The front door opened behind Grace. Wiffen, the Charlotte Square butler for many years, cleared his throat, and Arran nodded shortly at him. Wiffen managed the serene countenance of the perfect servant, despite the fact that he was confronted with his master for the first time in more than five years.
“Good evening, Wiffen,” Arran said, dropping his hands to Grace’s shoulders and turning her carefully toward the house. “My fiancée and I will take brandy in the library.”
“Good evening, my lord.” Wiffen stepped aside to allow Arran and Grace to pass. “It would probably be appropriate for me to—”
“Thank you, Wiffen,” Arran said, taking off Grace’s cloak and his own and handing them to the butler. “Is the fire made up in the library?”
“It is, my lord, but—”
“Never mind. If it’s a little low, I’ll deal with it.”
“My lord—”
“Brandy,” Arran said, and caught Grace’s hand. “Come, my love. We have plans to make, and very little time to do so.”
He tugged her playfully into the library. “Sit by the fire and warm yourself.”
“Yes … Oh! Arran …”
“What is it, my love?”
He followed the direction of her startled gaze, and narrowed his eyes. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”
The tall, shabbily dressed woman who hovered near the fireplace clasped her hands before her. “Arran, don’t speak to me like that after so long. I’m your Isabel. I’m the woman you married.”
Fascination Chapter 23
Tall, with dark red hair and blue eyes, the beautiful woman before the fire held her hands imploringly toward Stonehaven.
Grace pressed a fist to her mouth. She would not faint. She would not cry out. She would show nothing at all of the insane turmoil she felt within.
“Mortimer,” Stonehaven said, his voice deep and wrathful. “He found you, didn’t he? He brought you here?”
“Please, Arran, don’t be angry with me. I didn’t want things to happen as they did.”
“You didn’t want them to happen as they did?” Stonehaven gave an ugly laugh. “Then what in God’s name did you want, woman? You knew what you were about. When I sent you away, it was with the understanding that you were never to return.”
“My circumstances have changed.”
“What is that to me?”
“Now there is only you, Arran. I only want you.”
Grace moved backwards, feeling her way to a chair, and slumped down.
“I want you out of this house. Now.”
The woman began to cry piteously. “I have sinned. But we have all sinned—”
“She is not dead,” Grace heard herself say.
“Dead?” the woman said.
“When you … disappeared, Isabel, the notion became popular that I had killed you and hidden your body beneath Revelation.” He smiled thinly. “That should be an idea to make you laugh. We both know it was not I who was ever with you beneath my very rooms, don’t we?”
“Arran, please—”
“Get out, madam.”
“Stop it!” Grace covered her ears. “I cannot bear it. This woman is obviously in need. You wronged her in the worst imaginable way—and would have wronged me, too. In faith, you have planned our wedding when you are already married!”
A commotion sounded in the hall, and Mama bustled into the library, smiling, swinging her muff. “There you are.” If she noticed Isabel, she showed no sign. “Everything is absolutely perfect, and I want you two to be the first to know. I am to be married! There, what do you think of that?”
Grace shook her head slowly. “Mama, what are you saying?”
“Felix—that is, the Reverend Bastion—and I are betrothed. I know this is very sudden, but we loved each other on sight. We are to be married in Somerset. He has his living there. Just as soon as the banns are heard, the ceremony will take place.”
“Mama—”
“I’m sorry to desert you right before your own wedding, but I know you will not begrudge me some small happiness in my dwindling years.”
“Mama—”
“And I am determined to start afresh.” Blanche caught Stonehaven’s arm and urged him to his desk. “I expect Grace has told you about my little problems in London? My gambling debts?”
Grace moaned.
Stonehaven muttered something unintelligible.
“Well, I’ve explained the whole thing to dear Felix, and he promises that the man who threatened me is all bluff. And Felix does not care that I had a slight … the merest spell of bad judgment. With him I shall be a new and completely honest woman. He has assured me so.”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” Stonehaven said. “When do you leave?”
“Almost at once,” Mama responded. “But Felix made me promise to clear up another matter. These are yours.” She ripped the lining from the voluminous muff and poured a flashing array of jewelry and other small treasures onto the desk.
“Oh, Mama.” Surely this could not be happening. Surely no human being could be expected to tolerate so much shock and emotion in one night.
“I took them,” Mama announced, indicating the heap of valuables matching the descriptions of those purportedly stolen from Kirkcaldy. She bent to extract something from inside one of her slippers. “I happened upon this key in London. Felix says I should give it to you also since I used it to gain entrance to locked rooms in your castle. It opens absolutely any door. Isn’t that ingenious?”
“Most,” Stonehaven agreed.
Mama made certain her muff appeared tidy and slipped her hands inside. “I was wrong, I suppose, but I was desperate to make certain that I had some small resource to rely upon if Grace failed to provide for me. And it wasn’t as if you couldn’t afford for me to have such paltry trifles.”
“What did you think you could do with them?” Grace asked weakly.
“Pawn them, of course. I brought them to Edinburgh to do just that, but now it won’t be necessary.” Mama’s brow puckered. “I do know I was misguided, and I’m sorry. I shall not return to Kirkcaldy with you, Grace. I’ll let you know when Felix and I are ready to visit you.”
Amid a rustle of embroidered satin, she departed, leaving the door open in her wake.
The silence that followed was awful before Isabel launched herself at Stonehaven. She flung her arms around his neck, pressed her face into his shoulder, and wept with abandon.
Grace looked from the woman’s heaving back, to Stonehaven’s thunderous face, to the open door. Mama was to be married? She was leaving? Now?
“I must go,” she said, getting up. “Um. Yes, I’ll just go now.”
“You will do no such thing, Grace.” Stonehaven grasped Isabel’s wrists and dragged her from him. “I thought you were in London. You agreed to remain there.”
“I missed you.”
His green eyes glittered. “Very affecting. You forget that I know all about you, Isabel.” The woman’s fingers had all but pulled his black hair from the ribbon at his nape.
Who had said he was a bad man? He appeared now as a dark, dangerously handsome creature of the night—wild and strong and, yes, perhaps bad. A buccaneer in an English gentleman’s clothing.
“Have you a place to stay, madam?”
Isabel shook her head.
“Wiffen! Present yourself.”
The butler did as he was asked immediately.
“Take this person and find her a place to sleep. She should have a meal and whatever else she needs for her comfort.”
“Arran—”
He held up a hand and averted his face from Isabel. “Not another word or I shall have you cast out into the street.”
Wiffen waved the woman past him, followed her, and shut the door.
“You cannot be so cruel,” Grace said, appalled at her breathlessness.
“Can’t I? Hah! I’ve decided I must learn to be much more cruel in the future than I have ever been before. Peop
le plotting against me. God!” He paced, pulling off his coat as he went. “Relatives seeking to take what is mine. Surrounded on all sides by bloodsuckers and vagabonds. That woman appearing as a last vicious attempt to ruin what is finally going to be good in my life.”
Grace shrank away.
“How dare they conspire against me in such a villainous manner?” He sent her a fierce stare. “They shall not get away with it, I tell you. And my future mother-in-law. My future mother-in-law, in the name of all that’s sane and reasonable! Stealing from me! And a gambler of some kind, to boot.”
“Do not criticize my mother.”
“I will criticize her!”
Grace backed all the way to the wall.
Stonehaven followed. “Someone should have criticized her a long time ago for the weak, unreasonable female she is. She has clearly never understood that she has an extraordinary daughter.”
“I have to think of a place to go,” Grace said in barely more than a whisper. “It may be difficult so late at night.”
He smiled then, and the effect was as terrifying as it was—thrilling? She swallowed and would not let herself look away from his mocking eyes.
“We shall leave for Kirkcaldy at first light,” he said. “When we arrive I shall arrange for us to be married at once.”
“How dare you suggest such a thing, Stonehaven.”
He settled his hands on the wall above her head and assumed an insolent, commanding slouch. “I dare that and a great deal more. My name is Arran. I shall expect you to use it in future.”
She poked his chest, met tense, solid muscle through his perfectly tailored waistcoat and white linen shirt, and looked at her finger. “You told me to call you Stonehaven because the use of that name did not suggest an intimacy of the spirit.”
“I’ve changed my mind. We certainly do share an intimacy of the spirit.
Grace poked him again. “Kindly step away.”
Instead, he kissed her temple, softly, lingeringly. “I never, ever intend to step away from you, Grace.”
“You are a married man!” But, fie, her eyes closed and her mouth became dry.
“Will you listen to me? Listen well and then we shall hear no more of this.” He spoke against her hair. “I went to the altar with that woman. It was on the same day my father died. That should have been the bad omen I needed.”
With the backs of his fingers, he smoothed her jaw. “Isabel became with child. We’d been married only months. I was the happiest man alive.”
“Yes.” She should leave this place, run away without knowing where to go if necessary.
“You already know the stories about that infamous night.”
“When Isabel disappeared from the castle?”
“Ah, yes. And the story began that I had murdered her and our child.”
Tears welled in Grace’s eyes. “I heard the story.”
“It was all lies. That night my wife informed me that she intended to leave me for another man. She had gained what she wanted from me. Jewels, money, things she had already taken to safety outside Kirkcaldy.”
“Oh.”
“Indeed. Oh. And she did leave me. Before she went, I told her that if she promised never to appear before me again, I would let her go and say no more.”
“How terrible. But she is still your wife.”
He tipped up his face and squeezed his eyes shut. “No, she was never my wife. Isabel Dean, the actress my father begged me not to marry, already had a husband. It was to him that she returned. She always said she hated Revelation and would not come to me there. Yet that night she laughed and told me how she and her husband had enjoyed one another in the chambers beneath that very tower—whilst I slept above them.”
Grace gasped.
“We were never married.”
“But the child? Your child?”
“Yes, the child was mine. But when Isabel admitted her guilt, she also told me she’d visited a woman skilled in eliminating unwanted babies. A daughter, she told me. Born dead. She murdered my daughter.”
“Oh, Arran.” Grace slipped her arms beneath his and held him tightly. “I do not understand how such things can be, but I ache for you.”
Pain passed over his features. “I mourn the child, but not Isabel. For me she is more dead than my poor child.”
Grace buried her face against him. “If it will bring you pleasure, we shall be married tomorrow.”
His breath escaped slowly against her face. “Tomorrow,” he said. “I need you, Grace.”
Fascination Chapter 24
“Our parents were married here,” Arran said to Struan.
Struan kept pace with Arran’s rapid stalking around Kirkcaldy’s small chapel. “And this is the happiest occasion it’s seen since.”
Arran made fists at his sides. “It will be if we ever get the thing done.” He could not dismiss a shadowy fear that something would yet intervene to stop him from marrying Grace.
They sidestepped three footmen carrying vases filled with spring flowers.
Shanks and Mrs. Moggach, looking officiously determined, inspected the efforts of the army of servants who had cleaned the chapel.
“I wish Calum would hurry with the damned license,” Arran said through his teeth.
“He’s also bringing the minister,” Struan reminded him. “And everything and everyone will be here in time, so calm yourself, brother. You make even me nervous.”
“Hah.” Arran wrinkled his nose. “You have no nerves. A cold fish—and you always were. Now you’re a pious cold fish. And Catholic. Not even able to perform a small professional service for me.”
“I am useful to stop you from losing your mind while you wait for this marriage of yours.” Struan cleared his throat. “Calum asked me to mention something to you.”
“I can’t think about estate matters at the moment. Tell him to speak with Hector.”
“This is a personal matter—to Calum.”
“Not now.” Arran reversed direction and plodded off in another circle around the six narrow rows of pews. “I’m going to have to deal with Mortimer, damn it. I don’t want them here—or anywhere near Grace, ever again. If I hadn’t reached Edinburgh in time …”
“But you did.”
“Theodora took it upon herself to limit expenditure on Grace’s trousseau. Saving Roger’s inheritance, no doubt.”
“No doubt. I feel for young Roger.”
“Decent boy,” Arran said. “Can’t imagine why.”
“I promised Calum I’d speak to you on his behalf before he arrives.”
“Not now.” All he wanted was for Calum and the minister to arrive.
“He thinks of you like a brother.”
“As I do him.” A tension about Struan penetrated Arran’s roiling brain. “What is it? What’s wrong with Calum? He’s not ill?”
“No. The time’s come, that’s all.”
For an instant Arran couldn’t think what Struan meant. “The time? Calum … You mean he’s decided he wants to find out?”
Struan nodded once. “He knows his life did not begin when he was, as a sick child, abandoned on our doorstep. He has vague memories from before. You know that all through the years he’s insisted he didn’t want to find out who he really is, but now he’s changed his mind. That’s what he wanted me to tell you.”
“Good enough. I’ll help him all I—”
“No.” Struan settled a hand on Arran’s shoulder. “He’s going alone, and he doesn’t know how long it’ll take or if he’ll ever find anything at all.”
“Going?” Arran cast about to make sense of what Struan was saying. “You mean leave Kirkcaldy?”
“His life began somewhere else. He intends to find out exactly where he was born, and to whom—and why strangers eventually left him to die in our stable yard.”
“As if it mattered!” Arran threw up his arms. “He has everything here.”
“Everything but what matters to him most, as it would to you, dear broth
er. Everything but his own history. That already cost him a woman he loved enough to want to marry.”
“Alice Avery wasn’t worthy of him.”
“He loved her. She married someone else because he’s no one.”
“No one?” Arran exploded. “There’s none better than—”
“In God’s name, keep your voice down,” Struan said urgently. “Here he comes.”
“He can’t leave me,” Arran hissed. “He’s needed here.”
“Later.”
Calum entered the chapel with the elderly vicar from Kirkcaldy village, a white-haired man who smiled around as if he were accustomed to being called to the castle chapel to marry the lords of Stonehaven.
Arran glared at Calum, who met his eyes directly. Between them passed the knowledge that more than one new era was about to begin. “We appear to be ready,” Calum said, offering Arran his hand.
After a brief hesitation, Arran grasped his old friend’s hand in both of his. “Struan told me.” He bowed his head and said, “Do it if you have to, Calum. But come back to us when you can.” He looked up and smiled. “Did someone go for Grace?”
“McWallop gave the nod to her maid. They’ll be along soon enough.”
“Shall we prepare ourselves?” the vicar said, positioning himself before the shining brass altar rail. A gold cross shone upon the lace-draped altar, and rays of the setting sun glowed crimson, purple, and emerald through brilliant stained-glass windows.
Arran looked at Calum and Struan. “I haven’t done any of this as I should. I’m supposed to ask—”
“Calum will stand for you,” Struan said, smiling and backing away. “I’m the lucky man who will give away your bride. Be good to her.”
“Isn’t it late for that lecture?”
“I think not,” Struan said. “She is gentle and kind.”
“And heartbreakingly untouched,” Calum added. “A generous soul like Grace’s is easily crushed.”
Arran’s lips twitched. “She should be perfectly safe with champions such as you.”
“I doubt we shall be welcome to accompany her to your wedding night.”
“Good God!” Fists on hips, Arran looked upward into the chapel’s lushly painted domed ceiling. “I am not an animal bent on tearing her apart. Go, Stuan. I’m impatient.”
Fascination -and- Charmed Page 30
