Claimed by the Laird (10 page)

“Is it too late to reverse that process of decline now?” he asked.

Christina shrugged. “I do not know. But Papa...” For a second she faltered as though considering the disloyalty of speaking out against the duke. “Well, he has no interest in the land, no interest in anything other than his studies. By the time he inherited his estates, the damage was done, and he handed his lands over to be administered by those who could make him the greatest profit.”

“It sounds as though your father is not really concerned with the future of his people,” Lucas said, “whilst you work to limit the harm he can do by feeding them and keeping a roof over their heads.”

“Oh...” She sounded embarrassed. “I would not have you think that Papa cares nothing for people. Truth is, he does not really notice. He is a scholar, caught up in matters of more academic importance...” Her voice faded away unhappily.

Fiddling whilst Rome burned, Lucas thought. It seemed to him that the Duke of Forres was like a great big overgrown child who indulged his whims without thought for the consequences or the toll it took on others. It was not sufficient to ascribe his neglect to eccentricity or scholarly absorption. He was draining his lands of their money and his people of their livelihoods for personal gain.

“So it is left to you to give the people of Kilmory back their self-respect,” Lucas said. “I imagine you do the same at Forres, and all the duke’s other estates.”

“I don’t run smuggling gangs there,” Christina said, “but I do try to help the people make a living.”

“A dishonest one, in Kilmory’s case,” Lucas said.

Her lips twitched into an enchanting smile. “Do I infer that you disapprove of me, Mr. Ross? I had no idea that you were so incorruptible.”

“Smuggling is illegal,” Lucas said.

She raised a brow at his blunt tone. “Well, theoretically, yes—”

“There’s no such thing as a theoretical criminal,” Lucas said. “You either are or you aren’t.”

She shrugged. “Bad laws make for bad men.” She gave him the glimmer of a smile. “And women.” She tipped the flask to her lips again. “My dream would be to run a distillery of my own,” she said after a moment. “I think I would be very good at it.”

“A splendid idea,” Lucas said. He removed the bottle from her grasp and placed it on a high shelf next to a dusty pile of books. “In the meantime, though, you have had quite sufficient whisky to drink.”

She pouted. “I give the orders around here,” she said. “Give it back.”

Lucas laughed. “No,” he said. “You are going to have a dreadful headache in the morning. It may taste nice now, but whisky is the worst drink for making you feel bad later. Drink lots of water,” he added, “and try to eat something in the morning even if you don’t feel like it.”

She raised her eyebrows in faint mockery. “Food advice now,” she said. “How do you know these things, Mr. Ross?”

“My misspent youth again,” Lucas said. “There were plenty of mornings when I woke up feeling much the worse for drink.”

She smiled faintly. “How fascinating. You must tell me more about that misspent youth sometime.” She picked up her cloak and folded it over her arm. In the candlelight something sparkled silver—a jeweled clasp on the collar of the cloak. Lucas had not noticed it before because the light had been too dim, but he recognized it now. The last time he had seen it had been on the velvet collar of Peter’s coat as his brother had stood on his doorstep in Edinburgh.

All the breath seemed to leave his body. The light spun as though he was the one who was drunk. He put out a hand automatically to steady himself on the back of the chair.

“That’s a very unusual clasp.” His voice did not sound quite right in his ears. He realized that he was shaking.

He saw Christina glance down and smile as she ran her fingers over the silver surface. “Isn’t it beautiful?” There was uncomplicated pleasure in her voice. “Papa gave it to me for my birthday a couple of months back. He said the stones came from India. They have fine amethysts there.”

They might well have,
Lucas thought, but these amethysts had come from the mines of Siberia and had been mounted in a silver clasp that had belonged to his grandfather. It was engraved with his family’s crest and motto.

He felt tightness in his chest. One of the items that had been stolen from Peter’s body was right here in Kilmory Castle, a gift, Christina had said, from the duke.

Could the Duke of Forres be involved in Peter’s murder? It seemed impossible. Yet was it any more likely that Christina, who seemed so honest and had spoken so passionately about the need to protect her clan, was a liar and a murderer? His instinct told him she was not, that she would never be mixed up in so vile a crime. Yet instinct could be an unreliable guide.

“Good night, Mr. Ross.” Christina had come up to him. “Thank you for your help tonight.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. She really was tipsy, Lucas thought. She would be mortified in the morning to remember how familiar she had been with him when normally she was so careful to be starchy and proper. He took her hands to steady her and she looked up, her blue eyes meeting his. Something shifted inside him, an emotion he did not recognize; an unaccustomed sense of vulnerability swept through him and he tightened his grip on her hands.

He saw the expression in her eyes change. He could see confusion in their depths and the compassion she had shown him earlier when he had made the mistake of talking about his childhood. Suddenly he needed her desperately. He bent his head and kissed her and she responded sweetly, openly, without reservation. Heat sliced through him. Lust slammed into him, so hot and hard and fast that it stunned him. Beneath the lust was the same blinding sense of recognition that he had experienced on the first night they had met, fierce and devastatingly right. Something about Christina MacMorlan could reach inside him and awaken emotions he thought long dead. He could not understand it, could not explain it, but in that moment he did not want to. He only wanted her.

When he let her go they were both breathing hard and he was shaking, shocked by his reaction to her and emotions it had unleashed. He saw his astonishment mirrored in her eyes. She touched her lips lightly with her fingertips, and the gesture sent another spike of desire straight through him.

“That was a mistake,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Lucas said grimly. The lit room beyond the doorway seemed to beckon him with its wide, deep bed and intimate firelight. He swallowed. His mouth was as dry as dust.

“I should go,” he said.

“Yes.” For a moment she looked desolate and he wanted to reach out to her and draw her back into his arms. He clenched his fists at his sides. It felt right but it was wrong, impossible. The light glittered on the silver clasp, taunting him, reminding him who she was and of her possible guilt.

“Goodnight, ma’am,” he said, and turned the key in the lock behind him before he changed his mind and begged her to let him stay.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“W
HAT
DO
YOU
THINK
, my dear?” The Duke of Forres, his face bright with childish pleasure, turned to Christina. “This fellow has done a damned fine job, hasn’t he?” He slapped Lucas on the back. “Damned fine,” he repeated. “Eh, Christina?”

“It looks beautiful, Papa,” Christina said obediently. They were standing in the duke’s garden grotto. The light was dim and the air cool. Outside the rain beat down with an unrelenting heaviness. It seemed to echo through Christina’s head. Lucas had not been wrong; she had the devil of a headache this morning.

The grotto was far from finished, but Lucas had certainly made good progress. The pool had been hollowed out and lined with the stone that her father had had imported specially from Italy. A cascade of water now splashed down into it from the spring that rose in the bank above them.

Christina turned to admire the way the light played across the rippling cascade. Her father was still talking, but she let his words flow over her. Instead she watched Lucas in the reflection on the dancing water. It felt strange, intimate. She was so self-conscious that she could not look directly at him. In the enclosed space of the grotto, she was almost unbearably aware of him standing next to her, of his arm brushing hers, of his gaze on her face. She had woken late with snatches of memory from the previous night drifting through her mind. She wished she had not been able to recall any of it, but unfortunately her memory was not that obliging. She remembered all too clearly that Lucas had had to pick her up off the gravel when she had fallen over, that he had helped her up the stairs, that she had drunkenly confided in him her reasons for smuggling the whisky, that he had kissed her with a fierce passion and that she would have been quite happy if he had carried her off to her bed there and then. Despite the chill of the day, she felt hot color mantle her cheeks.

As a debutante, she’d had a reckless, dangerous affair with the man to whom she had been betrothed, Lord McGill. At the time, she had been hopelessly infatuated. The snatched meetings and illicit passion had pandered to her romantic nature, and she had not seen the danger because she had assumed that nothing could spoil her happiness. She had learned that lesson fast enough; learned that nothing in life was certain or safe. Her mother had died and the bottom had dropped out of her world. She had lost almost everything; mother, lover, the promise of the future.

The attraction she felt for Lucas was at least as strong as her girlish passion for McGill had been, though she was not stupid enough to tumble thoughtlessly into love with any man these days. It did not matter how powerful that dangerous illusory sense of connection was that she shared with Lucas. She knew that the only relationship she could have with him would be as mistress and lover, and there were too many reasons why that could never happen, so there was nothing for them; she knew it.

“My statues will look splendid in the wall niches.” The duke was twirling around with excitement like a small child at the circus. “And with the shells on the ceiling reflecting the light...” He waved his arms about enthusiastically. “Oh, yes, I can see it now!”

“I have drawn up some detail for the decoration, Your Grace,” Lucas was saying, laying out a sheet on the stone ledge that ran around the edge of the pool. “I thought to have a fresco with dolphins and putti, and perhaps a motto etched in the stone....”

Christina was intrigued that Lucas knew about Renaissance design. She wondered if he had gotten the ideas from talking to Bevan. She leaned over to look at the neat pencil sketches. The duke was shortsighted without his glasses. He was nodding and smiling, but Christina was not sure he could see the drawing in detail, least of all the lettering around the fresco. He was bound to ask her to describe it later.

“‘Vincere vel mori,’”
she read. “To conquer or die.” It was the motto from her silver clasp. She looked up at Lucas in surprise. “Did you choose that yourself?” she asked. “Why those words?”

Lucas did not look at her. He was watching the duke. “I thought they were your family motto,” he said. He glanced at her, and for a moment she saw some emotion in his dark eyes that chilled her, it was so remote and cold. She wondered if she had misread his expression in the pale light of the grotto, but then her father claimed her attention. The duke seemed agitated, running a hand through his hair, shaking his head violently.

“No, my dear fellow, that simply won’t do!” he exclaimed. “No cherubs, no dolphins and certainly no motto!”

“I’m afraid you have made a mistake,” Christina said to Lucas. “The Forres motto is Constant and Faithful.”

Lucas smiled at her. “That seems more appropriate,” he said, “to you.”

Christina blushed at the compliment but her father did not appear to notice. He was rolling up Lucas’s plans and his hands were shaking slightly.

“I don’t want a motto on it,” he said querulously. “Statues of nymphs and river gods! That’s what I want!”

Lucas took the sketches from him. “Very well, Your Grace,” he said. “I shall go back to the drawing board.”

Christina frowned at her father, who had the grace to look a little abashed. “Good job all the same, old chap,” he muttered. “I will see you get paid extra for all your hard work. Bevan will see to it.” He nodded to Lucas, smiled agreeably at Christina and wandered off out into the rain.

Christina was about to follow him when she saw the expression on Lucas’s face. He was staring after her father and he looked angry.

“He did not mean to insult you with the offer of the extra money,” she said quickly, putting a hand on his arm. “He thought only to reward you for what you had done.”

“He doesn’t even remember my name,” Lucas said. “And I don’t need the money.” He turned away and Christina dropped her hand. She was dismayed—and taken aback. Nothing about Lucas’s demeanor suggested that he was rich enough to turn down extra wages, and she was surprised he was so sensitive about it. This morning he looked as threadbare as ever in an old shirt, patched trews and a battered pair of boots.

“I’m sorry if we have offended you in some way—” she started to say uncertainly.

He turned back to her so quickly that she caught her breath. The light was behind him and she could not see his face, but she had the impression that he was smiling, and it made her feel quite hot.

“
You
have not offended me,” he assured her. His voice was intimately low.

“You cannot expect Papa to know everyone by name,” Christina said.

“Why not?” Lucas said. “You do.” He stepped aside to allow her to precede him down the small tunnel that led out into the gardens. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “How is your head this morning?”

“It hurts,” Christina admitted. She fidgeted with the braiding on her sleeve. The sensible thing to do would be to drop the subject, but that felt a little churlish after the help he had given her.

“Thank you for rescuing me last night,” she said. She looked up into his eyes. The amusement she saw there made her heart beat hard.

“It was a pleasure, ma’am,” Lucas said.

“I am afraid I was rather drunk,” Christina continued.

His lips twitched. She knew that he was trying not to laugh. “I had noticed,” he said.

“I probably said some things that I should not,” Christina said.

“I imagine you certainly said some things you regret,” Lucas said. He slanted her a look. “Assuming you actually remember?”

“Unfortunately, I do,” Christina said.

This time he did laugh. “Do not give it another thought,” he said. “We have all been the worse for drink at times.”

“Not me,” Christina said.

“I can well believe that,” Lucas said. “You are normally so restrained in your behavior, Lady Christina.”

There had been nothing restrained in the way she had kissed him the previous night. The thought made hot color sting her cheeks even more brightly. She knew she should broach the matter and explain that it was a mistake that had only occurred because her judgment had been blunted by drink and grief and tiredness. That morning the tiredness had gone, but the grief remained. She had already written a stiff note to Eyre asking for an interview so that she could plead for Callum MacFarlane’s release. Next she was going to the village to see what could be salvaged from the pitiful remains of Niall’s burned cottage. But whilst she might use the peat-reek as an excuse for her behavior, it was not the real reason. She had confided in Lucas because she had needed him. She had turned to him for more than comfort, and it was dishonest to pretend that it had meant nothing to her.

“I do apologize for my behavior last night,” she said in a rush. “Especially when I... When we...” She waved her hands about in embarrassed description.

Lucas laughed again. “I think the phrase you are looking for is ‘when we kissed,’” he said. He gave her a slight, mocking bow. “I am at your disposal, Lady Christina, in that as in everything else.”

“Really, Mr. Ross,” Christina said. She had never felt so ruffled, so breathless. “I am trying to apologize and you are not making matters easy for me.”

“You are apologizing because you are a lady,” Lucas said, “but I never pretended to be a gentleman.”

“Clearly,” Christina said. She was not quite sure how a simple apology and thank-you could have become so complex, but it was evidently time to end the conversation. “Well, I am glad that we got that sorted out,” she said briskly. “Good day to you, Mr. Ross.”

She unfurled her umbrella and stepped out into the dripping gardens, scurrying up the path toward the shelter of the castle. Evidently the kiss had meant nothing to Lucas other than some meaningless dalliance with the mistress of the house. Her face burned. She knew she should be glad that he had dismissed it so casually. His attitude was a perfect match for her thoughts. There could be no relationship between them other than the formal one of lady and servant. It had only been her feminine pride that had made her want the kiss to mean more to Lucas than it had.

* * *

T
HE
K
ILMORY
I
NN
was half-empty that night. Word had gone around about Callum MacFarlane’s arrest and it seemed no one had the stomach for a drink. Lucas slid into a seat in the corner and the landlord brought him a glass of peat-reek without a word. The room was warm, dark and thick with the scent of the peat fire and pipe smoke. Lucas took a set of cards out of his pocket and idly dealt a hand.

The peat-reek was as good as ever. It tasted of smoke and heather and honey. Lucas thought about Christina; it was true that she had a remarkable talent for distilling, though he wondered if she would still have a taste for whisky after the previous night.

That morning he had laid a trap for her along with her father. The duke’s reaction to the motto had been revealing. He had seemed very agitated that Lucas had chosen to use those words. Which must mean that he knew they were on the silver clasp and did not want to draw attention to them. It was a clear sign that he was culpable in some way.

Christina, on the other hand, had seemed merely puzzled. She had shown no signs of guilt, only confusion. Either she was an exceptionally fine actress, far better at dissembling than her father was, or she was innocent. Lucas knew that his attraction to her predisposed him to want her to be blameless. He had to be careful. Already his feelings for her were blunting his judgment.

The door banged open and Eyre came in. It was typical of the man to make a grand entrance, Lucas thought. Eyre was taunting the villagers of Kilmory with his presence—and his money. It was no wonder they hated him. He slapped down some coin on the table and called loudly for a pint of ale. Lucas saw the glint of gold.

Conversation sank to a menacing murmur and then to silence. Eyre swaggered across the room and sat down with a grunt across the table from Lucas. Lucas ignored him and continued to deal the cards.

“What’s your game?” Eyre said.

“Speculation,” Lucas said. He saw Eyre’s lips twitch into a sour smile.

“Do you want to play for money?” The riding officer asked.

“I don’t have much.” Lucas fumbled in the pocket of his jacket and put a few pennies on the table.

“Not what I heard, Mr. Ross,” Eyre said.

“This isn’t the time or place,” Lucas said with a quick glance around the room.

“There’s nothing like hiding in plain sight,” Eyre said. He leaned back in the chair and took a long draught of the ale. The conversation had resumed around them, but they were getting some dagger-sharp glances. “Beat me at cards,” Eyre continued, “and every last man of them will thank you for humiliating me.”

“That’s true,” Lucas said. He dealt three cards each, then put the pack down and turned up the top card.

“The jack of diamonds,” he said.

Eyre smiled again. “Sidmouth tells me you’re here to find out who killed the Russian boy,” he said softly, allowing the clink of glass and the murmur of conversation around them to hide his words from prying ears.

“That’s right,” Lucas said. He kept his eyes on the cards.

“Who are you really?” Eyre asked. “Sidmouth didn’t say.”

“You don’t need to know,” Lucas said.

He could feel Eyre watching him, enmity and calculation in his narrowed gray eyes. He did not care what Eyre was thinking or whether he liked him or not. That was immaterial. What he needed was Eyre’s help.

“I don’t want you queering my pitch with the smugglers,” Eyre said, suddenly vicious. “I’ve been working this patch a long time. Those arrests are mine.”

“I’m not interested in the smuggling,” Lucas said. “Only in murder.”

Eyre stared at him, pale eyes unblinking. “Sidmouth thinks the smugglers did it,” he said. “I’m not so sure.”

“That’s what I’m here to find out,” Lucas said. He thought that Eyre was probably right, based on his findings the previous night. However there was a lot he still did not know, and until he could find further proof of the duke’s involvement he was not prepared to rule anything out.