The Reckless One (24 page)

“You can pack a trunk of my clothes for London tonight, Gunna. I shall be leaving on the morrow.”

Gunna paused in helping Fia off with her day gown. “I didn’t ken that yer father’s plans had come so quick to profit,” she said in amazement. “Still and all, how can he leave so sudden? There’s so much to do.”

“Carr knows nothing about my leaving,” Fia said uninterestedly. “I shall be staying with Lady and Lord Wente. They have been kind enough to extend to me an open-ended invitation to be their guest.”

She untied the ribbons around her waist. Her hoops collapsed to the floor. Gracefully, she stepped out of them. “Of course,” she said, “Lord Wente’s well-documented indebtedness to Tunbridge has, I fear, more to do with their gracious invitation than my own, ineluctable charm. Be that as it may, I intend to take them up on the offer. At least until I can secure my own establishment. Then I’ll send for you, Gunna.”

The chill left her expression and a degree of human warmth softened the hard brilliance of her eyes. “I promise, it won’t be long.”

“I don’t understand,” Gunna said, untying Fia’s corset with trembling fingers. “Yer own establishment? Yer a girl, Fia, not a woman.”

“Oh, Gunna,” Fia said, “I’ve never been a ‘girl’ and well you know it.”

“But it isn’t done! Ye can’t have yer own establishment. Carr will insist ye live with him. He’d never allow anything different. I …” She hesitated, her half-exposed face lined with worry. “I don’t even know if he’ll allow me to come to London.”

The glimpse of vulnerability disappeared from Fia’s face, leaving it coolly serene. “I will handle Carr, Gunna. I will handle everything: the house, the funds, and your arrival.”

Gunna had no choice but to believe her. Fia had never made an idle promise in her life. “But why? Why now? Why not wait?”

Once more a shadow of the young girl that might have been crept into Fia’s expression, looking out through the smooth, artificial, and ravishing visage with infinite sadness. “Because I am tired unto death of tragedies and I don’t wish to stay and witness the one unfolding now.”

Favor tucked the heavy wool blanket around her legs and gazed with sullen satisfaction at the storm swelling above the castle turrets. She did not think she could quite endure a bright, clear day.

Morosely she motioned a servant to her side and indicated the empty glass on the wrought-iron table before her. He filled it from the bottle standing beside it again, bowed, and left. Favor lifted the glass in both hands and took a long draught before returning it unsteadily to its place.

The courtyard, which had been set up for a late-afternoon repast when the day had promised better, held only a few people. Indeed, it seemed to Favor that the castle was quickly emptying of its population. Everywhere, people were in the process of leaving this place. Godspeed to them.

Those left sat in little groups at tables, warming their palms on china cups filled with tea or coffee while Favor attempted to warm a deeper chill with a more potent distillation. She sat alone, her table somewhat removed from the others, the expression on her face dissuading any approach.

That’s the way she wanted it. Getting drunk, Favor had decided, was a solitary occupation. She swept the glass up once more, tipped its contents into her mouth and grimaced as she swallowed.

“Does it help?”

Favor closed her eyes, despair sweeping over her. Of course he would come. Why should he stay away? Why would she think for a moment that common sense would have any influence at all over him and that he might realize the risk of discovery he ran?

“Go away,” she muttered, refusing to look at him.

“I asked you if it helped.” His voice was low and quite savage, as enraged as he’d sounded when he’d discovered her virginity two days before. But then he’d held her as though she were the most precious thing he’d ever known. He’d made love to her. She must cling to that sole benefit in this vile stew. Longings struggled to rise from deep in the cold, dark place she’d buried them.

She kept her eyes tightly shut, trying not to cry. Her nails dug fiercely into her palms. She would focus on that pain—but how, when this other one so utterly eclipsed it? She must just send him away. She’d not shed tears for Muira, she wouldn’t shed them now.

He was waiting. She braced herself. She was a good liar. The best the convent of Sacré Coeur had ever known. She opened her eyes. He loomed above her table, his clenched fists planted on either side of her on the tabletop. His feet were spread wide as though bracing himself for a fight.

“Help with what?” she asked, furtively cataloguing each beloved feature—the amber color of his eyes, the texture of his beard-rough jaw, the breadth and height of him—hungrily hoarding each impression so that she would have his image for all time.

She did not worry about remembering his touch. The tensile strength in his fingers, the warmth of his mouth, his kiss, his whispered words, these were part of her now. She would no sooner forget them than she would forget how to breathe.

For a long moment they stared at each.

“Is it true?” he finally asked.

She’d begun shivering. She hadn’t shivered since Muira had brought her back from the tower even though she was cold, so cold she doubted she’d ever be warm again.

“Is what true?” she asked feebly, dull-witted with gin. Ah, yes. Gin. The promised void. She snagged the glass and brought it to her lips. He seized her wrist and slammed it down on the table. The liquid leapt from the glass, spilling over the linen table covering.

She tried to pull free. Around them the low murmur of conversation died. Interested faces turned in their direction.

“Stop!” she whispered hoarsely. “The footman will be on you in a minute if you continue like this!”

His smile was feral and dark. “Let him.”

“No, I beg you,” she said. “You’ll only be found out. Leave.
Please.”

“Not before you tell me whether it’s true,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Are you going to marry Carr?”

“What does it matter who I wed?” she asked in a low, taut voice. “You knew I was trolling for a trophy. What grander trophy than Carr? Who wealthier?”

“You little fool,” he said, his eyes blazing. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t.”

“Why are you suddenly so loathe to see me marry?” she asked bitterly, unable to contain her words. “Remember? You have nothing to offer in substitute. Not even a name. Or should I just acquiesce to your demands, give you
carte blanche
and become your mistress?”

He leaned forward. She could see his braced arms tremble with barely contained emotion. “If I don’t already have a place in hell, that would surely win it,” he said in a low, intense voice, “but by God, if that is what you want … if that would keep you from him … my hand is yours, Madame.”

Hand, not heart.

“My path is set,” she said vacantly. “I’ve other masters to serve besides myself.”

His bronze skin dulled. He straightened, towering over her. “Carr will destroy you.”

She shook her head. “I can manage Carr. You see, I have been
bred
to manage Carr.”

“You fool,” he said again with quiet venom. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. If you won’t have me, have some other knave. I swear to God, I could gladly give you to another if by doing so I kept you from him.”

“I won’t have another.”

“Vanity or suicide, which one?” His eyes condemned her, his knuckles were white where he gripped the edge of the table.

“Neither. My family.”

“Oh, Favor,” he said, suddenly appealing to her. “Refuse them. You’ll be doing them a benefit by setting them free from their expectations of you. Let them find their own fate and not rely on you to find it for them.”

She stared at the sodden linen, soaked with the spilled oblivion she’d been courting to no avail all afternoon. The wind had picked up, driving most of the others in the courtyard inside though a few remained seated at a distance. One of them would tell Carr. Rafe would be exposed.

She rose unsteadily to her feet, separated from him by a table and a decade of obligation. “I have a debt I need to repay.”

“A curse on your damned debt!” he grated out.

Too late. Already damned.
She made a last appeal to him, trying to make him understand. “How could I live with myself if I asked less of myself than you would ask of yourself?”

He slammed his fist down on the table once more. His face was flushed, his teeth bared. “I don’t give a bloody damn about your moral conscience. This is
Carr.
A man who’s known to have killed three wives already. Is it your desire to be the fourth?”

“I will die—”

“Bloody right.”

“—long after we marry. I will outlive him. I’m far younger than he—”

He surged across the table, grabbing her hand and dragging her halfway across it. She did not resist, even when he thrust his face within inches of hers. “You are a little girl,” he said tightly. “A foolish little girl raised on stupid romantic notions about sacrificing yourself for a lofty and noble purpose. But you won’t just sacrifice your youth, your beauty, your bravery and— Damn you! You’ll sacrifice your
life,
Favor!

“You’ll
die
at Carr’s convenience and the only thing lofty about it will be the heights from which he’ll pitch you like he did m—his first bride.”

His words scared her, undermined her resolve, and she couldn’t let that happen. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to return to that tower, to see her clansmen’s broken bodies and hear their dying screams.

She’d been raised with this one purpose. And she would fulfill it but, the Blessed Virgin help her, she could no longer stand to see the bitter condemnation in Rafe’s expression or hear the contempt in his voice. He’d been a lover. He deserved the truth.

“My name is Favor McClairen,” she said dully. “The Earl of Carr robbed my family of this island, this castle. He stole not only our wealth but our heritage.”

He was watching her, not only unimpressed but unsurprised. “Why must you be the one to regain it?”

“Because,” she said, “ten years ago I was responsible for the massacre of those who could have fought for it.”

“No.” He shook his head.

“Carr’s son had raped a novitiate and they brought him to—but you’d know, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “If Ash Merrick told you about something as paltry as the Trust, he surely recited to you that fascinating bit of his family history. I see I’m right.” Her smile felt like a grimace. “Well, Rafe, I was the girl who saved Raine Merrick’s life. I delayed his hanging long enough for Carr to ride down on my clan with a hundred redcoats.”

His face was hard, intractable. “You can’t repay the dead with your life.”

“I’m repaying the living,” she said tiredly. “I’ll marry Carr and I’ll leave him. I’ll return to France. He wouldn’t dare follow me there. I’ll wait for him to die and then—”

“And then what?” Rafe sneered.

“Then McClairen’s Isle will belong to the McClairens once more. In Scotland a widow inherits her husband’s property.”

He shook his head, his eyes bleak, and shook his head again. “You cannot be so naive,” he whispered. “Whoever put you to this cannot be so naive. ‘Wait for Carr to die?’ ”

“It’s what I’ll do,” she said. “It’s what will happen.”

He kept shaking his head, his lips curled back to reveal the edge of his teeth, a pulse pounding in his temple. “No,” he said. “No. I’ll stop it.”

“No. You can’t. You’re too late.” Her gaze fell before his, her voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “Carr proposed this morning. I accepted.”

He went absolutely still. She closed her eyes, unable to stand the condemnation in his expression. His contempt washed over her like a physical thing. Not that she could blame him. It was why she was here with this bottle of gin when she did not drink spirits. It was why she’d drunk Carr’s gift—a carafe of Madeira doubtless laced with Muira’s “love potion”—throughout luncheon. It was why she would stay here, drinking, after he left. She opened her eyes. He was still there.

“I will ask you this and, damn you, you’d better answer,” he said in a hard voice, “Did you declare yourselves? Were witnesses there?”

She understood then. He thought Carr had tricked her into the old Scottish custom of declaration and that they’d already wed.

“Did you?” he shouted, rattling the heavy iron furniture like a piece of tin.

“What difference does it make?” she said.

“I’ll ask once more ’ere I throttle you, Madame—and be warned, I have never so desired to do a person harm as I do you at this moment.”

“I assure you, I hurt every bit as much as you could want,” she replied softly. He jerked forward and caught himself short as though held by invisible chains. “Did you declare?”

“No,” she said tiredly. “No. I would have and so, too, would Carr but Muira—Mrs. Douglas—insisted on finding a priest. She said the McClairens would not accept the marriage as real unless it had been sanctioned by the Church.”

She lifted tragic eyes to him. “Is that not funny? Do you not see the joke? They want this marriage blessed when it is from its conception cursed.”

A sound of anguish and fury rose in Rafe’s throat, frightening the hollow humor from her.

“You can’t stop it, Rafe,” she whispered. “A priest rides for Wanton’s Blush even as we speak.”

His fury erupted in a roar of pain. He seized the table and pitched it over, hurling it across the terrace. Without another glance at her, he strode from the windswept courtyard.

Gunna was waiting for Raine when he reached the room he’d been using for sleep. “They say the king is dead!” she greeted him.

Raine didn’t reply. He moved past her and began a hurried hunt through a pile of discarded clothing.

“Everyone is leaving Wanton’s Blush. Everyone!” Gunna went on. “Fia is already gone. The house is in an uproar: servants scurrying everywhere, packing trunks; the grooms and stable boys working round the clock to hitch the proper horses to the proper carriage.”

He found his greatcoat and swung it over his shoulder, stopped in the middle of the room, and looked about for the small leather purse containing all the wealth he owned, a dozen gold guineas.

“And Carr prowls the castle like an aged badger, snarling and gloating, and while all his guests leave he keeps servants in the tower looking for the arrival of a carriage!”

“Aye,” Raine swept the debris from a table. His purse wasn’t there. “He’s sent for a priest.”

“Why?” Gunna asked, her confusion mirrored in her ravaged face.

“To marry him and Miss Donne.”

He heard the sharp whistle of her indrawn breath. “Aye. A new stepmama for Fia and myself. Aren’t we lucky?” He spied the purse on the windowsill. He snagged it, tossing it in the air with a predacious smile.

“Oh, Raine. I am sorry,” Gunna said softly.

“Don’t be. You’d be wasting your pity. She’ll not wed Carr. I swear it.”

“But, Raine, how can you stop them?”

He shoved the purse into his belt and wheeled around, grasping her by the shoulders. “I’ll be gone for a while, a couple of days at the most. If you ever had any affection for me, I need you to do something for me now, Gunna. And never fail.”