by Tracy Fobes
The younger man grinned.
Sarah felt heat rise in her cheeks. She studiously avoided Colin’s gaze.
Mrs. Fitzbottom gently clasped her arm. “Come on, lass, it won’t be so bad. You’ll see.”
“Nay, I’ll nae go with ye.” She tried to pull free. She wouldn’t allow this group of fools to consign her to weeks in bed, ill. “Where is Sionnach? I must show him where we’re tae stay.”
“Sionnach?” Mrs. Fitzbottom’s eyebrows drew together, her grasp on Sarah’s arm growing firmer. “Who is Sionnach?”
“My pet fox.”
Mrs. Fitzbottom gasped. Just as quickly she regained her composure. “Lady Sarah, you cannot allow a fox to sleep in your room. We are not in the habit of keeping wild animals within these walls.”
“Sionnach must sleep in the stables,” the duke pronounced.
“In the stables? Never.” Sarah narrowed her eyes. “Sionnach stays with me.”
“Sarah . . .” the duke warned.
“And I’m nae sitting in water,” she added.
From his corner of the room, Colin murmured, “It seems we have several problems to resolve.”
“Where is the fox now?” the housekeeper asked, releasing her.
Sarah shrugged. “He deserted me a while ago.”
“Merciful heavens, he’s running loose through the house?”
“I suppose so.”
Mrs. Fitzbottom threw up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Lord help us —”
“Sarah must be bathed,” the duke interrupted, cutting off what was no doubt the beginning of hysteria. “And the fox stays in the stables.”
Sarah stiffened her back. They were going to have to drag her from the room.
“Why would the duke propose a bath for you if he thought you would become ill?” Colin pointed out. “You’re his daughter, one recently arisen from the dead. He would no sooner risk your life than his own.”
Sarah nodded, albeit unwillingly. She had to acknowledge the logic in his argument.
“Besides,” Colin pressed, “aristocrats always take baths. If you’re to become Duchess of Argyll one day, you must learn to behave like a proper aristocrat.”
“I don’t want tae become Duchess of Argyll.”
“You promised to try,” the duke reminded her from his corner of the room.
“But must I sit in water? I can’t imagine anything more uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable?” A slow smile spread across Colin’s face. “You are quite wrong about that. Do you remember me mentioning the fulfillment of the senses a few minutes ago?”
The duke visibly stiffened.
“Aye.” Sarah narrowed her eyes. What was he getting at?
“Well, a hot bath may be one of the most pleasurable sensations one can experience. The water is warm and flows like silk across your bare skin. Lavender oil and rose water mingle in your bath and become hot, sending a sweet mist into the air. And if you are daring, and submerge your head beneath the water — to rinse away the soap — your hair will float around you, teasing and tickling in a way that I guarantee you’ll find delightful.”
Sarah barely suppressed a shiver. “And I won’t become ill?”
“I promise you’ll not.”
She nodded slowly. “All right, then. I’ll take this bath, but if I dinna like it, I’ll nae take another.”
The duke sighed, his relief apparent. “A fair deal, if ever I’ve heard one.”
“What about Sionnach?” she asked the duke. “Will ye allow him tae sleep with me?”
“I won’t have a fox in the house,” Mrs. Fitzbottom stoutly declared.
Sarah narrowed her eyes. “And I’ll nae sleep without him.”
Colin and the duke exchanged a glance.
“Thank God we didn’t invite Phineas to join us,” the duke muttered. “He would have swooned again.”
“And then he would have quit Inveraray for good,” Colin agreed.
Silence descended upon them. Again, Sarah mused, they’d reached an impasse. Well, she wasn’t giving an inch, not where Sionnach was concerned. “I’ve compromised on the bath. Don’t ye think ye should compromise a little as well, and allow Sionnach tae sleep in my bedchamber?”
Colin abandoned his stance at the mantelpiece, and moved to her side, his attention fixed on the duke. “She has a point.”
Sighing, the duke nodded his acquiescence. “Keep your fox with you, then, if it pleases you.”
“Thank ye, Yer Grace,” Sarah murmured, very pleased indeed.
Mrs. Fitzbottom harrumphed, then gestured toward the door. “Let’s get you cleaned up, so your fox doesn’t have to put up with the skunk smell all night.”
She turned to go, feeling a bit guilty for giving the duke such a hard time. He had, after all, only her best interests at heart — or at least what he thought were her best interests.
“Wait a moment, Sarah,” the duke said, forcing her and the housekeeper to pause. “I’d like to have a word with you in private. Colin, please join me in the salon in an hour or so. I believe I’m in need of a game of billiards.”
Colin assented with a bow of his head and, his stride smooth and assured, left the room. Mrs. Fitzbottom eased her way outside as well, and shut the door behind her.
“Please sit.” The duke waved to a nearby chair.
For once, Sarah obeyed without comment.
“What do you think of the Earl of Cawdor?” he asked unexpectedly, his stare taking in every aspect of her countenance.
“He is . . . well, nice.”
“He’s a bonny lad, no?”
Her cheeks grew warm. She nodded.
“Colin’s a distant cousin of mine. Several families separate us. Nevertheless, he was my successor for the dukedom of Argyll. Until I found you.”
“What do ye mean by that?”
“For all intents and purposes, girl, you have cheated Colin of the dukedom of Argyll. In Scotland, women regularly inherit titles, and when I die, you will become the Duchess of Argyll.”
“I’m nae a duchess.”
“Not now, you aren’t. But someday you will be.”
A thought suddenly struck her. “Does Colin resent me for taking his inheritance away?”
“No, he doesn’t. He has a solid income in his own right, as the Earl of Cawdor. Besides, I’ve known the lad long enough to know he isn’t the type who envies other people’s blessings.”
“A point in his favor,” Sarah murmured.
“He isn’t a bad sort,” the duke agreed. “But once he was a better man than he is now.”
Surprised, Sarah lifted her eyebrows. “How sae?”
“He once had a bit of shepherd in him. That is, he liked to protect his flock. And Inveraray Castle — the estate and the people who live upon its grounds — was his flock. But over time, he’s lost his shepherding quality, and mark me, he’s also lost a good portion of his honor.”
The duke stretched back in his chair, in the manner of one settling down for a tale. “I first met Colin a few years after my wife died. I thought you had died with her and, in my grief, I’d allowed Inveraray to fall to ruin. Later, when I realized that I was headed toward bankruptcy, I consulted with experts. They claimed nothing could save Inveraray.
“Right around that time, Colin came to live with me. By his twenty-second birthday, he’d magically shepherded this estate into realms of profitability rarely seen before. Over a decade he worked on Inveraray, coaxing it back into greatness. Inveraray and its tenants were his life’s blood.”
Sarah found herself unable to reconcile this picture of Colin with the man she had just met.
“After a time,” the duke continued, “I began to think him far too wrapped up in estate matters. I knew he eventually needed to find a wife and start a family. To that end, I urged him to go to town to gain some polish. With hindsight I regret my demands, but at that moment, I thought he needed city experience to round him out and make him attractive to a suitable member of
the opposite gender.” The duke paused to clear his throat, then admitted, “Colin took very well to society. Too well, in fact. He became something of a . . . rakehell. Do you know what that is?”
“I have nae idea. But it doesna sound very good.”
“Well, to put it delicately, Colin abandoned his nobler values in favor of pursuits I cannot approve of.”
Remembering Colin’s quick smiles and intriguing banter, Sarah frowned. She was willing to wager that at least one of those pursuits included the fairer sex.
“City life,” the duke continued, his lips turning downward in a mournful curve, “has persuaded Colin to forget about Inveraray. I despair that he will ever truly return, even if he is physically here. Given all of this, my decision to have him assist in polishing you must seem faulty to you.”
“Aye, a bit,” she agreed, though some reckless part of her still trembled with anticipation at the idea.
“I can only say that while he is polishing you, it is my dearest hope, Sarah, that you will polish him.”
“Polish him? Whatever do ye mean?”
“I have brought him back here to Inveraray,” the duke revealed, “with hopes that he will remember the years he spent here as a youth. I hope to rekindle some of the better qualities of his personality, qualities he has long since abandoned. You can help him remember.”
“Me? How?”
“By being yourself. You lack the wiles and hard exterior that those in the thick of society take pride in. I hope you’ll remind him of an earlier time, when he, too, had a gentleness of spirit.”
Sarah took a deep breath. “Clearly the earl is a favorite of yers. I would like tae help ye and him. Ye’ve certainly helped me by paying my debt tae the Murphys. But I’m nae sure I can.”
“Just be yourself,” the duke counseled. “Don’t fear his beguiling ways. I’ll protect you from him. You might even think of your time with him as a learning experience, for you must be taught how to deal with men such as he. And once you’ve entered society, I’ll see you happily settled, with an honorable man of your choosing.”
Sarah looked away, unwilling to argue with him about her future. As far as she was concerned, they had no future. She would stay at Inveraray only long enough to convince the duke that she could never be the daughter he wished for, and then she would return to the life that she knew.
At her silence, the duke stood and held a hand out to her. “I’ll escort you to your bedchamber now, Sarah. I’m certain Mrs. Fitzbottom has already begun to draw you a bath, and we don’t want the water to cool too much.”
Sarah bit her tongue, lest she start another argument about the bath, and took his hand. With his assistance she rose and allowed him to lead her from the drawing room, feeling all the while like a sheep on the way to shearing.
5
C olinselected a wooden cue stick from the wall and examined its tip to insure it would shoot straight. Over the last hour he’d taken two baths and exchanged his ruined clothes for a burgundy silk smoking jacket and breeches. Now, comfortably ensconced in the salon, he gathered up two white balls and a single red one and placed them in their appropriate location upon the billiard table.
The noble game of billiards always had a calming effect on him. It required him to concentrate on how best to pot the ball, rather than chew over the current problems life had dealt him. While playing, the tension simply flowed from his body. Oddly enough, by the time the game was over, he often had a solution to whatever had been troubling him. He supposed his mind continued to work on the problem even though he wasn’t aware of it.
Today, though, he couldn’t find any peace. Sarah refused to leave his thoughts. He didn’t know what to make of her. He’d prepared himself for gross ignorance, vulgarity of manner, and meanness of opinion. He’d assumed he’d find her coarse but resourceful, a greedy-guts utterly lacking in morals who knew how to use her feminine wiles. After all, she’d managed to rise from a poverty-stricken farm to the lap of luxury, and only the shrewdest of farm girls could have managed that.
And yet, she was far different than he’d ever imagined. Soft-spoken, attractive beneath the grime of ill breeding, she possessed a certain vulnerable quality that roused protective feelings in him that he’d thought long dead. Of wiles he’d seen none, and she didn’t seem very eager to assume the mantle of duchess. In fact, the idea appeared to terrify her.
Colin held the cue stick between his fingers and attempted to pot both the red and white balls into side pockets, without bringing his own ball back across the balkline. None of the balls sank into the pockets. Instead, they bounced against the cushion surrounding the table and rolled toward him, putting him in position for the most difficult shots possible.
He was definitely off his game, and had been since he’d come to Inveraray. He repositioned the balls and prepared for another shot. Just as he drew the cue stick back, the duke walked into the salon. Colin raked the tip across the fabric tabletop, leaving a mark.
“You’re jumpy today,” the duke observed. Also dressed in a smoking jacket and trousers, he picked up a cue stick while Colin retrieved the balls. “Did my daughter rattle you?”
“Not at all,” Colin lied. “I simply haven’t practiced enough lately.”
The duke smiled and withdrew two cigars from his smoking jacket. He held one out to Colin.
Colin accepted the offering and ran the cigar beneath his nose. The woody scent of fine Sumatran tobacco and the smooth firmness of the cigar itself promised a very fine smoke indeed. He sighed appreciatively. Both men lit their cigars.
After puffing a few times, the duke set his cigar on a plate and aimed his cue stick at a ball. “So, what do you think of Sarah?” He tapped the ball, sending it across the table and into another ball, which dropped into a pocket.
Colin considered before replying. “She’s certainly different from what I expected. Rather pretty. Almost kittenish. She has an odd way with animals.” He, too, set his cigar down and tried to pot a ball, but ending up banking against the cushion again. “I don’t understand why she played a flute this afternoon, in the middle of a disaster, or how she had the courage to face down Townsend and Cheltnum. I suppose living on a farm has made her impervious to events that would send another woman screaming from the room.”
“Women such as Lady Helmsgate?” the duke asked casually.
Colin winced. The duke and Lord Helmsgate were close friends. He hoped the duke hadn’t heard of his dalliance with Lady Helmsgate through Lord Helmsgate. “Lady Helmsgate is an acquaintance only. I don’t know her well enough to predict her behavior.”
The duke sighed, but didn’t respond otherwise.
Colin sought to keep the conversation going in the right direction . . . and away from his London antics. “How do you think Sarah managed to calm two enraged dogs to the point where they willingly lounged in a room with a fox?”
“I don’t know. There are many things about her I don’t understand,” the duke admitted, taking another shot and sinking the ball expertly. “I thank God she wasn’t hurt this afternoon.”
Colin plucked the ball from the pocket and replaced it on the table. “It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced chaos on that order. Since my school days, at least. I suppose we are going to have to put up with her fox for some time.”
The duke nodded thoughtfully. “From what I’ve seen, animals seem to take to her like no other.”
“What do you mean, they ‘take’ to her?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They won’t run away when she draws close to them, and seem to enjoy, well, watching her. Perhaps it has something to do with her panflute. She often plays it for them, though the music doesn’t sound like much to my ears. Whatever the case, she’s apparently possessed an odd knack for animals all of her life. The Murphys said as much, and Phineas heard an earful about her ‘skills’ while investigating her story in the village where she grew up.”
“Her odd knack with animals may have a very simple explanation
. Don’t forget, she lived on a farm,” Colin reminded him. “Perhaps through her daily contact with animals, and years of observation, she has gained an affinity for them and can interpret sounds and gestures that you and I would dismiss as random.”
“How so?”
“She is simply an adept student of the farmyard. I’ve seen this effect before, particularly in the horse breeders and traders who frequent Tattersall’s. They always seem to know exactly what the damned horses are thinking.”
Despite his rationalization, Colin felt an uncomfortable curling in his gut. Something just didn’t fit. The flute, and that music she played, it had sounded so discordant, so disturbing. He remembered the moment when her playing had sounded like a warning without words.
He positioned his cue stick and tapped a red ball. This time, he managed to pot it. “Did you know that a stag and a skunk observed your arrival with Sarah from the bushes? They were well hidden, but my vantage point from the study window revealed them to me.”
“So?”
“Their proximity to the castle in broad daylight was most unusual. They appeared to have come to, well, welcome your daughter, as if they had read her mind and found a kindred spirit in her. While the breeders in Tattersall’s might know what the horses are thinking, the horses certainly don’t know what the breeders are thinking.”
The duke, who’d bent over in preparation for another shot, paused. “What are you suggesting? That she is more than a ‘student of the farmyard,’ and has cast a spell over them?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m simply stating the facts.”
“I think the explanation of Sarah’s ability that you originally offered is quite reasonable. The events surrounding her, while odd, have simply been a series of coincidences. Only a madman — or a superstitious old woman — would believe anything else.” The duke hit his ball with a sharp snap. “Please, Colin, don’t start babbling about the dangers of shattering a mirror and the benefits of a pinch of salt thrown over the shoulder.”
Colin snorted. “Forgive me for mentioning it.” Still, his uneasiness stayed with him.
The two played in silence for a while, until the duke beat him easily and stretched, clearly pleased with himself. “Another game?” he asked.
