“Come,” he said, moving away from her because if he remained he would surely do something unwise. “There’s a fine pair o’ oxen an’ a dozen new lambs in the barn on the other side o’ those pastures.”
“You imagine I wish to see these animals because . . . ?”
“No’ the animals. ’Tis the northernmost we can walk an’ still return to the house by lunchtime.”
“Why do you wish to walk north?” she said, following him, her beautiful voice light now, the nearest sound to heaven he knew.
“’Tis no’ for me, lass. ’Tis for you.”
“Then why do I wish to walk north?”
“To run as far as you can go, I imagine. Today, that is. Now, if we’d another fortnight or two, we could ride up to Inverness, then hail a boat to Orkney. You canna go farther in these islands. Though I’m no’ certain you would want to go quite that far, in truth—no’ in this season. ’Tis a punishing long boat ride, they say, an’ I hear ’tis blistering cold the entire—”
Her hand slipped around his elbow, resting so lightly upon his coat he could barely feel it. But there it was. She had taken his arm. Finally.
“Journey,” he finished with a choked throat.
Miracles were falling from the heavens like snowdrops, and it had only required a short story about the night his life had turned inside out.
“We will save Orkney for another day, then,” she said. “For now, the oxen and sheep are an excellent plan.” Her eyes were on the road ahead, her smile oddly shy.
He did not remark on it, or on the unprecedented touch of her hand. They spoke of the glen and the furnishings in the house and the dogs following at their heels and the clouds and all inconsequential matters—nothing of import, just as they had years ago when he had burned to take her hand, to hold her, to make her his, but had not allowed himself even a taste of her. Yet it felt like paradise. The spring crackled about them and the day was fine and warm as they walked as though fantasies were indeed real.
At their destination, the oxen were appreciated, the lambs cuddled, and the return walk executed with no woman’s hand tucked on his arm, instead dangling at her side, close to his. It was temptation and satisfaction at once, and insanity above all. He’d had her pleasure in his hands at Haiknayes, and now this distance again.
She was silent for some time before she spoke suddenly.
“Penny could not have come here for sanctuary.”
“No?”
“She had a large, affectionate family and many friends. She had been free since infancy, and had good work at which she made a decent income. Why would she have left Jamaica to make a lengthy, arduous, uncertain journey across a foreign land where she had no friends, if she had no need?”
“You did.”
“I was looking for her. And my family has friends in Edinburgh. At any time I might have—” Her eyes widened anew. “Good heavens, Torquil Sterling was brother to the man Constance Read wed. Before she wed him, you courted her.”
“Aye.”
“Because of her acquaintance with Torquil’s brother?”
“No. To my knowledge, he had no idea o’ Tor’s activities.”
“Oh. Then was it for Constance’s wealth or her beauty?”
“Her wealth would have been useful here.” He made a nod to the house they were approaching. “But no.”
“She is extraordinarily beautiful.”
He nodded. “’Tis what they say.”
“You will be gentlemanly oblique now. I guess that is appropriate when one breaks off a betrothal.”
“There was no betrothal. Only conversation. I never intended to wed her.”
“How odd that you courted her, then. But I suppose that is the way of exalted lairds and such.” She waved her hand as though at all the exalted lairds strewn across the pasture. “Courting this woman and that without concern for the outcome.”
“Is that what exalted lairds do, then?” he said, feeling acutely the peculiarity of speaking of this with the only woman whom he had actually intended to wed.
“She was looking for you.”
“Constance Read? No. She was no more intending to—”
“Penny. She said your name. Not Kallin. Nothing else. Only your name.” Her eyes were overly bright. “Why?”
“Your Grace!” Pike was riding toward them from the house. “Your guests have arrived in the village. Zion rode up immediately to inform you. They’re all at luncheon now, but Mrs. Tarry says they intend to continue on here after they rest.”
“I’ve invited no guests to Kallin.”
“Other than me and Mrs. Aiken,” Amarantha said.
He looked down at her and was wholly bemused. She was not a guest. She had never been a guest.
“Who are they, Miss Pike?” Amarantha said.
“His Grace’s guests from Haiknayes.”
“The party at Haiknayes has come here?”
“Miss Pike,” he said, “instruct Zion to return to the village swiftly and bid Mrs. Tarry to delay the party as long as possible. I will ride down myself immediately.”
She nodded, turned her mount about, and rode off.
“What will you tell them?” Amarantha said.
“That the house is in poor repair and they will be more comfortable at the Solstice.”
“But they will certainly wish to come up to see the house. Will you lock the gates and doors and pretend it is uninhabited? What about the sheep, and the well-used paths and driveway? They will know that you are not telling the truth.”
“I never expected this.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Kallin’s a bit out o’ the way for house parties from town, lass.”
“And Thomas will be perplexed that Tabitha and I have come here but others may not. Your cousin will find Tabitha and—It is my fault. I came here, and you followed. I did not expect it, but you came, of course, to protect the secret you have protected so carefully for years. If not for me, they would not be here. They would not have even been at Haiknayes. I have—”
“No.” He grasped her hands. “You are no’ to blame. I am, for imagining I could keep this secret.”
“I will not allow it to be ruined. Not because of me.” She pulled her hands from his and started quickly for the house. “We will simply arrange everything so it seems to be a typical house. So that they will not wish to stay long, we will make it slightly uncomfortable, dampen the bed linens and serve the food cool and be mysteriously short on things like sugar and teacups—”
“That last will be easy to pretend,” he said with a smile that tangled the nerves in Amarantha’s stomach. Even in the midst of fear and anxiety, he had always given her pleasure.
“We will hide the Sanctuary in plain sight. And in a few days they will leave here none the wiser. Once they have returned to Edinburgh and tell the story, it will even serve to prove to all that there is nothing interesting here. But there is one thing we should probably do that the residents of this house might dislike.”
“What is it?”
“I think it would be best if we found some men.”
Chapter 25
A Revelation
The women of Kallin gathered in the drawing room to confer. After some debate, with arguments on all sides carefully weighed, it was decided that the remote estate of a bachelor staffed entirely by women—especially a bachelor with the Devil’s Duke’s reputation—was simply too ripe for misconstruing.
Zion set off with two fast horses to the Allaways’ farm to fetch Nathaniel.
Molly Cromwell, the chief of Kallin’s distillery, suggested another male addition: the vicar of the tiny hermitage several miles up the glen. Reverend Clacher had thrice come to Kallin at the behest of the women: on the first occasion to do a Christian burial of a babe—whose babe, no one specified—and later to baptize Rebecca’s and Maggie’s newborns. On those occasions the hermit had made it clear he had no judgment on the laird, the house, or its residents.
“He’s a true man of G
od,” Molly said. An enslaved woman on Barbados where she had labored in a rum distillery her entire life, she had been among the first women to arrive at Kallin. “And he has a discerning palate for fine spirits,” she added with a wink.
It was agreed that the Scotswomen Maggie and Cassandra, and Hannah the Irishwoman, would act as house servants, while Molly would go no farther than the kitchen, with Claire, also West Indian, who had arrived recently and was already cook. Sophie, Rebecca, and Clementine would remain in the village until the guests departed.
With the whirlwind of preparations completed, the women gathered again.
“None o’ you will go anywhere alone while the party is here.”
Everybody’s attention went to the duke, who had remained silent throughout the earlier discussion.
“Won’t that be noticed?” Pike said.
“Perhaps. But I will have your word on it now. All o’ you.”
The women gave it, one after another.
“An’ Miss Finn an’ Miss Poultney will go by aliases,” he added.
The barking of the dogs in the yard, and then hoofbeats, announced the arrival of riders making a swift approach to the house. Cassandra opened the door.
“Good day, miss,” Nathaniel said, removing his hat. “I’m Nathaniel Hay, come to play one-armed butler for a time.”
Amarantha went forward and onto her toes to kiss him on each weathered cheek.
“You’ve found the devil, have you, my lady?”
“I will tell you nothing until you have told me all news of Luke since your last letter reached me in Leith. But first”—she glanced at his mud-speckled trousers and coat—“you cannot greet the guests wearing that.”
Coming beside her, the duke extended his hand to Nathaniel.
“Thank you for arriving so swiftly, Corporal Hay.”
Nathaniel gaped at the duke’s hand. Without taking it, he bowed.
“Your Grace. It’s my honor to have your trust.”
Amarantha laughed. “Nathaniel, you must swiftly become accustomed to the singular ways of this household, and of Kallin’s laird too.”
“After this past year at your service, my lady, I’ve experience tolerating singular ways.”
A gig drew up to the house, with Molly at the reins and a small, elderly man tucked under blankets beside her.
“No funerals? ’Tis a holiday! An’ I dinna mind a wee bit o’ subterfuge for a righteous cause,” Reverend Clacher said with a hearty chuckle as Cassandra fit him in one of Pike’s waistcoats, which would not button over his belly.
“I see you’ve been eating the stores of brandied cherries I brought you in the fall, Reverend,” Molly said.
“Aye, Miss Cromwell.” He patted his belly. “What else is an old man to do when the winter blows through the cracks o’ his house?”
“I’m off to fetch our guests,” the duke said, casting a glance about the foyer where the household had gathered again. “Extraordinary women. Each o’ you.”
“We know,” Maggie said with a brilliant grin.
Smiling, his gaze came to Amarantha. She had the most ridiculous urge to go to him, take his hand, and carry it to her lips, as she had once wanted to do when she was a naïve girl whose heart controlled her.
Dinner was a fine affair, with rustic country meats and cheeses and sweets, including a tart that Thomas and Miss Alice both declared as fine as anything they had tasted in Edinburgh or London. Tabitha had remained in her room, pleading a headache, and every word that Jonah Brock spoke made Amarantha marvel at his pretense.
Now, replete and comfortable in the drawing room, the travelers lingered in conversation.
“Interesting what you’ve done with the place, Gabe,” Mr. Brock said, glancing about as he accepted a cup of tea from a little old potbellied footman with rosy cheeks. The room had been prepared with windows cracked open at strategic locations and the chimney partially blocked so the chamber was both drafty and a bit smoky. “But I haven’t been here since we were children, of course, when the duchess still presided. Your father did not like Kallin much, as I recall. Imagine that, a recluse who preferred living close to town rather than in this remote place. But I understand that my uncle bequeathed that preference to his second son, didn’t he?”
The duke lifted a glass of port to his mouth and said nothing.
“Ha ha! Dinna listen to those rumors, Mr. Brock,” Mr. Tate chortled. “The Devil’s Duke ’tis no’ but a story invented by upstarts to frighten ignorant folk. Aye, Janie?”
Jane cast her gaze down to her cup of tea.
“I think it would be capital if you were a devil, Duke,” Iris said. “For then you could do away with my sisters.”
Cynthia sat by a window, an odd, agitated brightness in her face.
“Miss Iris,” Mr. Brock said, “I find your sisters’ company entirely pleasing.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jane replied with sweet fervency. They were the first words she had spoken since emerging from the carriage.
Finally, as the guests bid their host good-night, Amarantha went to Jonah Brock.
“Mr. Brock, do remain and indulge me in a brief tête-à-tête.”
“How refreshingly direct you are, ma’am,” he said, watching the others depart. “I wondered how long it would be before you—”
“I have no interest in rebuking you for the unsavory influence you had on my husband during the months before his death. If a man can be so easily swayed from his convictions, his friends should not be blamed for his sin. Rather, his own weak character should.”
“Yet still I deserve your rebuke.” He tapped his fingers against the back of the chair beside which he stood.
“How did you know that Mrs. Aiken was among my party at Haiknayes?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How did you discover that she had come to Scotland?”
“Mrs. Garland, I am not acquainted with this—this Mrs. Aiken.”
“I know you are. But you must know that here in Scotland you have no power to harm her. When the letter of proof of her freedom arrives from her former master, Dr. Shaw will petition the courts to establish this incontrovertibly while she resides in Scotland, and England and Wales as well.”
“Madam, I am happy that she has such loyal friends in you and the doctor. I assure you, I wish her well too, whoever she is.”
“Will you claim that you have not threatened her?”
“I could hardly threaten a woman I don’t know, could I?”
“Yet you have before,” Tabitha said behind Amarantha. She stood in the doorway, the duke behind her.
“I cannot allow you to fight my fights, Amarantha,” she said. “And I don’t wish to run for the rest of my life. Mr. Brock, eighteen months ago in Kingston my husband’s murderers claimed that they killed him in his mill at your behest. They said that if I did not do as you wished, you would seek to end my freedom.”
“Madam,” he said tightly, “I have never seen you before. Why would I wish you harm?”
“Are you claiming that those men lied?”
“They most certainly must have, for I have never sent any man to do such a deed, for any reason, no matter what the rumors of me claim. Cousin, will you stand as character witness for me against this accusation?”
The duke remained silent.
“Mr. Brock,” Amarantha said, “will you swear now that you did not know Mr. Aiken?”
“I cannot, for I did know a miller by the name of Jonathan Aiken. He was a hardworking man, and fair. Mrs. Aiken, I am sorry for your loss. To lose one’s beloved—” He seemed to flinch. “You have my sympathy. And I wish you success in your freedom. I have no doubt it was well earned.”
“I did not earn my freedom,” Tabitha said. “I claimed it as my human right.”
“Ah.” His gaze slewed to the duke. “You’ve revolutionaries under your roof, Gabe. Hold tightly on to your title and estates.” Bowing, he departed.
Amarantha went to her friend. “Tabit
ha, do you believe him?”
“How am I not to? He does not know me and I know of him only by sight and reputation.”
“Mrs. Aiken,” the duke said, “could my cousin have served as a convenient excuse for those men to threaten you into leaving your mill?”
“Given his reputation, his past . . . yes.” She nodded but her eyes were empty. “I believed them. I fled. I have lost my husband’s mill—my mill—through my own fear.”
“It is rightfully yours and will be in your possession again,” Amarantha said. “Come now. We will celebrate this news with well-deserved sleep.”
Amarantha made herself leave the room and go to her bedchamber and undress and climb beneath the cozy covers, and tell herself not to dream of him, of his touch—both innocent and scandalous—and of how well he seemed to understand her.
Again, it seemed, she did not wish to be found. But he did find her eventually in the little greenhouse which, years ago, his mother had built onto Kallin’s southernmost flank. Late-morning sunshine filtered through the glass and made a crisp, bright halo about her.
“What are you doing?” he said, stepping up behind her and looking over her shoulder.
“Good morning, Urisk. I am beginning to think that immediate interrogation is the way of devils and dukes.” She did not lift her head, but continued with the pot and dirt on the table before her. “But I admit myself ignorant of such things, having circulated mostly in humble circles since my debut, you see.”
“You are in fine spirits, it seems. Good.”
She turned her face up to him and a smile danced in her eyes. “I am relieved at the outcome of last night’s conversation with your cousin. You are staring at my lips.”
“Give me permission to do more than stare.”
Swiftly she returned her attention to the pot. “I am all dirt, you see.”
“If dirt suits you, it suits me,” he said, and inhaled her fragrance of winter fir. “You were well acquainted with my cousin on Jamaica, it seems.”
“Does it?” Her fingers tucked around the base of a plant, scooped it tenderly from its pot, and placed it into a larger pot.
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