"I never did thank you for that visit, Anne," he said. "It meant more to me than you know." He couldn't resist teasing her again. "Even if it was only to wish me a speedy voyage to hell."
She looked him straight in the eye. "My pleasure."
He gave a wry chuckle, appreciating the prickly side of her personality. It was only after her visit that he had admitted to himself how much he'd regretted losing her. He suspected she had more depth and capacity for emotion than any woman he'd met since, and it had taken almost dying to make him realize he wanted someone like her in his life.
"Your visit seemed to spur my recovery
,"
he added.
She sighed.
"I came to visit you in Hampshire afterward, but your maid claimed you were unwell," he said. "David showed me around your stables, the perfect host, even if his wife was obviously avoiding me. Of course I didn't betray anything. I left without a word."
She softened at the mention of her husband. "He always liked you. I never understood why."
The door behind them rattled, and the refined tones of a woman's voice echoed thinly outside in the corridor.
"It
is
her," Anne said in dread. "I'
d know Nellwyn's voice anywhere. Oh, I could die."
Patrick sat forward, taking advantage of their last moment alone. There were so many things he wanted to talk about. "David admitted something to me that day in the stables. He said you were genuinely worried when I was ill. He said that your concern for a member of his family had touched him."
He was almost sorry he'd shared this when he saw the guilt-stricken look on her face; David himself had died of a chest inflammation less than a year later; but the truth was, her official period of mourning was over, and it was the conversation with David that had made Patrick wonder if she still felt a spark of something for him, even if she had buried it beneath layers of embarrassment and regret.
"My two favorite people in the world," a distinctive voice said in the doorway. "And look at the pair of you, what a handsome picture you make together."
He lifted his head from Anne's face, wishing his aunt had allowed them a few more moments alone. Most of all he had intended to tell Anne that their long-ago liaison had meant more to him than he'd ever been able to admit.
5
F
or
a woman who stood barely five feet tall in a pair of high-heeled pumps, Nellwyn Munro, the Marchioness of Invermont, certainly knew how to command a room. In a similar fashion she had commanded all five of the husbands she had outlived. Yet at first glance few people noticed the spine of iron that supported her frail frame, or the glitter of wickedness in her hazel eyes. Age approaching seventy might have turned her hair to silver, but she hadn't been called Naughty Nellwyn, or Nellwyn the Hellion, for nothing.
The current court favorites knew little of Lady Invermont's colorful past, and those who did pretended to have forgotten, having their own secrets to hide. Patrick's paternal uncle, the Earl of Rossmuir, had published a book of verse in her honor.
She entered the
room wearing a hideous mustard-yellow taff
eta gown embroidered with black velvet stripes. Her silver hair was parted in the middle to
accentuate her deceptively sweet face. She was retired from politics now, having served a stint as Mistress of the Robes, but Society still sought her opinions, and she was popular at parties.
"The bad fairy has arrived," Anne murmured, rising dutifully to kiss the woman's wrinkled cheek. "Auntie Nellwyn, you look spectacular, as usual."
"Aye," Patrick agreed, enveloping her in a powerful hug. "Like a big bumblebee."
She laughed, looking past him to Anne. "She's gone as gray as a ghost, Patrick. What have you done to her? Has he been bad, Anne?"
"What do you think?" she said as the woman settled between them on the sofa.
"She was a wee bit surprised to see me at court," Patrick explained.
"I thought I'd interrupted him in an assassination attempt," Anne said. "I almost called the guards."
"I tried to convince her that I'd changed," Patrick said.
Anne's temper boiled over. "And then he did something to prove he was worse than ever."
Nellwyn directed a frown at her nephew. "Just what exactly did you do?"
"Nothing." He shrugged, a pillar of wounded innocence. "Oh, all right. I gave her a wee kiss."
"In the Queen's sitting room?" Nellwyn asked, sounding more pleased than shocked.
"A friendly kiss." His guileless stare made him manage to look like the injured party.
"It felt more feral than friendly," Anne retorted, her back arched in anger. "By some miracle, he
appeared to charm the Queen. I don't know how."
Nellwyn shook her head. "Her Majesty made her first visit to Scotland last year and has been enamored of the land ever since. Patrick has made a favorable impression on the court. The Queen likes the primitive life."
"Primitive," Anne said. "That describes him."
"I think," Nellwyn said, her tone brisk, "that this conversation ne
eds to be continued in my town
house. We shall meet for supper three days hence, and I will expect you to be on your best behavior. Patrick, tell the footman you will be leaving. Anne, follow him to see he stays out of trouble. We will make our plans in the privacy of my home."
N
ellwyn stood with the Queen on the terrace of Windsor Castle. "It was good of you to help me, Your Royal Highness. We shall all be leaving for the Highlands within a week. The arrangements have already been made."
The Queen nodded; she was distracted by a warning that a reporter from the
Morning Post
had found his way onto the palace grounds. She thought of the thwarted assassination attempt three years before, and there had been as many break-ins last year alone.
"I am happy to help," she said at last, her blue velvet skirt rustling as she resumed her walk. "Indeed, Albert and I long for the mountain life ourselves. Is there a better tonic to the nerves to be found anywhere in the world? Are there any people more at peace with themselves than our Highlanders?"
Nellwyn compressed her lips. Peaceful was not
the word she would use to describe the atmosphere between Anne and Patrick. Volatile or explosive seemed more apt. Indeed, she would have need of a nerve tonic herself before she had achieved her goal with that pair.
"Lady Kingaim suffered another fall, ma'am," she said. "I am all the more determined to quash any evidence of scandal concerning her husband's death at its source. Patrick is discreet if nothing else."
The Queen nodded again. "Nobility of character is what comes to mind when one meets such a man."
Rakehell and, rogue were what came to Nellwyn's mind, but she merely smiled in agreement.
"Chivalry is not dead, ma'am."
"Nor is danger." Victoria shook her head. "How sad to think of our beautiful Highlands as a place where a murder plot might be hatched, but one must remember its violent history. I am fiercely glad Lord Glengramach will be your protector."
A
nne stared across the table at the tall man whose face took on a sculptured hardness in the candlelight
.
The lobster salad they had been served was untouched. They had finished a bottle of madeira between them and were working on another. Since their encounter at Windsor, she had dreaded this meeting, th
inking o
f every excuse imaginable to avoid it.
"Don't you have somewhere else to go?" she asked rudely. "Isn't there a mistress waiting for you in a parked carriage?"
He took a sip of wine, unruffled by the insult. "I
prefer the company in this room. I've never been much of a womanizer."
She snorted in disbelief.
He smiled. "It's true. Not before and certainly not after I met you, although I do admit to a string of meaningless liaisons the year following your marriage."
"What stopped you?"
"I was only making myself and those other women miserable," he said in amusement. "Who wants a lover who wants someone else? Perhaps I was hoping to find another girl like you."
The ormolu clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour. Anne wriggled in her chair. "Where is she?"
"I don't know. I hope she doesn't come." He leaned back in his chair, his lanky frame relaxed. "I could look at you for hours."
"Well, don't. It reminds me of things I don't want to remember."
He stroked the stem of his glass with his thumb. "It pleases me to remember you."
She frowned. "Don't."
"I can't help it. Our affair was the highlight of a verra unhappy period in my life. I had lost my mother to cancer two years before I met you. I look back now and realize that her death was when my hell-raising began. For my father it was the opposite. He withdrew to grieve. I misbehaved, and if I'd been in my right mind or possibly more mature, I would have pursued you, your parents be damned."
She heard the clip-clop of a horse-drawn carriage
outside. "That was sex," she said quietly, not daring to move. "That was madness."
"Was it?"
Anne swallowed, remembering against her will. He had practically tom her clothes off the instant she walked into the ruins of the medieval keep, and she hadn't done a thing to stop him. Reckless idiot that she was, she had submitted to everything he demanded.
He hadn't been satisfied with merely kissing her. He had devoured her. He had eaten her up from head to toe. They'd made love in the sun and in the rain, and he'd introduced her to positions that would have made Lucifer blush. Their desire was so intense they didn't feel the chill of autumn in the air or the inevitability of their parting, that like a long winter shadow, loomed just around the co
rn
er. They had never stopped once, in their delirium of lust, to consider the consequences of their behavior.
"You have no children," he said gently, a statement of fact more than a question.
"No." And she should have left it at that, preferring him to think her barren rather than reveal that she and David had barely shared a bed in their years of marriage. "I was only pregnant that one time," she added quietly. "I never conceived again."
"That is a shame, Anne." He hesitated. "I suppose it is a blessing I did not get you pregnant
.
If I had gone off with the infantry and you had married David, I would have been in the unpalatable position of having to kill my own cousin to claim my bairn and woman."
"Dear God," she exclaimed.
He rose from the table to refill her glass. The clatter of traffic drifted from the street, a car
riage driver shouting on the corn
er.
"I'll wait," he said, brimming with male bravado. "I'll find a way to prove I am not the man you remember. You'll see."
She smiled at him over her shoulder. "The only problem with your plan is that I cannot tolerate the sight of you."
He leaned over her, his voice deepening with laughter as his arms imprisoned her in the chair. "And even that doesn't have to be a problem, depending on one's perspective."
6
T
hey were playing cards on an overstuffed poplin sofa when Nellwyn joined them. Anne threw down her hand in relief. "Auntie Nellwyn, at last. Do you know what time it is?"
Nellwyn peeled off her gloves in irritation. "Have I not kept you fed and entertained?"
Anne stood up, looking for her own mantle. "I have thought this over, and I've decided you will have to investigate Uncle Edgar's death alone. I refuse to associate with your nephew."
"Sit down, Anne," Nellwyn said sternly. "You have not heard me out."
Anne frowned. Then she obeyed.
"Lady Kingaim has suffered a second fall," Nellwyn explained, looking her age in the candlelight. "She has been confined to a wheelchair. If this tragedy is not unfortunate enough, my solicitor has just discovered that Edgar withdrew a major part of his wealth from their Lombard Street bank before his death."
"Blackmail, do you think?" Patrick asked.
Nellwyn sank down into her chair. "I have no idea, but we cannot allow her to die destitute, can we?"
"Indeed, we cannot," he said heartily, rubbing his big hands together. "When do we leave?"
"Anne?" Nellwyn said, cocking her head. "Are you in agreement with me? Could you live with yourself knowing you had done nothing to right a possible injustice against an invalid, if not a crime?"
"Verra well phrased, Auntie Nellwyn," Patrick said. "Of course our Anne is in agreement. How could anyone refuse to help a defenseless widow?"
Anne glared at him. "I can speak for myself, thank you, Patrick. Nellwyn, you know you can depend on me, but I simply have no wish to return to the Highlands, or to stay at Balgeldie House with
him."
"He is a part of the plan," Nellwyn said, unperturbed.
"What plan am I a part of?" Patrick asked, eager to be on his aunt's side if it meant staying with Anne.
"The plan to unmask Edgar's murderer while we pretend to host the annual shooting party," Nellwyn explained. "Anne and David held a yearly ball and house party at harvest end for their neighbors and friends. In the past two years, Anne has been gracious enough to continue the tradition in absentia."
"I was in mourning," Anne said. "I knew David would have wanted the tradition to go on. He loved the Burning of the Water best when everyone went fishing at midnight on the loch."
"Which was precisely when the murderer struck last year," Nellwyn said.
Anne rubbed the gooseflesh that rose on her forearms. "We don't even know there is a murderer, do we?"
"The doctor's report of autopsy claims Edgar died of a heart seizure," Nellwyn admitted. "But that does not explain the rumors that have circulated in the village ever since."
Patrick laid his head back on the sofa. "Such as?"
"Such as Edgar never appeared at the ball before he went fishing." Nellwyn paused for effect. "Such as one of the gillies in attendance swore he saw a body being dragged by two people into a boat a few hours earlier. Of course, later he admitted it could have been a group of drunken guests in high spirits."
Anne sighed. "I don't know that that signifies anything of a suspicious nature. David had to drag me into our boat once."
"Were you drunk?" Patrick asked curiously.
"Indeed, I was not. I was pregnant. The rocking motion of the boat made me sick to my stomach, and I could not bear the smell of fish."
"I guarantee that Edgar was not pregnant," Nellwyn said. "And what of his missing money? It may not seem a large sum to you or me, but it is to a helpless invalid, and the man was a known spendthrift."
"I say we leave immediately to investigate," Patrick said. "We cannot solve anything on a sofa."
Nellwyn nodded. "I have already reserved our passage on a pleasure steamer."
"Let us not act in haste," Anne said. "In the first place, why should we assume the murderer will be waiting conveniently for us to catch him? Has he killed again?"
"Who knows?" Nellwyn said.
Anne frowned. "What if he has fled the country?"
"What if he is deciding to make you his next victim at this very moment?" Nellwyn countered.
"Me?" Anne said, turning pale. "Why me?"
Patrick raised his head. "I shall take care of you, Anne, should the need arise. Don't worry. That is precisely what I'm here for."
"Quite possibly there is not a murderer at all," Nellwyn conceded. "This entire affair might be nothing but idle gossip. However, it is our duty to stop the taint of scandal from spreading. I have promised the Queen discretion."
"Then Patrick definitely needs to stay home," Anne said.
"Patrick does not need to stay home," Nellwyn said crossly. "He is the most important part of my plan."
"And what exactly is this brilliant plan?" Anne asked.
Nellwyn's eyes twinkled with anticipation. "At first I thought he should go in disguise as a coachman or gamekeeper to conduct the investigation. And then I realized such a masquerade would not suit our purposes."
"Well, thank God," Patrick said.
"So," Nellwyn went on, positively bubbling, "I decided he should pose as your butler."
Silence fell; when Patrick finally found his voice, it emerged as a raw croak.
"Me, posing as—a butler?"
Anne all but fell off the sofa in a paroxysm of laughter.
"Yes," Nellwyn said delightedly. "Isn't it the most ingenious scheme in the world? You see, there are two positions of power in every proper household. The lady and her butler."
"What happened to the man being master of his domain?" Patrick asked.
"It is a myth," Nellwyn retorted.
Anne smiled. "Everyone knows that."
"Bloody hell," Patrick said. "No one told me I was to pose as a domestic. This is damned humiliating."
Anne attempted to look serious. "Oh, but it is so clever, Auntie Nellwyn. He shall be our personal belowstairs spy."
"Exactly." Nellwyn scooted her chair toward the sofa where Patrick sat, as enthusiastic as a stone. "We need someone to move around the substrata of society to pry. A butler has access to secrets that would never be divulged to a gentleman—the gossip of tradesmen, servants, guests. Such a masquerade will also serve to protect your reputation, Anne. It will explain why you and Patrick spend time together."
"And I'm supposed to protect Anne between polishing the silver and listening at keyholes, am I?" he said distastefully
Nellwyn chuckled. "Precisely. You'll barely have to leave her side."
"Except at night," Anne added.
"No one in the parish knows you, Patrick," Nellwyn said. "You have never attended one of Anne's famous shooting parties before."
He folded his arms across his huge chest. "This isn't what I had in mind."
Anne arched her brow. "But you couldn't live with yourself, knowing you had failed to help an invalid in her last months, could you? You would never let pride stand in the way of protecting Edgar's name, would you?"
He stared at her in dead silence.
"Excuse me a for moment," Nellwyn said, rising from her chair. "I must pop outside to make sure the coachman isn't still waiting in the rain. I can see we'll be talking into the wee small hours. You'll both stay the night, of course."
Anne waited until the door closed before she broke into a devilish grin. "Remember, you've received a royal order."
He drew a breath. "The Queen didn't order me to be your damned butler. My featherbrained auntie did."
"Well, it amounts to the same thing," she said. "You were told to follow Nellwyn's instructions."
"But she's insane."
"You'll have to learn to curb that tongue if you expect to be in my employ," she said mischievously.
He shoved his rawboned body to the edge of the sofa. "You're taking pleasure in this, aren't you?"
"Do you blame me?"
He didn't answer, and she knew she shouldn't
gloat, but wasn't it just perfect? This was the setting-down the arrogant devil deserved.
"What have I done to merit this?" he asked at last. "Oh, aye, I know the obvious, but I
didn't
know you concealed such a capacity for vengeance in your heart."
She stared at him. "Do you really think a girl gives herself to a charming man and then forgets him? I was devastated at what we had done, Patrick. My parents thought I was possessed of demons. I never had a chance at making a happy marriage afterward. I could not stop thinking of you for ages."
"Could you not have waited for me, then?"
"No. I'd have married anyone my parents chose to escape them. David took care of me, but I put him through an entire year of misery before I accepted my life. I came to him as damaged goods."
He looked tortured. "I thought you loved each other. If I'd known you were unhappy, I'd have—"
"What? Murdered him in a duel and caused the scandal of the century? We
did
love each other. In any case, he's gone now and I'll never know how much he understood about my past, but is it any wonder I should enjoy seeing you suffer your share of humiliation?"
"Is that what you want? To humiliate me?"
She gave him a smile reminiscent of her old hellion self. "It isn't really such a horrible punishment, is it? Are you at all surprised that I would want to savor a small measure of revenge?"