What Happens in Scotland

by Jennifer McQuiston

  He sent up a silent prayer of thanks to William’s solid strength as he swung up on Caesar. He only hoped that by the time he returned with the magistrate, Georgette would have come to see that what he did was for the best.

  He put his heels to the stallion’s flanks and gave him his head, letting the horse run. Shadows danced beneath Caesar’s hooves as they ate up the distance between Kilmartie Castle and town. To his left, the loch blazed red and orange, catching the last colors of the sky. The sun was threatening a rapid descent, streaming through the trees like a mirrored light and blinding him to the road ahead. And all the while, he prayed for speed.

  He was almost to Moraig when he felt the first change in the horse’s rhythmic gait, an unmistakable slowing. He heard the whistling of laboring lungs, and knew he was pushing the stallion too hard. He should have taken a different mount to fetch the magistrate. Caesar had worked hard for him today, cantering first to Kilmartie with two riders, and then returning that same way a scant two hours later at a full gallop.

  The urgency of the mission pushed at James, prodding with firm insistency, but he reluctantly pulled Caesar to a trot. The stallion jerked his mouth against the bit, as if to chastise his master for the decision to slow their pace, but James held him in check.

  He leaned low over the horse’s sweat-soaked neck, whispering words of encouragement. “Easy, boy. We’ve time yet.”

  As they jogged the remaining stretch of road, James caught the unmistakable smell of wood smoke. In the distance, a half mile or so east, he could see the glow of the bonfire on Main Street, an unholy halo welcoming the coming night and the building festivities. It occurred to him he might have trouble finding David Cameron, and that when he did, the man might already be drunk. Cameron would surely be drawn to the depravities to be found among Bealltainn’s fervor.

  Just as he was considering where to first begin his search for the magistrate, James felt the impact of the unseen missile, sharp against his jaw. He hit the ground a full second before the matching crack of a rifle hit his ears.

  He rolled over and stared up at the treetops, unsure of what had happened. Caesar came up and pushed against him with his nose. James’s ears felt stuffed full of sand, his head murky. The noise he had heard and its significance registered, even as his consciousness dimmed. Someone had shot at him.

  And then blood was pouring everywhere, and he wondered if he would make it to Moraig at all.

  Chapter 26

  GEORGETTE DID NOT spend her breath on tears, or platitudes, or apologies. Crying over her predicament or begging forgiveness of the empty air would not help matters.

  James was gone. She had seen him ride off through the library window, bent over his horse’s mane and riding for Moraig as if his life depended on it. Regret was not something that would fix this breach of trust, and so she did not take the time wondering what she might have done differently. Neither did she waste her energy sitting on her hands, nor reading one of the many books lining the shelves, nor doing any of the things she might have done even a month ago.

  Instead, she studied the map.

  Her eye fell on the hunting lodge the earl had pointed out. A mile away, Lady Kilmartie had said. James had locked her in a first floor room with an open window and underestimated her tenacity.

  Foolish mistakes, those.

  She curled her toes into the carpet, testing the weariness of her limbs. She had already walked several miles today, traipsing up and down Moraig’s streets in search of the man. She was facing a mile to reach her trunk in Randolph’s house, where a spare pair of boots waited. It was another four miles to town. Through the library window, she could see the sun was falling out of the sky, darkness certain in a half hour or less, but it did not dissuade her. Only this morning, she had doubted whether she was the kind of woman who could attempt to walk any respectable distance on her own.

  How satisfying to know that not only was she the sort of woman who could, she was the sort who would insist upon it.

  It was almost dark by the time she reached the little stone house. Her feet were sore and cut from stumbling over sharp rocks, and the hem of her dress was an absolute mess, but she had done it. The difficult, hazard-strewn walk had at least one positive outcome. It had cooled her anger, and now she felt only a smug sort of pride. No doubt James would be angry with her when he found her gone. She almost wished she could be there to witness it. Georgette’s conscience pushed in from wherever it had been hiding and reminded her that this mission carried some foolhardy elements. No one knew where she was. She was alone, without a weapon, and approaching a madman’s house in the dark. The rhythm of the few days she had spent here told her the groundsman retreated to his own house come nightfall, somewhere off the estate. She stood still and watched the house, noted the dark windows and lack of smoke from the chimney. All good signs, but still she approached the front door cautiously, ready to bolt should the circumstances demand it.

  She was through underestimating Randolph, or herself. She would no longer be that girl who was surprised when her bogeyman appeared.

  She paused in the foyer and stood a moment, listening. There was no hint of light anywhere in the house. She could hear a cricket chirping in some distant corner. Above that noise was a quiet groaning, as if the evening wind was playing tricks amid the dark rafters.

  She felt her way up the stairs and lit the taper on her bedside table. The little bedroom came into candlelit focus, and the bunched herbs hanging from the rafters sent dramatic shadows spinning along the walls and the floor. Her clothing from this morning lay in a heap where Elsie had tossed it, and the still-full hip bath sat in one corner, a pool of cold water soaking the floorboards beneath it. She made a mental note to tell Elsie that a proper ladies’ maid would have never left the room in such disarray.

  Her breath caught as she realized her departure on the morrow would prevent her from seeing through the worthy cause of transforming Elsie into a dependable domestic servant. Guilt nudged at her, a stern rebuke. Perhaps, after she arrived in London, she could write to Lady Kilmartie about the woman taking on a new maid. Of course, given Elsie’s carnal interest in the countess’s younger son, she might need to preface the suggestion with a warning.

  It took but a moment for Georgette to pull her spare pair of boots from her trunk and lace them up. Then she was off, crouching along the stairwell wall with the candle in hand. She kept one ear cocked for danger as she tried unsuccessfully to shove a host of unwelcome thoughts from her head. It was not only Elsie she would leave unsettled when she boarded the morning coach. There was Mr. MacRory and the promised home for his kitten. The welcoming smile of Lady Kilmartie, and the woman’s hopes that Georgette might be the right match for her son.

  And of course, there was James himself. She was leaving him in the most cowardly way possible, sneaking away in the dark while he was off battling her demons. She really ought to be ashamed of herself. She really ought to return to Kilmartie Castle. Her lips pursed in amusement as she imagined marching up to the front door and pulling on the knocker. Wouldn’t that surprise the glowering William?

  As she reached the foyer, the groaning of the rafters seemed louder. Indeed, the groaning seemed to come not from the rafters at all, but from behind the closed doorway to Randolph’s study. Another unbidden thought flew in like a startled thrush, bound for cover. What if the groom, who had been so kind to her these past few days, had never made it home? Or worse, what if Elsie had come back here and Randolph had hurt her in some way?

  She unlocked the door with shaking fingers and opened it a few inches on objecting hinges. The candle, lifted high, revealed the source of the noise.

  The black and white dog Joseph Rothven had delivered this morning lay on a rug in front of the hearth. Her immediate sense of relief at not finding a human body to deal with was underscored by worry over what Randolph might have done to the poor animal. She inched into
the room and picked up a poker from the hearth, gently prodding at the once fearsome canine with the tip. Randolph had claimed the beast had bitten him, but it showed no signs of stirring now.

  Georgette knelt down and placed the candle beside her. Gingerly, she lifted a hand to the dog’s chest, half expecting the animal to explode in a flurry of teeth and claws. It did not move, although the fur felt thankfully warm beneath her fingers. It did not respond to either a whistle or a stern shake. She lifted the animal’s head and opened one eye. The pupils were dilated and the sharp smell of herbs clung to its muzzle.

  Georgette raised a startled hand to her mouth as the scent registered in some locked away part of her brain. She had no memory of last night following the first glass of brandy, but that scent, that she remembered. She recalled the taste of it, firm and bitter on her lips as she had nibbled those terrible ginger cookies Randolph had served her. In an instant, she linked the dog’s prostrate condition to her own amnesic night.

  Randolph had not merely encouraged her acquiescence with a glass or two of brandy. He had drugged her, with his intimate knowledge of herbs.

  As if she had summoned him with her discovery, the door to the study swung open on hinges that badly needed oiling. She rose slowly, her hand white-knuckled on the iron fireplace poker. She should have been frightened to see Randolph looking so, hat missing and a hunting rifle in hand.

  Instead, she was seething with anger.

  Randolph regarded her for a pensive moment before he set down the rifle. He began to work at his necktie with long, aristocratic fingers, as if this was nothing more than an expected domestic scene and he was come home from a long day’s work.

  The Adam’s apple above his collar jumped as his fingers loosened the first two buttons of his shirt. “I see you have come to your senses and returned to me, cousin. I would not have taken such drastic measures had I known how easily your affections could be turned.”

  “More drastic than trying to kill James with your pruning knife this afternoon?” she choked out.

  “Ah yes. The purported husband.” Randolph took a menacing step toward her. “Your impulsive night mucked things up for a time, but you need not worry about MacKenzie anymore. I have taken care of him.”

  Dread slithered through her, cold as ice. “What do you mean?”

  “He is removed from the picture.” Randolph took another step in her direction, and Georgette’s pulse kicked up a notch.

  She renewed her sweating grip on the poker and raised it in warning. “Stay away,” she told him, her voice a taut string.

  He stopped. “There’s no need to threaten me, Georgette. Why, look at yourself. You stand here on the verge of hysteria. My studies have given me a certain expertise in this area, and I know several herbal remedies that will help with that. Calming draughts that will help you sleep.”

  Calming draughts indeed. As if that would help her out of this predicament. Why, oh why had she left Kilmartie Castle without so much as leaving a note?

  “And what will you do if I don’t calm down? Set the dog on me?” she choked out. “That isn’t really possible, is it? What did you give it? You’ve practically killed the thing.”

  Randolph paused. An almost reverent expression crossed his face. “A combination of plant extracts. Henbane, for one. And a concentrated dose of wormwood oil. Makes dumb creatures calm and placid. He’ll wake in a few hours.” His face twisted. “I only regret I had to resort to a less scholarly means of disposing of your husband. Bullets are so . . . messy.”

  His words punched a hole right through her. “What did you do?” she whispered.

  “I have killed him.” Randolph advanced another step. “Shot him on the road to Moraig. And so now you are free to marry me after all.”

  Georgette’s chest felt hollow and her eyes pricked with tears. All the while, her mind raced furiously. She refused to believe it. James was strong, the strongest, most dependable man she had ever known. Surely he could not be felled by a pathetic slip of a man like her cousin. Randolph had already proven himself a liar about the events of last night.

  She prayed he was lying about this too.

  “Your herbal concoction didn’t affect me in quite the same way as the dog, did it?” She brandished the poker higher. “Then again, I’m not exactly the dumb creature you thought me to be. Certainly not dumb enough to be tricked into marrying you.”

  That drew him up short. His hands reached for her, beseeching. “How could you think such a thing? I care for you, and only want to protect you. I would never . . .”

  “I spoke with Reverend Ramsey today.”

  His head jerked backward. “What?”

  “I know what you planned. You invited me here with this plot in mind, so do not stand there and pretend you only want to protect me. You drugged me in an attempt to force me to marry you.” She lowered the poker and fixed him with a glare that focused all her hatred on his guilt-ridden features. “The Kilmarties have been informed of what you attempted to do. If you know what is good for you, you will leave now, while you have the chance.”

  “I’m not leaving without you,” he growled. “You may have escaped me last night outside the church, but you will not be so lucky this time.”

  “Why?” she asked, raising the iron poker again. “Why do this? To me, to yourself?” The cousin she remembered from childhood was well and truly gone, lost somewhere in this monster. She ached for the loss of the boy she knew, but also for the painful question of her own role in all this. Had she led him to believe she wanted this, or wanted him in some way?

  His acerbic laugh echoed against the oak-timbered ceiling. “ ’Tis simple. I need money, Georgette, or I will not be able to complete my studies. Do you know how expensive university is? You are the means to an end. A very wealthy end.”

  The air, thick with the scents of the herbs he labored over so meticulously, seemed close to suffocating her. She felt nothing but nausea to hear the final pieces of her missing night. She had come remarkably close to losing everything, and all at the hands of a man who had either gone mad or was dipping a bit too regularly into the herbs he studied.

  She shook her head, wondering if he was so far out of his head that he might not hear what she was about to say. “Hear me now, Randolph. I will never marry you. Ever. Not even if all my money depended on it, not even if I was so poor I needed to lift my skirts to find my next meal.”

  Randolph’s mouth opened. His thin lips contorted in rage. “You would probably like that, whore that you are. After all, you have spread your legs for the town solicitor, a man without an ounce of refinement or culture.” Spittle flew from his mouth and his expression turned hard and ugly. “Look at you, and what you’ve sunk to. You don’t deserve me.”

  He flew at her then, but Georgette was through being surprised by this man.

  She stepped neatly to the side. Her boots, so inappropriate for walking, proved strangely well suited for kicking an unbalanced man’s legs out from under him. She knocked him once in the head with the side of the fireplace poker, putting all she had into the blow she felt echo all the way through the joints of her shoulders.

  As he moaned on the floor, she put the poker to his throat, pressing into the pale strip of flesh exposed there. “James MacKenzie is a better man than you will ever be,” she hissed. “I made my choice last night, and I will thank God every day for the rest of my days that it was not you.”

  She was rewarded with a wheezing sound deep in her cousin’s narrow chest. She leaned in close, enunciating clearly so there could be no mistake.

  “Because of you, I have forgotten the most glorious night of my life. And if you have taken my future from me as well, I will bloody well hunt you down and kill you.”

  Chapter 27

  HE MUST HAVE blacked out, because when James next opened his eyes, the sky above him was dark gray, that narrow strip of time bet
ween sunset and full night. Stars had come out to mock him.

  He lifted a hand to his jaw and probed it gingerly, slipping over the moisture that coated him there. The feeling of so much blood worried James more than the pain. There was strangely little of hurt involved in the process of being shot, but a copious amount of the warm, sticky fluid he was coming to regard as precious.

  He hauled his battered body back up on Caesar, then leaned low over the horse’s neck, giving the animal his head. He didn’t know where he should go. He only knew it was folly to stay here, exposed to another shot, his life’s blood leaking out into the dust.

  Caesar, thank God, did what any sensible horse would do.

  He took his master home.

  James collapsed in a heap in the courtyard outside his house. He shouted for Patrick and shoved Gemmy away. The little dog would not be dissuaded, scouring James’s face with an eager, rough tongue that hurt almost as much as his injured jaw.

  Shortly, a light bobbed over his head. Patrick leaned in with a lantern held high, his long face drawn with concern. “Jesus, MacKenzie. You’re bleeding all over the friggin’ place.”

  “Someone took a shot at me,” James moaned.

  “I’d say the man has good aim.” Patrick brought the lantern in for a closer look. “Looks like it grazed you. Facial wounds bleed like the devil. I’ve a feeling this one looks worse than it is, if you’re still walking and talking. Still, you might try pacing yourself. One serious injury a day is plenty.” He shook his head. “Perhaps now you’ll listen to me when I tell you to take yourself to bed.”

  Bed sounded like the most forbidden of fruit, but the urgency of his mission sent a bolt of fear scuttling through James. He had been so befuddled in the aftermath of the shooting he had briefly forgotten why he had been tearing so recklessly for Moraig.