Her crisp condemnation startled a laugh out of him. Dear God, he loved this woman. She made him grin like any lovesick fool—
Phillip broke off the thought, his mind, the rational part, the ducal part sounding an alarm as loud as a hundred fire bells.
He was falling in love.
The thought was so startling, he sat upright and bumped his head on the top of the chimney. With a soft oath, he practically crawled out of the hearth and scrambled to his feet.
He was falling in love? His brain choked on the thought.
Miss Cameron—Charlotte, was the worst person for him to—
Phillip shook his head hard as if he could shake the idea out of his brains. He’d never wanted to be in—
He broke off, unable to repeat that one word.
Love.
It had never been part of his vocabulary. Not really.
He’d thought he’d loved Elizabeth. Theirs had been the usual courtship and marriage. But his feelings were nothing in comparison to the sense of connection he had with Charlotte.
Phillip backed away from the hearth. He hit the wall and couldn’t go farther.
He’d not known Charlotte more than a day…and yet she’d quickly become like his right arm. She was loyal, brave, and consistent.
It had to be the sex.
It had been too potent between them, too tumultuous. He doubled his hands into fists, reminding himself once again how often it had been suggested by those who dared to approach the subject to him that it was unnatural for a man to endure prolonged celibacy. Foolishly, he had denied their claim. And now he was paying the price.
What he felt for Charlotte wasn’t love. It was lust.
Yes, that made perfect sense.
Lust and love—
Phillip raised his hands to his head, wanting to pound these errant, irrational thoughts out of it.
God, the wags in London would be tickled pink to see him now—lusting after her the way he was…and loving her.
A breeze came through the window, carrying the freshness of clean, salt air. Phillip turned and stared at the water outside beyond his reach. There was not a soul in sight. Not even a bird in the sky.
But he wasn’t alone.
His world had expanded to include Charlotte. Beautiful, spirited Charlotte, who was the exact opposite of Elizabeth. With Charlotte, sex hadn’t been about lust. It had been a joining, a melding of two souls. For so long, he’d thought of himself alone—and now he wasn’t. He’d been one, and now he was two.
The only problem, aside from the irritation of gossips, something he’d have to weather no matter whom he married, was that Charlotte was not the sort of woman a man of his rank and class took to wife. She didn’t have the lineage to be a duchess. Her family was bad ton. They’d even proved it when Miranda jilted him.
The best he could offer Charlotte would be his protection. He’d gladly keep her and love her for all the days of his life.
He just didn’t know how she would feel about the idea, but he had an inkling. To even mention such a suggestion would hurt her pride. She would see it as lowering her station.
On the other hand, he could argue with her that being a duke’s mistress was far more important than being any other man’s wife—
Phillip broke off the thought with a frown. It might be true, but Charlotte would never believe such claptrap He’d have to bring her around to the idea slowly. He’d wait until the best possible moment to make his offer.
And he had to make her love him. To want to be with him in spite of the slight of never being his wife. He had a responsibility to his title. But he couldn’t give her up either.
“Colster,” her voice said from the fireplace.
He turned from the window and looked at the cold hearth.
“Are you still there?” she whispered.
Phillip walked over to the fireplace, feeling as if the floor tilted right and left. Love was different than he’d imagined. It should have simplified life. It didn’t. He now had more worries than ever before.
“I’m here,” he said.
“Is something wrong?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Your voice sounds funny.”
She was far too astute. A man had to have his wits around his Charlotte. “I’ve been thinking,” he said truthfully.
“About the trial? What is this over, Colster?”
“I don’t know. No one has told me anything.”
“Colster, I have a request of you.” She sounded as if she’d moved closer to the wall separating their two rooms.
He knelt. “What is it?”
“If anything happens to me, please, you must look after my sister Constance.”
Constance would be the youngest. He barely remembered meeting her. “Is she in London?”
“No, I sent her to a Madame Lavaliere’s boarding school here in Scotland. It’s in Ollie’s Mill, a village close to Edinburgh.”
“Why did you send her all the way up here? We have schools in England.”
“Yes, but none would take us. They all feared incurring the Duke of Colster’s wrath.”
Phillip felt the barb in her voice. “They should have known better. The Duke of Colster isn’t that sort of man.”
Silence was her response.
“I’m not,” he insisted. “I can’t help it if people want to believe I am. Why did you send her to school anyway?” he asked, deciding a change of subject would be wiser.
“She needed polish. Mother had drilled us girls on social graces. It had been a game we’d played with her. However, Constance was too young when she died to remember the lessons. If she is going to marry a man of title, she needs some polish.”
“What if she doesn’t want to change who she is?” he dared to ask.
“She must,” Charlotte answered. “I want her to be happy. This is the best for her.”
“Are you happy?”
“Surprisingly, yes. Especially right now.”
He settled closer to the wall, wanting to ask her what she meant. Wondering if it had anything to do with him.
But their conversation was interrupted by the sound of someone at the door. The key scraped in the lock. Phillip jumped to his feet and faced the door as it opened.
MacKenna walked in.
The proud set of the man’s head reminded Phillip of his own father. It was arrogance, he realized, a failing of which he himself was guilty.
The laird looked around the room. “I hope you find your accommodations satisfactory, Your Grace?”
“I’m not accustomed to being a prisoner anywhere,” Phillip counted.
MacKenna smiled. “The guard outside your door overheard someone talking.” When Phillip didn’t answer, he added, “Sound carries in this house. Have you discovered that?”
“I regret to say I haven’t had the opportunity,” Phillip answered, hoping Charlotte could overhear them and would know to keep silent.
At his silence, MacKenna’s head seemed to shrink down in his shoulders. His lips twisted into a mirthless smile. “I’ve had to wait a long time for this meeting.”
“You could have set an appointment with my secretary Freedman. It would have been simpler.”
“But less rewarding.”
“What reward do you seek?” Phillip asked.
The older man shook his head. “One I fear you would never understand. I look forward to this evening. It has been a long time for my clan. ‘Out of the ashes we shall rise victorious,’” he quoted.
“I’m not familiar with the quote.”
“It’s no quote but a prophecy. It was made by my ancestor as he stood on the gallows and was hanged for treason. A Maddox should have been hanging beside him.”
“We had the good sense to leave.”
“Or turn traitor.”
Phillip dropped all pretense of civility. “What do you want? You are an intelligent man. I can’t believe you would bring me up here for some ancient feud. Whatever your reas
ons or purpose, this is personal.”
A gleam of appreciation appeared in MacKenna’s beady black eyes. “You’re right. My only regret is that your father isn’t here to see the price he must pay.”
Phillip leaped on the clue. “So this was a matter between you and my father?”
“You will find out at your trial.”
“My trial for what?” Phillip demanded.
“For being the son of such an arrogant man as William Maddox,” the laird replied, every word singed with hate. “You are being tried because he’s gone from me now but that doesn’t mean my revenge won’t be just as sweet. After all, you are cut in his image.”
“But what do you gain?” Phillip wondered. “What purpose is there? I am not my father.”
“No, but you’ll do. You’ll break the curse my sister has lived under ever since the moment she laid eyes on the man.”
“The curse of what?” Phillip pressed.
“Of what your father did to her,” MacKenna barked out. He stared as if he could see the words in the air. When he focused on Phillip, he appeared a man possessed.
“Your father ruined her. He used her in the coarsest way and tossed her aside. She was so young and beautiful back then but he broke her.” His brogue thickened with each word. “We were schoolmates, and he ridiculed me about his conquest in front of my mates. You see, she’d fallen in love with him. She tumbled into his arms like a silly milkmaid. I warned her to avoid him, but he sought her out.”
MacKenna trembled he was so angry. “He used her, Colster, in the worst manner possible—and she allowed it. She thought she loved him. And he was a duke. What woman doesn’t want to marry a duke?”
Phillip couldn’t say anything. His father had been a distant figure in his life. Phillip had always thought it was because of his mother’s death…now, he had a flash of insight that, perhaps, that had been his father’s nature. The only meaningful conversations they’d had dealt with the responsibilities of the title.
“He got her with child,” MacKenna said. The flat statement seemed to age him a score of years. “He ruined her.”
A child? Phillip braced himself, hesitant, uncertain, as he asked, “What happened then?”
“She lost a bit of her mind. She turned to a witch to help her lose the babe. The spell or potion worked, but left Rowena unable to have children and robbed her of what little sanity she had left.” His shoulders sagged as if he carried a great burden. “She had been such a sweet, naïve creature, and your father robbed her of that.”
“And is that what I’m on trial for this evening?”
“We’ll say it is the feud, but you and I will know different. We’ll know the truth.”
“The truth?” Phillip challenged. “How can you talk to me about the truth after that trick of a letter you sent?”
MacKenna raised one brow. “Trick?”
“Nanny Frye’s letter.”
“’Twas not a trick. It’s the truth.”
Phillip reeled back.
MacKenna grinned.
“I told you my sister lost her mind a bit. With the help of that same witch, she pretended to be a midwife. They put your mother in labor, and my sister took your brother.”
The floor seemed to disappear beneath Phillip’s feet. The world, as he knew it, had gone mad.
“I can see you were afraid to believe the letter,” MacKenna said, his gaze narrowing shrewdly. “I’d be worried, too, if I knew I stood to lose a dukedom. And what can you do about it, man?” He laughed, obviously enjoying himself. “My sister may be a bit touched in the head, but she exacted a fitting revenge—”
Phillip cut him off by flying the few feet between them and wrapping his hands around the older man’s neck. “The letter is true?” he demanded, not only wanting to hear MacKenna’s confession again but also wanting to choke the life out of the man. “She did steal my brother?”
MacKenna clawed at Phillip’s hands, trying to pull them away. Phillip wasn’t about to let him go. The two of them staggered around the room, the older man desperate to escape, before strong hands pulled Phillip off of MacKenna.
The guard had overheard. Phillip didn’t recognize his guard, but Dougal, the one who had been charged with Charlotte, was with him. Phillip hoped that Charlotte realized here was a chance to escape and struck out to keep the guards as occupied as possible.
He was outnumbered. They quickly subdued him, throwing him none too gently facedown on the floor.
MacKenna gasped for breath, rubbing his throat with his hands. “Get out,” he ordered his guards.
The men didn’t move immediately, obviously confused by the order.
“Get out, I say,” MacKenna repeated and had enough strength shove one toward the door. Dougal and his compatriot left. “Shut the door,” MacKenna ordered. They complied.
Once alone, Phillip waited for the laird’s next move.
“It was never meant for your mother to die,” the laird said. “She was an innocent.”
This was not what Phillip had anticipated. He studied MacKenna a moment, and then said, “You knew.”
“Well. I was in love with her.” All softness left his face. “But she wanted your father. She wanted the duke.”
“And jilted you,” Phillip surmised.
MacKenna held up a hand in protest. “Jilted? No. Only you have had the honor of being jilted, Your Grace. Your mother didn’t even see me. I could dance with her, and she’d not remember my name. I was a Scottish nobody.” He smiled, the expression humorless. “That will change. Soon all of Scotland and England will know my name. I shall be known as the Protector. As the one who freed Scotland from the greed of the lords. My name will go down in history.” His eyes glowed with a fevered brightness. He did see himself as heroic, and if Phillip didn’t stop him, hundreds, maybe thousands would die.
Phillip rose to his feet, convinced MacKenna was mad. “My mother won’t know. She died of grief over what she thought was my brother’s death.”
The laird’s eyes saddened. “She did. I told Rowena it was wrong…and she said that if your father had been a better man, he would have been there for your births. He would have protected you. She was right.”
“My father was an important man who was often called upon to convey the king’s business overseas.”
“When his wife entered the birthing room to give him an heir, his place was outside her door. He would have recognized Rowena if he’d been there. You can’t hold him blameless.”
There was truth in his words. Phillip focused on what was important. “Where is my brother?”
“Do you mean where is the true Duke of Colster?” MacKenna laughed. “He’s where I want him.”
Phillip struggled with the urge to throttle the Scotsman again. “I want to meet him.”
“You will. Soon enough. But first, we’ll have our trial.” MacKenna moved toward the door.
“A trial over what?”
“Over your crimes, Your Grace. Over the wrongs that have been done to my people.”
“And I’m to answer for all of England?”
MacKenna nodded. “If you are found guilty.” He opened the door. “Rest, Your Grace. You will need your strength and your courage.”
“Send Miss Cameron away,” Phillip said before the laird could leave. “She is not a part of this.”
The laird laughed, the sound bitter. “No, she wasn’t. If I have ever misjudged anyone, I have misjudged her.”
“Why is she even here?” Phillip asked, wanting the answer.
“I liked her. I fancied her. I wanted her here for my moment of triumph. Women have a habit of making fools out of us men, don’t they, Your Grace?” On those words, he left the room. The guard shut the door and locked it.
A terrible coldness settled over Phillip. MacKenna was no more right in his head than his sister. If the story in the letter was true, what sort of fate had his brother suffered all these years?
He walked over to the fireplace and knelt. “
Charlotte?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear what was said?”
“Very little,” she confessed. “Was that MacKenna? What did he say?”
He told her a quick synopsis of what had transpired.
There was a long, thoughtful pause before she said, “Colster, be careful.”
“Wiser advice has never been given,” he answered, and heard her laugh.
It helped to have her here. Already, he had confided more in her than in any other person in the world. The realization made him think about his father.
When exactly had he become as cold and distant as his sire? Or was it the title that did that? The weight of responsibilities and of expectations?
“What are you thinking?” she asked through the stone.
That it was a relief to finally have someone to confide in, someone to trust. There was strength in Charlotte. True womanly power.
But he’d not tell her such. He already felt vulnerable enough, and that wasn’t going to free them of this dilemma. No, he needed to think, and to be ready to act when the time came. He wasn’t beaten yet, and MacKenna was about to discover that Phillip could be a formidable opponent.
“My brother is alive,” he answered.
“The letter wasn’t a fake.”
“No.”
“What shall we do?”
He liked the way she said the word “we.”
“I want you to get some rest,” he advised. “I don’t know what is planned, but we’d both best have our wits about us.”
“And what of you?”
“I have much to do. MacKenna will find me no easy target for his mock trial. I’ll defend myself and win. Better yet, I shall find my brother.”
“I pray that you do,” she answered.
So did he.
Chapter 10
Tavis’s cottage was attached to his blacksmith’s forge. Inside, Father Nicholas, a renegade French priest who had escaped the Terror of his homeland decades before, drowsed near the hearth, where a small fire warmed his bones.
Like so many others, Father Nicholas had come to Nathraichean because he had nowhere else to go. No one knew where he’d come from, and he rarely discussed his history.
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