by Karen Ranney
Guilt kept him silent.
“Nevertheless,” Matthew said, waving his hand at him as if to dismiss everything Dixon had said, “there are women waiting for you to return. They would give you massages with warm oils, and drink tea with you and converse on any subject you wish. When night falls, they will give you comfort of another sort. There is no need for you to hunger after a European woman.”
Dixon raised one eyebrow. “Just what European woman am I hungering after, Matthew?”
Matthew shook his head and reached into the trunk.
“Why is it that you’re silent when I wish you to speak and when I wish a little peace, you insist on chattering?”
“I am sorry that I displease you, master,” Matthew said, but his tone was light and unconcerned.
“Is there a particular woman you wish me to bed, Matthew? Are you acting as her agent?”
Matthew turned and faced him fully, folding his hands within his sleeves. His face was devoid of expression.
“No, master, there is no one I would represent to you. But the women of Penang are attuned to you in a way a European woman is not. She would not know of the last ten years. She has no idea of your loss.”
Dixon ignored that last comment. “You seem to think I lust after my cousin’s wife. Why is that?”
“I saw the way you looked at her, master. As if she were a meal and you a starving man.”
“You’re imagining things, Matthew. I appreciated her appearance, nothing more.”
Matthew looked doubtful, but he didn’t speak.
“European or Oriental, I’ll choose my own woman,” Dixon said.
When Dixon glanced at him it was to find that the other man had turned back to the trunk, intent upon his chore.
That’s how it was with Matthew. A confrontation never lasted more than a moment, rarely longer than a sentence. Matthew simply stopped, as if knowing how dangerously close to insubordination he tread. As if sensing that he was allowed so much leeway and no farther.
There were times when Dixon wanted a brawl, an argument, a spirited debate, but Matthew wouldn’t give it to him. He would voice his opinion and then retreat, not unlike a badly abused dog that barked and then cowered.
“You don’t like Balfurin, do you?”
Matthew straightened and, for a moment, Dixon wondered if he would speak at all. Or had his capacity for honesty been reached?
“If you will forgive me, master, may I speak freely?”
“You’ve always had the ability to do so, Matthew. You need not ask my permission.” A speech he made repeatedly.
“There is something dark about this place, master.” He hesitated as if searching for the correct word. “Not evil, exactly, but close to it. Something that dwells in darkness and feeds on pain lives here. It has waited for you to come and it is happy now.”
“The Countess of Marne? She doesn’t seem a creature of the darkness to me.”
Matthew looked offended at his jest, turning back and bending over the trunk again.
“If not her, then who?”
“You are angry,” Matthew said.
“Not angry, impatient. I’ll grant you that something is wrong here, and I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to withhold judgment about it being evil at the moment.”
“What kind of woman does not know what her husband looks like? Who accuses another man of being him?”
“What kind of man leaves a woman such as her?” Dixon countered. “I don’t have any of the answers, Matthew, which is why we’re not leaving here until I do.”
“The darkness will be happy. And it will grow.”
“I thought Buddhists were supposed to believe in attracting good?”
Matthew closed his eyes and held them closed for a full half minute. When he opened them, his gaze was calm, serene.
“You know I am not a Buddhist, master. I am a Baptist.”
“I think you’re Oriental when you wish to be and something else entirely when it suits your purpose.”
He was annoyed, especially when Matthew smiled.
“You see, the darkness is working on your soul already. It is making you unpleasant.”
Dixon strode toward the door, anxious to rid himself of Matthew’s presence.
“Avoid the woman, master,” Matthew said.
The command was so unlike him that Dixon turned and glanced at his secretary.
“She is a danger to you, master. I feel it very certainly. She will bring harm to you. I know you are grieving, but you must not seek comfort in her arms.”
Dixon opened the door without looking back. “Do not speak of it, Matthew. I forbid you to do so.”
“Has this visit eased your heart, master?”
Dixon didn’t answer, leaving the room and closing the door behind him. For a moment he rested his back against it, eyes closed. He’d been a fool to think that coming home would relieve his conscience.
What the hell did he do now? He could attend the ball again, but he wasn’t in the mood for levity or celebration or any more threats from George’s wife. Despite what Matthew thought, he wasn’t anxious to encounter the Countess of Marne again.
He could find his way to the kitchens since he’d done so often enough as a boy. Hunger was an impetus for seeing if his memory was correct as to its location. But he didn’t want to see anyone, let alone a harried kitchen staff.
Instead, he headed toward the south wing, away from the ballroom and the bedchambers, to a room he remembered all too well, his uncle’s library.
Dixon opened the door slowly, allowing memory to sweep over the threshold and overwhelm him. He half expected to hear Uncle Stan’s booming voice, “Close the door, can’t you feel the draft? How’s a man supposed to work in this infernal cold?” His uncle, however, was no longer there, seated behind the massive desk that had served generations of MacKinnons.
He stepped inside. This was a well-used room, one not overly changed in all the years since he’d been to Balfurin. The only change was in himself. The desk did not look so commanding. Nor was the chair throne-like. How many times had he stood here while his uncle imparted another stern lecture?
He’d been ten the first time he’d been summoned to this room.
“You’ll not shame this family, Dixon. I’ll not have your shenanigans bandied about Scotland. You’ll behave with some decorum as befits a MacKinnon.”
“Yes, uncle.”
For years, that had been the only acceptable answer to any question his uncle asked. Later, he’d been more courageous.
“Is it true you manhandled the maid?”
“Is that what she said, Uncle?”
“She won’t say anything. She only giggles when anyone mentions your name. The cook, however, has stated that you two were seen kissing in the pantry. Is that true?”
He’d only shrugged. His uncle had not hesitated to beat him for it.
When he’d been sent home from school with a warning from the headmaster about his lack of application, he’d been summoned here.
“I’m paying for your schooling, young man.”
“Thank you, Uncle.”
“I don’t want your gratitude as much as your excellence. You will remember who, exactly, you are.”
He’d been expelled in his third year, sent home in disgrace with a letter outlining his exploits. His uncle had decreed him a disaster and a blight on the family name.
“Do you understand anything that I am saying, boy?”
“I’m not a boy, Uncle,” he’d said. “I’m a man.”
“No, you’re a child. A boy does what you have done. A man owns up to his faults.”
He’d had no response to that, so he’d kept silent.
Strangely enough, he’d never begrudged his uncle his strict discipline. But he’d never understood why George was not treated in the same way. Once he’d had the courage to ask his uncle why he’d not disciplined George for the same infraction. His uncle’s answer had been swift. “George does not ha
ve to aspire.”
The two cousins may have resembled each other, but there the similarities ended. George was the heir, the future earl, educated and treated as if he’d already ascended to the title.
His uncle’s funeral had been well attended. People had come from miles around simply to bid farewell to the man they’d known and loved so dearly. Dixon had stood in the rain and marveled at their genuine grief, and thought that perhaps that was the measure of a man after all. Not what he left behind but how many people attended his final ceremony.
He’d left Scotland several months after that day, after realizing there was nothing here for him. He no longer wanted to watch George gamble away the family fortune or spend it on mistresses and horses.
More than a decade had passed since Dixon had stood here. More than enough time to understand what his uncle had tried to teach him. This empty room seemed to echo with all those long-ago lectures. Dixon felt a deep and abiding pain—he couldn’t reach past the veil of death and send a message to the man he’d come to respect and admire.
“Forgive me, Uncle,” he said softly in the stillness. “For all my foolishness. For all my stupidity and childishness. For not listening, and for being such a trial to you.”
He rounded the desk and sat in his uncle’s chair. The room didn’t smell like tobacco anymore; it smelled of roses. A leather blotter tooled with flowers sat in the middle of the desk. On the blotter sat a silver quill holder and an inkwell in the shape of a swan.
The Countess of Marne evidently used this room as her own.
She didn’t belong here, and yet her claim to this place was greater than his. He should find some other room to haunt, some other chamber in which to revisit the past. But no other place evoked Balfurin and his childhood as strongly as this library.
A stack of correspondence sat at his right hand. She liked heavy cream-colored stationery, and wrote in an elaborate script. Her signature was telling. She didn’t use her title in her correspondence but simply signed Charlotte MacKinnon. Nor did she use George’s crest.
Had George wed her for her money? If so, why had he deserted her after such a short time? A week, she’d said. She was either a liar, or George was a bounder. Since Dixon knew his cousin better than he knew his countess, he suspected where to put the blame.
He rearranged her quills, and moved the inkwell so that it was perfectly aligned next to the blotter’s edge.
George was missing and Charlotte thought he was his cousin. Balfurin had been transformed to the Caledonia School for the Advancement of Females. Matthew was predicting doom and gloom, and Dixon hadn’t yet rid himself of the suffocating guilt that had fueled this journey.
Why the hell had he ever come home?
Maisie knocked on the door softly, and when it wasn’t answered, she balanced the tray in one hand while she pushed down on the handle with the other. The Laird’s Chamber was empty, but to be sure, she called out his lordship’s name, wondering if he was using the attached closet for his personal needs.
When no one answered, she left the tray on the small writing desk and returned to the kitchen.
The trip to the third floor was harder, and she allowed herself to limp a little, as long as no one was around to see. It was a matter of pride that she didn’t give in to her affliction. Like her Mam said, everybody was born with something. Some faults were obvious, some were deeply hidden, but everybody had one or more.
Once on the third floor, she knocked softly on the third door from the end. The chamber Matthew had been given had once been occupied by one of the footmen, but he’d gone off to Edinburgh when the country silence had grated on his nerves.
She knew the room well, had cleaned it herself. The window looked out over the loch and the room got most of the morning sun. There was a pretty little blue coverlet on the narrow bed and the pillow was fluffier than hers. But it had been newly stuffed and she’d seen to it that there was a selection of herbs in the middle of all the feathers so that it smelled fresh no matter what time of year it was.
She knocked once more, wondering if she should leave the tray on the floor in front of the door. But if he wasn’t inside, it would be an invitation to any rodents who might be making their home at Balfurin. And what a waste of food that would be. She’d made the same selection for both the earl and his secretary from the silver platters in the kitchen. The cook had fussed at her a bit, saying they were for the ballroom, but she’d stood her ground, told her they were for the earl. Cook had stepped back, wiped her hands on her apron and muttered something under her breath.
The door abruptly opened and she was left staring at the Oriental man.
For a moment she forgot about politeness, lost in wonder. He was the most different-looking person she’d ever seen, what with his tilted eyes and his nose all but flat in the center of his face. His mouth was perfectly formed, his eyes the color of peat, a deep dark brown. His hair, cut short all around his head, was black and she wondered if it was as soft as it appeared.
He looked straight at her, and she had the strangest thought that although he wasn’t smiling, he was amused.
“I’ve brought you dinner,” she said. “I’m sure you’re hungry.”
“I have learned to deal with hunger, but I thank you.”
“But why should you have to? Balfurin always has food.”
She stretched out her arms and for a moment she wondered if he would take the tray from her. Should she enter his room and put it on the small table beside his bed? But while she debated, he reached out and took the tray.
“There are small little bits of food called hors d’oeuvres, something French, I think, and roast beef, cheeses, and a pastry that looks like a cherry tart. Cook and her helpers have been working for days on the refreshments. A buffet, it’s called, something I’ve never seen. But today is a day for strange occurrences, I think. My Mam said that a day when you learn something is a day never wasted.”
“It looks very good,” he said.
“If you don’t like it, I can try to find something more to your taste. Do you like Scottish food?” she asked.
“I find it very different from what I am used to.”
“What are you used to? Or is that a very rude thing to ask? You see, I don’t know where Penang is.”
“It’s on the other side of the world.”
“Oh.” She’d never met anyone who wasn’t from Scotland. Well, the English, but they were considered countrymen now, weren’t they?
“I like your fish,” he offered. “Salmon. With rice. And I have a particular liking for vegetables.”
“There’s some salmon,” she said, pointing to one of the hors d’oeuvres. “But there isn’t any rice, I’m afraid.”
“I will try the salmon, and I thank you.”
He bowed to her, and so surprising was the gesture that she stood frozen in place.
“Thank you,” he said. An obvious comment of dismissal, but she truly didn’t want to leave. Instead, she would love to simply stand here and study him.
“May I ask why you are staring? Is it because my appearance is so very different from your countrymen?”
“Oh no,” she said, embarrassed. She looked down at the floor, wishing that it might open up and swallow her. “It’s that you’re quite the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, sir.”
He looked surprised, and then he smiled. The loveliest smile she’d ever been given, one that she had no choice but to return.
Chapter 4
T he ball and the revelry continued unabated until the wee hours of the morning. As Charlotte watched the dancers, she missed Spencer even more. If he’d been here, he would have taken her in his arms, out of sight of the others, and just held her for a moment. Before he released her, he would have pressed a chaste but warm kiss on her temple and given her a smile that imparted courage at the same time it did compassion.
He might also have passed on some solicitor’s advice. Advised her what to do, how to handle George.
But Spencer wasn’t here, and George was.
She hated him. The confession startled her. She remained where she was, back braced against a carved wood panel as she watched the dancers. She hated George, Earl of Marne. The emotion came rolling out of her as if a door had recently been open. She hated him for all of the humiliation she’d had to endure, all of the sleepless nights, and all of the fear.
In all this time, no word had ever come. No apology, no letter of explanation, no notice that he had simply tired of married life and her, and taken himself away. No inkling of what had ever happened to him.
Her heart beat so fast that she felt faint with it. She walked to the sideboard and nodded at some of the parents in passing, making polite conversation with another couple.
At the end of the buffet table, she encountered two of her students and endured their giggling with what restraint she had left. She reached for a glass of spirits, something mild, designed for the female guests and older students. At the moment, she would have gladly traded her locale for her father’s wine cellar. Let her pick a bottle of carefully matured wine and sit in the silence until she was in her cups.
Not exactly a ladylike thought, was it? But then, she hadn’t time to consider being a woman, not when she was trying to survive—first as an abandoned wife, and then as the headmistress of the Caledonia School for the Advancement of Females.
Until Spencer, that is. She’d consulted him as a solicitor a few years ago, when she’d had the money to consider divorcing George. Over these past months their relationship had deepened.
She took another sip of the oversweet punch and smiled politely at a couple on the dance floor. They looked to be in love. Was that what she felt for Spencer? Certainly, she always felt in a good mood in his presence, as if she were smiling deep inside when she was next to him.
But if it was love, it felt too light, too insubstantial, almost a fluttery feeling. Surely love should be more weighty.
Like rage?
Never before had she felt this fierce anger. She realized she was frowning, and smoothed out her expression, pressing a smile to her lips with some degree of difficulty.
