The footman poured water from his bucket, slopping a bit on the table.
Jackson gave a long, suffering sigh and mopped up the mess. Then, with the efficiency that characterized all his motions, he shaved MacLean.
Throckmorton arrived in the midst of the organized chaos, greeting the men by name. When the tub was full, the footmen gone, and Jackson packed up and left, he said, “It’s a rare valet whose work is as good as he claims.”
“He is very good.” MacLean rubbed the satin of his unscarred cheek. “But he’s not much given to pleasantries.”
Kinman’s mouth twisted in disgust. “And if he’s so good at shaving, why doesn’t he shave himself? He looks as if caterpillars are crawling down his face.”
Throckmorton laughed. “As long as he does his job, he can look like anything he wishes. Did you get your walk, MacLean?”
“A good one,” Kinman said. “He doesn’t need me here anymore.”
“You’ll stay with him, please,” Throckmorton instructed. “I would not wish to face Mrs. MacLean if he falls.”
“If I fall and hurt myself, just put me out of my misery at once, for if Mrs. MacLean finds out, she’ll torture me to death.” MacLean began to strip.
Throckmorton and Kinman turned their backs and stared fixedly out the window. When MacLean had eased himself into the tub, Throckmorton said, “We may have to move you.”
MacLean had anticipated this. “Because of the wedding guests?” The warm water alleviated the pain in his muscles. He would have loved to soak, but he lathered himself immediately. He always feared Enid would return early and catch him still in the tub, and wonder why a bath should take so long.
“The more people who know you’re here, the less I can guarantee your safety.” Throckmorton rocked back and forth on his heels, his hands clasped behind his back. “With your permission, I’ve made arrangements to return you to Scotland.”
MacLean dropped the soap with a splash. “Scotland?”
“I hope a return to your home will jog your memory.”
“Aye.” MacLean dug the bar out of the tub. “Though they won’t welcome me back if I’m the wastrel Enid claims.”
Throckmorton stopped rocking. During the long, thoughtful silence that followed, MacLean saw Kinman and Throckmorton exchange glances.
“I wouldn’t call you a wastrel,” Kinman said.
“Not lately,” Throckmorton added.
They were cautious. Conspiratorial. They’d been lying to him. “What would you call me?”
“A gentleman who has reformed,” Throckmorton said firmly.
How terrifically interesting. “I needed reformation?”
Throckmorton and Kinman exchanged glances again.
Before Throckmorton could speak, MacLean said, “It’s time to tell me the whole story.”
Throckmorton sighed. “Not yet.”
The admission made MacLean furious. “Not yet? You’re withholding information on a whim?”
“Not a whim. It’s for your own safety.”
“That’s bloody hard to swallow.” But if MacLean had learned one thing over these weeks, it was that Throckmorton wouldn’t be forced or cajoled. “When will you tell me the whole truth?”
“In Scotland. Kinman will go with you. He’ll tell you everything.”
MacLean finished bathing himself with the vigor of rage. “Lying to a man with no memory is a damned dirty trick.”
“We hoped we’d be done with this by now,” Throckmorton said. “That you’d remember.”
“You’d hoped,” MacLean muttered as he hefted himself out of the tub. After that one, glorious moment when he had recalled his sister, he had had no stirrings in his brain. All of his straining toward remembrance had been for naught. All of his frustration had been worthless. The only thing he knew for sure was the nature of his character—and Enid claimed that memory faulty. So he had nothing.
As he wrapped the towel around his middle, he asked, “Is my wife lying to me, too?”
“Mrs. MacLean is just as she appears to be,” Throckmorton assured him.
So the woman with the sweet face and tart tongue hadn’t been lying to him, too. A part of MacLean’s wrath—most of his wrath—died with the admission.
He dried himself and dressed. “So Enid is not in your employ?”
“Do you mean is she an actress playing a part?” Throckmorton asked. “Not at all.”
“All right, I’m dressed.” MacLean waited until the two men had turned to face him. Then, arms folded across his chest, he told them, “For the moment, we’ll do this your way. But I want some assurances. I want some control. I want possession of some items. I expect that you will get them for me now.”
Enid was returning to the cottage when she rounded the corner and walked into Celeste, walking slowly along the path arm in arm with an elegant, aged couple.
Celeste looked horrified.
Enid was horrified. She hadn’t forgotten the warnings she’d received when she’d arrived, or that MacLean could be in danger, but in all her walks she had never come upon a stranger, and she’d grown secure in her surroundings.
She should have known better.
Ducking her head, she curtsied and stepped aside, hoping her plain garb would distinguish her as a servant, albeit one of the higher servants, and that the aristocrats would ignore her.
But aristocrats were ever contrary.
The tall, stout lady was clad in shimmering lavender shantung from the top of her ruffled parasol to the bottom of her full skirt, and her full chins quivered as she peered at Enid through her quizzing glass. “Who is this young woman, Celeste?”
“She is . . . one of my friends from the Distinguished Academy of Governesses,” Celeste said.
Enid wanted to applaud Celeste’s quick thinking. Not a lie, really, but a tale that should lead them astray.
“My lord, my lady, won’t you come and look at the chrysanthemums?” Celeste said, gesturing toward the great display of gold and orange that blazed down the winding path.
“Introduce us to this lovely young lady first.” The lord tottered forward, peered into Enid’s face, and actually pinched her cheek.
When Lady Halifax had said there was no fool like an old fool, she might have been talking specifically about this man. Thin, tall, and wearing the highest black top hat Enid had ever seen, the gentleman smirked and waggled his eyebrows at her as if she were some green miss who knew no better than to flirt with a lord. And before his wife!
Enid wanted to smack him. But that would never do.
“Introduce you? Introduce you, my, yes, how silly of me.” Celeste smiled like the silliest of girls. “Sometimes I just bobble the simplest courtesies. It’s because I’m the gardener’s daughter. Yes, I should introduce you.”
And Enid remembered—her last name would betray all.
Taking a breath, Celeste said, “Lord and Lady Featherstonebaugh, this is—”
In the brisk, no-nonsense tone of a woman not included to wait on the civilities, Enid said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, my lord and lady. I’m Enid Seywell.”
Lady Featherstonebaugh frowned thoughtfully, then brightened. “Seywell? That’s the earl of Binghamton’s family name.”
Enid started. Dear heavens, these people knew of her father!
“Are you related to the earl of Binghamton?” Lord Featherstonebaugh asked.
“I believe I may be.” Enid kept her voice firm and her gaze steady, but she couldn’t control the blush that scorched her chest, her neck, the tips of her ears.
Lifting her quizzing glass, Lady Featherstonebaugh examined Enid from toe to top, and lingered on her crimson cheeks. “I remember a scandal a few years ago when Binghamton died. Something about a bastard daughter.”
“Yes.” Lord Featherstonebaugh drew the word out with a denture-accented hiss. “I remember. His family discovered he’d been supporting the girl, and they were none too pleased.”
Celeste wrung her hands.
> “Lady Binghamton was such a pinchpenny, she could squeeze a guinea until the gold melted.” Turning to Lord Featherstonebaugh, Lady Featherstonebaugh asked, “Was the child’s name Enid, dear?”
“I believe so.” Lord Featherstonebaugh looked harder at Enid. “By George, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, my dear. She has the look of Binghamton about the eyes.”
I do not. But Enid clamped her mouth shut. She didn’t want to be recognized, didn’t want to have this old couple gossiping about her before her face. And to have Celeste discover Enid’s past, and in such a way! Mortification writhed in Enid’s belly, and she didn’t dare glance toward Celeste. She could do nothing, for scandal provided a screen behind which MacLean could hide.
“It’s like seeing the old rascal alive once more,” Lord Featherstonebaugh said. “Tell us, m’dear, are you Binghamton’s daughter?”
For MacLean’s safety, Enid could sacrifice this much dignity. She supposed.
But he would owe her yet another debt. “I am,” she answered.
Enid had heard that couples who were long married frequently began to look alike. Lord and Lady Featherstonebaugh had obviously been married for a very long time, for their faces donned identical masks of delight. They blinked at the same rate, and they looked at each other at the same moment.
“Miss Seywell, I would be delighted to take you in to dinner,” Lord Featherstonebaugh said.
“I have to return to the Distinguished Academy of Governesses,” Enid lied smoothly.
Lady Featherstonebaugh straightened and said in a stern tone of voice, “I’m sure that’s unnecessary. You can stay another day.”
Enid kept a smile on her face. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“She’s a working girl, so she must leave.” Celeste came to Enid’s side and slipped her hand through Enid’s arm. “I am so disappointed to lose my friend before the wedding, but duty calls!”
“Oh.” Lady Featherstonebaugh adjusted her parasol. “How disappointing. I had looked forward to a cozy chat with you, Miss Seywell.”
“And I,” Lord Featherstonebaugh said.
Enid thought him a disgraceful old gentleman, but she nodded as they turned away.
“Go on, Lord and Lady Featherstonebaugh,” Celeste called. “I’ll catch up.”
The young women wheeled about and marched as rapidly as possible in the opposite direction, keeping complete silence until they were far beyond the earshot of the elderly couple.
“I shouldn’t have come out.” Enid chewed on her lip and told herself she shouldn’t worry about MacLean, that louse with the come-hither eyes that had enticed her to come thither.
“It’s not your fault,” Celeste answered.
“I didn’t realize there were visitors to the estate, and I couldn’t bear to remain in that cottage for one more minute.” Because Enid would have been kissing MacLean, and a woman would have to be crazy to kiss him.
“It’s not even my fault, although I’m sure Garrick won’t see it that way.”
“Who? Oh, you mean Mr. Throckmorton. MacLean is absolutely the most disreputable of cads.” And Enid was certifiably insane.
“Garrick accuses me of attracting trouble, as if I do it on purpose!” Celeste’s eyes flashed. “I am not the fluff-brained little miss he might wish.”
“I would say you are not! Nor am I a piece of feminine flesh to be petted or ignored.” No matter how enticing the petting might be.
“They don’t appreciate us.” Abruptly, Celeste halted beside a bench at the trunk of a massive willow, looked at Enid and, in a voice filled with kinship, said, “Every trouble begins with a man.”
Enid was tired of acting like an adult. She wanted to behave like a beast. Like MacLean. “Men are all alike,” she said sulkily.
Celeste tapped her lip and considered. “If only that were true, but each is exasperating in his own way.”
“I am done being a free finishing school for MacLean. Let him find out how to behave in civilized society without involving me.” In anything. Enid didn’t want to be involved in any more of MacLean’s escapades. He was well. It was time to leave him. That’s right, leave him as he had left her, and return where she was needed.
She slid her hand into her pocket and touched the letter from Lady Halifax. In those weekly missives, Lady Halifax had sounded as stout and brave as ever, but Enid knew the truth. Death hovered very near, and none of the sprightly letters she wrote in return were the same as being there for the dear, cantankerous old lady.
But her mind shied away from the scene in which she told MacLean she was departing, so she abandoned her own problems and for a moment considered Celeste’s. “Mr. Throckmorton adores you. I’m sure that’s why he’s irrational.”
Celeste collapsed on the bench. “Do you mean men need an excuse to be irrational?”
Enid grinned and seated herself beside her friend.
Her irritation appeased, Celeste said, “The Featherstonebaughs are old family friends, kind old people—”
“I didn’t notice,” Enid said, cold with offended pride.
“No, they weren’t kind to you. I’m sorry.” Celeste glanced from side to side. “And to tell you the truth, I am not so fond of them as are the other members of the Throckmorton family. The Throckmortons excuse the Featherstonebaughs’ ill behavior by saying they are the most terrific gossips in all of England, but I have been the brunt of their gossip, and it’s not pleasant.”
“Nor is it excusable.” Enid tried to broach the subject delicately. “I must thank you for not spurning me. I know it’s not agreeable to discover that someone to whom you have been kind is illegitimate, but—”
Celeste’s eyes snapped with ire. “You are not to say another word, or I will be offended. I do not choose my friends by who their parents are, nor do you, or you would not be so generous to me, who is the daughter of a gardener.”
“I would think nothing of—”
“Neither would I.” Standing, Celeste shook out her skirts. “So that’s settled. You’re my friend, we have an affinity, and I think you will be leaving soon, but when your adventure is over you will visit me. Promise?”
“I promise.”
Celeste touched Enid’s shoulder. “Now I must find Lord and Lady Featherstonebaugh and divert their questions about you, and then I must tell Garrick you have been seen and listen to him complain.” With a grimace and a wave, she walked off.
Celeste’s declaration touched Enid’s heart and made her remember the letter in her pocket. Digging it out, she stared at the familiar, noble Halifax seal, then turned it over to see unfamiliar handwriting. Lady Halifax had dictated to yet another one of her attendants. Carefully Enid freed the seal from the paper and unfolded the sheet.
She read the first line. Read the first line again. Then she scanned the remainder. Dropping her head onto her knees, she cried.
Chapter 13
MacLean recognized the tap of Enid’s footsteps, and he didn’t even wait until Enid’s head cleared the top of the stairs before snapping, “Where the hell have you been?”
Enid stood aside as Sally slipped past her and down the stairs.
“In hell, of course.”
The candles gave off insufficient light, but she looked unharmed, and that, as well as her cool tone and her reply, infuriated a man who had been remarkably patient after what had surely been a minor tiff. Punching the pile of pillows that helped him sit upright, he accused, “You made me wait.”
“For what? There’s always someone here if you need anything.”
“Was it some kind of petty revenge because I tried to kiss you?”
She glared at him, then with a flourish slammed the trapdoor shut so hard that it shook the floor. “No.”
And that made him even angrier. “Because you’re being childish. You’re my wife, and if I want to kiss you, I can.”
She shot the bolt with her foot, then meticulously articulated, “Not if you can’t catch me.”
Li
fting himself onto his elbows, he said, “You’re damned saucy for a woman who, not six hours ago, had her tongue in my mouth.”
“I didn’t want to kiss you. I was being polite!”
He laughed. “Come here and show me how polite you can be.”
“Rot first!” Going to the basin, she washed her hands, then groped for a towel. When she didn’t immediately find one, she wiped them on her skirt.
He stared. Enid had wiped her hands on her skirt. This woman, so dainty in her habits that she scolded him for drinking out of the water pitcher, had wiped her hands on her skirt. Something very odd was happening.
Moderating his tone, he said, “You’re being unreasonable. It was just a kiss.”
She snapped her fingers and turned away. “It was nothing.”
She dismissed him. Just like that. He wanted so badly to stand up, walk over, take her by the shoulders, and shake her.
But she was already shaking. Just a fine tremble in her fingers, which she immediately tucked into her pocket to hide from him. “If it was nothing, then why are you acting as if I demanded my conjugal rights?”
“You’re not well enough to demand anything, much less conjugal rights.”
He could have lifted the sheet and shown her proof of her error, but either the shadows were playing tricks with her features or she had been crying. Her eyes were red. Her nose was blotchy and swollen.
Crying. Hell. He studied her. She had come in cranky. He knew of an easy explanation, but a man didn’t live with a woman as closely as he had lived with Enid without knowing a bit about her, and she’d suffered through her monthlies a good ten days ago. So what was wrong now?
Turning her back, she said, “I don’t feel like fighting with you.”
He tested her. “That’s a change.”
She didn’t bite. “I’m going to bed.”
Glancing out of the west-facing window, he saw the faint red tint still staining the purple sky. “The sun has barely set.”
“I want to go to bed.”
Because he’d kissed her? He kept a watchful silence as she removed her snood and hairpins and slapped them on the table.
Lost in Your Arms Page 12