One Night with the Laird

by Nicola Cornick

  Lucy smiled. “But you won’t have Jack with you.” Her face puckered again. “Have the two of you quarreled? You seem very distant with each other.”

  “No,” Mairi lied. She shivered again. “Not at all.”

  Lucy’s expression conveyed her disbelief more clearly than any words.

  “All right,” Mairi admitted. “The engagement is over. Please don’t ask me more—” She broke off, teeth chattering, aware that she was perilously close to tears.

  “Oh Mairi!” Lucy hugged her close. “Send for me if you need me,” she said. “And I might just kill Jack after all.”

  At that moment Jack came out the door. He looked sinfully handsome in a superbly cut riding coat. Mairi caught her breath. He came down the steps toward her, his expression serious. He did not speak but took both her gloved hands in his and raised them to his lips. Mairi’s eyes jerked to his face, and her heart did a curious little twist. His eyes were deep and dark, their expression so different from the usual mocking amusement with which he faced the world. She knew he was telling her without words that he cared about her, respected her, and that what had happened between them mattered to him. He was telling her everything except that he loved her. She had no idea how to deal with this, what to say, how to behave. It had never happened to her before.

  Her fingers trembled in his. She felt his clasp tighten for a moment and then he half smiled, the corner of his mouth tilting up in the way that always made her stomach tumble with longing.

  “I will send word when I am back in Edinburgh,” he said, “and I will come to see you when I have spoken to Mr. Innes.”

  “Thank you,” Mairi said.

  He nodded, hesitated, then bent and brushed his lips against her cheek. It was a cold caress. He handed her up into the carriage, hesitated again over releasing her hand, then let her go.

  Three days later, back at Ardglen, she felt even worse. She should have gone to Edinburgh, really, where there would at least be some company and some entertainment, but she could not bear to be there while Jack was in the city. She was too afraid of seeing him with another woman. She did not fool herself that he would be without female companionship for long. Everything seemed to hurt. It hurt dreadfully. The blow of losing Jack never seemed to ease. The pain seemed to sharpen rather than decrease, and it exhausted her to put on a brave face and deal with all the paperwork from the estates. She even considered going to Jack and telling him she had changed her mind about his proposal because anything would feel better than this dragging pain. Pride and principle made for cold bedfellows, she discovered, particularly because she was in love. She got as far as calling the carriage. But in the end she sent it away because she knew that nothing had changed. Jack did not love her and that was all there was to it.

  * * *

  EDINBURGH WAS DRY, dusty and largely empty of company since most of the aristocracy had left the city to spend their summer on the grouse moors. Jack found it curiously quiet and lonely. It was not that he craved the excitement of balls and soirees; what he wanted, what he needed, was Mairi.

  He had thought that once they were apart he would be able to move on. After three days, though, he had been obliged to acknowledge, if only to himself, that this had been naive. Privately he was terrified of the power Mairi still had over him. He had been away from her for only ten days and yet he missed her desperately. Her wanted to see her, talk to her, hear her voice. He had to resist the urge to ride out the seven or eight miles to Ardglen simply to see her. He was shocked how difficult it was to withstand that impulse. It felt not only inexplicable but outrageously sentimental as well. He wanted to be with her all the time, to touch her—of course he did—but to hold her as well as make love to her. It felt as though a part of him was missing. Whenever the door opened, his hopes would surge that she had come to find him and then they would drop like a stone.

  The only thing he could hope for was that action would drive out this peculiar obsession, and so he exerted himself to find and deal with Michael Innes in the quickest and most ruthless way possible. The other advantage of that was that as soon as he had news he could take it back to Mairi. Yet it would make no difference. She would still refuse to marry him and he could see no way past that impasse.

  Business was a welcome distraction. It was Jack’s firm belief that every man had his weakness and it proved easy enough to use his contacts to discover Michael Innes’s Achilles’ heel.

  Innes’s one vice was a gambling habit that kept him particularly short of money. What he earned, his wife spent. He was gambling with debt. Jack suspected it was that which made Mairi’s fortune so unbearably tempting to him and made the perceived unfairness of her inheritance stick in Innes’s craw.

  It was past eleven on his third night back in Edinburgh when Jack presented himself at a discreet establishment just off the Royal Mile. His host, a tall, dark man with jet-black hair and eyes almost equally as dark, drew him into a small reception room off the side of the entrance hall. Lucas Black was said to be the illegitimate offspring of foreign royalty but no one knew for sure. The only thing Jack had discovered about the man was that he was ruthless and determined to succeed. That made them two of a kind and from that they had forged a friendship.

  “Your quarry is here, Jack,” Lucas said. If he genuinely had foreign antecedents no one would have guessed it from his speech. He sounded like the product of the best English public school. “You owe me a favor. Mr. Innes is so overawed he has already lost several thousand pounds.” He smiled. “But then I doubt he would ever normally receive an invitation to play in a house like this or in such exalted company.”

  Jack grinned. “I’m grateful to you, Lucas, especially that you were able to find sufficient players when Town is so sparse of company. I’ll cover Mr. Innes’s losses against the house.”

  Lucas inclined his head. “That is thoughtful of you.”

  “My pleasure,” Jack said. “I have already bought up most of his other debts.”

  Lucas gave a soundless whistle. He sat down on the edge of the desk, foot swinging. “Poor fellow. What can he have done to displease you?”

  Jack hesitated. “It is Lady Mairi MacLeod he has displeased,” he said. “I am here on her behalf.”

  There was a gleam of laughter in Lucas’s dark eyes now. “He has upset Lady Mairi? Then it is surprising that he still has his balls. I hear she is a crack shot.”

  “The best,” Jack agreed. “But on this occasion she prefers to work through me—and with subtlety rather than with outright violence.”

  “I heard the news of your betrothal,” Lucas said. “My congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” Jack said. It was odd; the words hurt. They made him realize that soon, once he had spoken to Innes, he would be sending a retraction to the newspapers and his connection to Mairi would be formally severed.

  Lucas was looking at him speculatively. “I never thought to see you of all people in love, Jack,” he said. There was a hint of amusement in his voice. “But actually it rather encourages my faith in human nature.”

  “I’m not—” Jack started to say automatically, then stopped.

  “Spare me the conventional denials,” Lucas said. “A man does not go to the amount of trouble that you have done for Lady Mairi MacLeod without some fairly strong reason. Your cousin wrote to me,” he added, “to put me in the picture once he knew your plans for Innes.”

  “Devil take Robert,” Jack said, but he said it without any heat. Lucas was right on both counts; he was in love with Mairi and there was no point in denying it. It had taken him a hell of a long time to realize it—too long—because he had not wanted it to be true.

  He realized that he was shaking. He felt strange. The one thing he had not wanted to do—to love and risk losing again—and there was not a damned thing he could do about it. Lucas was smiling as he led him through a l
arge salon where a smattering of Edinburgh society was at play. It was an exclusively male gathering. Cigar smoke wreathed the air. A number of gentlemen nodded to Jack as he passed. Lucas ushered him into a smaller salon through a door at the back. Here there were only a half dozen players. Introductions were brief, as Jack already knew several of the people around the table. Michael Innes met his gaze without a flicker of recognition, which pleased him. Evidently the business that had taken the lawyer out of the city until recently had meant that he had not heard the gossip of Mairi’s engagement.

  The game was deep basset and the atmosphere in the small room was already tense. Jack held his own for the first hour, winning a little, then losing a little, watching with interest as Innes became completely engrossed in the game. He had the air of the hardened gambler, his attention rapt on the turn of a card.

  Jack exerted himself a little and was soon winning steadily. As Innes lost he drank more and it was apparent he could not hold that drink, for he soon became flushed and erratic. He had a run of luck; Jack saw how it gave him confidence and the confidence made him careless, so that his concentration waned and he lost all that he had gained. By the time the game broke up Jack had a number of Innes’s IOUs in his pocket.

  As the others filtered out of the room, Innes plucked at Jack’s sleeve. His fair face had a high color now and his eyes were a little glazed. He swayed on his feet like a sapling in a gale.

  “Sir...”

  “Mr. Innes?” Jack said smoothly.

  “Apologies,” Innes said. “There will be a slight delay in settling my debts.”

  Jack raised his brows and said nothing. Innes looked uncomfortable. “I have expectations,” he muttered.

  “So I understand,” Jack said coldly, “but I hope you do not expect me to wait for Lord MacLeod to die before you pay me. I don’t care to wait on a man’s death.”

  The dull color settled deeper into Innes’s cheeks. His pale eyes slid away from Jack’s hard gaze.

  “No,” he said. “You don’t understand, sir. Sooner than that... My cousin Lady Mairi is vastly rich and soon that money will be mine.”

  Jack glanced up. Lucas Black was standing in the doorway. At Jack’s nod he came into the room, closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. Innes shot him a glance, then turned so swiftly back toward Jack that he lost his balance and almost stumbled. Jack pushed him not ungently back down into the chair he had so recently been occupying, where he scrambled back against the cushions as though he were trying to make himself as small as possible.

  “Sir—” he protested, and his voice was a bat’s squeak of fear.

  “You interest me very much, Innes,” Jack said. “Tell me more about these expectations of yours.”

  * * *

  MAIRI WAS STILL at breakfast when word came from Jack that he had talked to Michael Innes the previous night and would call on her later that morning to discuss the matter with her. The note was very formal. Even so she felt a wild flare of hope and then an equally abrupt tumble of spirits. She was doing it again, she thought, refusing to relinquish her dreams. Whoever had said that hope was the very last thing to die had been in the right. It seemed she never learned.

  She had no taste for breakfast anymore, so she decided to take a walk instead. She needed to be outside, to think, to plan what she would say to Jack, how she would deal with seeing him again. But she did not want to do it here in the gardens that reminded her so vividly of Archie. Suddenly at last she could see that she needed to escape the hold Archie had had on her life. She had to start afresh. Telling Jack about the past had freed her and even if her future could not be with him, she knew she could move forward now.

  She let herself out of the little gate in the walled garden and took the path by the stream that led uphill behind the house. The earth was tinder-dry, crumbling beneath her feet. The sun beat down hotly and she was glad to have remembered her parasol. The air was thick with warmth, so unusual for a Scottish summer. It made walking hot and tiring, but she was still happier to be out in the fresh air.

  By the waterfall halfway up the hillside she stopped and sat down to rest, soothed by the sound of the water and the buzz of the bees in the heather. From here the house at Ardglen looked a tiny neat oasis in the midst of the surrounding wild countryside. This had been one of Archie’s favorite places; it was odd that she had felt drawn here when she had not walked this way for years. It was as though she still could not quite escape Archie’s spirit, as though there was something unfinished in their business.

  She stood up and carried on with her walk. The path passed behind the waterfall across a narrow rocky ledge made slippery with spray. Here the ferns and bracken grew thickly. As she came out onto a little open grassy expanse on the other side, she thought she could smell smoke carried on the faint breeze, but it seemed so unlikely on such a glorious day that she shook her head and forgot about it. She followed the path around the jut of a rough stone buttress. A little farther and she would turn back because she was starting to feel tired. There was a tumble of rock here, too fresh a fall to be covered in the mosses and lichens that grew in profusion in this little valley.

  She sat down on one of the rocks to catch her breath, resting her parasol against the stone beside her, closing her eyes and turning up her face to the sun. It should have felt peaceful and yet she was aware of a sense of disquiet, as though someone was watching her.

  With a little sigh she bent to pick up the parasol but it had slipped between a cleft in the rocks and she had to scrabble to retrieve it. One of the stones shifted a little; she saw a splash of color among the rock, vivid blue against the grays and greens....

  She jumped to her feet. All the hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end and a cold, sickening sliver of dread slid down her spine. She recognized that blue. When she had bought the jacket for Archie on Prince’s Street five years before, the tailor had assured her that there was not another like it in the whole of Edinburgh.

  “A very special dye, madam,” he had told her. “There are not two made the same.” He had beamed. “It is exclusive to you, madam.”

  Mairi backed a step away. She felt cold although the sun was still as bright and hot overhead. The rocks were piled up in a cairn. At a distance it had looked random, but now she could see that it was not the work of nature but of human hands. And she could see too that beneath the jumbled heap of stone, wrapped in the shreds of blue, was something paler and more brittle, something that looked like human bone.

  She turned away and was violently sick. For a moment she thought she might faint, as well. She felt sweatily hot, then clammily cold. Ears buzzing and her head feeling too light, she groped her way to a rock some distance from the body and sat down. She was shaking uncontrollably.

  Archie. Archie was buried here beneath that tumble of stone. He had never made it as far as the Indies or China or all the other places she had imagined he might have run off to with his lover. All the time she had thought he was alive he had been lying here. He must have died the very night he had left. Someone had buried him here by the waterfall, his lover, perhaps, if this was where the two of them had arranged to meet. She wondered if there had been an accident, or a quarrel. And then she remembered that someone had been writing to Lord MacLeod in Archie’s name, sending news, asking for money. Someone had been pretending that Archie was still alive.

  She rubbed her arms fiercely to try to drive some heat into her chilled body. She had to get back down to Ardglen and send Frazer for help. She tried to stand. Her legs felt as though they were made of ribbons, but they held. She took a few shaky steps toward the path and resisted a look back over her shoulder at the cairn with its telltale splash of blue.

  A shadow passed across her from the bank high above the path and she looked up. There was no one there, but she could smell smoke again. She was sure of it. The breeze had picked up a
little now and there were puffy white clouds sailing across the sky and the sun seemed a shade less hot. Again she felt the hairs on her neck stand on end. She felt as though she was being watched.

  The shadow passed over her again and this time when she squinted upward it was to see the silhouette of a man descending the bank toward her. For a long moment the sun was in her eyes, and though she shaded them with her hand she could see nothing of his face but a dark blur. There was something about the way that he moved, though, that was familiar. Then the sun shifted and she blinked and it was Jeremy Cambridge who was standing on the path in front of her, dusting the soil from his immaculate town clothes and looking ludicrously out of place. It struck her then, irrelevantly, that Jeremy was a creature of drawing rooms and city pavements and she had never seen him out in the countryside.

  “Jeremy!” she said. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “They told me at the house that you had gone for a walk,” Jeremy said. “I saw you on the path and followed you up here.” His voice sounded odd, detached. The coldness in it sent a shiver of ice down her spine. Then she saw that he had a pistol in his hand and the cold intensified.

  “What a pity,” Jeremy said. He was looking over toward the cairn of rock and then his gaze came back and fastened on her so hard and fast that she flinched to see the expression in his eyes.

  “What a pity you found him because now I am going to have to kill you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  JACK HAD BEEN almost ready to leave for Ardglen when Lucas Black was shown into his rooms. The meeting with Michael Innes the previous night, satisfactory in some senses, had also proved frustrating in others. It was clear to both men that Innes had not been in league with Wilfred Cardross. He did not have the stomach for violence, and his threats against Mairi were largely hot air, based on scandal and malice. He knew nothing of Archie MacLeod’s secrets, and his bullying bravado had disappeared like mist in the sun when Jack had told him that Mairi was under his protection. All of which should have been reassuring to Jack and yet left him with the same air of disquiet, the same feeling that he was missing something that he had felt at Methven. The only other candidate for the role of attacker was Archie himself, and yet Mairi had been convinced that her former husband was too gentle a soul and had too deep a regard for her to hurt her. Jack tried to see past his jealousy to believe her, but he was not convinced. In the end he had decided to trust Lucas with the details of the case and had shared his thoughts with him and the two of them had talked deep into the night but had come to no useful conclusion.