Kidnapped: His Innocent Mistress

by Nicola Cornick

  Neil smiled. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘So you have nothing to fear,’ I said. ‘Do you?’

  He was still watching me, his face intent and serious. ‘I do not know,’ he said slowly. ‘With you, I really do not know.’

  A little ripple of victory went through me that he was not sure of me.

  ‘Give me your word,’ he persisted.

  I raised my brows. ‘No. You do not deserve it. You deserve nothing from me.’

  A shadow of a smile touched his mouth. ‘But you like me, Catriona Balfour. You know you do. You would not wish to see me hang.’

  I thought of bodies strung up in their cages, rotting as they swung in the wind at a crossroads. No, I would not wish to see Neil Sinclair hang, scoundrel though he undoubtedly was.

  ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘you would be bringing danger on yourself and to others were you to speak out.’ He took a step forward, caught my hand. ‘Promise me…’

  He was very close to me now, and I looked up into his face and saw a conflict there, a mixture of concern and calculation. There was something else in his expression as well. Perhaps it was a shadow of regret. Perhaps he was sorry that he did not have my good opinion. Or perhaps I deluded myself that it mattered to him.

  ‘Very well,’ I said after a moment. I freed myself from his clasp and moved away towards the wicket gate. ‘I give you my word I won’t betray you. But it is for Ellen’s sake, not for yours. She has already been so kind to me, and I know…’

  I stopped.

  ‘You know of the whisky still on Sgurr Dhu, and of her father’s involvement in the trade,’ Neil finished. ‘The two of you have indeed exchanged many confidences in so short a time.’

  ‘I like Ellen,’ I said. ‘And exchanging confidences is what young ladies do.’

  ‘Did you talk about me?’

  ‘Only about how conceited you are,’ I said coolly. ‘I said so, and she agreed with me.’

  I put my hand on the latch of the gate but Neil moved quickly to put a hand over mine and stop me.

  ‘One other matter…’

  I turned. Now he was even closer to me—so close that I could see the golden flecks in his dark eyes and feel the hard press of his lower body against mine, trapping me against the wooden panels of the gate. If the group down at the water’s edge had turned around my reputation would have been in tatters to be seen in such intimate proximity with a man.

  Neil cast them one glance and then ignored them. He bent closer to me still. His breath raised goose pimples against the sensitive skin of my neck. His lips brushed my ear, stirring the tendrils of hair that had escaped from my rather carelessly tied ribbon.

  ‘About ill-mannered fellows who steal meaningless kisses…’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes?’ I said. My voice sounded slightly husky to my own ears.

  ‘That was not the way of it at all.’

  I held his dark gaze for what seemed like for ever. ‘Truly?’ I said, marvelling at the lightness of my own tone. ‘When you are heir to Strathconan and destined for a grand marriage? What else could your kisses be but meaningless?’

  ‘I told you just now,’ he said, and his mouth curved into that wicked smile. ‘You are different, Catriona. You are an enigma, a challenge. I cannot be sure of you, and that…intrigues me.’

  The air beneath the trees was warm and thick, heavy with the scents of high summer. It matched the heavy beat of my blood. Slowly, very slowly, he traced the line of my jaw with the tips of his fingers. I jerked my head away in a vain attempt to escape the hot, tempting pleasure of his touch.

  ‘And yet you have all those beautiful women begging for your notice,’ I said sarcastically. ‘You are spoiled, Mr Sinclair. You want only what you cannot have.’

  His lips brushed my neck in the lightest of caresses, dipping down to linger in the hollow above my collarbone. I trembled. I could not help myself. He was very good at this, whereas I was unpractised in fending off a rogue’s seduction. His voice was so quiet I could barely hear him.

  ‘You know that I wanted you from the moment I first saw you,’ he said.

  ‘Which changes nothing,’ I said. ‘It makes you a scoundrel who wants more than mere kisses.’

  ‘Much more.’

  ‘Well, you cannot have what you want, Mr Sinclair,’ I said. I slipped the latch and stepped back through the gate. ‘This goes no further. But you do. You go straight down that path to the lake and make your farewell to my cousin, and then you leave Glen Clair. And pray do not return whilst I am here—not if you do not wish to be denounced to the excise men. Goodbye.’

  He looked at me for a long moment. The sun was on his glossy black hair and in his dark eyes, and I could not read his expression, but I had the strangest feeling that he wanted to say something else. Then he bowed and walked away, and I was left with nothing but a lump in my throat and the light off the loch dazzling my eyes—for I swear that was what it was, and I certainly was not crying. But I will not deny that I felt bereft. I had sent Neil Sinclair away, and I felt very alone.

  Chapter Eight

  In which I should have been more suspicious and more careful than I was.

  Aunt Madeline was very sorry to have been abed on the morning that the gentlemen came, and declared that when they next visited she would rise from her couch like a phoenix and make a grand entrance. Alas for her, Lieutenants Graham and Langley were ordered back to Ruthven Barracks the very next day and she never had the chance to meet them. Lieutenant Graham sent Ellen an elegant note thanking her for her hospitality and wishing her well. Lieutenant Langley sent nothing. Ellen seemed sad, and I hoped it was not because she had conceived a tendre for Lieutenant Graham. When I asked her she laughed, so then I worried that she might have conceived a tendre for Mr Sinclair instead. And then I felt annoyed that I cared one way or the other.

  After that day, our time at Glen Clair fell into something of a routine, and I realised what Ellen had meant when she told me that one day was very much like another. No one called and we never went anywhere. I wrote to Mr and Mrs Campbell—long letters filled with descriptions of Glen Clair and of my friendship with Ellen. I hoped it would reassure then that I was happy in my new home, for I did not wish them to worry about me. I would also read to Aunt Madeline sometimes, for she said that she liked my voice, which was so much clearer than Ellen’s gentle tones. I helped Mrs Grant in the kitchen because the poor woman was cruelly overworked. Ellen exclaimed over the blisters on my hands, but I told her that I would rather keep busy than fidget away in idleness.

  I kept out of Uncle Ebeneezer’s sight. I am not sure what he did all day, for he seldom seemed to work on the estate, which was in a shocking condition of disrepair. He would disappear off to the stables or into his gunroom for hours at a time, and I knew better than to disturb him there. When I felt like a walk to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the house I would venture into the hills, amidst the bracken and the heather, but I made sure that my path took me far away from the whisky still on Sgurr Dhu.

  July slipped into August, and the red of the bracken started to pale and the sun was a little cooler. Soon I had been at Glen Clair for more than a month, and it was starting to feel a little like home. I still missed my mama and papa with a fierce ache that could strike painfully at any time, and I longed for Applecross and the wild tumble of the sea, but with Ellen’s friendship and hard work to keep me busy I managed to get by. I also tried not to think of Neil Sinclair, but in a strange way I missed him, too, and the spark of excitement and challenge that he had brought into my life. I thought it unlikely that I would ever see him again, and imagined that one day in the far future word would come to Glen Clair that he had married some irreproachable aristocrat approved by his uncle to be the next Countess of Strathconan.

  One night at supper Ellen whispered to me that the whisky smugglers were coming again, and that she and I had to be abed with the covers up over our ears, or Uncle Ebeneezer would have our hides. Naturally I did not w
ant to fall in with Uncle Ebeneezer’s wishes, but I could see the sense in what Ellen was saying, so I stayed in my room with the candle blown out. I thought I heard Neil’s voice amongst the others, and my blood prickled with the same mixture of anger and frustration that I had felt that day I confronted him in the orchard. By a great effort of will I stayed in my bed, and did not slip across to the window to watch for him when the smugglers left. But I lay awake for a long time after the horses’ hooves had echoed away down the road.

  But I digress. I was intending to write of the fateful day that was to lead me into such deep trouble with my Uncle Ebeneezer.

  It was on account of Mrs Grant’s lumbago that I was cleaning the library one morning, for the poor woman was so bent with pain that she could barely lift a dishcloth. I was taking the cobwebs down from the high rafters with a bunch of feathers tied to a stick, the poor fowl that had provided them having graced our dinner table the previous Sunday. The room was called the library, but of course Uncle Ebeneezer had burned all the books, so it was in fact nothing more than a cold, bleak space with empty shelves. I hated being in there and was hurrying in order to get back to the relative warmth of the kitchen. And then I saw the family bible. It was not hidden away, but was sitting in plain view on the shelf. Its once black leather cover was grey with clinging dust, and the gilt letters that spelled out the words ‘Holy Bible’ were worn almost away. I only opened it on a whim.

  Actually that is not true. I opened it because I remembered Neil’s words about his being third cousin twice removed to Aunt Madeline, and I wanted to read the details of his ancestry. Even when he was not there, Neil’s presence seemed to stick in my mind like a burr.

  Inside the cover on the very first page of foolscap was a family ancestry, written in a thin scrawl in faded black ink. It seemed that the Balfours were as ancient a family as my papa had always boasted, for despite their poor estate, the list of their antecedents went back to 1353 and a relative of King David II. Tracing my finger down the line of names I saw that the firstborn son had always been called David until the generation before my own. But when I reached the line where my father’s name and that of Uncle Ebeneezer should have been, the names were crossed through heavily and the thin parchment was yellowed and torn. I could just decipher my father’s name and his date of birth—1754. Uncle Ebeneezer’s name was listed afterwards but his birth date was unreadable.

  I suppose that I should have been suspicious then, but it never occurred to me that my father had been the elder son and that Uncle Ebeneezer might have swindled me out of my inheritance. Even had I known my uncle was the younger son, I would probably have assumed that my father, learned and bookish, had given the estate of Glen Clair to his brother outright, so that he could be free of the responsibility and could pursue his scholarly interests in peace. I suppose that I might have asked some difficult questions, for I am fatally inquisitive, but at that moment, looking down at the family bible and feeling the history of the Balfours stretching back over the centuries, I felt no more than awe that I belonged to that long procession of names.

  There was a movement behind me, and I spun around to see that Uncle Ebeneezer himself was standing in the open doorway of the library, watching me with cunning in his bloodshot eyes. Although he did not appear to be drunk this morning he had not washed, still less shaved, and his shirt and breeches reeked of stale whisky and smoke. I repressed the urge to open a window there and then, to let in the fresh air and sunshine, for somehow my uncle always brought with him a shadow of darkness and misery, as well as the more tangible smell of the still and the stable.

  I dropped him a small but respectful curtsey, making sure at the same time that I kept out of his reach. Uncle Ebeneezer was free with his fists, though I had never seen him strike a member of the family, only the servants. I had no illusions that he had any affection for me, though, just because we shared a name. Sometimes he looked at me as though he would like to hit me across the room. This was one of those moments. There was violence in those blue eyes alongside the calculation.

  ‘Davie’s child,’ he said now, head on one side. ‘Reading the bible, are ye now?’

  I was tempted to reply that we needed all the spiritual succour we could get in that house, but I knew that would only provoke him.

  ‘I was looking at the family history, sir,’ I said.

  His eyes narrowed on me. ‘Were you indeed?’ he said. ‘The great line of the Balfours, and nothing but two miserable girls to bring it to an end.’

  I bit my lip to prevent myself from telling him what I thought of him for that.

  ‘One girl was bad enough.’ His tone was musing. ‘Sometimes I wonder why I felt the need to take you in as well, Davie’s child.’

  I had often wondered that too, given that he so clearly disliked me and hardly had the money spare to feed another dependent.

  ‘It’s the blood,’ he said. He sounded bitter. ‘Ye canna escape the demands of the blood.’ He looked directly at me. ‘Glen Clair should have been yours, Davie’s child,’ he said. ‘But you are only a girl. ’Tis better I keep it myself.’

  I had no idea what he was talking about, although I could have argued with the fact that he was in any way better for Glen Clair. He had come close to me now, and all I wanted to do was escape the malevolence that seemed to envelop me whenever Uncle Ebeneezer was near. I tried to slip by him, but he caught my arm in a grip so tight I dropped the feather duster with a clatter on the stone floor. I could feel anger in him, and violence and something strange that felt like conflict.

  ‘You’d be better off dead, Davie’s child,’ he said, ‘than reliant on me.’

  ‘I’ve no complaints, sir,’ I said. My heart was thudding now. ‘I’m only grateful to have a roof over my head.’ They were craven words, but he was a deal bigger and stronger than I was, and I had to escape his hold before I could do anything else. For a moment I stood there, locked in his grip, and then his clasp on my arm loosened. He let me go, and I was so relieved that I almost fell, for my legs were shaking so much. I did not need to check my arm to know that there would be bruises.

  ‘You’ve an easy tongue in your head. I’ll say that for you, girl,’ he said. ‘But I’ve seen the insolence in your eyes. You’re not like Ellen—she has no fight.’ He scowled at me. ‘I’ll break you, too, in the end, though. You’ll see.’

  Poor Ellen. She had never had a chance of developing any spirit in the first place. She had grown up in that house, accepting Uncle Ebeneezer’s curtailment of her freedom from the earliest age. In fact it was a surprise to me that she was still sane. Aunt Madeline was no longer sane, with her pretty toy dolls and her bedroom that was a museum to her lost beauty.

  ‘You’ve had a long time to mould Ellen to your ways,’ I said, unable to hold my tongue now I was free and with a clear run to the door. ‘But I have only been here a month, and I do not bend easily.’

  He made a grab for me, his face contorted with sudden hatred, but I ducked beneath his arm and ran away down the corridor, hearing his roar of fury behind me. I made for the kitchen, on the principle that if the worst came to the worst there would always be a rusty old knife I could grab from a drawer. I slammed the door behind me and stood with my back to the dresser, panting and shaking.

  Mrs Grant looked up from peeling the potatoes and turnips, and shook her head at me.

  ‘’Tis madness to defy him,’ was all she said before she went back to her peeling, head lowered, eyes averted from trouble.

  But Uncle Ebeneezer did not follow me, and after a few moments I began to breathe a little easier. I heard the back door slam, and out of the kitchen window I saw him making his stumbling way down the path towards the stables—no doubt to vent his anger on the poor wretch of a groom. I set the kettle on the hob to make a cup of tea to revive myself, and vowed that the next time I cleaned the library I would keep the iron poker within reach. I even slept with a knife under my pillow that night, but I did not think any more of the fami
ly history or the ancient line of the Balfours. My encounter with Uncle Ebeneezer had put it from my mind. I should have been suspicious. I should have been careful. But I was not.

  Ellen woke me the next morning by sitting on the edge of my bed and shaking me until I came to. I was so startled to be roused thus that I almost stabbed her by accident.

  ‘What on earth is that for?’ she asked me, looking at the dirty kitchen knife I had concealed beneath the covers.

  ‘Mice,’ I said.

  She looked surprised, then apprehensive. It always made me laugh that a girl who had grown up in the middle of the Highlands should be afraid of small mammals and insects, but that was what Ellen had been taught was acceptable behaviour for a lady.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, hiding the knife away. ‘What was it that you wanted to tell me?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Her face lit with a smile so bright it felt as though the sun had come out. ‘The most exciting news! We are to go to Gairloch for the day! Papa has matters to attend to there—he says he is to meet the Captain of a trading ship with whom he does some business.’ She frowned momentarily. ‘Which is odd, now I come to think of it, for this is the first I have heard of him having commercial interests. At any rate, he has said that you and I may travel with him and visit the shops, and perhaps even buy some new gloves or a shawl or some lace…’

  She was so animated that she could not still the flow of words, and chattered all the while I dressed.

  ‘This is the first time I have left Glen Clair in three years,’ she kept saying, as though she could not quite believe it.

  She was too excited to eat breakfast, and sat at the table staring at her plate as though entranced. In the end I ate her bowl of porridge and mine as well, and followed it up with some honey and oatcakes. As I have said before, very little affects my appetite—neither good news nor bad—and despite the promise of Uncle Ebeneezer’s generosity I could not imagine being treated to dinner, let alone a new pair of gloves.