Kate approved of the castle. Clearly it was more home than showpiece, and the marquis had made every effort to bring comfort as well as sophistication to these wild parts. She had been exploring a niche in the library when she heard the decisive click of boot heels. Kate looked around as a gentleman in an officer’s uniform entered the room. He wore his hair long, clubbed and powdered in an old-fashioned manner, and held his hat under his arm. His hands were encased in white officer’s gloves.
Though not as handsome as the marquis or owning Kit MacNeill’s rough masculinity, he had a great deal of presence and intensity. His deep-set eyes gazed with an unusual directness above high, angular cheekbones. He looked both intelligent and confident, a credit to his immaculate uniform.
“Milord,” he said, approaching the marquis and inclining his head respectfully.
“Captain Watters,” the marquis replied in surprise. “I sent word that I would meet with you this evening. Did you not receive it?”
“I did, sir. But I have some information I felt certain you would want to hear at once.”
The marquis frowned. “I am currently occupied.”
“I understand that, sir. I have been told that the young woman has arrived, and with her a rough-looking fellow in a regimental jacket.” He awaited confirmation.
“Yes. Mrs. Blackburn.”
“And there is a gentleman with her?” Captain Watters prompted.
“Yes, Captain. Though what concern this is of yours I am at a loss to divine.”
“It may prove of the greatest concern, sir. I dislike the sudden appearance of strangers. Particularly at this time. We know for a fact that the smugglers have a confidant working with them who remains outside the immediate area. Someone who alerts them—”
“Captain Watters!” The marquis, red-faced with embarrassment, motioned toward Kate. “My guest.”
The officer looked around and saw her tucked away in the window embrasure. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “I am so sorry. Please accept my apologies,” he said, bowing to Kate.
“No harm done. I can’t fault you for zeal, now, can I?” The marquis smiled with a touch of exasperation. “Come, Watters, let me introduce you.”
The captain’s face lit with unfeigned pleasure.
“Mrs. Blackburn, may I present Captain Watters? Captain Watters, Mrs. Blackburn.”
He snapped forward at the waist, bowing deeply.
“How do you do, sir?” Kate murmured, slightly disconcerted by the captain’s open admiration. His smile transformed his austere features, making him extremely attractive and warming his eyes with a wealth of feeling. She found herself smiling uncertainly back. Indeed, at that moment she felt she knew him.
“Excellent well, ma’am. Now,” he answered with such good humor she could take no offense. The marquis did not look quite so pleased.
“Very well, Watters. Now what is it you were all in a lather to relate?”
Watters made an effort to attend the marquis, but his appreciative gaze kept straying to Kate. “It can wait, sir. Had I known you were entertaining Mrs. Blackburn I would never have presumed.”
“You are suspicious that Mr. MacNeill is involved in the criminal activities hereabouts,” Kate said.
“Mr. MacNeill, ma’am?” Captain Watters asked.
“The young man who escorted me here.”
“Not I, ma’am,” he said staunchly and without the least credibility.
“That was not the impression I received. If I am wrong, I apologize, but if not, I can disabuse you of any such absurd notion. Mr. MacNeill is well known to me”—a little lie and a great truth—“and I can attest that he is not involved with the smugglers.”
The captain inclined his head graciously. “That is quite good enough for me, ma’am.”
“And me,” avowed the marquis.
The captain did not make any further comment, but he did not cease regarding Kate until finally, flustered and unused to such attention, she said, “You are disconcerting me, Captain. Pray, what do you find so fascinating?”
He did not equivocate. “Your visage, ma’am, while fully feminine and lovely, puts me in mind of another. You are not by chance related to a Yorkish family by the name of Nash?”
“Why, yes. My maiden name is Nash, and my father was Colonel Roderick Nash.”
“I thought as much!” the captain declared. Deep emotion colored his voice. “I did not know your father personally, nor did I serve in his regiment, but when I was in France I met him there once.” His tone grew somber. “His death was a great loss, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll join us for dinner this evening, Watters?” the marquis asked. “Mr. MacNeill will be joining us, and he too is a military man.”
“Is he?”
“Perhaps you have some acquaintances in common.”
“Doubtless, sir, and at any other time I would gladly accept your invitation, but alas, duty calls. There is a situation farther up the coast that may well be worth my time looking into.”
“Very well. When you return, then.”
The captain turned to Kate. “I shall look forward to it. By your leave, sir? Ma’am?”
Kate inclined her head, and the captain, after executing another bow, left her once more with the marquis. It was as well. The captain was the sort of man who had such force of personality and presence that other men, regardless of titular superiority, faded before him. Even as estimable a man as the marquis.
Though she doubted Kit MacNeill would be diminished.
She tried to smooth the frown the thought of Kit brought, but the marquis noted it and despite her protests—halfhearted though they were—insisted they end the tour, as she was clearly fatigued. He returned her to Peggy, waiting dutifully in the Great Hall. The maid led her up the long staircase and down a brightly lit corridor to a large, airy room furnished in yellow and white, the walls covered in a peacock blue material. It was, as had been all the rooms Kate had seen, furnished in impeccable taste.
“Here we are, ma’am.” Peggy bustled ahead of Kate, clicking her tongue as she plumped the pillows on the chair beside the fireplace. Her broad, comfortable face broke into a grin. “And here is your trunk.”
“It’s not mine. It belonged to Grace,” Kate said.
A cloud passed over her cheerful face. “I’m sorry your visit here is under such sad circumstances.”
Kate inclined her head, accepting the maid’s sympathy even as she realized that no one had yet voiced any personal grief over Grace’s demise. Even Grace’s maid did not evince any real sense of loss.
Kate had hoped that Grace had found happiness in her adulthood, but everything suggested that the restless, discontented child she had been had become a woman of similar temperament. The thought led Kate to consider whether she herself had become the sort of young woman she had once hoped to be. Certainly, she would never have thought herself capable of taking a lover outside the sanction of marriage. Yet, disturbingly, it was not this that made her feel that she had compromised herself.
It was …being here.
She veered away from the odd, distressing thought.
“Is something wrong, Mrs. Blackburn?” Peggy straightened from unpacking Kate’s few dresses.
“No.” She forced a smile to her lips.
The maid scowled down at the gowns she held. “John said as how Mrs. Murdoch’s things had been ruined, but he didn’t mention yer own dresses had been destroyed, too.”
“Excuse me?”
Peggy nodded sagely. “They ruined most yer wardrobe, clear as day it is, and you, being the lady you are, didn’t want to say.” She clucked her tongue. “Poor lambkin, arriving with naught but a pair of old-fashioned gowns to wear. Not to worrit, dear. Mrs. Murdoch was always sending to Inverness for a seamstress to come and make her new frocks. Why, there must be a dozen in her wardrobe she never even had on. You can wear those.”
“Oh! I couldn’t—”
“Why ever not?” Peggy exclaimed, eyeing her. “You’re a bit thinner but close enough in height, and they’re only collecting dust now.”
“The marquis might not approve of another wearing Mrs. Murdoch’s things.”
Peggy was having none of it. “He’d only be too pleased someone had found good use for them.”
“Well, then, another member of the family might find it painful to see Mrs. Murdoch’s things worn by another.”
From the manner in which Peggy’s eyes darted away, Kate surmised she was correct. Thank God, at least one person missed Grace.
“Who?” she asked.
Peggy didn’t equivocate. “Miss Mertice Benny, Lord Parnell’s ward. She pines after Mrs. Murdoch something dreadful. They were very close, both being pretty and both being young.” Peggy sighed. “She’ll heal though, given time.”
“I would not want to add to her affliction.”
“And you won’t,” Peggy replied staunchly, and Kate realized that she had gained an ally in the household. “I’ll make certain you only wear dresses Mrs. Murdoch never did.”
Kate was not certain she wanted to dress in her dead cousin’s things, but she was too tired to argue, and she no longer possessed that air of command that assured her wishes would be carried out without question. She nodded, and Peggy hurried away, eager to carry out her mission.
Kate did not even bother to clean her face before testing the deep, downy mattress. She lay down, and at once the well-remembered luxury entrapped her. It had been such a long time since she had rested her cheek against linens so smooth they felt like satin. She closed her eyes, and the sun poured over her like a warm blanket.
The past was done, both the years that stretched behind her and last night’s few hours. It was time to look ahead.
The marquis could not have been more attentive or considerate, and the dashing Captain Watters reminded her of what it had been like to be admired and not pitied as a woman who’d fallen in the world’s estimation. Everything she wanted lay in the palm of her hand. All she had to do was make a fist.
A tear slipped from beneath her lid and trickled down her cheek.
NINETEEN
APPRECIATING THE ART OF A DISCREET WITHDRAWAL
KIT SAT IN A COPPER TUB of quickly cooling water wearing a thunderous expression. The damn maid had taken his jacket and filched his shirt and breeches, promising to “clean them up a bit,” and there was naught he could do but sit here like a damn fish until she returned.
A couple of brawny lads had hauled the tub up, though he had not asked for one, and then another set of giggling maids had come—how many servants did a fellow need anyway?—carrying kettle upon kettle of steaming water. When he had demanded to know what they expected him to do, the youngest, a tiny chit no older than his last haircut, had smirked, looked pointedly at him, and said, “Wash, I ’spect, sir,” before bobbing and fleeing with her gaggle of cackling cronies.
Tempted beyond resistance, he had washed. It was a luxury and a pleasure, and he did not deny it for a moment. He had spent too many years in conditions so vile and filthy that there had been many times he had felt he would never be clean again. Except in her arms…
Abruptly, he stood up, and water sloshed onto the floor. He looked around and snatched the towel left for his use, swiping angrily at his body. He was losing what little grip on sanity he maintained. He felt like a man who had set out on a journey with a clear map in hand, only to discover that the road was not straight and that another presented itself, one that hadn’t been charted.
He draped the towel about his hips and stalked across the room, bracing his hand on the windowsill as he stared outside. Where was she? With the marquis, no doubt, and that’s as should be, regardless of what one night had done to him. Damnation! He knew better then this. Hadn’t he had the harshest of all lessons drilled into him? He would not trust this fallible organ called his heart. He’d done so before with…soul-destroying results.
Abruptly, he hammered his fist against the wall above the window, welcoming the drill of pain.
Someone rapped at the door, and Kit swung toward it, eager for any distraction. A footman entered, carrying a neatly folded pile of clothing. “His lordship’s compliments, sir, and he begs that you would accept his sincerest apologies, but it seems that the laundress was neglectful while cleaning your shirt and breeches, and they have been scorched beyond repair.”
“What?” Kit asked stupidly. He only owned two shirts, and he had no substitute for his breeches.
“His lordship begs you accept these in their place. He realizes that they may not fit properly, but Peggy is a dab hand with a needle and should be able to make any necessary adjustments.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Yes, sir. I shall send Peggy at once. May I tell Lord Parnell that you will be ready to dine at eight, sir?”
If this was what having servants was like, Kit was glad he had never been plagued with them. Giggling maids, controlling footmen, and now this seamstress who would like as not draw as much blood with her needle as a desert warrior. “Fine.”
“Would you like me to help you dress, sir?” the man asked.
“Not in the least.”
“I shall send Peggy directly then, sir.” He deposited the pile of clothing on the foot of the bed, bowed, and departed, leaving Kit moodily regarding his borrowed finery.
A snowy neckcloth lay neatly folded atop a fine lawn shirt nearly as white. Beneath these were stockings, garters, a dark waistcoat, and a short wool jacket with silver buttons. Smallclothes had been folded discreetly near the bottom, beneath a pair of buff-colored breeches. He tossed the jacket aside, finding his own near the bottom of the pile.
Thank God, the fool laundress hadn’t attempted to boil his regimental jacket. He held it up. She had managed to scrub out some stains and repair a few tears in the fabric. The deep green cloth had faded beneath the hot eastern sun, but where she had turned out the seams, the exposed cloth was vivid against the old, like slashes of Scotland’s spring.
Grudgingly he pulled on the smallclothes and the breeches. They were too small in the thigh and constricting at the knee. He’d never liked knee breeches, preferring trews. But they had not been included in the pile. He looked over at the clock. It was half past seven.