The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide (35 page)

Father Armailhac turned out to be a demon at whist, rather to everyone’s surprise.

“I thought that cards were the devil’s work,” Rafe said, drinking a glass of water. Now that three days had passed, he looked slightly better, but only slightly. He drank water like a man lost in the desert, and when he wasn’t drinking, he was eating. He could feel his belly pushing against the table.

“Anything can be the devil’s work,” Father said calmly. “Or not.” He grinned and put down his final trick. He had been holding a run of hearts. “I prefer to think of the game as an intricate—”

“I know,” Rafe said, “gift from God, right?” He took another huge swallow of water.

“Be careful,” Imogen told him, “you’ll make yourself retch.”

“Not directly,” Father said, gathering up everyone’s cards. “But obviously one of the pleasures of being human.”

“Whiskey is one of the pleasures of being human,” Rafe said. Now that the worst of his illness was past, he was grappling with a burning desire for liquor. It was most acute in the evening; he felt as if his throat were parched, no matter how much water he drank.

“Ah, but like many pleasures, it can control you,” Armailhac said. “Then it ceases to be a pleasure, and becomes servitude.”

Rafe had heard that before, and he didn’t agree. In fact, there was nothing to stop him walking over to the sideboard right now and pouring himself a glass of that exquisite
golden whiskey they had in Scotland. The idea had hovered at the edge of his mind all day. He could see himself throwing down his cards and saying, “Enough is enough!” He was a duke, wasn’t he? He could do as he wished.

Imogen looked at him sharply and then pushed away from her chair.
She
walked over to the sideboard while he watched hungrily.

“Has anyone seen Ewan today?” she asked.

Father Armailhac shook his head, as did Mayne. Rafe was too busy watching her. If she took a drink in front of him, that would be a sign. He’d been through enough agony. He could drink a little and then keep his drinking more controlled, so he didn’t have a headache every morning. It wasn’t as if he ever neglected his estate. Perhaps he would only allow himself a drink three times a week. That sounded good. Or perhaps only when he had guests.

He started to his feet. “What the
devil
are you doing?” he asked.

Imogen had pushed open one of the castle’s narrow windows, designed to protect its inhabitants from sieges. “I’m throwing out this liquor,” she said, simply, as if she were discarding a piece of broken glass.

Rafe wasn’t even sure how he found himself on his feet, but there he was, grabbing her arm.

“Ow!” she said.

“That’s Ewan’s whiskey,” he snapped. “My God, you’ve tossed the Tobermary.”

With her left hand she reached out and grabbed a crystal decanter. “Why not?” she said tauntingly. “You’re not going to drink any of it again.”

“That’s no reason to destroy it!” He looked wildly back at the table. Father was smiling. “You!” he said. “Tell her that she has no right to pitch Ewan’s best whiskey into the bushes.”

“Ewan will not begrudge his liquor in a good cause,” Father said.

“The only one who will care is
you
,” Imogen said, still holding the decanter high in her left hand. “You can’t stop thinking about it, can you? I’ve watched you look over here all evening. I wouldn’t put it past you to sneak down after we’ve all gone to bed and drink the place dry!”

Rafe just stared at her. He had toyed with that idea . . . but—

Crash!
The crystal decanter shattered against the stone wall, and quick as the flash of an eye, Imogen snatched up another.

“Don’t—” Rafe gasped, but it shattered next to the first, filling the room with the pungent, deep smell of the best whiskey made in the world. Rafe felt like a hound, scenting a fox.

“You’re pathetic,” Imogen said to him, tossing another decanter into the corner.

This one didn’t smash; it just fell on its side with a dull clunk. Rafe watched numbly as jewel-colored port leaked onto the floor.

“Will you please sit down so that I don’t have to destroy any more of Ewan’s glassware? Because I will,” she added.

Rafe just blinked at her, a hairsbreadth from doing her an injury. Then Mayne took him by the elbow and led him back to the table and Imogen commenced, as happy as a housewife hanging out laundry, to empty all the decanters Ewan owned: whiskey from
the Bowmore distillery, from Ardbeg, Glen Garioch, and Magnus Eunson. They weren’t labeled; one told which was which by the color and the weight of the liquor.

“I expect Ewan has more of the same stored around the castle,” she said. “Phew, what a stench!” She reached out and pulled the bell.

Mac appeared so promptly that he must have been just outside the door, probably wondering about all the crashing glass. “Mr. Maclean,” Imogen said airily, “I’ve had to purge Ardmore’s whiskey collection. He may, of course, build it up again once the duke is off his premises. Now, is whiskey kept in another location as well?”

Mac nodded, eyeing the pile of crystal.

“Then why don’t you lead me to it,” Imogen said, her voice allowing no disagreement.

Mac nodded again and she followed him from the room.

“I know why Draven Maitland jumped onto that horse,” Rafe said hoarsely. “He was just trying to get away from his wife.”

“Imogen has backbone,” Father Armailhac said, dealing out the cards. “I expect she fought to keep that foolish young man alive.”

Rafe didn’t like the implicit comparison. “I’m not trying to kill myself.”

“In that case, it’s a good thing that you’ve given up the liquor. There!” He looked with satisfaction at the little heaps of cards. “What a pleasure it is to have someone to play with other than Pearce. I’m afraid that his cheating does detract from one’s enjoyment.”

“We can’t play without that she-devil,” Rafe snarled.

“She’ll return in a moment,” Armailhac said.

And she did, positively beaming with success.

“Well?” Rafe couldn’t not ask. “Did you destroy the best whiskey in this part of Scotland, then?”

“Just imagine. He had
kegs
of it in the basement. So rather than throw it all out, Mac is loading it onto a cart and taking it far away. Would you like to confirm that it is all leaving the premises?” She nodded mockingly toward the windows that faced the courtyard. “I wouldn’t want you to injure yourself wandering around the castle at night searching for the wine cellars.”

He hated her. With every bone in his body, he hated her. He didn’t move.

She didn’t even shiver at the look in his eyes. “In that case, you’ll have to take my word for it. Mac is taking all the wine, even the port. He seemed to have some scruples about moving the port—something about it needing to remain still—but when I made it clear that it was either move or be smashed, he gave in.”

Rafe looked down at the cards. They seemed to be pulsating in his hand, growing larger and then shrinking. He jumped to his feet. “I have to get out of here. I’m going for a walk.”

“I’ll join you,” Imogen said.

“Anyone but you!”

“What’s the matter?” she taunted. “Are you afraid I’ll say something you don’t want to hear?”

Father Armailhac took back the cards and started reshuffling them. “Mayne and I will play a two-handed
vingt-et-un
.”

Mayne groaned. “I’m tired of that game. I played with Pearce all afternoon, and he won every hand.”

“He’s a masterful swindler,” Armailhac said, nodding. “After years of watching him, I’m not even sure how he does it. He used to go down to Aberdeen on occasion, until Ewan wouldn’t allow him to go anymore because there was a chance he’d be shot by any number of people whom he duped over the years.”

Rafe strode out of the room after Imogen. He pushed open the great north door and they walked into a patch of light cast from the entry at their backs. The tall firs that usually tossed their heads in the sun and the wind had merged into shapeless, dark crests, barely moving in the light of the moon. He walked down the steps, his feet crunching on the gravel sweep before the great door.

“It’s rather gloomy out here,” Imogen said.

Rafe heard with pleasure the shiver in her voice. It would do that termagant good to be unnerved. She generally acted as if nothing could frighten her. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Where? Into the dark?” But she trotted after him as he stepped out of the circle of light.

“To the stables.” It really was dark, so he let her catch up and took her hand in his. It felt oddly intimate. He had walked arm-in-arm with ladies his whole life, but it was different to walk through the trees in the dark, feeling only the clutch of a woman’s hand. She had a small, delicate hand for such a shrew.

“Why the stables?” she said. Then she stopped, pulling him to a halt. “You’re not thinking of riding to the next village to find a pub, are you?”

The scorn in her voice stiffened his backbone. “Actually, no.” And he hadn’t been. That was too demeaning, as if he were—indeed—in servitude. “I wanted to see if Milady’s Pleasure has adjusted to her new quarters. She was delivered earlier today.”

“Why was she delivered?” Imogen demanded. “That’s Annabel’s dowry horse! Ewan shouldn’t have her, not after throwing his own wife out the door!”

“Annabel left
him
, as I understand it,” Rafe said. “And I’m afraid that the details of the marital contract are unbroken by separation. At any rate, it took Milady’s Pleasure four weeks to come here in slow stages, and I want to make sure she’s well cared for.”

They followed the path by avoiding the pitch black of the forest around them rather than by actually seeing their way. He could hear only little rustlings in the woods. For a moment his stomach roiled, and then quieted.

“It sounds as if we’re walking through a huge abandoned house,” Imogen said. He could hear the fear in her voice. She was holding his hand tightly.

“Amazing,” he said laconically. “You’re actually showing an emotion that characterizes ladies. Afraid of the dark, are you?”

She didn’t answer. They walked into the yard surrounding a long row of whitewashed stables. A boy started to his feet as they walked in the door, rubbing his eyes.

“You shouldn’t sleep with the lamp lit,” Rafe said, his voice unnecessarily harsh. “You could start a fire.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy stammered. “Yes, sir, I know that. I just dropped off for a moment, sir.”

Rafe unhooked the lantern. “Why don’t you go to your bed? We’ll blow this out when we leave.”

“I can’t, sir,” the boy said. “Mr. James said as how I was to stay because the mare in south loose box is expecting to foal, sir, and if she makes a sound I’m to wake Mr. James, sir.”

“Right. I’ll bring the lantern back to you.”

They walked down the alleyway between the stalls. None of the horses seemed to be sleeping. They were standing in their clean, spacious stalls, stamping their feet and whickering anxiously as they walked down the aisle. “It’s the foal coming,” Rafe said. “They can tell and they don’t sleep.”

“Here she is,” Imogen said, stopping. The mare had glossy, swollen sides. She turned to look at them, a bit of hay stuck to her nose in a way that made her look comical, like a clown wearing cat’s whiskers.

“I don’t think she’ll foal tonight,” Rafe said.

Imogen had her hand out and the mare began snuffling, licking her palm for the salt. “She’s lovely,” Imogen breathed. “Oh, you’re a beauty, aren’t you?”

Rafe walked on, carrying the lantern, and after a moment she ran to catch up. “You could have waited while I greeted that mare,” she said crossly.

“I haven’t time for a girl’s palaver with ponies,” he said.

“Oh? Because you have important things to do, do you? Out here in the middle of the night?”

Milady’s Pleasure seemed perfectly happy, so Rafe thought about how much he hated Imogen. “I’m thinking of taking a ride.”

“A ride? In the
dark
?”

He liked the idea more and more. “You needn’t join me. You’re not dressed for it.”

“I can ride in anything!” she said, just as he knew she would. “But where would you go?”

“This is a good fellow,” he said, stopping before a cheerful-looking gelding with a high arching nose and sweet eyes.

“He’s not heavy enough for you!” Imogen exclaimed.

He liked that she knew horses so well. “For you,” he said. Then he turned and bellowed down the stables. “A sidesaddle, if you please.”

Imogen’s eyes were huge in the light of the lantern. “I’m not going sidesaddle in the dark,” she said. “It’s unsafe. I’ll ride him astride.”

“In that dress?” he flicked a glance down at her black dress. Of course it had practically no bodice; none of her garments did.

“I’m sure I can manage,” she snapped.

The boy came, puzzled, and then swung a saddle onto the gelding. “He’s called Joe,” he told her.

Rafe had found himself a huge thoroughbred with a barrel chest.

“Well,
he
should be able to manage your weight,” Imogen said to him. He felt another surge of dislike. Maybe she wouldn’t be so cocky riding down a strange road in the dark.

“Let’s go,” he said, leading his horse out and allowing her to take her own. He had sent the boy back to the far end of the stables, with the lantern. Now the stables were lit only by the chilly light of the moon.

“I hope movement makes you vomit,” she said suddenly. So she had figured out why he wanted to go for a ride in the dark. Rafe grinned, his first real smile in days. Too bad she couldn’t see it.

Outside he swung onto his horse without offering to assist her. A woman who thought to ride astride in an evening dress had no need of his help. But he did look around. She had deftly backed Joe to a mounting post and a second later she was on the horse. The horse stood quietly enough, his ears flicking back and forth, while Imogen rustled about with her skirts.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s go, then.”

Rafe couldn’t see how she’d arranged herself. In fact, he’d never seen a woman ride astride. If she hadn’t been the shrew that she was, he would have found it incredibly arousing. Presumably her legs were hugging the back of the steed—