He frowned at her cool tones. “Aye,” he agreed. “So it is.” He remembered his earlier troubling thoughts, but decided now was not the time to bring the matter to her attention. Later, when they were both feeling less raw, he would broach the subject again and decide what was to be done. In the meanwhile, he was determined not to make love to her again. He might desire her, but that did not mean he wished to trap either of them in a cage that had no way out by getting a child on her.
“It is early, dearest,” he said, gently easing her down beside him. “Close your eyes and go back to sleep. We’ve a busy day yet ahead of us.”
He could feel the stiffness in her, and thought she would argue. Instead she finally relaxed, the tension easing from her as she lay her head on his shoulder.
“As you wish,” she said, her tone giving away nothing of what she was thinking. “Good night, Hugh.”
“Good night, annsachd,” he replied, holding her against him as he drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Chapter 10
Two nights later, Caroline sat before her dressing table adding the finishing touches to her toilette. She and Hugh were expected at the home of Sir Henry Gillmore, an old friend of her grandfather’s. He was also a member of the Privy Council, and she wondered if Hugh meant to enlist the baronet’s help in regaining his seized estates.
Not that the wretch would tell her if he was, she brooded, dabbing rose-scented oil behind her ears. Since the night he’d made such passionate love to her, he had retreated behind a facade of civility, never speaking to her unless it was to issue clipped commands or utter the most commonplace of pleasantries. Attempts on her part to bring the conversation to a more personal level usually met with stony silence, and in the end she abandoned the attempt. He might have his pride, but she had hers as well, and she refused to lower it by attempting to fix the attentions of a man so clearly indifferent to her.
At first she feared she’d disappointed him in the marriage bed, and that their heated lovemaking hadn’t been as pleasurable for him as it had been for her. But then she would catch him watching her with such naked longing and desire that she did not know what to think. One thing she did know, was that she refused to endure his black moods much longer. He might bite off her head for her pains, but she was determined to know what the devil was bothering him.
“Oh, my lady, what a sight you look!” Helene exclaimed, clasping her hands together and beaming at Caroline like a delighted parent. “You are beautiful!”
“The gown is beautiful, Helene,” Caroline corrected, pleased nonetheless by the maid’s effusive praise. “Madame Clare is to be commended for her skill with a needle and thread.”
“Oh, no, my lady,” Helene insisted loyally, stepping forward to hand Caroline her fan. “ ’Tis you who do the gown proud!”
Caroline smiled in gratitude before giving her reflection one final glance. What would Hugh think when he saw her? she wondered, patting an errant curl into place. Would seeing her dressed so elegantly remind him he had wed a flesh-and-blood woman, and not some untouchable stone statue? She was debating the possibilities when the door opened and Hugh stepped inside, halting abruptly when he saw her.
“Good evening, sir,” she said, a hopeful smile touching her lips as she turned to greet him. “Have you come to fetch me? I do hope I haven’t been keeping you waiting.”
He gazed at her in heavy silence before speaking. “No. I have come to tell you the general has arrived. He is in the drawing room and asking for you.”
Caroline shot to her feet. “Grandfather is here?” she exclaimed. “Why did someone not tell me?” She rushed past Hugh, her trepidation forgotten as she dashed down the stairs. She ran into the drawing room and threw herself into the duke’s arms with a glad cry.
“Grandfather! Oh, Grandfather! It is so good to see you!” she said, giving him an exuberant hug. “I have missed you!”
“So I gather.” The duke chuckled, gingerly unwinding her arms from about his neck. “Have a care of my cravat, dearest. My valet will give notice if you crush his masterpiece.”
Caroline gave a soft laugh, savoring his closeness for another moment before stepping back. “But what has kept you?” she asked, catching hold of his hand and guiding him to the settee. “We were expecting you in London days ago!”
“Business, my dear, business,” he replied, smiling secretively. “And I had no desire to intrude upon the newly married couple. Be somewhat de trop, eh?”
To her chagrin a rosy blush darkened Caroline’s cheeks. “What are your plans for the evening?” she asked. “Hugh and I are promised at the Gillmores’, but I’m sure they would understand if we sent our regrets.”
“No such thing, child,” her grandfather insisted, his white brows meeting in a frown. “An obligation is an obligation, and ought not to be set aside for convenience’s sake. Besides, old Dillydally has invited me as well, and I must say I am looking forward to seeing the fellow again.”
Caroline thought of the stern and pompous baronet, who was widely known for the air of grave majesty he affected. “Dillydally?” she repeated, her lips twitching in amusement.
“A name from our youth,” the duke explained with a wave of his hand. “He could never make up his mind about anything, not even what coat to wear. Ought to have known he would end a politician.” He turned on the settee and surveyed Caroline with every indication of approval.
“You are looking dashed well,” he said, giving her hand a paternal pat. “You look just like a queen. Doesn’t she, Sergeant?” He addressed his remark to Hugh, who had just walked into the room.
His silvery-green eyes rested briefly on Caroline before moving on to the duke. “Aye, general, that she does,” he said, his voice lacking any inflection. “Are you ready to leave now? I have a carriage waiting outside.”
Her grandfather accepted the unspoken command with a grumble. “Always were one to keep tightly to a schedule,” he muttered, accepting Caroline’s aid as he rose to his feet. “Tell me, my dear, is he always such a tyrant? If he is, you must tell me; I shall give him a sharp talking-to, and make no doubt.”
Caroline’s gaze met Hugh’s and then she glanced away. “It is all right, Grandfather,” she said, her voice mimicking Hugh’s cool tones. “You must remember I have lived the last several years with Uncle Charles. I know well how to deal with tyrants.”
Her answer seemed to amuse her grandfather. “You do, eh?” he asked. “And how is that?”
She gave her husband a pointed look. “Why, Grandfather, ’Tis simple—you ignore them.” And with that she sailed past Hugh, her nose held high in the air.
She is a goddess, Hugh thought, pride and desire warring within him as he followed his wife’s progress about the crowded ballroom. When he’d walked into her boudoir to find her looking like something out of a dream, it had taken all of his will not to throw her on the bed and make love to her. It was a sensation he had become depressingly familiar with over the past two days—a sensation that was growing almost impossible to resist.
“Looks like her grandmother,” the general observed, his gaze following Hugh’s. “Those are her rubies she’s wearing. Tildie willed ‘em to her before she died. Good thing she did so, else that scoundrel Charles would have sold them off by now.”
Hugh merely grunted, not bothering with a reply. He had already noticed the fortune in blood-red stones draped about his wife’s neck and dangling from her ears. He would have to have been blind not to, and the sight of them only seemed to emphasize the vast difference in their stations in life. Given the current state of his finances it was unlikely he would have been able to buy her so much as a single stone, and there she was dripping in them. It was something he had best remember, for his own sake.
“Glad to see her looking so well,” the general continued, sounding thoughtful. “I’ll own I was a trifle worried. Not that I thought you would do anything ungentlemanly, mind,” he added before Hugh could speak. “You’re the finest man I know, e
lse I would never have entrusted her to your care. I know you would sooner face a firing squad than lay a harsh hand upon her.”
Hugh thought of the night he had made wild love to Caroline. Would the general consider that a harsh hand? he wondered, trying not to squirm like a schoolboy facing his headmaster.
“It is good of you to say so, sir,” he said, his voice sounding wooden even to his own ears. “I appreciate it.”
“Not at all, Sergeant, not at all. Only the truth, after all. You’re a good man, and I know you will do what is right. That is what I wish to discuss with you.”
“What is right, sir?” Hugh asked, his eyes narrowing as a man in a purple and gold jacket made an elaborate bow in front of Caroline. Hugh recognized him as being one of Westhall’s crowd, and he disliked the attention he was showing his wife.
“I have been thinking.” If the general noted Hugh’s distraction, he did not say. “At my age there’s not much one can do but look back, or look forward. I’ve always thought dwelling on the past to be a dashed waste of time. What’s done cannot be undone, eh? Just as the poets say. But the future, the future, Sergeant MacColme, is another matter entirely. And it is the future that most concerns me.”
“What about the future, General?” Hugh relaxed when the overdressed fop moved away from Caroline.
“The future of my family, and yours,” the general replied, and something in his tone brought Hugh snapping to attention. It was the tone the general used when he was planning something audacious.
“My family?” he repeated warily.
“Your brother and father—I have been thinking about them,” General Burroughs said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “I have a friend in the Admiralty, capital fellow. I mentioned the sad fate that had befallen them, and he said he did not see why something could not be arranged to bring them home. A parole, perhaps, or even a full pardon, if all was well.”
Hugh’s heart began pounding. “A pardon?” he asked, wanting with all his heart to believe ’twas possible, but afraid of the crushing disappointment were it not so.
“A parole, more like,” the general warned, stabbing his finger at Hugh. “But it could be done, it shall be done—if you would do but one thing for me.”
Hugh thought of his father and brother, home again at Loch Haven where they belonged. “Anything,” he said fervently, his eyes burning with tears. “I would do anything, General.”
“Excellent. Then you can give Caroline a child.”
Hugh stared at him in blank shock, certain his ears had failed him. “I beg your pardon?”
“A child,” the general repeated, as if Hugh was the greatest simpleton to draw breath. “Someone to carry my blood into the next generation. Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” he said, holding up a hand to halt Hugh’s sputtering protest. “Yours is but a marriage of convenience, and will end in a year’s time; I am aware of that. But I know Scottish divorce laws, you see. I know that when properly handled, anything, even the matter of offspring, can be easily dealt with.”
Hugh could only gape at him, realizing in horror that the general was in dead earnest. He had always admired the wily old warrior for his courage and daring, for the impossible plans that always seemed to work, no matter the odds. But this … Hugh shook his head. This was madness.
“You canna be serious!” he said, slipping into his Scots accent in his shock. “It would never work!”
General Burroughs gave him a knowing look. “Are you telling me you are not attracted to my granddaughter, nor she to you?” he asked dryly. “I may be an old man, MacColme, but I still have eyes in my head, and the wit to make sense of what they tell me.”
Hugh’s cheeks turned a dull red. “Of course I am attracted to Caroline,” he said, his gaze going automatically to the corner where Caroline was standing. “She is a beautiful woman, but—”
“Then it should be no great matter for you to seduce her into your bed,” the older man continued in his relentless manner. “Only mind that she is seduced,” he warned, bending a stem frown on Hugh. “I’ll not have the child forced.”
“But …” Hugh’s voice trailed off. A dozen objections leaped to his mind, but he seemed unable to articulate any of them. What the general was asking of him was an affront to any man of honor, he told himself. It was an outrage. It was indecent. It would bring his father and brother home. He drew a deep breath, praying for guidance.
“General, I—”
“Think about it, that is all I ask,” the general interrupted, snapping to attention and glaring at a group of men who had just entered. “In the meanwhile we’ve more important concerns. Charles has arrived, and he is making straight for Caroline!”
“Caroline, dearest, dearest girl, how perfectly wonderful to see you again!” Her uncle simpered, bowing over Caroline’s hand. “You are looking as lovely as ever.”
“Thank you, Uncle Charles,” Caroline replied, doing her best not to jerk her hand away. Where were Hugh and her grandfather? she wondered, and then drew a deep sigh of relief when she felt a familiar arm slide about her waist.
“Your lordship,” Hugh intoned, inclining his head to the earl in a cold show of civility. “It is good to see you again.”
The earl turned his gaze on him, his blue eyes filled with malevolence. “Then there is delight all around,” he said with an exaggerated drawl. “For I was only telling Caroline of my joy in seeing her again. And Father.” His reptilian gaze flicked next to the duke. “I am glad to see you safely home.”
“Are you?” The general gave him a disdainful look and glanced at the two men standing behind Charles. “And who are these fellows, eh?” he demanded imperiously. “Are they with you?”
Her uncle feigned instant chagrin. “Where are my manners?” he cried, motioning the two men forward with a wave of his hand. “This is Dr. Harrison, from Abingdon,” he said, indicating a plump man in a badly cut jacket of black serge. “And this is his associate, Milkins.” He gestured at a hulking brute of a man with thick shoulders and a sullen expression. “Gentlemen, my niece, Lady Caroline Burroughs—I beg pardon, MacColme.” He smirked at Caroline. “I am having trouble remembering your wedded name, my dear. I pray that you forgive me.”
Caroline gave him a cold look. She had no idea why her uncle had introduced her to two such rough-looking fellows, but she didn’t doubt he had a reason for it, and like as not a bad one. She opened her mouth to issue a stinging set-down when she felt Hugh give her waist a warning squeeze.
“It would be best for you, my lord, and for others if you did remember that,” he said coldly. “Caroline is my wife, and I will defend her to the death, if need be. Now if you will pardon us, we must be going. Come, Caroline.” And he swept her from the ballroom without another word.
Later Caroline lay in her bed, puzzling over the bizarre incident. What was her uncle up to? she wondered. Why would he introduce her to two men who were so obviously not of his circle? Charles was an insufferable snob, and that he should appear publicly with such men was indeed troubling. She was no closer to solving the mystery when there was a tap on the door connecting her room to Hugh’s. She sat up at once, her heart beginning to race with anticipation.
“Come in,” she said, and was surprised when Hugh walked in still dressed in evening clothes.
“My apologies for coming to you without changing,” he said, setting his candle on her table. “But I’ve only just left your grandfather, and haven’t had time to change.”
“That’s all right,” she said, nervously twisting the bedclothes between her fingers. “Is something amiss?”
He stared down at her for several seconds before replying. “We must leave London at once,” he said without preamble, sitting on the bed beside her. “Your uncle has secured an order for your confinement, and I have proof he means to seize you before the week is out.”
Even though this was something she had been half-expecting, half-fearing since seeing her uncle, the news still hit her with the vicious
ness of a blow. “But he can’t!” she cried, her fingers clutching the hand he’d offered her. “He is no longer my guardian—you are!”
“A fact he took care to hide from the drunken sot of a magistrate who gave him the writ,” he answered, his strong fingers gently chafing her chilled flesh. “Your solicitor has assured me that legally speaking it is quite invalid, especially here in London, but that may not be enough to prevent him from making use of it.”
This was her most dreaded nightmare come to life, and for a moment Caroline feared she would be ill. “What makes you think he will have me seized?” she asked, trying to think her way past the overwhelming terror consuming her.
“The writ was issued in Oxford, and you would need to be taken there for it to be valid. I put some men to watch your uncle, and they informed me he has already hired a coach and four.” There was a brief pause, and then he added grimly, “There’s more.”
Caroline didn’t think she could endure hearing anything else, but she knew she must. “Go on,” she said, steeling herself to hear the worst.
“That man he introduced you to tonight, Dr. Harrison—he runs an asylum near Abingdon,” Hugh told her bluntly. “And I would say his associate Mr. Milkin is here to make certain you give them no trouble.”
Caroline gave an involuntary shudder, and Hugh gathered her to his chest. “Do not worry, dearest,” he said, his arms tightening about her. “You must know I would die before letting that deamhan place his filthy hands upon you! You do know that, don’t you?” he added, drawing back to send her a fierce scowl.
Caroline managed a weak nod, realizing that it was nothing less than the truth. Although she didn’t truly know Hugh, wasn’t all that certain she trusted him, she accepted without question that he would guard her with his life.
“Where will we go?” she asked, closing her eyes and laying her head on his shoulder.
“Edinburgh,” he said, brushing his hand through her tangled curls. “My Aunt Egidia lives there with my sister, Mairi, and we will stay with them. I’d hoped to take you home, to Loch Haven, but that will have to wait.”
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