Alan brushed the scarf back from her forehead so he could
kiss her there. “No, that was my mistake, love. I thought to be sensible, when
there is naught sensible about love. Forgive me, Alyson, then come home with me
and tell my family you have agreed to be my wife. You will be safer under my
family’s protection than with that rake who inhabits your home now.”
Just the thought of that daunting old battleax Alan called
mother gave Alyson courage. She ripped her heart out of her chest and walked on
it in the process, but she still clung to a fragment of pride. She pushed away
from his hold.
“My wealth makes up for my lack of name now, so that your
family will welcome me with open arms? Is that what you are saying? I’ll not
ever forgive you for not standing up to them, Alan. Never. You took every shred
of happiness I ever hoped to possess and ground it beneath your heel like dirt.
I’ll go to hell with my cousin before I ever run to the likes of you again.”
It hurt. By all that was holy, it hurt. She should feel
proud and vengeful and triumphant as she turned and stumbled away from the
stunned look on his face, but she could only feel wave after wave of pain. She
loved him so. It wasn’t fair. Nothing in this world was fair.
Alan did not follow her. She almost wished he would. If he
could only explain, convince her that she was wrong, that she was just having
another one of her foggy notions, but he did not. Because he could not. He had
been in the wrong of it, and so had destroyed both their lives.
She almost didn’t go down to supper, but she refused to hide
in her room like some lamb terrified of slaughter. If she had to make it on her
own in this world, she would have to start somewhere.
She didn’t reveal how she quailed inside when she entered
the family parlor to find her cousin waiting. Cook had chosen to set up a
buffet before the fire.
The new earl had shaved and cleaned himself up to an almost
respectable figure. His powdered hair had been pulled back in a neat bagwig,
and even though his fingers trembled as he lifted his glass, he did not appear
dissolute. In Alyson’s opinion, his face was more striking than handsome. He
still had not learned to smile, but she no longer found him repulsive.
“Cousin Alyson, this is a pleasant surprise. The way you’ve
been sneaking around corners made me think you did not want to see me. Help
yourself to the fare the kitchen has thrown up for our amusement and have a
seat.”
Alyson helped herself to small portions of the informal
buffet on the sideboard the Scots cook had prepared to suit her tastes. Her
cousin’s plate had not been emptied, and he was already pouring another glass
of wine. Apparently haggis and bannocks were not to his appetite. She found a
chair beside the fire and set the tea tray in front of her.
“If the food is not satisfactory, I have only to notify the
cook,” she told him. “You have some preferences? I’m certain the staff will be
more than happy to cater to them.” She helped herself to a bannock while she
awaited his reply.
“The cursed creatures are accustomed to having you order
them about, aren’t they? I daresay that will not be too infamous a thing when
we are married, not like breaking in a new wife, I suppose. I’m beginning to see
advantages to such an arrangement.”
His insolent stare stripped away the layers of her woolen
mourning gown until Alyson felt her skin burn. Two arrogant male assumptions in
one day were more than her strained nerves could handle. She acted on instinct
alone.
“We are getting married?” she inquired, without a hint of
emotion. In truth, she had no emotion left.
“Of course, you silly chit. It is the only solution left to
us. You have the money, I have the name and the house. It took me a while to
see what the old man intended, and it was a bloody unfair way of manipulating
me, but I’ll give him credit for winning this battle. I’ll make arrangements
for the special license in the morning.”
Alyson toyed with that idea as she toyed with her food. Had
her grandfather really meant for her to marry his heir? Was this his way of
making certain she had a home? She thought it more likely a matter of giving
her a choice, but she took care not to mention that to Cranville.
“I’ll think about it,” was all she replied.
The new earl scowled and stood. Lifting her from her chair,
he toppled back in the nearest sofa with her on his lap. “You flutter like a
plump pigeon, cousin,” he chuckled as he pulled at the laces of her gown,
exposing the chemise covering her breasts. “I’ll have pigeon for supper, and
then in the morning, you’ll have nothing left to think about.”
Alyson squealed with outrage as he tore at her laces and
chemise. She tried to slap at his shadowed jaw, but even though she sprawled
across his knees, he exerted full control with just one muscled arm around her
waist. His chuckle infuriated her, and she struggled to pull away. Instead, he
leaned back against the sofa’s arm, pulling her flat against him. One muscular
leg crossed over hers, and her hips were trapped intimately against his. Terrified,
she began to scream.
Cranville cursed and tossed her over, covering her mouth
with his hand. But Alyson had found all the weapon she needed. His empty pockets
might pay the servants now, but decades of loyalty to the old earl and his
granddaughter didn’t disappear overnight.
The parlor door slid open and the butler stalked through,
his nose in the air as he contemplated the ceiling. “You called, miss?”
Alyson bit hard on the villain’s fingers, and he yelped.
With a shove at his chest, she tumbled him off. A footman had followed the
butler and was engaged in clearing plates, but she understood that she had only
to say the word and they would risk their livelihoods to come to her aid.
Cranville scowled as she rose from the sofa, pulling her
bodice together. He scrambled from the floor and glanced warningly at the
servants. “Miss Alyson and I are having a discussion. We do not need your
interference this evening. The next man who walks through that door is
dismissed.” He grabbed her arm and held it so she couldn’t escape.
The butler stiffened.
Muttering “Like bloody hell,” Alyson picked up the teapot
and poured a boiling stream of tea down Cranville’s leg. He released her with a
string of oaths that should have blistered the walls.
Haughtily she lifted her skirts and swept from the room,
followed closely by the two servants. She suspected they were fighting back
grins, but she wasn’t in a humor to join in. Stomping up the stairs with
unladylike grace, she slammed into her chambers and threw the bolt. Let the new
lord lick his own wounds tonight. She had bags to pack.
Hettie knocked shortly after and Alyson let her in.
Taking in the mounds of clothing scattered across the room, the
maid sent orders for a trunk and valise to be brought down, and set about
making order of the situation.
“Now, miss, you’ll be traveling by public coach, and a right
rowdy lot they’ll be. It won’t do to let them think you’re quality. Mind me,
now, you say nothing to nobody until you can get to a respectable posting house
and hire a chaise.”
Having utterly no idea how one went about traveling by coach
or chaise, Alyson listened carefully as she folded those items she most needed
for travel. Obviously, she could not wear her riding habit, nor any of her
expensive gowns. Consulting with Hettie, she sent for one of the younger maids.
She gave her a choice of any gown in exchange for a servant’s dress suitable
for her disguise. The girl gaped but hastily agreed.
By the time Alyson was garbed in a threadbare cotton dress
and cloaked in an old wool that still smelled of the stable, the hour had crept
past midnight. The butler reported his lordship had drunk himself to sleep. Still,
she crept quietly out the back with her loyal servants carrying lanterns to
light her way.
A cart had been prepared to take her trunk to the coach
station. With tears in her eyes, Alyson hugged her friends before climbing in.
Alan had wanted her to make a decision. Well, she had. She
would go to London and see the world.
The groom made the ticket purchase at the staging inn and
stayed with her until her trunk was loaded on top of the rickety wooden coach.
Without a single look backward, Alyson waved farewell and climbed into the
crowded interior.
Rory Maclean cursed and scratched surreptitiously at a
suspicious itch beneath his arm. Beneath the coarse wool of his decrepit coat,
his stained leather jerkin and threadbare homespun shirt stank from hard use
and no washing. Why the devil he had decided to make this trip was far beyond
his capacity to comprehend. The country that had branded him an outlaw for all
these years would scarcely welcome him with open arms now—even less so if they
knew he was more of a criminal now than he had been when he left. But his
family had worked hard to obtain his pardon, and it seemed only fair that he
should thank them personally.
His ship had landed off the coast of Cornwall. His men were
unwilling to risk the British Navy in closer ports. Glaring over the desolation
of a Cornish mining town, Rory knew he was in for a long and tedious ride to
London.
The gray colors of day were fading to twilight, and he
yawned. He could have chosen to arrive in a little more grandeur than his usual
disguise, but he preferred to keep the connection between himself and the ship
undetected. The men had their orders and would carry them out well enough
without him for a while. And they would be ready when he was. This courtesy
visit should not last overlong.
Sometime after midnight the coach rattled to a halt to
change horses and take on passengers, but by this time he was sound asleep.
When he woke again, Rory found the opposite seat occupied by
two daunting women who glared at him as if he had threatened rape at knife
point. One was so obese as to make the act physically improbable. The other
wore the prim attire and thin-lipped mien of a spinster. Maliciously Rory winked
and watched her shiver in horror, before he returned to watching the passing
landscape.
The barely perceptible evergreen scent of heather in
springtime gradually reached his senses. Rory wondered if one of those damn
fleas had given him the fever. Springtime would not have reached the Highlands
yet, and he was a long way from those lovely hills.
The soft rustle of a page turning jerked his attention back
to the far occupant of his seat. Since she was not in his direct field of
vision, he had not bothered to examine the passenger blocked by a large
merchant snoring between them.
Adjusting his position so his long legs nearly touched the
skirts of the wide-eyed spinster, Rory glanced over. The cloak the small
passenger wore was as disreputable as his own and totally enveloped her. The
fabric might smell of the stables, but the scent of heather had to be coming
from somewhere.
The smooth white hands turning the pages revealed she was as
much a fraud as he—more so, he suspected. But the fact that she was a fraud
wasn’t what fascinated him. It was the hands. He hadn’t been this close to soft
hands like that in years. The women he knew lived harsh lives, and the toil
showed in the brown filth and calluses. These hands didn’t appear to have ever
lifted anything heavier than roses or touched anything dirtier than crystal.
They were slim and soft. He wondered how they would feel against his skin, but
remembering the unshaven bristles of his jaw and the work-hardened coarseness
of his own palms, he turned to stare out the window again.
By evening Rory was cursing himself for three sorts of a
fool for not just sailing up the Thames and disembarking in London for all the
world to see. He was unaccustomed to sitting still this length of time. He
contemplated buying a horse to complete the journey rather than continuing to
suffer this torture. The merchant had descended at noon, but the three women
lingered. If he had to sit idle any longer, he would go mad.
The fat one had snored through most of the day, waking only
when they stopped to eat. The spinster had managed to spend the entire time
looking disapproving and pulling her skirts away from his boots. The third one . . .
Rory leaned his head back against the hard box seat and contemplated the third
one with pleasure.
She had declined to join the others in their meals, but
stayed in the coach and evidently lunched out of the basket at her feet. But he
had stationed himself where he could see her when she descended to visit the
necessary, and he had finally caught sight of the vision beneath that musty
wool.
The glimpse had been brief but revealing. Light eyes the
gray-blue of a misty Scottish morn gazed from a round-cheeked face of palest
snow, with just a hint of rose to her cheeks. A beauteous cloud of ebony hair
swirled about her brow and throat despite some attempt to control it with combs
and ribbons. He still could not see her figure, but the way she moved across
the yard told him all he needed to know. She was an angel down from heaven, and
as such, far from the reaches of a devil such as himself.
Lapsing into drowsy cynicism as night closed in, Rory
ignored temptation and tried to sleep on the rough wooden bench of the public
conveyance. Before he reached that happy goal, the frantic cry of the driver
and the sudden unexpected jerk of the coach threw him forward, nearly landing
him in mounds of flesh. A faint wailing sound arose from the other passenger’s
throat as Rory righted himself by using her knee as a brace.
The coach ground to a halt, and the spinster shrieked in
terror at some sight in the forest beyond. The angel finally surrendered her
book to the gray light and looked outside as if to discern the status of the
elements. Rory pushed her back against the seat and leaned across her to find
the cause for this unscheduled stop.