The door of the private parlor was ajar and there was the murmur of conversation from within. Mairi pushed the door wide.
Jack Rutherford was sitting in a big armchair, feet up on the table, toasting his boots before the fire. He had removed his jacket and loosened his stock, and in the golden firelight he looked tawny and lazily handsome and every inch a chaperone’s nightmare. A plate on the table by his side bore the remains of some venison pie. A serving girl with an extravagantly large bosom displayed to advantage in a thin and low-cut smock was topping up his glass. She was standing very close to him and giggling as she poured. Some of the liquid splashed onto Jack’s sleeve, and the girl started to dab ineffectually at his clothing with her apron, giggling all the harder. Jack was watching her through half-closed eyes that held a gleam of laughter.
The draught from the open door stirred the fire to hiss and spit and the candle flames to waver. Jack looked up. The laughter died from his eyes and they narrowed to an unnerving green stare. He swung his legs to the floor and got slowly to his feet, sketching a bow. Mairi supposed she should be grateful that he had the manners to do even that. She walked forward into the center of the room, stripping off her gloves and laying her reticule in the seat of the chair opposite Jack’s.
“Ah, my errant husband,” she said coldly. “Already looking to set up a mistress while you wait for me.”
Jack smiled, a wicked smile full of challenge. He sat down again. “If the welcome I got from you was warmer, sweetheart, maybe I would not need to look elsewhere.”
“You would always look elsewhere,” Mairi said. “You are a rake, sir. I wouldn’t look for fidelity from you. If I wanted that I would get a dog.” She tried to erase the bitterness from her tone, but she knew she was too late. Jack had heard it. His gaze had narrowed on her thoughtfully.
The serving wench now barreled forward to claim Jack’s attention. Quite evidently she preferred to be center stage.
“You didn’t tell me you were married,” the girl said accusingly. She was twisting her hands in her apron, a maneuver, Mairi was quick to see, that pulled the neck of her smock even more dangerously low. Jack, however, seemed to have no difficulty in keeping his gaze from the heaving bosoms that were on a level with his eyes. He was dangling his half-empty glass from his fingers and watching Mairi with a speculative expression. He did not take his gaze off her for a single moment.
“It slipped my mind,” he murmured.
“Strange,” Mairi said acidly, “when you had told the landlord only a half hour before that we were wed.”
“My tiresomely lax memory,” Jack said.
“It is a match for your tiresomely lax morals,” Mairi agreed sweetly. She glanced around the room with its deep chairs and velvet curtains drawn against the night, then back at Jack, lounging comfortably in his chair. “Let’s cut the pretense, sir,” she said. “Was the taproom too shabby for you? Or are your pockets to let? Was that why you decided to pretend we were married, so that I would pay your bills?”
“It was all for the pleasure of your company, my love,” Jack said. His eyes gleamed mockingly. “I enjoy your conversation so much. It is so very astringent.”
Mairi loosed her cloak and laid it over her arm. The room was hot and she was feeling more heated still beneath Jack’s cool green gaze. She felt as though he could strip away all the defences she had cultivated so carefully over the years. There was something keen and watchful in his eyes. He saw more than she wanted him to see.
She turned a shoulder to him and addressed the landlord instead.
“I would like some of your beef stew and a glass of wine, please.” She flicked a glance at the table. “I will finish this bottle my husband has started—” She shot Jack a look. “Unless he wishes to have it all to himself.”
“I am drinking water,” Jack said, “but you are welcome to share if your taste runs to it.”
“Water?” Mairi stared at him, her antagonism briefly forgotten. It was so incongruous. She would have had him down as a man who drank nothing but the best claret and brandy.
Jack shrugged. There was an element of discomfort in his demeanor. “Riding is thirsty work,” he said. He spoke dismissively and yet Mairi had the impression that there was a great deal more behind the words. More that he was not prepared to disclose. After a moment he raised his brows in quizzical enquiry and she blushed to realize she was still staring.
“Landlord,” she said hastily, “I would like to be taken to my room, please, and to have some hot water sent up for washing.” She paused as an unwelcome thought struck her and she spun around to face Jack again. “I trust you have not moved into my bedchamber as well, sir?”
A devilish light sprang up in Jack’s eyes. “It was tempting,” he drawled, his voice dropping several tones so that it rubbed across her senses like rough velvet, “but I was waiting for you to invite me, darling.”
A wholly inappropriate wave of heat washed over Mairi, rushing through her veins. Her knees weakened and she almost slumped into the armchair, remembering only at the last moment that they had company in the room and that she should be slapping his face—not falling into his arms.
“You’ll have a long wait, then,” she said. “I suggest that you should have your own chamber. Then there will at least be space in there for you and your vastly inflated opinion of yourself.” She gave him a cool little smile. She was proud of that smile. It was diametrically opposed to the way she was feeling inside.
“I would like you gone from here when I return, if you please,” she said. “Frazer—” She turned to the steward. “If you could escort Mr. Rutherford to the part of the inn that is farthest away from me...”
“No need for an escort,” Jack murmured. “I can find my own way.” He stood up, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair and slinging it over his shoulder. He sketched her a bow that had nothing of deference in it. “Your servant, madam.”
The landlord, scratching his head over the eccentric ways of the aristocracy, led Mairi up the inn’s wide stair to the landing and indicated the third room on the right. It was big and well appointed, and Mairi’s traveling bags were already standing waiting at the side of the bed. Her maid, Jessie, a small dark girl who was the youngest of Frazer’s ten children, was busy unpacking and shaking out a gown for the following day.
Mairi sat down abruptly on the side of the bed. She realized she was trembling a little and she was not quite sure why. She could deal with Jack Rutherford. She could deal with most things. That was one thing her marriage and its scandalous aftermath had taught her.
Jessie was chattering, which was a good thing because it distracted her. Unlike her father, Jessie was not in the least silent and austere. “It’s no’ that bad, this inn,” she said. “Leastways it’s clean and comfortable.”
“The clientele leaves something to be desired,” Mairi murmured.
“I hear there’s a fine gentleman staying.” Jessie was full of the news. “Cousin to Lord Methven. Rich and handsome, they say. The kitchen girls are all hot for him.”
“I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear it,” Mairi said.
Jessie stood staring mistily into space, Mairi’s gown forgotten in her hands. “They say he made a fortune in India,” she said. “Trading in spices and the like.”
“It was Canada,” Mairi said, sighing. “Trading in timber.” She did not know much about Jack’s background, but she did know that he had made his first fortune before he was five and twenty and his second after he had returned to Scotland, importing luxury goods through the port of Leith.
“They say that he is a master swordsman and a dangerous rake—” Jessie rolled the word around her tongue with fervor. “And that he owns a huge estate over Glen Calder way.”
“All of which makes him nigh on irresistible,” Mairi said sarcastically. “Is that my yellow muslin yo
u are crushing in your hands?”
Jessie looked down. “Och, yes. I’ll have it pressed for you before tomorrow, madam.”
“Thank you,” Mairi said.
By the time she went back down to the parlor, the fire had been built up and a glass of claret poured for her. The same maidservant, sulky this time, brought in a plate of beef stew. Of Jack Rutherford there was no sign. Mairi knew she should have been glad, and she was. But she also felt a tiny seed of disappointment, and it was this that disturbed her more than anything.
She did not linger after her meal but went out into the passageway intent on retiring to her chamber to read. Her head was a little fuzzy from tiredness and from the good red wine, and at the bottom of the stair she paused, clutching the newel post for support. The door to the taproom was open a crack and she peeped in. Through the fug of smoke and the crush of people, she could see Jack Rutherford. He was sitting at a table to the left of the fire, playing cribbage with three other men, a tankard on the table in front of him. Mairi wondered whether it contained more water or if Jack had moved on to something stronger.
As she watched, there was a roar from the crowd as Jack won the game. Several men slapped him on the back and he grinned, lifting the pewter cup to his lips. Mairi watched his throat move as swallowed, slamming the empty tankard down and calling for another round for everyone, largesse that was greeted with another roar of approval. There was a pile of silver coin by his elbow that was considerably larger than the pile at the side of any of the other players; as she watched Jack scooped up a handful of silver and passed it over to the landlord in return for the new tankards of ale that even now were overflowing onto the table. It was a raucous, good-humored gathering and Mairi felt a small pang of envy. Jack was welcomed into the easy camaraderie of the taproom and not just because of his money.
One of the inn servants passed her with a murmured word of apology; the taproom door creaked a little on its hinges and Jack looked up from his game. For a moment their eyes met; then a spark of mockery came into his and he raised his glass to her in mocking toast. Mairi shot away up the stairs, furious with herself for being caught staring.
She saw no more of Jack that night and fell asleep quickly, lulled by the quiet lap of the waves on the shore of the loch. By the time she arose for breakfast, Jack had already set out on his journey to Methven. Mr. Rutherford was riding, the serving girl said, with his luggage following on behind. It meant that he would be a great deal quicker than Mairi was on the road and she could only be grateful to be spared an endless procession of nights staying in the same inns as Jack was.
When Frazer came out to the carriage, he had a face as long and dark as a wet day in Edinburgh.
“What on earth is the matter?” Mairi asked, as the steward stowed his purse in the strongbox beneath her seat.
Frazer’s mouth turned down even farther. “The landlord would take no money for our stay,” he said. “The entire bill had already been settled.”
He handed her a note.
Mairi had never seen Jack Rutherford’s writing, but she had no difficulty now in identifying the careless black scrawl as his.
“A gentleman always pays,” the note ran.
Mairi dropped the letter on the seat beside her. She remembered taunting Jack the previous night when he had appropriated her parlor. She remembered she had said he wanted the comforts that only money could buy. She also remembered that he was one of the richest men in Scotland and had no need to beg those comforts from her.
“Everyone thinks you are his fancy piece now,” Frazer said sourly. “And that I am some sort of pander who delivers Mr. Rutherford’s women for him as and when he wishes. The landlord congratulated me on such a profitable job. He promised his discretion.”
“Oh dear,” Mairi said. She knew she should feel exasperated, but she could not help her lips twitching. It was so obvious that Frazer was more annoyed to have been mistaken for a procurer than he was for the damage to her reputation. As the carriage rolled out onto the road to Achallader, Mairi reflected wryly that Jack’s had been a clever revenge. She had turned him down, but despite that he had given everyone the impression she was his mistress.
* * *
JACK REINED IN his horse when he reached the summit of the track above Bridge of Orchy. The view was spectacular: the great sweep of the mountains painted in green and gold, the glint of sunlight on the water below. There was an ache in his chest, a knot of nostalgia. He had not traveled this way in years. He was not really sure why he had ridden up here today when the road to Methven should have taken him along the wide glen below.
Nothing he had seen in Canada or beyond could surpass the peerless beauty of this land. He had turned his back on Scotland over ten years before, but eventually it had called him back. When Robert had returned to take up his title and estates, Jack had thought of staying on. Unlike his cousin he had no particular reason to return to his ancestral land, but in the end he had sold his business at vast profit and taken ship for home.
Below him on the road to Achallader he could see something that resembled a royal progress, a line of four traveling carriages rumbling along in convoy. Lady Mairi MacLeod was on the move. His mouth twitched into a smile. She was making such a grand statement of wealth and status with the carriages and the servants, the endless baggage train. He wondered how she had felt when she had discovered that he had paid her shot at the inn. Damned annoyed, he would imagine. She did not appear to have much of a sense of humor, and for that reason alone it had felt irresistible to provoke her.
He wondered suddenly if Mairi ever rode out as he was doing this morning, free of all the trappings of luxury, alone with nothing but the wide sky overhead. He doubted it. She was hedged about by so much protocol and protection. She had probably forgotten what it was like to be alone. But perhaps she was wise. She was fabulously wealthy and it was not so many years since rich widows in these parts had been kidnapped and forced into marriage.
Marriage, he suspected, was not on Mairi MacLeod’s agenda, and why should it be when she had everything she could desire and the freedom to take lovers as she pleased? He did not particularly resent her refusal of him the previous night. They were playing the game; she knew the rules as well as he did, and it would not be long before she succumbed. She desired him, and waiting only made the anticipation sharper and sweeter.
He frowned a little, remembering the bitter tone in Mairi’s voice the previous night when she had dismissed him as a rake. Rakes made the best lovers if not the best husbands, but perhaps that was where her antipathy arose. He had never met Archie MacLeod and had heard nothing but praise for the man, but perhaps there was something he did not know. Perhaps MacLeod, extraordinary as it seemed, had kept a harem of mistresses stashed across Edinburgh.
The carriages disappeared from sight, and the dust settled on the road. It was early morning and the air was cold and fresh. Silence enclosed Jack, pierced only by the song of a skylark as it rose higher and higher into the blue arc of the sky. The isolation was almost eerie, poised on the edge of loneliness. Jack urged the horse to a walk and headed on down the track into the next glen.
As the road wound downhill he passed a scattering of white-washed crofts at the side of the track. They were empty, the walls starting to crumble, ruined chimney stacks pointing to the sky. A little farther there was a tiny kirk, foursquare and gray, with its bell still hanging from the tower.
Jack paused. Memory was pressing close now. He could almost feel the ghosts at his heels. This had been one of his father’s livings though the Reverend Samuel Rutherford had not been a particularly devoted minister of the church. As the son of a baron, he thought it was his right to collect rich livings as he might silver or porcelain. They were an adornment to his status, but he had little interest in the congregations for whom he had a responsibility. Jack’s mouth twisted wryly. He had often thought th
at his obsession with work was a direct rebellion against his father’s deplorable laziness.
He tied the horse to the railings around the old churchyard and walked slowly up the path. This was where his parents were buried. His father had built a grand manor a quarter mile down the road, a house that Jack had taken great pleasure in abandoning to wrack and ruin. When he had returned from Canada and was looking for an estate of his own, Black Mount was the very last place he would have considered.
The dew was still fresh on the grass, though the sun was hot and would dry it soon. Jack paused by the graves of his parents. There was a ludicrously ornate mausoleum for his father, which was completely out of place in the stark simplicity of this country churchyard. His mother’s stone was less elaborate: “Beloved wife of Samuel Rutherford...” Those words, Jack thought, hardly did justice to the all-consuming love that his parents had felt for each other.
He felt chilled all of a sudden, though there was no cloud covering the sun. His parents’ love for each other had been exclusive, violent and in the end utterly destructive. When he was a child, it had been something he had not remotely understood. As an adult, he could see how dangerous love had proved to be for them.
He went down on his knees in the grass. Here, overgrown with strands of dog rose and bramble, pink and white, was a simple stone engraved with the name Averil Rutherford and the dates 1791–1803. He brushed the undergrowth aside. Suddenly his hands were shaking.
The harsh call of a black grouse made him jump. A shadow had fallen across the path. Looking up, he saw a man in black cassock and white collar, his father’s successor, perhaps, in this remote spot.
One Night with the Laird Page 6
