Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction

by Jennifer Ashley

  Lady Flora arrived—late—surrounded by Mrs. Reynolds and an entourage of ladies who styled themselves, along with Flora and the duchess, as the leaders of society. The attention they drew allowed Alec to slip from the ballroom to a side corridor, where all was in shadow.

  Celia watched him go. Alec caught her glance across the room, but she, bless her, made no obvious sign she’d seen him. They shared a brief look.

  Alec knew, in that moment, with perfect certainty, that he loved her. Had for some time, since she’d caught the fire in his eyes in her drawing, when he’d seen the fire in her. Her clear thinking, her straight-faced jokes, her shrewd observation, and her gentle caring had wrapped around his whole being, had become part of him.

  He’d finish this mission without being caught, because he would do whatever he must to return to her, his beautiful wife, the joy he’d found when he’d expected only sorrow.

  I love you, my Celia, he whispered in his heart, then he made himself turn and go.

  He’d explored the entire house in the days before the ball. This hall led past the room where pastries and drink were kept ready to replenish the tables in the supper room and thence to a staircase leading all the way to the cellars.

  Alec headed down the stairs, which ended in a stone-clad passage connecting the servants’ hall with the kitchen. A door halfway down this passage opened outside to stone steps going upward to a gate in a high hedge that led to the garden. Thus, guests at a garden party could have food and drink brought to them seemingly out of nowhere.

  The main part of the garden lay beyond this hedge, screened from the working side of the house. Tonight, the ball’s guests ambled along paths around pattering fountains, their way lit by colorful paper lanterns. Already ladies and gentlemen were seeking the darker reaches of the lanes for a stolen kiss, a tryst, or other secret meetings that might involve coupling or politics—the Duchess of Crenshaw’s gatherings engendered both, according to Celia.

  He skirted the edge of the garden, keeping to the shadow of the hedge. At the garden’s far side was a wood, one that reached Lord Chesfield’s lands, beyond which was the old house they’d passed the week before.

  Alec had left a bundle at the end of the garden when he’d rambled over the estate like an excited pleb. Here he stripped out of his garish jacket and waistcoat and donned a dark, close-fitting coat, sliding his ostentatious breeches off to reveal a skintight pair of dark leather ones beneath them. He tugged off the wig, which would be a white smudge in the darkness, and made sure his hair was bound tightly out of his way. His shoes he replaced with a stout pair of boots.

  Alec straightened up when he finished dressing and hiding his ballroom garb, turned around—

  —and came face to face with an Englishman who recognized him at once, no question.

  He was the Earl of Wilfort, Malcolm’s father-in-law, who’d lived with the Mackenzies for months before his rescue by the British soldiers who’d burned Kilmorgan Castle.

  Wilfort knew Alec, no disguise would aid him, and it was too late to hide.

  “Alec Mackenzie?” Wilfort asked in a ringing voice. “What the devil?”

  Celia turned her back on Alec slipping out the door and continued speaking brightly to her girlhood friends. The pain in her heart on seeing him go was greater than she’d expected. She’d thought herself sanguine with the plan, but now her mouth was dry, her throat tight, and she found it difficult to draw a natural breath.

  It was all she could do to suppress the vision of the peril he headed to and focus on her friends’ conversation. She forced her lips to smile, her voice to be light, as she chatted with them, wondering that she’d ever looked forward to their inane conversation.

  Now that Celia was respectably married—though the ladies made certain she understood she’d made a grave mistake marrying so far beneath her—her friends no longer shunned her company. Of course, each young lady in the circle made it a point to mention her husband’s or affianced’s house, lands, investments, and gifts, and to flash her jewels as often as possible.

  Celia countered this by remaining modest, quiet, and admiring, and exuding—when she could get a word in edgewise—that she’d married for love.

  “Mr. Finn and I have discovered an enjoyment in strolling along together, speaking of anything and everything,” she would say. Or, “Mr. Finn is teaching me the most marvelous techniques of drawing—he is quite talented, and is helping me with my small skill.” Or, “Mr. Finn and I discovered we both very much enjoy reading. I know I am a bit of a bluestocking about books, but it is fine to have someone with whom to discuss them on a quiet night.”

  By the end of the conversation, several of the ladies looked wistful.

  Celia tried not to glance at the tall, ornate clock in the corner of the ballroom, or even look at the door through which Alec had departed. She continued to chatter with her friends, but her lips were stiff, and her heart jumped and banged. She wasn’t certain whether she hoped Alec found his brother or that the house would prove to be empty.

  Celia noticed after a time that Lady Flora too had disappeared. Her friends remained, commanding plenty of attention, but Celia saw that Mrs. Reynolds, drifting from group to group, gazed about in some concern.

  The dancing would not begin until after supper. Celia and Lady Flora had convinced the duchess to not have a sit-down meal, but for guests to eat as they wandered about, as though this were an indoor garden party. That way, there would be no pairing off to go into the dining room, when Alec’s absence might be noted.

  Celia wondered now whether Lady Flora had yet another plan up her sleeve—had she come up with the idea of no sit-down supper so her own absence wouldn’t be noticed? And where the devil had Edward got to?

  Mrs. Reynolds worked her way through the crush to Celia, putting a hand on her arm and giving her a look that said she needed a quiet word.

  Celia walked away after her, pausing to speak to friends as she passed them, so it would not appear as though she was hurrying out with Mrs. Reynolds. At one point, Uncle Perry’s sons—Celia’s vapid cousins—stalled her to tell her at length their opinions on her misalliance, but at last she broke away and left the ballroom.

  Mrs. Reynolds waited for her at the stairs, and they ascended to the relative privacy of the gallery.

  “I can’t find her.” Mrs. Reynolds said in a whisper, and Celia realized the woman trembled. “I know why Lord Alec wanted Lord Chesfield to bring the regimental officers with him tonight—but I fear … Flora has been behaving so very odd lately.”

  They were alone in the gallery, away from the stairs and the noise from the ballroom below.

  “She has indeed,” Celia answered. Lady Flora’s entire part in this affair had been odd—from her allowing Alec to stay in her house at all, to her broken sobbing after the soldiers had searched her home, to her idea for Alec to abduct Celia and put her into his power. “Tell me what you fear.”

  Mrs. Reynolds shook her head. “She is fixated on the regiment at Lord Chesfield’s. I don’t know everything, but this week she’s been very excited, and she ceased talking to me. I very much worry that … We must find her. Please help me, Lady Celia.”

  Her eyes glittered with tears, alarming in a woman usually so unruffled.

  “Where did you see her last?” Celia asked.

  “I thought she came up the main stairs. I do wish your mother would have set lights up here.”

  “And waste the candles?” Celia lifted her skirts, panniers creaking as she started down the gallery. “One can peer at my father’s paintings just fine in the dark.”

  Mrs. Reynolds’s heels clicked as she hurried after Celia. “Yes—Flora must have suggested they view the collection.”

  “Suggested to whom?” Celia asked in bewilderment.

  A male voice roared down the corridor, as though in answer to her question. “What the bloody hell are you doing, woman? Put that down before you hurt yourself.”

  Mrs. Reynolds increased
her pace, passing Celia in a graceful flash. Celia kicked off her useless shoes and ran after her, stocking-footed, her skirts swaying like a galleon in high wind.

  At the end of the hall, double doors led to an anteroom where, in the days of Charles II, courtiers would remain while the king viewed the duke’s extensive collection of paintings in relative privacy.

  Three people stood in the high-ceilinged little room tonight, which was lit by candles they must have ignited. One was the colonel billeted with Chesfield—Kell, Celia believed his name was. The other man in the room, also in a scarlet regimental coat, was her brother, Edward.

  Lady Flora faced them both, a polished flintlock pistol in each hand, their mother-of-pearl handles things of beauty in the candles’ flickering light.

  Chapter 26

  The Earl of Wilfort continued to stare at Alec through the gloom of the woods, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

  “What has happened?” Wilfort demanded swiftly, more concerned than outraged. “Why are you in England? Is Mary—”

  Alec pushed Wilfort into the shadows, cutting off his panicked question. “Not a word. Not a sound.”

  Wilfort’s words died away, the man astute enough to realize when silence was necessary. Mal’s father-in-law was a slim man with wiry strength, much of that strength from his character. He was dressed in fine clothes, obviously one of the guests at the duchess’s ball, his neat wig tied with a black ribbon.

  Alec gripped his arm and guided him into the woods until they were well away from the garden. He stopped at the tree beneath which he’d hidden a dark lantern, but he didn’t release Wilfort to look for it.

  “Your daughter is perfectly safe,” he said in a low voice. “She’s in Paris, growing thick with Mal’s babe. What are you doing skulking at the end of the Duke of Crenshaw’s garden?”

  “The duke’s crushes weary me.” Wilfort adopted the same soft tones. “I attended tonight only because I need to show my interest in his offspring’s tiresome new husband, an Irishman of no note. One glimpse of the colorful popinjay was enough.”

  Alec couldn’t suppress his grin. He let go of Wilfort’s arm to sketch a fussy bow, à la Mr. Finn.

  Wilfort’s eyes widened. “Good God. I thought there was something familiar about the man, but I never got close enough to observe you clearly. Do you mean to say you tricked Crenshaw’s insipid daughter into believing she is your wife? What on earth for?”

  Alec lost his smile. “Celia is not insipid. She’s worth a thousand of the duke and duchess and her rather dim brother. It was no trick. I married her in truth.”

  Wilfort’s bafflement deepened. “Then why are you still in England? I understand about the disguise—your life is forfeit if you’re caught. But why did you not abscond with her out of the country the instant you married her?”

  “What do you know about Crenshaw’s regiment?” Alec countered.

  “Little. The duke raised it to fight in France, but after Fontenoy, it was diverted to Scotland with Cumberland. A contingent is billeted nearby, I believe.”

  “On the Earl of Chesfield’s land. I suspect they’re holding my brother.”

  “Malcolm?” Wilfort’s question rang with horror.

  “Not Mal. Will. I made the Runt stay with his wife.”

  Emotions flickered through the earl’s eyes, he not one for demonstrating either great fear or relief. He settled on amazement and disapproval. “You are creeping over to try to free him? Are you mad?”

  “I need to discover if Will is there at all, and if so, how to get him away. If you have any fondness for our family, you’ll help me—namely return to the house and escort Celia safely to our rendezvous.”

  Wilfort’s mouth firmed. “I’ll accompany you, if you don’t mind.”

  He stated it politely, but Alec knew he meant he’d follow whether Alec liked it or not.

  “I can move quicker on my own,” Alec protested.

  “And if sentries spy you, they’ll respond to an order from me more readily than an explanation from you. I can walk right in without challenge if I declare that the duke or Chesfield sent me to look over the prisoner.”

  “We believe there’s more than one prisoner. I heard that several Scotsmen were being held. Why, I’ve not learned.”

  “All the better. I will say I was sent to observe what is being done with the prisoners.”

  “Too bloody risky.”

  Wilfort gave him a deprecating look. “I suppose you intend to pick a lock or break open a window? I’d believe it of Malcolm or William, but you have always seemed more civilized.”

  “If by civilized ye mean weak, you’re wrong.”

  Wilfort shook his head. “I did not mean that at all. I mean that picking locks and breaking windows is not in your character. If you charge in there by yourself, you’ll end up fighting for your life.”

  Alec ground his teeth, but he knew in his heart that Wilfort was right. Will and Mal had inherited the cunning and crafty nature of their ancestor, Old Dan Mackenzie, the first duke, who’d come by the title in ways best not looked into. Alec had always been more straightforward. He encountered a problem, he beat on it until it solved itself or went away.

  “How can I know you won’t simply turn me over to them?” Alec asked. “We get inside the prison, and they lock me in as well?”

  “Because of my love for my daughter and my unborn grandchild,” Wilfort said sternly. “And my respect for your brothers and father. Besides, I know that if I betray you, you’ll slice me open on the spot. I want to live to see Mary again.”

  “Aye, well. You have a point.”

  Alec crouched down and reached beneath the leaves. Wilfort took a step back, as though worried he’d come up with a sword, and relaxed when he saw the lantern.

  Alec took flint and steel from his pocket, struck a spark, and lit the candle inside. The dark lantern had three sides solid iron, and the fourth side could be quickly shuttered.

  “Stay quiet,” Alec ordered, and then led the way through the wood in the direction of the old house.

  “Flora!” Mrs. Reynolds’s anguished cry broke the silence.

  Lady Flora did not flinch. Her pistols remained trained on Edward and the colonel. Colonel Kell had a hatchet-like face and at this moment he glared at Lady Flora in rage.

  “Lady Flora,” Celia said in dismay. “For heaven’s sake—please, don’t hurt my brother.” The simple plea was uttered without rancor. Edward’s eyes were wide with fear, but also shame.

  “He was there.” Lady Flora’s voice shook. “He knew what happened. When this monster …” She broke off and advanced until the pistol was leveled at Colonel Kell’s chest, though she remained just out of his reach.

  “What on earth did he do?” Celia asked.

  But in a flash, she understood. Lady Flora had collapsed in despair when the soldiers had gone through her house, though she’d been cool and tart while she’d spoken to them. She’d wept unrestrainedly afterward, sobbing that she missed her daughter. I miss her with every breath. Why did they take her away from me?

  “Flora, no.” Mrs. Reynolds started forward, but Lady Flora stilled her with a quelling glare.

  “Please,” Mrs. Reynolds went on, her eyes shining with tears. “If you kill him, you’ll hang. Please don’t do this. I can’t bear to be without you.”

  “He touched her.” Lady Flora’s voice rang clear. “My Sophia. The breath of my life. He put his filthy hands on her.” She waved the pistol at Colonel Kell’s head. “She sobbed it out to me, how he’d found her alone in Lord Chesfield’s bloody house, how she resisted his flirtation, until he dragged her off and had his way with her. Drunk and disgusting, and when she screamed, he laughed.”

  The colonel’s face drained of color. Celia didn’t know Colonel Kell well, but she’d seen him with Lord Chesfield. Celia had overheard her father say that Kell had acquired his rank more through money and position than the ability to lead.

  “Oh, God,” Kell said with rea
lization. “Is that who she was?”

  “Yes, that was who she was.” Lady Flora’s eyes were dark with pure fury. “She had a name. Sophia. Say it.”

  Colonel Kell gulped. Edward, Celia was troubled to note, continued to look ashamed. Had he known?

  Lady Flora pointed her second pistol at Kell’s groin. “Say it.”

  “Sophia,” the colonel babbled. “Her name was Sophia. I had no idea she was your daughter, my lady. I’d never have touched her.”

  “Bastard.” Lady Flora spat at him. “She was light and life, and you took that away from her. She showed signs of your disgusting pox, which even now rots your blood. The child she carried died inside her. In despair, my dear, beautiful, sweet Sophia, took a pistol and ended her life.”

  Colonel Kell swallowed. “I didn’t know. I swear to you.”

  Lady Flora had put it about that Sophia had died of an illness, nursed to the end by Flora herself. No one had been allowed to see her, to go near her. The illness, Celia now realized, had been Sophia’s pregnancy and miscarriage as well as her knowledge that she carried a disease that would slowly kill her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Celia whispered, aghast.

  Edward now looked shocked. He must not have known the whole truth.

  “Flora, please don’t do this.” Mrs. Reynolds moved to her. “There is another way. We’ll accuse him, humiliate him, ruin him—”

  “And have my daughter’s name dragged through the dirt?” Lady Flora asked in imperious tones. “No. He is scum, and scum must be cleansed.”

  Lady Flora leveled the pistol, her finger squeezing the trigger. Mrs. Reynolds flung herself at her. At the same time Edward barreled into Kell, shoving him to the floor.

  Behind Celia, a puzzled voice said, “Good heavens, what is happening?” and Celia’s father hurried into the room.

  The pistol Lady Flora began to fire ended up pointing straight at the Duke of Crenshaw. Celia screamed and ran at her father, just as the gun went off.