by Sophia James
‘Enough, Grace. If the minions of Edward catch us up, you can explain that you tried to send me in their direction and I shall not correct you. That I will do for the blade and these steeds. But for now stay quiet, aye.’
She felt his thighs tighten around her own in a silent warning and with the wind in her face and the bruises and dried blood caking his arm and hands she felt it prudent to obey.
He thought she had betrayed him, thought that she had run to Malcolm and the English. Well, she would not tell him the true way of it, would not say. Not here. Not now. Not with the law at their heels and the tone in his words distant and removed.
‘He’s out, Lach.’ Ian’s shout, as Connor’s head lolled to one side.
Lachlan slowed the pace. ‘Are ye able to hold him?’
‘For now.’
‘Ravenwood is within easy distance of here. If we can get him there in time, Justin will help us.’
His voice was low and Grace saw that he unstrapped the monk’s belt he wore at his waist. ‘Take this and tie his hand to yours. At least that way if he falls you’ll have some measure of control and if he goes over…’
‘He will nae.’
‘Good.’
They did not speak again, the quick glances between the two men becoming more and more numerous as the hour went on.
Finally, a house came into sight. She took in breath at the sheer and utter wealth of the lines of stone, and the dozens of servants fanning out from an enormous frontage. To greet them? Almost as if they had been expected?
‘Who l-lives here?’
‘Justin, the Duke of Ravenwood, and his wife, Celeste.’ The tone of his voice told her a lot more than the words. These people were important to him.
Surreptitiously, Grace tried to straighten her headrail and smooth out the wilted folds of her skirt.
He was blind! The Duke of Ravenwood was blind. She could see it as his hand slid across Lachlan Kerr’s shoulder, searching, outlining skin and bone, the long stroke of his fingers forming a picture and moving upwards along the planes of his face.
‘You have been hurt.’
Lachlan stepped back and tipped his head to the woman standing beside the Duke. ‘Celeste. It has been a long time.’
‘Too long.’ She enfolded him to her, like a mother might, or a lover. There were undertones that Grace could not understand. Finally they parted, tears evident on the sooty lashes of the Duke’s wife.
‘We had heard that you were dead.’ Her French accent was strong. ‘John Murray was here two days ago on his way to London and David is furious.’
‘Malcolm is alive, Lach.’ Justin Ravenwood’s eyes, scarred in whiteness, looked straight at Grace. He knew who she was without any introduction and without being able to see her? She frowned. His wife would have given him her description and it could hardly be flattering. Suddenly everything seemed dangerous. These people, Lachlan’s anger, and murky politics that held resurgents accountable for everything.
Judith and her uncle must be worried sick at her being gone, for she had not let them know where she was. Home. Family. Things she knew and trusted. So unlike here. She would send a missive to them from Ravenwood for she still had coinage in her pocket.
Everything was difficult and she longed to simply step over and take her husband’s hand in her own, in the hope that he might take it back, blending the grief of loss and hurt into care. But he was distracted by Con’s sickness and Ian’s worry and the mention of his brother. He crossed the room away from her to take the weight of Connor on to his own shoulders.
‘Do you have a physician on hand, Justin?’
‘We do, though you will need to bring him through. My wife tells me you wear the robe of a monk, so perhaps if the mantle of religion has come upon you now would be a good time to pray.’
‘My father cured me of that, and you of all people should ken it so.’
Their voices faded and Grace was left with Celeste, myriad servants staring at her from their places around the well-appointed salon.
‘I presume without the benefit of introduction you are Lady Grace Stanton, Lachlan’s new wife?’
Grace nodded. ‘By the o-order of two k-kings.’
‘A less than salubrious start then. No wonder Lach looks on you as the enemy.’
Shock resonated through Grace. Was his hatred of her so very easy to fathom, so transparent that this woman could see it in the few moments that her guest had been here? Not knowing how to answer, she kept quiet.
‘I was Lachlan’s lover at the Chateau-Gaillard in France.’
‘And th-then Justin’s?’ Two could play at this game and Grace had suddenly had enough.
Unexpectedly the other woman laughed. ‘I was beginning to think that you were as the court has said it, and I am glad to see that that is not the case.’
‘Timid?’
‘No, proper! A woman of conventional manners and refined sedateness. So sedate, in fact, that one could throw any insult and be merely smiled at.’
‘I used to be like th-that until…’
‘Until?’
‘Until I m-married Lachlan Kerr.’
‘He is a good lover, no?’
The blush seemed to start at her feet and rise upwards and she furtively cast a glance at the servants who were within easy hearing distance.
‘How old are you, Grace?’
‘Twenty-six.’ A shameful age to admit she still blushed, but there it was. She wished she dared ask the same question of the woman opposite, but if she were younger than she was, everything would again be so much worse.
‘I am thirty-three.’
Grace nodded, her head spinning with the vague and uneasy notion that this woman was a mind-reader.
‘My husband was one of Edward’s most trusted advisers.’
‘W-Was?’
‘Politics took more from Justin than he wanted to give, so he left it in the hands of those who were brutal enough to stand it and retired to the country.’
‘But us c-coming here will involve you…’
‘Oh, that is completely different. We have always been involved in Lach’s life.’
With a single click of her fingers Celeste dismissed the servants and waited until the room was cleared.
‘Might I give you a warning, Grace? Your husband has been chased by all of the most beautiful women in Europe and he has not needed to work for any of it. Make him pursue you. Make him wonder. Make him understand that without you his life would be as nothing.’
Grace’s heart began to thump. Was this woman mad? Cornflower-blue eyes keenly watched her.
‘Lachlan has been as the seed of a dandelion all of his life. Blown this way and that way by politics and by war. Scotland. England. France. All have been his place of rest, but never a home. My advice to you would be to make him that, Grace, a home.’
‘You would help me? Why?’
‘Because you are a good woman and you are strong. You will need to be strong.’
She could say no more as the men reappeared, the servants behind carrying hot water and bathing sheets.
‘We have placed you in the rooms at the top of the stairs.’ There was a trace of something in the Duchess of Ravenwood’s tone that was unusual and Grace wished she were away from these people and their words with hidden meanings. She also wondered why her husband had not so much as glanced at her ever since arriving at the Ravenwood mansion.
‘I will stay with Connor for a while, Celeste, but I am certain that my wife would appreciate a bath.’
‘If you would like to follow me then, Lady Kerr, I will show you to your room.’
The moon lay low on the horizon as Grace watched it much later. She had bathed and eaten and still Lachlan had not returned. She was just wondering whether or not she should get into bed and sleep when she heard sounds of movement from the room next to hers. Holding her breath, she laid her ear against the wall, trying better to decipher the sounds. Could this be where Lachlan slept? Were these adjo
ining chambers? She remembered Celeste’s humour when she had told him of the sleeping arrangements. Perhaps because this way he would have a choice of lying with her…or not.
When a door at the far end of the room opened to admit him, she was surprised. And surprised again when she saw what it was he wore. No longer the Highland sark and plaid, but shirt and hose and an embroidered cotehardie with wide sleeves.
‘It was a choice between Justin’s English clothes or the monk’s habit.’ The tone told her that neither would have been his first option, though she had little time to think on this as he strode forwards and took one of her thin arms in his hand.
‘God, have ye nae been fed since last I saw you?’ The contact was not sensual or carnal, but merely the touch of one who would know the way of things.
‘Not much, my Lord.’ The sound of her voice was husky and his eyes flicked to her head.
‘And have you taken to wearing headgear to bed?’
Her hands went uncertainly to the fabric covering what little was left of her hair and he cursed again as her chin tipped up to the light. ‘Who did this?’
The wound of the knife had never properly healed and Grace knew it to be a red welt across the paleness of her throat.
‘The s-same man w-who d-did this,’ she returned and undid the veil, the shortness of her hair reflected in the frown on her husband’s face. ‘Though it was a s-service he did me, in truth, f-for I was about to be raped by another.’ She saw that he balled his hands into fists.
‘Malcolm did not protect you then?”
‘Your brother.’ Real puzzlement showed. ‘Why sh-should he do that?’
‘You left the battlefield with him.’
‘No. I w-was taken against my will and I did not see him in the countryside. It was only after the battle that I heard his voice before someone hit me.’
‘Lord, so the words that Elliot said were true.’ He stepped back, pale eyes ice cold as he ran a hand through his hair. ‘It was said that you walked from Belridden in your dark blue cape and by your own accord?’
‘I was b-bound and b-bundled into a trunk before being carried out by those loyal to your b-brother. Your mistress pretended to be me.’
‘Rebecca?
‘She wore my c-cape and the hood was up.’
The truth of it all was starting to show in his eyes.
‘I t-tried to help you b-breathe when you f-f-fell but someone t-took me before I could know that you l-lived.’
‘And after the battle?’
‘I awoke in a c-convent a few d-days later in the attendance of my cousins and my uncle. I d-do not know wh-what happened t-t-to your brother. I understood y-you were dead when y-you did not come.’
He ignored her words as his finger touched the trail of the mark on her throat, a careful anger inherent in the action. ‘You understood nothing.’ The words were bleak, and she fathomed none of it, something glowing in his eyes that she could not interpret. Not fury. Nor pity. Something new. She shut her eyes against what she thought she saw. She had not felt comfort for so long that the pain of loss consumed her. Different. Everything was different now. The reddened skin on her cheeks hurt as she opened her eyes and tried to smile. Through it. Through what she knew he would now say.
‘You are beautiful, Grace.’
Not that. She had not thought that. The beat of her heart squeezed in hurt and joy, mixed strangely.
‘You wear the scarf because you don’t think so? You think that I would care? You think that the loss of your hair should make you less to me somehow?’
One single tear fell down the length of her cheek, tracing coldness before it fell on her hand. Make him pursue you. Make him wonder. Celeste’s words! But how was she to do that with her ragged hair and her reddened face and a stutter that had worsened ever since arriving at Ravenwood.
Her chin wobbled and the aching sorrow at the back of her throat repressed words, though she could sense his breath on her cheeks, close. He had not moved away, then—out of sorrow or in compassion, she knew not which, but he had not moved away.
‘Did you ever love my brother?’
A different question. In the baldness of what he had just told her she could no longer lie.
‘No. I never l-loved him. I h-hated him.’
‘Hated him enough then to try to kill him?’
‘Yes.’ There, it was said. Out. No stutter or hesitation. No lingering uncertainty as the pure and dreadful force of the confession took full rein. No men had been sent down into the ravine to see if Malcolm Kerr still lived. They had not bothered because they had hoped he was dead, prayed he was dead in order to save Ginny. The awful truth of not helping a wounded man sunk in as a dreadful sin.
His laughter caught her. ‘God. And you with all the talk of saving souls have tried to do away with my brother’s one?’
She turned away, but he stopped her, his hand against her side. ‘Nay, Grace, that was nae a criticism, only an observation of fact, and, as you did not kill him, no doubt your own soul is safe.’
‘B-But it sh-should not be. I watched him f-fall and did not go to help him.’
‘Was it you who pushed him over?’
When she shook her head he swore, and this time there was no humour at all in the sound. ‘But you sheltered the one who did so. Why? Why did you say my brother was dead when he so plainly was not?’
Sweat was building up on her forehead, the itchy welts even itchier in her sudden emotional outburst. And outside the sound of the night encroached; a bird in the tree outside the window and the call of another further afield.
Malcolm Kerr’s lips against her own as he had pulled her against him and just as quickly pushed her away. She had not meant to bite down upon his tongue, but disgust had made her react. When he had hit her across the face, she had known just exactly what sort of man he was. But she had told nobody.
Shame, she thought afterwards.
It was shame that had held her silent with her plainness and her belief that no man could truly ever be interested in her.
He had been charming the next morning to her and Stephen and her uncle. But especially to Ginny. Malcolm Kerr with his handsome face and bad temper. Everything that had happened next had been her fault, for if she had said…
‘My c-cousin pushed him off his h-horse by the cliffs after h-he had tried to t-take more than she was offering.’ Even the saying of it was hard, but here in a room alight with candles and the tangible feeling of safety in the glow of his eyes she wanted to tell him the truth. ‘She was trying to p-push him away, just like my m-mother tried to fight before she d-died.’
‘Your mother? Lord, Grace, you saw that? From the woods? When you were young?’
‘And I was s-silent. I should have s-screamed. Perhaps if I had screamed he might n-not have done what he did to Mama and at G-Grantley it was the same. I knew your b-brother was dangerous, but I d-did not say so, did n-not tell them. Sh-she meant only to p-push him away, make him s-stop and she has not spoken since.’
‘She was one of the girls I saw at Grantley?’
‘The y-youngest one. Ginny.’
‘Ginny? Ginny Sutton? GS. The notes in the jewellery box were hers, then? Not yours.’ The tone in his voice was different, strident, as if her answer was important. When she nodded, he looked relieved. ‘She thought sh-she loved him. She thought sh-she knew him…’
‘So you pretended it was you he held the interest in?’
‘I w-was twenty-five and Ginny was traumatised by it all. We felt that fewer questions would be asked this way.’
‘And your cousin was what—thirteen? Fourteen?’
‘Fifteen. Just.’
‘Where did your uncle stand on such a pretence?’
‘Behind me. He wanted Ginny p-protected. She w-was his d-daughter.’
‘Whereas you were only a niece? God, what of your right to protection?’
She shook her head. ‘It is n-not quite as you th-think it.’
‘Then how
is it, Grace? Tell me exactly how you think that it is.’
‘My uncle t-took me in when my p-parents died. I was older than my cousins and n-nowhere near as p-pretty. No m-man had ever really—’
‘Stop.’ His fingers across her lips made her stop. ‘You were expendable and it should not have been so. Did you know that your uncle had talks with my brother to marry you off to him after the battle? I heard it said at Watchlaw.’
She nodded, but stayed quiet.
‘You are a beautiful woman, Grace, and you deserved a lot more care than that which you got under the guardianship of your uncle.’
‘B-Beautiful?’ The wistfulness in the word surprised even herself.
‘Yes. Beautiful. To me.’
Angrily said. But no lies. He meant it. He thought that she was beautiful. To him. Warmth engulfed her in a clear rush of joy. My God, he actually meant it.
He reached forwards and took her into his arms, the warmth of his skin against her own searing away cold and with the honesty of her confessions she felt lightened, the truth between them affording a relief that was all-encompassing. And she wanted to be even closer.
With intent she unclasped the silk wrapper that Celeste had given her. Beneath it there was nothing and she waited until it pooled at her feet before looking up.
Lust sparked quick in his bleached blue eyes and for the first time in all her life Grace did indeed feel beautiful.
They lay together in the moonlight, the heady rush of lust sated and the quiet of closeness binding them into one.
Lachlan liked the way her head fitted exactly under his chin, the curly shortness of her hair tickling.
‘I have not thanked you for coming to the keep at Watchlaw. We were to be hanged the next day.’
He felt her nod. So she had known it, too.
‘I don’t think I could have passed over a blade with more skill than you did it.’
‘I had practised it many t-times in my chamber.’
He began to laugh, and thought as he did so that he had never in all his life felt this happy. Her fingers trailed light across his arm and then along the twisted scar that ran from elbow to thumb. ‘How did you come by this?’