“Aye. Though perhaps planning the wedding will distract him this year.”
Annie’s arm tightened around Rowena’s waist. Her voice came at a murmur, barely audible over the wind. “Ye canna marry him, Wena. Ye canna. He hurt you.”
Sweet girl. Rowena held her tight to her side and met Lilias’s blue gaze. “I dinna mean to, Annie. It’s just I havena yet worked out how to avoid it.”
Lilias stepped to Rowena’s other side as Malcolm strode to the horse hobbled near the road. “We’ll find a way, lass. I promise.”
Rowena leaned into the older woman’s strength for a moment. But only one. Lilias Cowan may be a distant cousin, but hard times had forced her to a servant’s post. She had first been her mother’s lady’s maid and was now hers. And much as Rowena loved her as a second mother, Lilias could do nothing Rowena herself couldn’t.
She couldn’t create hope where there was none.
Lilias leaned close. “We’ll find one soon,” she whispered directly into Rowena’s ear, so Annie wouldn’t hear. “We must. Lady Lochaber is with child, and the Kinnaird plans to wed you to Malcolm before it’s known, fearing otherwise he won’t be able to at all. If the babe’s a boy . . .”
A shudder stole through Rowena. If her stepmother produced the long-awaited son, then Rowena would no longer be the heiress of Lochaber. And Malcolm’s “love” for her would likely go the way of mist in the summer.
Perhaps hope existed after all. “Then if we can but put him off—or tell Malcolm.”
“Maybe.” Though the squeeze of Lilias’s arm around Rowena’s shoulder carried a warning. “But if you do that, yer father will be as angry as Malcolm is like to be—and if . . . if ye’re in the same way . . .”
Nothing but pure determination kept Rowena on her feet. Other young ladies who found themselves so compromised would be sent away on tour, where they could deliver the child in anonymity and into the hands of a family who would raise it in secret.
But the Kinnaird would never do that. No, if she refused to wed Malcolm while carrying his child, her father would likely give her beating enough to guarantee a miscarriage. Quite possibly to kill her too, now that he had another heir on the way.
She ran a hand down Annie’s arm to chafe some warmth into it and felt the strangest pang in her middle.
She didn’t want to die. Much as it felt she had nothing to live for, there it was. She wanted a chance to make a life. To forge a path for herself.
But if the courses already a day late never came, if she were with child . . . She squeezed her eyes shut against a stinging gust of wind and sucked in a breath. If the Lord still heard her prayers, she would pray against such a thing. But what point was there to that? He had left her long ago. He must have, for her to have ended up here, like this. Hated by her father, violated by the man she had thought loved her.
Perhaps this was just fitting. The hated child bearing a hated child. Another link in the chain. A perpetuation of the cycle.
No! I willna. A sob nearly burst its way out of her throat. She subdued all but a gasp that had her little sister looking up at her with question in her eyes, and then she managed a tight smile that she doubted would convince her all was well.
But she wouldn’t hate the bairn if she had one—she wouldn’t. She knew how it felt to live knowing you were detested for who you were born to. Father despised her because she was Mother’s daughter—how could she in turn hate a child for being Malcolm’s? It was no fault of the babe’s, if a babe there was.
No. If she was with child, then . . . then it meant she had some innocence inside her, despite being stripped of her own. And she would love it. She would. Despite everything, she would—she would be a better parent than either of hers had been.
“Annys! Come here.”
With a sigh older than her eight years, Annie gave Rowena’s waist one last squeeze and joined her mother.
Rowena turned to Lilias. “Maybe I should run away. I could go to Gasta Hall.”
“It’s the first place he’d look, given how ye once loved the place, before he let it go to rot.” Lilias shook her head, looking back toward Gaoth Lodge, where the last of the duke’s procession was disappearing from sight.
Rowena’s shoulders slumped. Two homes—the one he had inherited from his mother, and the castle that came from the Kinnairds—and neither open to her. Not if she disobeyed her father. “I’ve my mother’s people in America.”
“Finding them could be a task, since the Kinnaird cut off all communication.” Lilias sighed, her focus still locked on the Lodge. “Nay, lass. Ye need a more immediate means of escape.”
Then why was she looking that direction? Rowena folded her arms over the shoes she had pressed to her middle. That summer a decade past, when Father had been in London for the Sessions and the duke’s carriages had first rolled up the road alongside those belonging to the Brice family, she had made a friend. She and Lady Ella, two years her junior, had gotten on from the first and had played together most every day.
But Ella would be a society lady now, no doubt with a dozen suitors and the fanciest gowns and that way of walking and talking that Rowena hadn’t mastered in her two years at school in Edinburgh. Ella would now be like all the other girls she’d once called friends—quick to laugh at her and declare her naught but the bumpkin daughter of a barbarian clinging to an age long dead.
Yet . . . yet if she could somehow renew the acquaintance. If she could somehow convince Ella to invite her south, down to England. If her father for some reason let her go. Things would surely look different away from here. Away from her father and Malcolm, from the ghosts of Loch Morar. Maybe in the south of England she could seize a stray wisp of freedom.
But it would take a true miracle to get her there—and the ghosts of Loch Morar were fonder of giving curses than blessings.
Two
Brice Myerston wasn’t given to belief in curses, as a rule. But as he sat down at the massive desk in the locked study of Gaoth Lodge and set the box in front of him, he wondered. Wondered what powers people could harness that went beyond normal understanding. Wondered why God would forbid something, if it didn’t exist. Wondered how much of the world he would never comprehend.
The wondering was more easily done in the Highlands, where one couldn’t turn around without butting into a local eager to share a story about ghosts or fairies or water horses or charms. In past years, when they’d come up with his mother’s kin for a few weeks of relaxation and sport, he had found the stories and superstitions nothing but that. This year, with this box before him, he was a little less certain that he knew where fact ended and fantasy began.
He stared at the box. It was nothing out of the ordinary—just a small wooden thing that he had pilfered from his rooms at Midwynd Park before they’d closed up house to head to London for the Season. But he hadn’t opened the box in the four months since he closed it over the collection of gleaming red jewels—two gleaming more than the rest.
And he didn’t want to open it now.
“Rubbish.” Brice drew in a breath, shook off the doubt that cloaked him like the morning mist over the loch, and raised the hinged lid.
It required another deep breath to convince himself to reach inside and pull out one of the twin gems. He held it up and let the light from the lamp catch and play with the internal flames.
The Fire Eyes. He knew the story of the red diamonds, and of the tiger’s curse they had supposedly carried with them from India. Were he to tell the tale of greed and death around the hearth one night, the Highlanders among them would no doubt sketch a cross from head to heart to ward off any evil attached to the things—assuming they didn’t take them and toss them into the loch out of abject terror.
No, Brice Myerston wasn’t given to belief in curses. But the fact remained that death followed the things, thanks to the greed they inspired. And in the year since he had accepted them from his friends’ hands, death had visited his house too.
When
he had put the gems in his pocket, he had been the Marquess of Worthing, free of any concerns that would hinder him from flushing out those hunting the gems so that Brook and Stafford, the rightful owners, could have a rest from it all and settle into married life.
A week later, his father had fallen on the steps of Gaoth Lodge, clutching at his chest. Brice had been coming outside to meet him, had seen him fall. Had been unable to do anything other than rush forward in time to hear the final breath wheeze from his father’s lips.
Now Brice was the Duke of Nottingham. Not the fault of the curse—he would never say that. It had been happenstance, not greed. A defect in Father’s heart. But his death was a fact. A fact that changed everything.
Heaving a sigh, he dropped the small, perfect jewel back into the unassuming box and closed the lid. He looked to the window. Dawn barely lightened the mist. The loch, though usually visible from this room, was nothing but a shrouded shadow in the predawn.
The expected tap came at the study door. Without a word, Brice stood, stepped to the solid oak panel, turned the key in the lock. With a silent nod to the butler, he ushered in the second man, as shrouded as the morning in a hat and coat.
He locked the door again behind the old man. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Macnab.”
The fellow took off his hat, revealing smiling blue eyes. “Anything for yer family, Yer Grace. Sorry I was to hear of yer father’s passing last year. Never did an autumn go by without him coming to my shop to buy a bauble for yer mother, though we both kent she needed none from my feeble hand.”
Brice smiled and ushered the aging jeweler to a seat. “Father always delighted in showering Mother with gifts. And she especially loves the ones you crafted—she says you always bring a bit of Scotland to them, and it makes her feel at home.”
To most Highlanders, his mother barely qualified as Scottish, being firstly from the Lowlands and secondly of a noble—which was to say, English—family. But Macnab had never made such a distinction.
The old man eased into the seat, as if it or he might shatter if he sat too quickly. “Yer words do me honor, Yer Grace. As much an honor as it is to ken that my work graces the throat and wrists of such a fine lady.”
“She is, at that. And that’s why I asked you to come here in secret. Were I to go to your shop, word of it would make its way back to her, and she would catch on too quickly to my scheme.” Brice sat too—not behind the desk but beside the jeweler. He smiled and hoped the story—not strictly false but not entirely true—would not be too much questioned.
Light gleamed warm and steady in the old man’s eyes. “Ye wish to make a surprise to yer matron, to ease the loss. A good son ye must be.”
A better one probably wouldn’t intend to give his mother this particular gift, but it was the only answer he could find when he prayed last year over what to do with the jewels. Hidden they had been in a necklace for nigh unto twenty years—hidden they needed to be again.
And he trusted no jeweler in England to be above bribery. But Macnab . . . Father had always trusted him implicitly. That was good enough for Brice.
He reached over, pulling forward not the small box but a larger one—more ornate and, when he opened it, with a pillowed interior made to display the heavy pieces within.
“The Nottingham rubies. Necklace and bracelet, as you can see, but the earbobs went missing some fifteen years ago—Mother’s lady’s maid was dismissed over it, but they were never recovered. Father gave the set to Mother to commemorate their wedding, and she has always been greatly distressed that part of it went missing on her watch, as it were. I thought to have the set completed while she is still wearing only jet and present it to her when she dons color again in a few weeks.”
While Macnab nodded along, Brice pulled forward the smaller box, along with a framed photograph. “I’ve secured gems that match the others in clarity and color. Six of them—three for each side. And here is Mother’s wedding portrait. As you can see, they were dangling affairs.”
“Aye.” The jeweler traced a finger over the ornate setting of the necklace, his eyes focused on the picture. No doubt envisioning the gleam of gold dripping down and around the jewels. He held out a steady, lined palm for the loose gems.
Brice shook them into the hand as if they were nothing. As if two of them hadn’t brought his friends unimaginable grief. As if they were all the same, and scarcely worth counting.
Macnab turned them in his palm. Perhaps he was noting the cut, the size, or some other factor known best to the men of his trade. He wouldn’t, Brice prayed, look at them too closely. The rubies were the best match he had been able to find for the diamonds—bright, clear, red as blood. But no ruby ever had such fire in its heart.
When the old man pulled out a loupe and held it to his eye, Brice nearly whimpered. But Macnab made no sharp inhalation of shock, no grunts of discovery, no sign whatsoever that he had noted the difference that must be obvious under magnification.
He just lowered the loupe again and looked over at Brice with calm, questioning blue eyes.
Well, he’d known this was likely. The average viewer wouldn’t note the difference at a glance, but this was a man who had dealt with gems longer than Brice had been alive. He passed a hand through his hair and held the jeweler’s gaze. “It’s to help a friend. Discretion, you understand, is vital.”
A smile drew deeper creases into the man’s lined face. “Then allow me to exclaim now, just this once—I’ve only heard of such things as a possibility. Never thought to hold such rarity in my own hands. Where do they come from—do ye know? Africa?”
“India—these, anyway.”
“India.” Macnab echoed him reverently as he shook the gems together. “Ye must have searched for months looking for rubies so close a match. Those are rare enough too. Though the ones in the Nottingham pieces are nearly as clear and bright, I grant you.”
He had shared his search with absolutely no one. Frustration had nearly bested him once or twice too. “Six months. I trust no jeweler in England enough to handle them and keep quiet about it.”
Macnab let the jewels drip back into the box. Blinked, and blinked again as he now drew in that sharp breath. “I’m right honored, Yer Grace. Right honored. I’ll ne’er breathe a word, nor will I put it to paper. And if by chance my Maggie asks why I’ve not recorded the work I’ve done, I’ll tell her ye wanted no proof that the earbobs weren’t original to the set. Family secrets, ye ken. Yer mother can claim to have found them, misplaced all this time.”
A grin pulled at the corners of Brice’s mouth. “I appreciate it. And I shall pay you—”
“The price of gold and labor, and not a pence more. Yer father, God rest his soul, helped me from a tough spot some years ago.” He lowered the lid and clasped the box in his hands. “I’m only thankful for a chance to repay one of his own, in small part.”
A bit of the weight on Brice’s shoulders eased. He closed the more ornate box and handed it over as well, for comparison as Macnab worked. “It isn’t so small to me. I’m grateful.”
“Say no more of it.” The old man levered himself to his feet with the same slow care he had used sitting down. “I’ll take my leave before the house stirs and questions get asked. When I’ve finished, I’ll send word as to when I’ll stop by again, aye?”
“Thank you.” Brice stood to see Macnab to the door, and he didn’t bother locking it again after the man had gone. Instead he fetched his hat and a light overcoat and headed out into the mist himself.
Most mornings, Brice wouldn’t be up quite this early, and he would usually call for a horse. But he had no desire to rouse the grooms from their breakfast, so he headed out on foot. He crossed the green where there would later be a football game with some of the neighbors, assuming the rain held off, and rounded the tennis courts that Father had put in for Ella a few years back, when she was—briefly—in love with the sport. Minutes later he stepped to the edge of the property, where they had the best view of the loch b
elow.
There, a hunkering form rose from the waters, only slightly more mysterious in the fog than it ever looked. Castle Kynn was without question one of the most picturesque places he had ever seen. Built onto one of the many small islands just off the shore of the loch, it had naught but a stone bridge, arched and lovely, to connect it to the mainland. Every time he saw it, Brice imagined clans warring in their various tartans, or ill-fated Highlanders charging in the wake of Bonny Prince Charlie. It seemed a place preserved in time.
Or perhaps that was just because he had never seen anything but the never-changing stones of its walls. Surely inside it was more modern. They wouldn’t have electricity—power had not yet made its way to Lochaber—and so no telephones either. But other improvements had no doubt been made by the dour-faced earl Brice had only glimpsed a time or two in town.
“You’re up and about early, darling.”
He jumped at his mother’s voice, though it had been quiet, and spun with a grin. She wore a stylish black kimono jacket against the chill and a close-fitting hat, both trimmed in the crepe of mourning. But the highest of fashions couldn’t disguise the pain that still shadowed her eyes. He held out an arm to welcome her to his side. “Taking advantage while it isn’t raining. I thought you and Ella would rest until eight or nine this morning after the journey.”
“Mm.” She leaned into him, her weariness obvious. “I’m afraid the journey left me too sore and achy to rest properly. When I saw you, I thought I would join you on your stroll—only, you seem to have stopped strolling.”
He rubbed a hand over her silk-clad arm and nodded toward the castle. “Just admiring the view. Have you ever seen the inside?”
Mother cleared her throat and straightened. “Many, many years ago.”
“Did they once offer tours? Or was the previous earl not quite so stern?”
Now his mother sighed. “Lord Lochaber’s father was chief of the clan but not the earl—that came from his mother. I’m afraid the lady passed away when the earl was young, and his father raised him to despise the side of his heritage that came with English ties. Castle Kynn is, of course, the Kinnaird estate. They’ve another home twenty miles away or so that goes with the Lochaber title. So far as I know, the earl never goes there. Most of the time he isn’t even called Lochaber, but ‘the Kinnaird.’ Like a chief of old.”
The Reluctant Duchess Page 2
