Claimed by a Scottish Lord (19 page)

―Where is he?‖

―I took the liberty of informing him you take your breakfast in the dining room at eight and that he may await your presence there.‖

Ruark finished wiping the soap off his face. ―Thank you, Mary. I will be down directly.‖

Mary remained in the doorway. Ruark finally turned, waiting for her to speak her mind.

―I know the lass is no‘ the first woman to be used as a means to an end . and she be the warden‘s daughter—‖

―Do I need this dressing-down, Mary?‖

Recognizing that the tenor of the reprimand coincided with his mood warned her that even for her there were limitations to his patience. ―Lady Roselyn has refused to see the modiste,‖ Mary said before taking her leave. ―I was just to see her and told her I have arranged one to visit tomorrow. After much searchin‘, I learned of a modiste living in Hawick and made provisions to bring her here. I would use that French highbrow Lady Roxburghe brings over from Paris three times a year. But I did no‘ think we have—‖

―Why did Lady Roselyn decline the offer for a modiste?‖

―She informed me that she was convent raised and would no‘ face her father being anything more than who she was, her father be damned. She asked me to thank you for your consideration, the gist of her comment bein‘ along the same sentiment. She does not need your charity.‖

Christ
.

Ruark intended to see that when it was time to face her father, she would do so as
exactly
who she is: the daughter of an earl, not some impoverished supplicant beneath that man‘s regard.

Fifteen minutes later, he was trooping down the hall, adjusting the lace on his wrist. He dismissed Jason to attend to his breakfast as he passed the lad, then he was standing before her door. He reached for the knob, paused, then he decided to knock rather than barge inside. For a moment, considering this, he braced his palms on the door frame.

The door opened. Her eyes widened, and it was as if he‘d stepped into bright morning sunlight. ―My lord.‖

He had been wholly unprepared for her effect on him, only because she had not left his thoughts, and he already considered his mind and senses finely attuned to her. He was wrong. She stood in a bright patch of the sunlight filtering through the high window from her bathing chambers. Her plaited copper hair crowned her head in a wreath of red-gold glory. She had changed her clothes and now wore homespun, but the simplicity of the dress merely refined the complexity of the tall woman beneath. The common accented the uncommon.

After what they had already shared between them, Ruark was surprised anything could make Rose blush, but she did as she found his eyes on her, and suddenly he was remembering the journey they had shared in the glade. There wasn‘t a part of her he had not touched. A part of her that he did not want to touch again.

―Sunlight becomes you,‖ he said.

―I was just thinking about you,‖ she said not unkindly, reaching around to drag up something behind the door. ―This is for you, my lord.‖

She gave him a knapsack made from a patchwork of wool and muslin. Curious at the clinking and odd weight of the thing he peered inside to find it filled with silverware, napkin rings, and a chalice as she informed him, ―I have no more need of such as I have every intention of going to my father when ‘tis time.‖

―Is that right?‖

―I have not made the decision lightly. But you were right when you told me that night at the river that there was nowhere I could go that my father would not find me. So I have decided to make this simple for all of us.‖

―If there is another way?‖

―After what you have told me, I know there is not.‖

Her words banished the softness that had momentarily incapacitated him. Though he grudgingly admired her courage, he did not intend to hand her over to Hereford.

―I do not need your protection, my lord.‖

The steel in her words told him she did not
want
his protection. His first instinct was to parry her steel with his own. But he did not. He had forgotten his purpose for coming to her room but as Mary rounded the corner, he had not forgotten his solicitor was awaiting him.

―Our chaperone has arrived,‖ he said, then leaned a hand against the doorway until his face was near hers. ―You wish to meet your father on your terms? Give Mary one of your dresses to take to the modiste for measurements. Let her make you something . simple.‖

―Simple?‖

Hell, he probably knew more about lady‘s garments than Rose did. ―Something provincial. Silk. Velvet. Emerald in color,‖ he said.
The color of her eyes
. He would have added,
with all the proper undergarments and accoutrements
, but he would choose to leave those details to Mary‘s discretion. ―You wear
simple
very well,‖ Ruark said. ―You want to meet your father as you are? Never go into the wolf‘s den looking like a sheep, my love.‖

“E
ven with your infusion of gold, you still do not have enough to pay the ransom, my lord.‖

Ruark stood at the window across the table from his father‘s solicitor, who was tucked quite eagerly into a meal of bannocks spread with molasses. Ruark had been distracted for the last half hour, staring outside at the parkland, half reading Mr. McCurdy‘s pile of papers, half woolgathering before he‘d forced his thoughts back to the task at hand unprepared for the news just delivered to him. What Ruark found on Stonehaven‘s balance sheets stunned him.

―You are telling me, Stonehaven‘s coffers are nearly empty?‖

―Except for what you put there, my lord. You could sell the last of the Roxburghe fleet of ships. The
Black Dragon
itself would be of interest—‖

― ‘Twill be a bloody cold day in hell before anyone gets his hands on the
Black Dragon
,‖

Ruark said. ―What has happened here in thirteen years?‖

The lines of strain tightened around McCurdy‘s mouth. ―This place has fallen on rough times. His lordship lost a fortune when other investments failed this past year. The crops and rents haven‘t produced enough to pay the debts. Then the village fiscal embezzled the rest, though we‘ll never know for sure where that went.‖

―Where is he?‖

―Dead, my lord. Six weeks before your father died. He tried to leave here during a snowstorm. Duncan caught up to him, only to find him dead, frozen solid beneath his horse and no gold to be found. Thieves most likely got it all. He left a wife, three sons, and a wee lass behind.‖

Ruark didn‘t know the details behind the fiscal‘s death last winter, except the eldest son, Rufus, was one of the hostages taken with Jamie.

―Your father got himself involved with some shady dealings, my lord.‖ McCurdy then remarked that in his opinion all power politics was apt to be dirty business as evidenced by the current situation involving his brother and the young woman held hostage at Stonehaven.

Ruark turned back to the window, his mind sifting through Stonehaven‘s financial problems to something more subtle. ―Have you been able to find any information on Elena Kirkland Lancaster, Lord Hereford‘s dead wife, or on Kirkland Park, her ancestral home?‖

He had not expected McCurdy to know anything given the time constraints from when Ruark had asked, and was surprised when McCurdy replied, ―I didn‘t find much about the wife, but her ancestral home and the entire area around Redesdale sits on land that was once part of a larger crown charter of the barony granted to Lady Hereford‘s great-grandfather by Charles the First. The patent, the deed of settlement, has since expired.‖

―Then none of Kirkland Park is tied up in entail.‖

―The grandfather was a smart old codger, though. He put the family‘s wealth in trust just after Lady Elena gave birth to her daughter. All of the funds are vested in consuls, an annuity that pays its six percent to the estate yearly.‖

―Then someone has to know the girl is alive, or Hereford would not be receiving funds. Who controls the trust?‖

―Friar Tucker does,‖ a feminine voice said from the doorway.

Recognizing it, Ruark turned into the room. McCurdy clamored to his feet, nearly spilling a cup of tea on his shiny blue satin breeches.

Rose stood in the shadows backlit by the gray light coming through the corridor‘s window. He could not see her face, only the shape of her shoulders and waist, the curve of her hips and breasts perfectly feminine. Her hair seemed to pull color from the darkness.

―My apologies,‖ she said. ―Mary implied breakfast was being served and you were in the dining room. I had not expected to find anyone else here.‖

‘Twas a lie, he knew, since Mary had been the one to send the solicitor to the dining room to await Ruark.

McCurdy bowed clumsily over his arm. He looked first at Rose then at Ruark. ―If you wish to finish breakfast, you may do so in the library, McCurdy,‖ Ruark said without looking away from Rose.

The solicitor grabbed up his plate, and with a nod to Rose left the room by way of the glass doors that let out into the garden.

―Would you care to sit?‖ Ruark said when she joined him near the window, and then she took her place at the head of the table.

Ruark hesitated. Perhaps she didn‘t know that was his place. She folded her hands and peered up at him. Her eyes widened. ―Have I sat in the wrong chair?‖ she suddenly asked.

He reassured her that she should remain where she was and took the one next to hers. She glanced down at her hands, gathering her thoughts, and he seized the moment to study her, to examine again the fundamental softness of her profile and his own desire to protect her.

―Rose . ‖

She inhaled deeply then gave him her full attention. ―Friar Tucker controls Kirkland Park through a trust set up by my great-grandfather,‖ she said. ―His father was vicar there for decades. I have an aunt living in France on my mother‘s side who appointed him trustee. I learned about her a few years ago when I learned about my great-grandfather‘s will.‖

He studied her. ―Go on.‖

―He told me that when my father found me, he would have taken me from the abbey. But Tucker convinced him my anonymity protected all our interests.‖

Every muscle in his body tightened. ―Your father has always known where you were?‖

She swallowed. ―My great-grandfather‘s will states that if by one and twenty, I should . die, control of Kirkland Park and all its assets stays in the trust and everything is willed to the church. Father could never wed me to anyone for he would risk losing control of everything to my husband. He never feared I would wed for no union would be legal without his permission.‖

After a hesitation, she continued, ―My father was promised that in exchange for leaving me at the abbey, he would receive the deed to Kirkland Park. For seventeen years, he kept his side of the bargain and left us alone. I accepted long ago that I would never know my ancestral home. Never touch my mother‘s things. Never know who she was. I had accepted all of that. But then you came along and shattered our well-laid plans.

―You would have to be willing to kill me to be any true threat to my father. Because when I am one and twenty, unless I am dead, he will receive Kirkland Park. My hope was that when this was over, he would have no more vested interests in me. I had hoped it would be enough to set me free.‖

―Why are you telling me this?‖

―Because I saw the look on your face this morning. I was afraid you might try to do something honorable.‖

He sat back in the chair, his long legs crossed at the ankles as he pondered her impression of him. And he found himself looking away from her.

―All of my life I have wanted to be free of my past,‖ she said. ―If you can understand that. I think you can. Now I am looking for the courage to confront it.‖

―Why?‖

He had no idea why her answer to that question was so pertinent to his future and to hers. Perhaps he was curious to see that they were more alike than different in many regards. Only he had not made the decision to confront his demons, merely to destroy them.

The only person he loved in this world was living in a cold, dark cell, garrisoned at Alnwick Castle.

―I am no martyr,‖ she said, ―but you will not see your brother again if you do not follow through with what you have started.‖

Ruark stood and walked to the breakfront. He removed the crystal stopper from the decanter and sloshed whisky into a tumbler. He viewed the tapestry in front of him of handsome lords and ladies riding and hawking in the parkland along the marshy banks, an innocent world he‘d known as a child.

―If you could go anywhere, where would you go, Rose?‖ he asked without turning.

She must have realized it wasn‘t a rhetorical question. He turned to confront her silence now colored by deeper insight of his own motivations.

He only knew that no matter his future or hers, he could not, would not allow a monster like Hereford the chance to get his hands on her.

―I would find my mother‘s family,‖ she said. ―I would go to France.‖

He‘d been to the cliffs of Calais. ―France is nice,‖ he said.

―Where would you go?‖ she asked.

The picture in the tapestry filled his mind, as did the white sands of the Indies, turquoise waters and warm breezes in the moonlight.

Aye, he understood Rose‘s want for freedom. ―I am still looking,‖ he quietly said into his glass, then tipped it back and swallowed the burn.

F
or the next two days, Rose managed to avoid crossing paths with Ruark, which was not difficult on an estate the size of Stonehaven. She no longer spent her time in her room, but took walks in the garden. She had no desire to talk to anyone or see anything of Stonehaven. The courtyard below her window became her haven. With its unkempt flower beds long ago abandoned by loving hands, the place had drawn her and she spent time weeding the beds.

Even as McBain examined her leg this morning and pronounced her sound, she didn‘t feel sound.

And as another day closed in on her life, and she sat on her knees in the garden staring out across the reflection pool, she felt a sense of hopelessness taking root for reasons she could not account. She wondered if this was how Julia felt facing the world every morning.