Enchanting the Earl (The Townsends)

by Lily Maxton

  A shot of anger went through him. “Because you’ve been so forthcoming?”

  Red flagged her cheeks. “I concede that you may have a small point. But very small. And you’re distracting me—that’s not the issue at hand.”

  “I don’t even understand the issue at hand,” he pointed out.

  “Do you remember the name Colin McKendrick?”

  He thought back. “Wasn’t that the name of the man who was murd— No. Annabel…” But when he looked at her, he realized she wasn’t going to tell him his assumption was wrong. She was gritting her teeth so hard that a muscle leapt in her jaw and her eyes glittered with unshed tears.

  “I didn’t know,” she finally said, quietly. “Not until I heard it from Mr. MacPherson. I thought my sister had fled from her husband.”

  “Did she commit the crime?”

  “It isn’t quite that simple. He was a violent man. He hurt her, and tried to hurt their child.”

  “Did she act to defend herself?”

  “Not…” Annabel swallowed. “Not exactly.”

  His heart sank. He felt some sympathy for her sister, but most of his attention was focused on Annabel. “You must give her up,” he said.

  A beat of silence went by, and another. “How can you say that to me?” she whispered hoarsely.

  “If they find her…if they think you were helping her hide. She’s putting you in danger,” he said, experiencing a shock of fear so strong it startled him.

  “She’s my sister.”

  “Your sister is using your kindness. She didn’t even tell you what had truly happened. If you needed help, would she help you?”

  Annabel’s lips trembled. “I couldn’t say. But that isn’t the way love works.”

  “Perhaps it should be,” he said grimly.

  “What if it was one of your sisters? What if they had done something awful—would you turn them away?”

  Theo sighed and stared down at his clasped hands. “No,” he said, sensing defeat. “I would never turn them away, no matter what they’d done.” And how could Theo ask her to turn her back on her sister, when he knew he wouldn’t do the same if the situation were his?

  Annabel nodded grimly. “I’m partially to blame, anyway,” she said. “I thought Colin would be a good match for her. I had no inkling of his cruelty.”

  “That isn’t your fault. I doubt anyone else knew, either.”

  “But I should have seen it,” she burst out. “I wasn’t even suspicious when Fiona told me I couldn’t live with them… I just thought… I assumed the same thing was happening that had always happened before.”

  “Oh, Annabel.” He felt like his heart was going to crack.

  He wanted to tell her that they all were idiots, every single one of them, but he didn’t know if he could keep his voice steady. It hurt him so much to look at her in that moment—she was standing stiff and straight, but her eyes were bright with tears—and at the same time, he couldn’t stop drinking her in like cool water for his parched throat. He saw it all at once, her strength and her vulnerabilities, everything good and bad that had forged her into the woman she was, and he admired her even more. He couldn’t believe he’d ever called her frivolous.

  “Come to me,” he said softly.

  She hesitated, but then she did, sitting down next to him on the bed.

  He wanted to touch her; he wanted, rather desperately, to take her into his arms and smooth away the tears that had leaked from the corners of her eyes. But something in him was hesitant. It seemed almost too intimate—more intimate, even, than what they’d done the night before. He would be hinting at something he wasn’t willing—wasn’t capable of giving.

  Instead, he settled for leaning against her, so their arms brushed. He let his hand cover her smaller one, where it rested on the bed between them. He felt strangely tentative, strangely young, as though he was a green lad with his first infatuation, and this small touch was both too much and not enough. “Someday, you will have to forgive yourself. You can’t always carry this weight with you.”

  She exhaled a sharp breath. “That’s sound advice, Theo. Mayhap you should apply it to yourself.”

  He met her calm stare and felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. Could she see through him so easily?

  “We weren’t discussing me,” he said through a suddenly tight throat.

  “No, we never are,” she replied.

  Her tone would have come across as flippant if Theo hadn’t heard the edge of bitterness to it. It made Theo feel miserable. He was already too close to her. He was already hurting her. He’d have to remedy that, just as soon as he made sure she was safe.

  “I’m going to find a way to save my sister. I don’t know how yet, but I will. You can help me, or you can look the other way.”

  She posed it as a choice. Didn’t she realize he had no choice? Free will had been taken from his hands the moment he’d realized how deeply she was involved. He couldn’t possibly look the other way, knowing she might be in danger.

  He didn’t know what kind of assistance he’d be able to offer. She probably would have been better off asking Robert or Bonnie Knees Cameron. But some fierce, swift possessive instinct didn’t want her to ask anyone else, even if it was selfish.

  “I’ll help you,” he finally said.

  May God help them both.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Plans, Annabel later mused, even the best laid plans, were often shot to hell. She and Theo’s plan wasn’t even well-laid, but a hasty thing born of desperation and the need to act quickly.

  Theo had traveled to Oban overnight, to enquire about ship departures. He returned as dawn faded and a bright morning settled in.

  “There’s one leaving sometime tomorrow, if the weather holds,” he said, meeting her in the drawing room, eyes bruised from lack of sleep.

  “Where is it going?”

  “It’s stopping in Ireland first, and then on to Pictou,” he said.

  “That would be perfect.” Most of the ships departing from Scotland, like this one, were headed across the Atlantic to Nova Scotia. Annabel had been trying to reconcile herself with the idea of Fiona and Mary all the way across the ocean, but they could disembark early, instead. Ireland was not so very far away.

  “That’s all I could find out. The captain was asleep at an inn, and the innkeeper didn’t want to trouble him, so I couldn’t buy passage.”

  Annabel had gone out that morning to gather boy’s clothes for Mary, who was still young enough to pass as male. Fiona would have to make do with a cloak.

  The rest would be left to hope.

  Hope that their disguises were enough.

  Hope that they were right in assuming Glasgow, though easier to get lost in, would be watched too vigorously to do them any good, as it was the closest point of departure from Colin McKendrick’s estate.

  Hope that the ship’s departure wouldn’t be delayed.

  It was Annabel’s experience that plans that left too many aspects to hope were generally the plans that failed. But they were backed into a corner. They had no other choice.

  “We could leave tonight,” he said.

  She nodded.

  They were both quite shocked when a windswept Georgina, complete with wild hair and flushed cheeks, came into the drawing room. But then, shock where Georgina was concerned was a futile enterprise. She must have taken the spyglass outside, because now she returned it gently to the display table.

  Theo lifted his eyebrows at Annabel, who shrugged.

  Georgina, frowning, turned to look at them. “What is it?” Annabel asked quickly, already on edge.

  “Are you expecting someone?” she asked.

  Georgina’s careful tone struck fear in her heart. “Why?”

  “There are two men on horseback, headed this way. I don’t think it will take them more than a few minutes to reach us, judging by their quick pace.”

  “Oh, dear God.” Annabel couldn’t think of anyone who would want to
reach Llynmore quickly…unless they were searching for Fiona.

  Theo turned toward her. He looked tense and solemn, but not fearful.

  “I’ll go fetch them…” Annabel began. And what? Tell Fiona to flee to one of the outlying buildings through the servants’ entrance? What if the officers looked there afterward? But did they even have a warrant, or were they just here to question and intimidate?

  She didn’t have time to waste worrying about what to do. The men would be upon them soon.

  She left Theo in the drawing room with a wide-eyed Georgina and sprinted up the stairwell in a most unladylike manner. She rapped on Fiona’s bedchamber door before letting herself in.

  Fiona, groggy-eyed, dragged the counterpane to her chin and stared at Annabel. “What is it?”

  “You need to be ready to leave.”

  The woman blinked sleepily. “Now?”

  “Now.”

  The urgency in Annabel’s tone spurred her sister into action. She hopped out of bed and began throwing clothes into her valise as quickly as she could. In the maelstrom of the formerly quiet bedchamber, Mary woke up, looking confused by the sudden activity.

  Annabel took the girl’s hand. “There’s no time to dress,” she said, quickly smoothing the counterpane back down once the bed was empty. She looked at Fiona. “I don’t know if they have a warrant or not. Go to the servants’ entrance. If you hear us coming down the stairs, go to one of the outbuildings and hide.”

  Fiona nodded, mouth set, face grim.

  “Now, come along,” Annabel said softly. She ushered the two of them out the door and watched them disappear into the shadows of the servants’ stairwell. Less than a minute later she heard a knock at the main door, and then the creak and groan of the heavy door opening. She crept out to the landing above the great hall, making use of the medieval spy hole. She wondered vaguely how many paranoid chieftains before her had knelt at this exact spot and listened to plans unravel below them.

  The two men, one tall and dressed in finely made riding breeches and a bright green coat, one more square and dressed soberly, regarded Theo with some surprise.

  Introductions were made—the fashionably dressed one was Colin’s eldest brother, the Viscount of Westburgh, and the sober one was Boyd, a sheriff’s officer. The officer sounded vaguely apologetic as he explained himself. “We are looking for a Mrs. Fiona McKendrick. We believe her closest living relatives, an aunt and a sister, reside here. Frances Blair and Annabel Lockhart?”

  “Yes,” Theo said calmly. “They’ve been here since I took possession of the estate. But you assume that gives you the right to barge into my home with no thought for how it might frighten the ladies present? They might swoon from the shock. Have you no respect?”

  In spite of the situation, Annabel had to repress a smile. Theo certainly sounded convincing. As if any of the ladies present would swoon over anything.

  “May I ask why ye are out of bed so early, Lord Arden?” That was Viscount Westburgh; he sounded more severe than Officer Boyd…more suspicious.

  Just their luck. Things would be easier without the viscount swooping around like an overbearing bat.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was in the king’s army. I’m used to early hours.”

  The man muttered what Annabel assumed was an apology. “Still,” he said, “we need to question Mrs. Blair and Miss Lockhart.”

  “At least let me wake them first. I’ll take you to the drawing room and send for tea; you can conduct your questioning there.”

  Boyd cleared his throat, a dry rustle of sound. “Before we question them, might I ask ye a few questions?”

  “Very well,” Theo said curtly.

  “Are you acquainted with a Mrs. McKendrick?”

  “No.”

  “When you arrived here, there was no one in residence except for Mrs. Blair and Miss Lockhart?”

  “No.”

  “Servants?”

  “There is a maid and a cook.”

  “Are either of them young with blond hair?”

  Theo shook his head.

  “And ye haven’t seen a young child? A girl?”

  He shook his head again. “Just what is this woman suspected of doing?”

  Boyd glanced at the viscount and received a sharp nod. “Murdering her husband.”

  “I can assure you I’m not harboring any murderesses, Officer Boyd, and I take insult that you are suggesting I would.”

  Even in the midst of such a dreadful situation, Annabel had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. He sounded so prickly and authoritative. So perfectly indignant. And he was lying. The honorable Lord Arden was lying to a sheriff’s officer, for her. To protect her.

  Surely it meant something.

  It must.

  Boyd held up a placating hand. “I am not suggesting anything, my lord. We are simply trying to find answers.”

  “Miss Lockhart has other family,” Theo said. “Why aren’t you questioning them?”

  “We will,” he allowed. “If we find nothing here.”

  “You won’t find anything here, but if you insist on this waste of time, I cannot stop you,” Theo said, letting them brush past him. “I’ll show you to the drawing room and have the maid fetch Miss Lockhart and Mrs. Blair.”

  Annabel silently crept back to her room and waited for Catriona.

  “Miss?” the woman asked quietly, sticking her head in.

  She pushed up from the bed.

  “An officer is here,” she whispered. “He wants to question you about Mrs. McKendrick. Pretend you don’t know anything. Pretend they were never here.”

  Catriona scowled. “I already know that. I’m not stupid. Lord Arden thought he needed to remind me, too.”

  “He did?” Annabel asked, feeling a sudden fluttering in her heart that had nothing to do with the men waiting to speak to her downstairs.

  Catriona snorted but didn’t comment. “You had better go down there.”

  Annabel was so focused on smoothing down her dress and tucking wayward tendrils of hair into her pins, so she might look at least somewhat respectable, that she nearly ran into Theo, who stood waiting for her in the hallway.

  “Did you hear all that?” he asked softly, steadying her with a hand to her elbow.

  She nodded, ridiculously pleased that he was on her side, no matter what the law said. Then he did something that startled her—he cupped her face in his hand, angling her head to kiss her.

  It was as soft as a sigh, as delicate as snowflakes landing on her skin, or the petal of a rose brushing her lips.

  It was an almost loving kiss.

  And she found herself kissing him back, loving the gentle press of his lips on hers, despite the fear churning in her stomach, despite her realization of only hours before that he might offer his body, but he would never, ever offer his heart.

  She wondered if she might have been wrong about that assumption. Or maybe he had been wrong about his own heart.

  But then, it was also quite possible he wasn’t offering anything resembling affection. Her love-starved soul was more than capable of misreading a simple act. This was for his own good, too, after all. He would come under scrutiny if Fiona was discovered in his home, whether he claimed to be ignorant of her presence or not. While she was recklessly dreaming of affection, he was probably just trying to salvage a situation he couldn’t escape.

  Before she had more time to cipher through her emotions or his possible reasons, he held out his arm for her to take and escorted her to the drawing room.

  The men stood when she entered the room. Aunt Frances was already there, her hands folded demurely on her lap. Annabel took the spot beside her and turned a calm gaze on the men. “What is this about?”

  “The lady gets right to the matter at hand,” the viscount noted. His eyes were cool when he looked at her. “Officer?”

  “Have you been in contact with your sister, Fiona McKendrick?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I haven�
��t spoken to Fiona in over four years,” she said. And up until a sennight ago, that statement would have been the bleak truth.

  “Are you certain, lass? No letters, nothing at all?”

  “Yes, I’m certain.”

  The officer leaned forward earnestly, a tuft of thin hair falling in his face. “Miss Lockhart, do you have any idea where your sister would go if she were in distress?”

  She shook her head.

  They asked Aunt Frances the same questions, and the older woman, though fully aware of Fiona’s presence, lied blithely, as though she’d been away from the stage for a few weeks instead of several years.

  The viscount grew impatient. He stared at Annabel. “You truly expect me to believe that you have no possible idea where she might be?”

  “It is the truth,” she said, as calmly as could. “My sister and I, unfortunately, are estranged and have been for some time.”

  “Completely? Not one word has been exchanged between ye?”

  “No.”

  “She shot my brother and left him to die,” he growled. “She will be found, and if you know anything about her whereabouts, I guarantee you will be arrested for perverting justice. I’ll see you both hang for this.”

  Annabel’s face paled. She clasped her hands together tightly, and the viscount’s narrowed gaze followed the movement.

  Theo, who had been standing toward the side of the room, watching the proceedings silently, suddenly snarled, “Miss Lockhart is a guest in my house and you will treat her as such.” He didn’t have to add a threat to that statement. Even if he’d been the kind of man to make threats, which he wasn’t, his stance was so rigid, his eyes so bright and hard, his anger so plain, that there was no question the viscount would continue speaking at his own risk.

  A thrill went down Annabel’s spine at the sheer primality of Theo in that instant. It was rather ridiculous—she obviously had more important things to contemplate than how wonderful it felt to have that primality focused in her defense, how the air around him seemed charged, like a lightning storm, and how she wanted to reach her hand forward just to graze all of that raw masculine power.

  The viscount lapsed into silence.

  “Of course, of course,” Boyd said quickly. “We are here to question, not accuse.” He glanced at Lord Westburgh, who stared stonily ahead. “If she were to write you or to come here,” Boyd said gently, giving her his direction, “please send for me. Helping her would only cause you trouble, and justice must be done. A gentleman has been killed in a horrifying manner.”