm’s parties. He is such a nice man and I know how you value his assistance.”
“Wretch,” Tilton said fondly. “I don’t know why I put up with your teasing.”
Thea laughed. “Because I make you happy, Papa, and everyone likes to be happy.”
As they left the house, Sir Frederick reflected that as usual Thea had burrowed straight to the truth of the matter.
*
James MacLonan didn’t care if he was late or not to Judge Denholm’s soiree. In fact, if he had his way he wouldn’t be going at all. He’d had enough of fashionable social gatherings during his travels on the Continent.
His reluctance was evident in the casualness of his dress as he stood leaning against the mantel in his father’s drawing room, staring into a crackling blaze and sipping a glass of good French claret. His shirt was fine lawn, with deep falls of lace at the wrists and neck, as fashion dictated. At that moment, the soft material was only covered by a sleeveless white waistcoat, laced with silver. Later, he would don the sapphire blue coat that matched the velvet breeches he wore above white knee-stockings. For now he allowed himself to be comfortable in the overheated room.
He raised the glass of claret and sipped. As he watched the firelight flicker in the rich red of the wine, he remembered another night some two years before when he had been sitting before a fire, drinking wine and brooding about the future. That night he had been without hope. Tonight hope was there, but so was reluctance. He sighed, tossed down the claret, and crossed to a gleaming walnut table to refill his glass from the crystal decanter that rested on it.
Cynically, he surveyed the room he was in. It was a far cry from the crude cottage on the border of France where he had been billeted on that cold, wet spring night when his present and future had merged into a bleak, grim failure.
There, Henri Joubert’s cottage had been no more than three rooms and a cramped attic. The rough wooden furniture was all of Joubert’s making, sturdy, but lacking artistry and polish. In his father’s elegantly furnished Edinburgh residence the ceilings were high, the windows large, and there were more than a dozen spacious chambers. Despite this, he was as dispirited in this luxurious residence as he had been in Henri Joubert’s tiny cottage.
He could still remember the smells that permeated that little cottage. There was the pervasive odor of the onions and garlic that Madam Joubert used constantly in her cooking, the rank smell of unwashed bodies, the reek of cheap tallow candles, and the smoky scent of a wood fire. These smells were so common that James had hardly noticed them. He did remember that on that night he had noticed the rich, pungent scent of the dark burgundy wine in his glass as he savored it. Little pleasures were all he had left in those days. Perhaps, if he did not fulfill the terms of his pardon, they would once again become all that remained to him.
Impatiently, he flung himself away from the table, over to the fireplace, where he used the excuse of a sputtering log to kick away some of his anger, frustration, and yes, fear. He could never forget the despair that had enveloped him that night, as he stared into his wine and catalogued all he had lost. He was an exile, a Scot who had fled to France for his part in the failed rising of Bonnie Prince Charlie. He had become a mercenary soldier in another nation’s army, an outsider in a foreign land.
As long as he lived he would remember those feelings, and he admitted now to himself that he would do anything to avoid being in that position again. He had returned to Scotland and this time he intended to stay.
And yet, a part of him was reluctant to make the concessions that he knew he must in order to fulfill the terms of his pardon. That was why he was standing in this handsome room, brooding about the past instead of dressing in his elegantly furnished bedchamber for the evening ahead.
At that moment the sound of a cane tapping slowly along the oaken floors announced the arrival of Grant MacLonan, James’s aged and infirm father.
Grant MacLonan was a big man of over six feet. Once straight and hale, he was now slightly bent and the flesh seemed to have wasted from his large frame. He continued to dress with care, however. In fact, as he entered the room it was clear that he was far more formally attired than his errant son. His coat, with its wide cuffs turned back almost to the elbow to expose the cascade of lace at his wrists, was plum-colored silk, the waistcoat cream-colored and laced with opulent gold. At his knees and on his black shoes were buckles set with diamonds. The garments proclaimed him for what he wasâa man of wealth and position.
He stopped when he saw his son standing by the hearth. “Jamie! Have you changed your mind, laddie? Are you not going to Denholm’s this evening?”
James swirled the wine in his glass and fought resentment. “No, sir, I am going.”
“Then you’d best dress a shade more formally! What damn fool notions did you pick up while you were gallivanting about on the Continent?”
Damn fool notions. James drank deeply, once again remembering that night two years ago when his bleak reflections had been interrupted by the noisy clank of metal and the snort of a horse.
*
France, 1748
James stiffened warily, his mind suggesting, then discarding reasons for the sound. On a night like this one, storming and cold, only those with urgent business would be out. Something was afoot, but what?
The answer came surprisingly quickly. A fist hammered on the cottage
door, demanding entry. James rose lithely to his feet and grabbed for the sword he always kept within reach of his hand, as Henri Joubert hastened to answer the knock, scuttling from the small bedroom where he cowered with his family. By the time the Frenchman had the door ajar, James’s blade was out of the sheath and at the ready. Firelight glinted on the naked steel.
“That’s a fine welcome for an old friend!” mocked a lazy, English-accented voice.
James peered through the dim light. He hadn’t bothered with candles this night, for the fire that warmed the cottage was all he needed while he drank wine and let himself be eaten by regret. But now he wished he had a dozen candelabra to illuminate the room. He thought he must be dreaming, for he could not believe he’d identified the voice correctly.
Still holding his sword at the ready, he edged over to the fireplace, now smoking from the draft caused by the open door. Grabbing a spill, he thrust it into the flames, then used the burning reed to ignite a tallow candle standing in a crude pottery holder on the mantle. This he raised so he could better see his visitor’s face.
“By God! Staverton, it is you!” He tossed the sword on the table, then clapped his friend on the shoulder in wordless delight. The viscount responded in kind and for a moment there was silence. Then James stepped back, eyeing the sodden cloak his friend was wearing over a plain, dark coat, breeches, and riding boots.
“You must be frozen, Staverton. Here, come before the fire. I’ll have Joubert help your coachman stable your horses.”
“Horse,” Lord Staverton corrected softly. “I rode, MacLonan. A man can evade patrols better that way.”
James sucked in his breath at this information, but he didn’t ask for reasons or details, not yet. “Hey, Joubert! I want you to look after my visitor’s horse. And be quick about it!”
The little Frenchman mumbled an abject agreement, bobbing his head in an unamusing parody of a bow, his eyes downcast. An expression of contempt crossed James’s patrician features. In Scotland, where he had been raised, the Highland clans were closely knit units and even the poorest man felt he had the right to stand up to his chief and speak his mind. James had been taught to treat people with respect, but in the France of Louis the fifteenth, the lower classes had few rights and even fewer expectations of decent treatment. He despised his own role in this country.
