by Hope Tarr
Because he was falling in love with her.
Brain brimming with the terrible truth of it, he shook his head. “I canna,” he said as much to himself as to her.
He swiped a hand through his hair, the fingers cold on his scalp and shaking with nerves and need. “Christ, Claudia, ye dinna ken what it is ye ask of me.”
“Please, Jack, I do not want to be alone.”
The simple plea proved to be his undoing. Though she still held on, slender fingers furled and surprisingly strong, he could shake her off like a fly if he so chose. But the bald truth was he couldn’t bear to leave her any more than she could bear being left.
He released a heavy breath from the tight cage of lungs and ribs. “Verra well, I’ll bide for a bit, but if I fall asleep here beside ye, I’ll no answer for it.” Suppressed desire roughened his voice, made him sound gruff and sharp, but if Claudia noticed she seemed not to mind.
“Merci. Thank you.” She let go of him and moved over to make room.
He hesitated, then eased in beside her, draping a corner of the quilt across his thighs. Back braced against the wall and legs stretched out, he patted his shoulder. “Lay your head.”
She settled into his arms, tucking her head into the curve of his shoulder with the complete, unabashed trustfulness he’d found in animals but rarely in humans. The gesture warmed his heart. Unfortunately other bodily parts were warming as well, making him glad of the cold cutting into his back.
“This is nice, yes?” Yawning, she shifted position and a soft breast pressed against his pectoral.
Jack swallowed a groan. “Oh aye, lovely,” he muttered more to himself than to her. “And will ye mind to come visit me in the madhouse betimes?”
She folded back sleepy lids to peer up at him. “Hmm?”
Frustrated desire thickened his Scots burr. “Naything. Go to sleep.”
For once not inclined to argue, Claudia closed her eyes and snuggled closer still. A moment later, a shapely and very bare leg kicked free of the covers. He slanted a look to the slender limb twining about him and bit back an oath. Jesus, Joseph and Mary. Wondering if she wasn’t torturing him on purpose, he angled his head and stole a glance at her profiled face.
A soft snuffling, part purr, part snore, sounded against his chest, putting his suspicions if not his body’s yearning to rest.
Claudia slept.
But holding the warmth of her against his heart, inhaling the sweet perfume of her skin and hair, it was a long while before Jack found his own rest.
In an Abandoned Cottage on the Grounds of Aberdaire Castle
“You’ve been away a long while, Gunn.” MacDuff stepped from the shadowed corner and lowered the rain-spattered hood of his black cape. “Lord Aberdaire is most anxious to hear your news.”
Looking into the butler’s broad-boned face, the eyes colorless as glass and hard as stone, the courier felt a trickle of fear slide down his spine much like the rain that had found its way inside the collar of his greatcoat. Despite the foul weather that had dogged him since his ship had put into port, he’d ridden hell for leather over rutted and washed-out roads, going through a half dozen horses in his haste to return.
But now foreboding stiffened his tongue and caused his brain to cast about for any excuse to put off the inevitable bearing of the bad news. The latter he’d carried with him all the way from Paris, but never in the course of his nearly three weeks’ journey had the burden felt so heavy as it did now.
MacDuff glanced about the cottage, lit only by a single lantern set on the crude dining table. Like everything else in the small room, the table and chairs were blanketed in thick dust.
“You havna brought the girl with you,” the butler said at length. It was a statement, not a question.
“Nay, I havna,” Gunn admitted, then sucked down a swallow of chill air before adding the rest of it. “I’m afraid she’s dead, sir.”
“Dead?”
Gaze drawn to the dirt floor and the toes of his drenched boots, he nodded. “I made inquiries of my contacts in Paris. The lass—Mistress Valemont—kept a house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Or more rightly I should say that her protector, a nobleman named Phillippe du Marmac, kept it for her. The month last, a mob rushed the gate, murdered what servants remained and then ransacked the house.”
“But how can you be certain she perished? Is there no possibility she might have escaped with her life, if no her possessions?”
Wishing it might be so, for his own sake as much as for the girl’s, Gunn shook his head. “None, sir. Her body, I saw it with mine own eyes.”
And a pitiful sight it had been, too. Apparently too impatient to let the guillotine do its grisly work, the rabble had strung her up from the lamppost at her townhouse gate. She hung there still, or rather what was left of her, weather-stained skirts flapping in the breeze.
In as few words as possible, Gunn told MacDuff the rest. When he’d finished, the butler drew a deep sigh and asked, “Given the condition of the corpse, how can you be certain it was she?”
“There are those who kent her well who’ve sworn it to be so. Her gown, her dark hair, her form—they tell me there can be nay doubt but it is Claudia Valemont.”
“I see.” MacDuff vented a long sigh, and Gunn supposed that the butler didn’t relish relaying the grim news to his master any more than Gunn had relished relaying it to him. “Ah well, there is still the matter of the final installment of your payment.” MacDuff slipped a gloved hand inside the folds of his cloak.
Gunn hesitated. He had a wife and three bairns to feed and the last few years had been lean ones, yet something inside him urged him to beg off. Though his wife would likely curse him for a weak-headed fool when he told her what he’d done, he found himself saying, “His Lordship has been most generous a’ready. ’Tis only sorry I am that I havna better news to bear him.”
“Verra noble of you, Gunn. Most admirable, indeed. But you’ve been verra thorough, a’most too thorough, and I’ve strict orders from Lord Aberdaire no to let you leave this cottage without receiving your due.”
The butler’s colorless eyes fixed on Gunn’s face, making him swallow hard and long to look away if only he might. But the black-swathed form drew one step closer, then two, blocking off his view of the narrow cottage.
“And Gunn, my lad, you shall have it.”
The pistol’s report was the last earthly sound the courier would ever hear.
Chapter Nine
It had been years since Claudia had seen the inside of a church let alone made her confession to a priest. The daughter of a courtesan, who’d become a courtesan herself, she’d attended countless salons, the opera and theater, and even the court at Versailles a time or two, but never before had she witnessed the celebration of the sacrament of marriage. The very notion of two people committing their lives to one another was itself a foreign thing, as strange and mysterious as the Scots people. Never had she felt more the fish out of water nor more grateful to have a friend, to have Jack, by her side.
Though she was at a loss to name the exact moment when it had happened, Jack and she had become friends. She’d ceased calling him Monsieur le Borreau and poking fun at his patois. For his part, he’d taken to bringing her mug of tea to the bedside, so now it was to the soothing aroma of chamomile and peppermint that she awoke. The calling off of hostilities made for a more peaceful existence, but it also left a curious void. Half the time she found herself fabricating excuses to seek him out, and the other half reasons to stay away. Fluttery and uncertain as she felt, it was hard to know what to say let alone how to behave. But there was one thing of which she was acutely, painfully certain.
She wanted to lie with him.
At first she’d tried telling herself it must be boredom that had put such an incredible thought into her head. Or, if not boredom, then insecurity—had her womanly wiles really survived the horrors of revolution, the sea crossing and a week of near starvation? But no, the bald truth was that she
wanted him, the whole of him, in her bed. Over the past week, nightmares of those terrible final weeks in Paris had transformed into hot sticky dreams of rippling muscles, red-gold hair loosened to caress broad shoulders, and a lean masculine face registering the pleasure-pain of sexual release.
But it was his hands that her waking fantasies fixed on. Whether watching him carve one of his beautiful mantel fronts, splint his hawk’s crippled wing, or unsnarl a child’s kite from the bow of a tree, all she could think was how very much she wanted to feel them on her body.
Jésus, but she must be damned indeed to entertain such thoughts, such feelings on her way to a church. She cast a guilty glance over to her friend, reins wrapped about one strong hand and seated next to her on the cart bench. Wearing a coat and waistcoat of russet-colored wool and buff-colored breeches that buttoned at the knee he looked very fine indeed. Silver-buckled shoes replaced his habitual boots and, miracle of miracles, he even had on a hat, a tricorne trimmed in blond braid. Simple tailored garments and yet Phillippe in all his finery had never looked half so handsome. And though Jack’s hands sans gloves were rough, his manners as he tied the horse to the hitching post and then handed her down were as polished as those of any aristocrat.
Even at first glance the village kirk was a far cry from the cathedrals Claudia had known in France, the square windows paned with plain thick glass, the gray stone façade pitted with age and devoid of gargoyle or grotesque. A single rounded turret rose above the pitched roof; housed within was the bell that would later toll to announce the celebration of the marriage of Mairi MacGregor to Fergus Fraser, the drover’s lad, or so Jack had told her. After the service there would be feasting and dancing at the inn. She’d helped Milread and the bride’s mother, Dorcas, prepare food for two days now.
As arm in arm they came up on the flagged stone steps, Claudia realized that she was looking forward to the day ahead, not bored by the prospect of rubbing elbows with the “rustics” as she might have been but a few weeks before. In the course of serving in the taproom, she’d even begun to make a few friends. Callum was a frequent patron, of course, but by tacit agreement Milread always waited on him, and Claudia had schooled herself to ignore both his brooding gaze and occasional barbed remarks and go on about her work. But today was a holiday for the whole village as well as her. She didn’t want to think about work. Most especially she didn’t want to think about Callum McBride.
Feeling more lighthearted than she had in a long, long time, she slipped her arm free of Jack’s to pass through the arched portal and into the narthex. Inside, the priest, whom Jack introduced as Father Angus, greeted them with a broad smile. A pleasant-faced man of late middling years with a shock of white hair and a wrestler’s stocky build, he directed a few good-natured jibes at Jack for his lengthy absence from mass. Claudia liked him instantly.
Incense scented the air inside the sanctuary. In honor of the occasion the ends of the pews were festooned with bits of ribbon and plaid; a spray of dried heather and greenery interwoven with bright orange berries bedecked the simple wooden altar. She and Jack were just about to turn down the center aisle when she caught sight of Callum lounging by the baptismal font. He was engaged in whispering to a pretty, flush-faced brunette but, catching sight of Claudia on his brother’s arm, his lazy gaze sharpened and his jaw clenched.
He took abrupt leave of the girl and sidled toward them. Queasy unease churned Claudia’s stomach but, beyond that, she was well and truly angry. In the old days one whispered word in Phillippe’s ear would have sufficed to see Monsieur Callum McBride tossed into the Bastille for the rest of his days. Not that she’d ever countenanced the brutal lettres de cachet whereby an aristocrat might have a member of the lower orders imprisoned without trial and often without cause; certainly she’d never considered bringing that “privilege” to bear on her own behalf. Even so, remembering who she was or rather who she’d been helped her to find the courage to face Callum head on.
Beside her she felt Jack tense and his big body move fractionally closer, his mint-spiced breath a warm draft on her chill cheek as he whispered, “Dinna fash, lass. You’ve no cause for fear.”
She nodded and lifted her chin a notch higher just as her nemesis approached. The rank smell of stale spirits hovered about him but for once his hair was combed back and his face freshly shaven.
“Och, but it seems our wee gaol birdie’s come tae roost,” Callum drawled, setting his spare body to block their path to the pews.
Jack took a broad step forward until the two brothers stood head to head. Callum was by no means short but Jack topped him by a good six inches.
“She’s just as much right to be here as you, maybe more. Now stand aside.” Jack squared his shoulders and Claudia could see he was more than prepared to barrel past.
“How now, lads, what’s this?” Father Angus’s black-cassocked figure materialized beside them, and Claudia had never been so glad to see a priest in all her life. “Still fightin’ like cats, aye? Well, ye’ll no be coming to blows in my kirk.”
Callum’s gaze shot to Claudia. “Do we let in thieves and whores tae soil it, then?”
Jack’s fist came up at that but the good father’s hand on his shoulder had him lowering it again. “’Tis the Lord’s house, Callum McBride, and he welcomes all—even you. Now shut your mouth and take your seat before I forget I’m a priest and mind that once I was accounted to be the finest pugilist in the Lowlands.”
Callum hesitated, brown eyes looking poised to pop in his too red face. “This isna finished, Jacko,” he hissed, then stalked down the aisle to take his place in the pew beside his father.
Save for Tam and now Callum, nearly every man, woman and child in the village turned around in their pews to look back at Claudia, the foreign lassie who once again almost had brought the two brothers to blows. Some faces registered curiosity, one or two open hostility, but most looked on pityingly; the lattermost were the hardest to bear. Unlike the day of her sentencing when she’d had the luxury of shock to numb her, she was sensible to every glance, every whispered remark. Not since her flight from Paris had she felt so very desperate to escape.
A faint color climbing upward from his collar, Jack offered her his arm once more. “The service will be starting soon.”
Feeling her face warm, she shook her head. “I should not have come. I will wait for you in the cart. No, back at the cottage…I can walk.”
Trembling, she lifted her lavender skirts and turned to leave but Jack’s hand on her upper arm stayed her. “Bear up, lass, and hold your head high. You’ve naught to be ashamed for.” Sliding his hold to her hand, he turned down the center aisle, towing her along.
Mindful of how very loud her new slippers sounded striking against the stones, she whispered, “Please, Jack, I swear I will not try to escape, only please, please let me leave. Can you not see I am not wanted here?”
“That’s no true. No true at all.” He halted before one of the center pews, made the sign of the cross before the altar and then held open the gated door for Claudia to enter. Painfully aware of the congregation’s collective gaze fixed on them, she slipped inside.
Only when they were seated side by side on the curved bench did he say, “I want you here.”
She turned her head to regard him. “You do?”
Gaze trained ahead, he nodded. “Aye, as Father Angus said, I may keep a pew but it’s been a while since I’ve seen the inside of it.” Still staring straight ahead, he stretched out his hand. Strong and warm, it closed about hers and this time she’d no thought of pulling away. “Stay beside me, Claudia.”
For one of the few times in her life, Claudia was at a loss for words. She settled back against the curved wood, content to let her hand lie in his. The seat felt hard against her spine, the church so cold that her exhaled breath caused little clouds of steam to mushroom from her mouth, but she found she didn’t mind.
Jack H. Campbell wanted her beside him.
Spirits soaring
, she kept her gaze on the altar throughout the service as the vows were said, the rings pledged and the sacrament given, but throughout it she allowed her mind to ramble. The bride was beautiful and heart-wrenchingly young, as was the bridegroom. No more than sixteen if they were a day, Claudia thought with something akin to amazement, then realized that she’d not been all that much older when Phillippe du Marmac had first taken her to his bed. She’d lost not only her innocence in that bed but also her hopes and dreams. Seven long years of blistering assaults on her woman’s pride had followed. To endure, she’d armored her heart against feeling too much, wanting too much, until it had become as callused as Jack’s hands.
But these past weeks with Jack had softened her. For good or for ill, she’d started to care again, not just for herself but for others as well. Would Jenny’s broken arm mend? Would Old Una’s cough respond to Jack’s latest remedy? Would Lady, Jack’s crippled hawk, ever learn to hunt on her own again?
Bit by bit, day by day, she was becoming part of a community. Although it was desperation that had brought her to this village and force that held her, she would forever cherish her time among these simple Scots whom, she was fast learning, were not so simple at all.
But she couldn’t stay, of course. Be it next week or next month or the month after, eventually she would escape and find her way to her father. Until now paternal acceptance had seemed an end in itself, the Happily Ever After to close the storybook on all her woes. But now she found herself wondering what life as the daughter of a Scottish earl might be like. She supposed that in time Lord Aberdaire would want to arrange a marriage for her. Though she would not wed blindly—foremost her future husband must be decent and kind—she could not expect love. A marriage of convenience was the standard for persons of her station. The best she could hope for would be friendship and mutual respect and perhaps children, although having never conceived in seven years, she rather supposed she was barren. Perhaps a widower with a readymade family, a kind-hearted man who would overlook her bastard birth and lack of maidenhead to provide a mother for his children. In time she might find contentment in such a union but certainly not passion.