by Hope Tarr
Ironic that she’d always wanted a brother, and she’d had one all along only to lose him before they’d even met. “I am sorry for your loss, my lord.”
He waved a hand, dismissing the sentiment. “The point is I’ve nay legitimate heir to carry on the line.” He cast his gaze down to his legs, their withered contours covered with a plaid blanket. “And nay hope of begetting one now. Until today I’d almost resigned myself to having the title pass to my nephew’s boy. Almost.”
Despite the fire blazing from the marble-manteled hearth, Claudia shivered. The inside of her mouth felt pasty and parched. To quench her thirst she took more wine. “I am afraid I do not understand.”
Shrewd eyes regarded her over the steeple of tented hands. “The Scottish primogeniture laws are considerably more flexible than those of England. As a Scottish peer whose heir is deceased, I may declare any child of my blood, male or female, legitimate or no, as heir to my title and lands.” He lifted one hand from its rest and wagged a thin finger her way. “And it just may be that I choose you.”
Claudia’s head spun as she considered what he was offering her. In France the Salic law prohibited females from inheriting a peerage, and she’d always thought a similar code was observed in England. But this was Scotland, as Jack had told her so many times, and things were different here. If Lord Aberdaire were to name her as his heir, one day she would be a countess in her own right, command this household and vast lands of her own. It was more than she’d imagined in her wildest fantasies, a glittering future that only a fool would refuse.
But Jack’s face kept flashing before her mind’s eye. She remembered the raw wonder in his amber gaze when he’d entered her that very first time, and how her heart had melted as her body yielded to accept him. She thought of the passion and laughter and tenderness they’d shared that week, the friendship and mutual respect they’d forged over the past two months. Emotions as varied and confusing as the hotchpotch soup he’d made for their first meal together churned inside her. But of one thing she was certain: she loved Jack. Such a love was worth several kingdoms; forfeiting one earldom seemed a paltry price to pay.
Lifting her gaze from the wine glass she’d been turning in her hands, she said, “While I am humbled by this great honor you do me, I fear I must refuse.”
“You little fool.” The earl’s fist smashed onto the tabletop, sending the brooch skittering over the edge. “Have you any notion of what you’re so blithely giving up?”
Despite the woozy headache drumming her temples, a strange and wonderful calm enveloped her. Meeting his furious gaze, she answered, “Yes, my lord, I believe I do. But even if I did not, I fear I would be of little use to you for, you see, I am not a virgin.”
That got his attention and hers, too, for she hadn’t intended to open that particular Pandora’s Box. Wondering why she’d revealed so much of herself, and thinking her speech sounded a bit thick, she bit her lip.
Pallid cheeks flushing, Aberdaire railed, “It’s that great animal who brought you here. Jack…Jack Campbell yes, that was his name. You’ve lifted your skirts for him, havna you? Havna you! No, dinna trouble to answer, for of course you have. Like begets like. If you’re half the whore your mother was, you wouldn’t be able to resist a cock that big.”
She wanted to rise and walk out, but shock held her pinned to the seat and the room had begun to reel. Reclaiming her voice, she struggled to keep her thoughts apace with her thickening tongue.
“In France I had a protector, a nobleman. Such…such is the lot of an illegitimate girl with…with no dowry and no father and whose mère…mother makes her way as a courtisane. I lived as his mistress for…for…” How long had it been? “Many years, my lord, until he was taken and…and killed. And compared to Jack’s, his ‘cock’ as you call it, was quite modest,” she concluded, as breathless as if she’d just finished a footrace.
The earl shook his head at her but, strangely, he seemed more pleased than angry. “Och, but you’re Célestine’s daughter, right down to your foul whore’s mouth. Another obstacle but like the condition of your birth and your whoring ways not necessarily insurmountable.”
The sound of a throat being cleared brought both their gazes back to the door where MacDuff stood. “The wine, milord, I trust it’s proving satisfactory?”
“Most satisfactory,” the earl agreed. He sent a thin smile Claudia’s way. “I think someone may be ready for a wee rest, is that not so, my dear?”
Claudia opened her mouth to answer that she meant to leave and leave now, only no such coherent reply came out. The wineglass slipped from her numb hand, wine spilling out over the patterned carpet like blood. Watching the stain come closer and closer, she was vaguely aware that at some point she’d slipped from the chair’s edge to the floor.
She heard the creaking of wheels as the earl rolled toward her. “Before you escort her to her chamber, allow me to present Lady Claudia Drummond. My daughter.”
Fleas hopped about the loft, flies buzzed and the scent of manure was strong in Jack’s nostrils. Setting down his saddlebag on his straw-stuffed pallet and stripping off his coat, he reminded himself that he’d made his bed in far humbler places than this. Knowing how Tam loathed the very sight of him, to keep the uneasy peace he’d often taken himself from the house to the byre and slept amongst the soothing smells and sounds of the animals. Sometimes he’d bide there for days on end until his mother’s pleading finally brought him back inside.
Just as Claudia had tried to plead for him today.
One look at her face had told him that she’d been genuinely shocked by his reception. Jack, however, had been expecting it. While Lord Aberdaire had been none too subtle about putting him in his place, a place he’d foolishly allowed himself to forget, he couldn’t fault his lordship’s reasoning. If Claudia was to be accepted as a daughter of the house, she must sever all ties with her past, her recent past especially. It was time for him to bid her goodbye, to free her to live the life to which she’d been born. Delaying the inevitable served no purpose other than to heighten the heartache.
And yet something beyond his own selfishness held him back from slipping away while he had the chance. That something or rather someone was the earl. Even for a man who prided himself on his English-style sangfroid, he’d seemed unnaturally calm for having a long lost daughter walk through his door. It was almost as if he hadn’t been all that surprised by Claudia’s sudden appearance. Something was amiss—Jack could feel it like a draft at his back, raising the hairs on his nape to full prickling attention.
He’d leave all right, but not before he assured himself that all was as it should be.
Claudia awoke on a mattress so soft that for one brief second she thought herself to be back in her bed in Paris. Cracking open an eye she found that the room, though richly appointed, was most definitely not hers. The draperies, bed curtains and counterpane were done in claret-colored brocade, not the airy cotton print she’d favored, and the carpet was Turkey, not Aubusson as hers had been.
She had to find Jack.
It was an effort of will but she managed to haul her head from the pillow and pull herself up on her elbows.
“You slept well.”
Even before she managed to focus her gaze across the room, she recognized the steely voice as Lord Aberdaire’s.
Scraping her dry tongue over her bottom lip, she said, “The wine, it was drugged?”
He wheeled himself toward her. Rather than deny it, he asked, “Will you take some water?”
She shook her head—a mistake that sent the room canting. Pressing hands to her hammering temples, she asked, “What is it that you want of me?”
“Unworthy creature that you are, I mean to make you my heir. In light of Britain’s policies toward Scotland, it behooves me to make certain that an Englishman, not a Scot, sires my future grandchildren. A Sassenach son-in-law, preferably one with a seat in the House of Lords, will fill the bill nicely.”
“You cannot
force me to marry.”
“Debatable.” He snapped his fingers and MacDuff emerged from the shadows carrying a mahogany lap desk. In answer to her unspoken question, the earl said, “You will find paper, pen, ink, sand, sealing wax—all the implements required to compose the letter that will bid farewell to Master Campbell and send him on his way.”
“Send Jack away!” she said, forgetting her spinning head in the rush of outrage. “I will not.”
“Och, but you will and gladly, for my butler is a man of many and varied talents, are you not, MacDuff?”
“I like to think I ken my duty, milord.”
Shifting his gaze back to Claudia, the earl continued, “MacDuff is being overmodest, I’m afraid, for in his salad days he was a topnotch pugilist. But more to the point, his sire once was employed in the Tower of London—as a torturer. A tender father was MacDuff Senior and careful to pass on all the finer points of his trade, is that no so, MacDuff?”
“Aye, milord, ’twas honest work even if a wee bit messy at times,” the butler answered with a grin and, distraught though she was, Claudia couldn’t help but notice that his earlier refined accent seemed to be slipping.
Though the drug they’d given her had yet to wear off, looking between the two men, she felt a scream building. “You are not only a monster, my lord, but also a coward to threaten me so. I may not be brave but nor am I a fool. If I am maimed, disfigured, I will be of no use to you on ‘the Marriage Mart,’ as you call it.”
Aberdaire shook his head; he appeared to be genuinely surprised. “Oh no, my dear, you mistake me entirely. It’s no you I’ll set MacDuff to practice his considerable skills upon but your lover, Master Jack Campbell.”
Claudia must have passed out, whether from shock or the effects of the drug she couldn’t be sure. She came to, coughing and sputtering, to the noxious fumes of smelling salts being passed beneath her nose.
Only when she’d regained her faculties sufficiently to sit up did Lord Aberdaire continue. “’Tis the big strong ones that incapacitation weighs heaviest upon, is that not so, MacDuff?”
“Aye, milord, ’tis oft the way of it.”
The earl shook his head. “It was a terrible trial to me, the loss of my legs. But for a man such as Master Campbell, a man who has kent what it is to possess the strength of ten men, life as a cripple would be…unendurable. Enough to drive one to take their own life, I should think?”
MacDuff dutifully nodded. “I’ve kent it to happen, milord.”
Addressing Claudia, Aberdaire said, “You really should reconsider your position, m’dear. When those broad shoulders are crooked and those long legs crushed, Campbell will be of scant use to you…in bed or anywhere else.”
“Stop! I will do it.” Tears streaming, she twisted about to reach for the pen and paper from the lap desk the butler had placed beside her. “But first will you answer me one question, my lord?” she said, blotting a tear from the sheet of foolscap.
He inclined his head.
“Before your son died, when you learned that revolution had come to France, that aristocrats and all who served them were being seized and fed to the guillotine, did you ever think of my mother and me and worry what might befall us?”
Expression placid, he shook his dark head. “No, I did not. Not once.”
Seated on the edge of his pallet, Jack stared at the letter, without doubt penned in Claudia’s fine hand, and though it had to be the third time he’d read it, he still couldna believe the proof of his eyes.
Mon cher Jack, it began—that much sounded like Claudia. I trust you will find it in your heart to forgive me for committing to paper that which a braver woman would find the courage to say to your face. Ha, as if Claudia had ever been afraid to speak her mind. We must part, chéri, as we have known we must from the very beginning. We are creatures from two very different worlds and now the time has come for me to take my rightful place in mine. To do so, I must bid adieu to you and to the friendship we have shared these past weeks. “Friendship” she called it!
I hope you will accept this money purse as your just due and this letter for that which it is, my final farewell. Know that in the coming years I will think of you often and fondly as I hope you will of me. Je t’aime, Claudia Valemont Drummond.
Je t’aime. The French for “I love you.” She’d spoken the words before, in the throes of her release, thinking he hadna understood. But he’d kent her then as he kent her now. Just as he kent that it was Aberdaire and not Claudia who wanted him out of her life. What had he threatened her with, done to her, to coerce her into writing it?
If he has harmed her, I will kill him. With my bare hands I will kill him, Jack vowed. He looked up from the note to the footman who’d delivered it. Forcing a smile, he asked, “Might that wee leather bag be for me?”
Coins jingled as the servant handed him the purse. “Aye, man, ’tis for ye. Fifty Scotch pounds—no a bad take for shagging a lord’s daughter.”
Temples pounding, Jack accepted the purse and made a show of weighing it in his palm. He loosened the string, pulled out a gold sovereign and tested it between his teeth. “As sweet as the fruit between a woman’s thighs, laddie. Sweeter, mayhap.” He dropped the coin back into the purse, tightened the cord and then slipped the purse inside his sporran. Rising, he said, “Now if ye’ll be so good as to point out which window is the lady’s, I’ll blow her a kiss on my way out.”
Chapter Seventeen
Claudia sat at the small supper cart that had been wheeled into her chamber earlier by the stone-faced housekeeper who’d refused to meet her gaze. The effects of whatever it was they’d dosed her with had worn off shortly after she’d written Jack’s farewell the evening before. Now that he was gone, she doubted they’d drug her further. Still, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to touch a morsel or a drop from the trays that had arrived at regular intervals throughout the day. To quench her thirst she’d resorted to drinking washing water from the pitcher. It was cool and clean, and she congratulated herself that she’d been clever to think of it.
A pity she hadn’t been clever when it had counted. Had she bothered to learn something of his lordship (she’d given up even thinking of him as “Father”) before strolling inside his castle like a lamb into the wolf’s den, she might be back at the inn with Jack, safe and warm, cherished and loved. They’d be in bed at this hour or perhaps sharing a bath or a meal—not that they’d eaten much over the past week but…
That morning she’d stood at her chamber window and watched him ride out from the courtyard. “Adieu, chéri,” she’d called out through the leaded glass and, for a flash of a second when he’d turned his horse about, she’d fancied he’d looked up at her. But that was absurd. The castle would have myriad bedchambers, and hers was a good thirty feet above ground. He wouldn’t have seen her, just as he wouldn’t have had cause to look back. The horrid letter she’d been made to write had seen to that. No doubt he was even now cursing her for a conniving whore who’d used him to win her freedom and fortune. If only he might learn the truth someday.
Oh Jack! She cast a swollen-eyed glance down to the contents of her tray, the dishes prepared in the French fashion. She’d gone so far as to break the soufflé with her fork—it was light and fluffy and baked to a light golden color. The salmon, too, was cooked just the way she liked it, the flesh flaky and moist. The wine was French, too, from Reims and there was even fruit and Brie cheese for dessert. She wondered if, like a Christmas goose, she was being fattened up for the kill—or in her case, the wedding.
Lord Aberdaire must be mad; that was the only explanation that made anything approaching sense. Crazed with grief over the loss of his son or, more properly, his doomed schemes for his dynasty.
Heavy footfalls sounding down the corridor interrupted her brooding. She cocked an ear, listening. No doubt it was the sour-faced matron come to collect her dinner things. For the first time in more than twenty-four hours her hopes surged. Now that Jack was safely away, t
here was nothing to be lost by her trying to escape. All she need do once she was free of her room was to slip outside, find her way to the stables and steal one of the horses—surely the third time must be the charm. If she were fortunate, she might even catch up with Jack on the main toll road passing through Edinburgh.
More optimistic than she’d been all day, she rose, snatched the wine bottle from the tray and cut across the room to the marble-topped washstand. Under normal conditions she would have said it was a sin to waste such an excellent vintage but reminded that desperate circumstances require desperate measures, she upended the bottle into the washbasin. Empty bottle in hand, she hurried about the room, extinguishing candles and wall sconces until the only light came from the sliver of half-moon outside her window. She fumbled her way back to the chamber door, flattened her back against the wall next to it and held her breath.
The footsteps stopped outside her door. There was a half-second’s pause, and then the tinkling of tiny bells. No, not bells but keys, she decided and lifted the wine bottle above her head. Heart striking against her chest, she listened as several more keys apparently were tried and rejected; finally she heard the lock click home. Nerves frayed to threads, she watched the door creak slowly open, and a large foot insinuate itself inside.
The form that followed she saw only in silhouette but it looked far too large and broad to belong to the housekeeper, sowlike creature though she was. But there were plenty of other servants in the castle, and Claudia hadn’t a second to waste. She launched herself forward, aiming the bottle high for the back of the interloper’s head.