Treasured

by Candace Camp

  “No, wait.” He followed her to the foot of the staircase. “Please.”

  Isobel stopped on the stairs and turned reluctantly to face him. He was a step below her, so that his head was level with hers, only inches away. His eyes, she realized, were not black or brown as she had thought, but a dark blue, shadowed by thick black lashes. The odd color, combined with the high slash of his cheekbones, gave his face a faintly exotic look. She found it unsettling.

  “Are you—I’m not entirely sure I understood what that fellow said, but it seemed—are you related in some way to Sir Andrew?”

  “I am his sister.”

  “His sister!” His eyes widened. “I’m sorry. Sir Andrew never mentioned . . . I didn’t know . . .”

  “There is no reason you should.” This time she could not manage even an attempt at a smile. Whirling, she ran up the stairs.

  “Isobel?” Her aunt stood outside the door of the sitting room, looking a trifle lost.

  Isobel pulled up short, barely suppressing a groan. Aunt Elizabeth’s memory had been growing hazier the last few months, and Isobel had found that any unexpected occurrence tended to make her condition worse. But Isobel was not sure she could explain the situation calmly when she felt as if she might shatter into a storm of tears herself.

  “Isobel, who was that man? Was he talking about Andrew?” Her aunt’s face brightened. “Is Andrew here?”

  “No. Andrew is in London. Or at least I suppose he is, since he has not bothered to write.”

  “He is so careless that way.” Aunt Elizabeth smiled indulgently. “Of course, young men have better things to do than write home.”

  “He might have thought of something besides himself for once.”

  “Isobel? Are you angry with Andrew?”

  “Yes, I am.” She added, softening her tone, “A bit.” She couldn’t give in to her feelings in front of Elizabeth.

  “But why was Hamish upset? Who is that man?”

  “He knows Andrew. I—he is staying here for a time.”

  “Oh. How nice—a visitor. He was quite a handsome young man, I thought.” Elizabeth’s eyes gleamed speculatively, and for a moment she seemed like her old self. “It will be good for you to have someone your own age here.”

  “Don’t.” Isobel felt as if she might choke. “Please, don’t try to matchmake. It’s impossible.”

  “Nonsense. Now come in and sit down and tell me all about him.”

  “I cannot.” Isobel pulled away, ignoring the faint hurt in her aunt’s eyes. “I will come back later and tell you everything I know. But right now I must go. I—I have to fetch something. From Meg.”

  Her aunt frowned. “Meg?”

  “Meg Munro, Auntie; you know Meg. Coll’s sister. Their mother Janet was Andy’s wet nurse.”

  “Of course I know Meg.”

  The vagueness in Elizabeth’s gray eyes made Isobel doubt her aunt’s words. I cannot bear it, she thought.

  “I must go,” she repeated, and fled down the hall without looking back.

  Inside her bedroom, Isobel closed the door and sagged against it. She wasn’t sure how she had gotten through it without breaking down. Her knees were jelly, her hands trembling. She heard the sound of footsteps and voices in the hall outside her door as Hamish and the Englishman walked past, a bitter reminder that her home was gone.

  Not just the house she had grown up in, but the loch, the earth, the rocks and caves, every inch of this land and its wild, harsh beauty. Her very life was tumbling down around her, ripped away by her young brother’s folly. Even her beloved aunt was being taken from her bit by bit each day, her mind retreating.

  She could not hold back a sob. Grabbing up her cloak, she ran from the room, tearing down the stairs and out into the yard as if pursued by devils.

  Jack looked around the unprepossessing bedchamber. The room to which Hamish had led him was large, he would give it that—large and cold and sparsely furnished. At the far end was an unlit fireplace. A massive wardrobe loomed against the wall opposite, its dark walnut and plain lines at odds with the decoratively carved oaken bed’s delicate—indeed, one could call them spindly—posts. A few more lumps of furniture were hidden under covers, and a faint but distinctly unpleasant odor hung in the air.

  Hamish dropped Jack’s bag unceremoniously on the floor beside the bed, muttering something beneath his breath. Could this growling gnome of a man really be the butler? Jack did not expect a butler to be friendly, for they could be chilling in their courtesy, but he had never encountered another so surly or so lacking in dignity.

  “I take it this room has not been occupied in a while,” Jack commented, and the butler cast an unfriendly glance his way.

  “We wurnae expecting ye.” Hamish’s accent, if possible, seemed even thicker than it had before.

  Jack peeled off his sodden jacket and began to unknot his equally wet neckcloth. He wondered if the estate was in as bad a shape as the state of this room suggested. He did not know Sir Andrew well, but the lad had always sported plenty of blunt, a bird of paradise on his arm, the wine flowing freely, as he gambled away the night.

  Hamish ripped the covers from the one set of windows, sending dust flying and revealing velvet curtains that might once have been dark green or blue or perhaps even red. Their nap was worn so thin that in spots the afternoon light, weak as it was, glowed through the material. Hamish shoved the draperies open, alleviating the gloom somewhat, then clumped about the room, yanking off the rest of the covers.

  “Will ye be wanting anything else?” The butler gave Jack a look that was more challenge than inquiry.

  “I believe a fire in the grate might be appropriate,” Jack snapped, nettled. “And what the devil is that smell?”

  “Smell?” The butler gazed at him blankly. “I widna know, sir. The sheuch, mebbe, below.”

  Jack felt sure his own expression was now as lacking in comprehension as the other man’s. Did these people not speak English? “The what?”

  “The sheuch.” The butler made a careless gesture toward the window. “A lass will be in to licht the fire for ye. Dinner’s at acht.”

  Jack was unsure whether all Scots were this unintelligible or Hamish was simply determined to be difficult, but in either case Jack was not about to give the butler the satisfaction of asking for clarification. Jack nodded briefly in dismissal, ignoring the glint of animosity in the man’s eyes.

  Jack had barely finished pulling on a set of clean and blessedly dry clothes when there was a soft tap on the door, and at his response, a maid entered, carrying a hod of coal. Shooting him a sullen glance even as she bobbed a curtsy, she set about laying coal in the fireplace and lighting it. Jack strolled to the window.

  The vista before him was enough to make him wish the fog had not lifted. In the distance he could see a green swell of land strewn with boulders and what seemed to be a building that had fallen into a jumble of stones. Closer to the house a large, muddy yard led to outbuildings of various sizes, as well as some wooden pens. Directly beneath his window was a ditch. This, he surmised, was the “sheuch” Hamish had mentioned as the source of the malodorous scent in the room.

  Behind him, the maid uttered a little squeak, and Jack swung around to see black smoke billowing into the room from the fireplace. The girl, coughing, hastened to pull the handle of the flue, and Jack swung back to the window. The ancient catch stuck, but after a few moments of struggle, it screeched open, and he shoved up the window.

  The smoke wafted out, but the odor from outside increased, mingling with the smell of the smoke to render the room even more wretched. Muttering a curse, Jack left the room. If he had not already been planning to sell Baillannan, this day would have convinced him to do so. He stalked down the corridor, no purpose in his movement, just an itching need to get away. Every door along the way was shut, and the only noise was the sound of his own footsteps, imbuing the place with an eerie emptiness.

  The corridor ended at the long main hallway, an
d he stopped before the set of double windows, contemplating his folly in coming here. These windows looked out over the side yard, a slightly more pleasant prospect than the drainage ditch behind his own bedchamber. As he watched, a woman emerged from the house. She wore a cloak, the hood shoved back since it was no longer raining, and the light caught the dark blond of her hair. It was Isobel Rose. He straightened and leaned forward. Miss Rose intrigued him.

  It seemed absurd that such a beauty should be languishing away in this godforsaken spot. But it was more than her creamy-white skin and thick, honey-colored hair that drew him, something that went beyond the swift, strong tug of lust he’d felt when he’d looked up and seen her standing above him on the stairs. He would have expected tears, even hysteria, from any woman who’d received the blow she’d been dealt. Astonishment had lit her face, followed an instant later by a fierce flash of anger, then fear, in those deep-gray eyes, but she had reined her emotions in, settling her expression into one of studied calm. She did not hide her feelings, a talent Jack himself was well acquainted with, but she exercised a strength of will, a control, that interested him. He could not help but wonder what it would take to shatter that control. And whether any man had ever been able to do so.

  As he watched Isobel, he saw a tall, blond man striding toward her across the yard. She hesitated for an instant before she continued toward the man, her steps slower. Reaching up, she ran her hand across her cheeks, and Jack suspected with a pang of compunction that she was wiping away tears.

  He frowned, irritated by his reaction. He was no gentleman, no man of sensibility or refinement. No matter how much he might appear to be one, it was mere trappings—all clothes and speech and manner, learned at the feet of an adventurer with a heart as cold as stone. Sutton Kensington had never shown an ounce of compassion for the victims of his swindles, and he would have scorned any such feeling of pity in his son. Even though Jack had escaped both the man and his schemes, he knew that he remained, like his father, merely a carefully crafted shell of a gentleman. He had no inbred code of honor, no inclination toward pity. He was not a man to be afflicted with guilt.

  Besides, he had no reason to feel guilty, he reminded himself. It was not his fault the woman had lost her home. He had not cheated her brother; he had won fairly. If Jack had not accepted Baillannan as payment, it would only mean that Sir Andrew would have lost it at some later time.

  The devil take the man! What had the fool been thinking, tossing his home into a wager as if it were a mere bagatelle? Until Jack saw the house, he had assumed it was Sir Andrew’s lodge, a place where he retreated to hunt or fish or have a bit of quiet—though, Lord knows, Jack could not envision that young wastrel doing any of those. Jack had not realized Baillannan was Rose’s ancestral estate. Even less had he imagined that he would be turning a young woman out of her home.

  Shaking the thought from his mind in irritation, he watched the couple in the yard below. They were deep in conversation, the man bending solicitously over Miss Rose. Who was the fellow and what was he to her? He was dressed in the plain, rough trousers and shirt of a worker, not the clothes of a gentleman, so he could not be a suitor. But a closeness in their pose denoted familiarity, even affection, and tenderness was in the man’s face as he gazed down at her. Could the lovely and genteel Miss Rose have taken a plebeian lover?

  He should have found the thought amusing, but somehow it only added to his annoyance, and he turned away from the window with an impatient gesture, glaring down the long, inhospitable hallway. This damnable place! The belligerent servants . . . the unpleasant room . . . the wet, bleak landscape. There was nothing here to please the eye or lighten the spirit.

  Worst of all, it seemed he could not get rid of the image of Isobel Rose, her face paling, her eyes stark, when he’d told her that her home was no longer hers.

  Isobel rushed out the side door, her cloak billowing around her. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and she brushed them aside impatiently as she strode toward the loch—and the comfort that the still, gray water always brought. She had taken only a few steps before she saw Coll Munro coming toward her, his face drawn into a black scowl. Well, at least she would not have to put up a brave front with Coll.

  “Izzy!” In a sign of Coll’s own agitation, he called her a childhood nickname rather than the formal “Miss Isobel” that he deemed appropriate for their stations now. He had come out without his jacket or cap, and his shaggy blond hair was wind tossed, his cheeks flushed. She wasn’t sure whether the cold had put the red in his cheeks or anger, for his square jaw was pugnaciously set and his blue eyes were bright, as if he’d been lit from within. “Where is the blackguard? I’ll throw him out.”

  “No.” Isobel shook her head, but she felt warmed by his anger on her account. She could always count on Coll. “There is no use.”

  “What do you mean, no use? Katie said some Sassenach scoundrel was claiming to own Baillannan.” Coll half turned as though he were about to go on to the house.

  “It’s not just a claim.” She put her hand on his arm. “It’s real. He owns it.”

  “What? How could that be? You’re not making sense, lass.” Coll bent toward her, his anger turning to a gentler concern.

  “Andrew gave it to him!” she burst out. “He wagered Baillannan and lost.”

  Her words effectively silenced Coll, who could do no more than gape at her. Finally he said, “Can he do that? Surely it has to stay in the Rose family.”

  “Baillannan is not entailed; Papa left it to Andrew freehold. He had no way of knowing that Andrew would turn out to be so feckless. The estate was Andrew’s, free and clear; he could bequeath it or sell it or do whatever he wished, including throwing it all away on a hand of cards!”

  Her voice broke on the last words.

  “That fool! That stupid, selfish bastard—” Coll broke off and swung away, slamming his fist into his palm. He cursed, his voice low and vicious, and Isobel was glad he had spared her the names he was calling her brother—though, frankly, at the moment, she would have liked to say some of the same things to Andrew. “I dinna think he would do something like this,” Coll went on, in his emotion his voice slipping deeper into a soft burr. “I should have made him stay here last time. . . .”

  “How would you have done that? Locked him in his room? Tied him down? He’s a grown man now, Coll, not some lad off at school, having a lark. He’s not green as grass in his first year in London. He is twenty-five years old. And he still can think of nothing but drinking and gambling!” She could not hold back her bitter words; they tumbled out of her, too long denied and pent up.

  “I should have knocked some sense into him,” Coll growled.

  “I’m not sure that is possible.” She sighed, her outburst draining her anger and leaving her weary. “He came into his inheritance too young, only seventeen when our father died, and Cousin Robert was so strict a guardian, kept him on too short a leash. It was no wonder he kicked over the traces when he turned twenty-one. I told myself he would get tired of spending his days in idleness, that he would have his fling, then settle down. That he’d come back home and be the Laird of Baillannan.”

  Coll let out a snort. “You are more the laird than Andy’ll ever be.”

  Isobel gave him a faint smile. “I did not say mine was a realistic hope.” The flash of humor left her face. “Oh, Coll! How could Andy have so little care for Baillannan? The land and the people and our family. It’s his inheritance!”

  “How could he have so little thought for you, I’d say!” Coll flared.

  “It’s not just me,” Isobel reminded him softly.

  “Aye, I know.” He let out a weary sigh. “’Tis your aunt and the servants and all the crofters, too. Baillannan will be like Duncally and the others—they’ll throw the crofters out of their homes. No doubt this Englishman will bring in a steward like MacRae, as the earl did.”

  “I heard one of MacRae’s men was tossed in Ferguson’s lochan two days ago.” Isobel s
tudied her friend’s face.

  “So I heard.” Amusement lit his eyes. “It’s said he decided to go back to Edinburgh.”

  “Coll, have a care.”

  “You know me. I am a cautious man.”

  His words pulled a chuckle from her. “Indeed. I am well aware of the kind of caution you exercise. I’ve seen you swinging down into some cave you’ve discovered, nothing but a light and a rope and a prayer.” She sobered. “I know you hate the Clearances; I do, too. I cannot bear that so many families are losing their homes. But these men who are fighting the landlords will go to gaol if they are caught. Promise me you won’t do anything rash. I worry about you.”

  “And I appreciate that.” Neatly sidestepping her entreaty, he went on, “But right now, you are the one we must worry about. Are you sure this Englishman is telling the truth? He really holds title to Baillannan?”

  “He showed me the note of hand Andrew had given him. It was Andrew’s writing. He has the deed, as well.”

  “What will you do? You know I will help you in whatever way you want. And my sister will, as well; that goes without saying.”

  “I know.” Isobel smiled faintly. “You are a true friend, you and Meg both. But what can I do except take Aunt Elizabeth and leave Baillannan?”

  “You should not have to go anywhere. This is your home. Come, Isobel, this isn’t like you. Would you not fight for Baillannan?”

  “Of course I would!” Isobel planted her hands on her hips and glared up at him. “How can you say such a thing?”

  “Ah, there’s the Isobel I know.” His mouth quirked up at the corner. “You always were a fighter—just quieter about it than Meg.”

  She grimaced at him. “You needn’t insult me to get my dander up. Of course I’m angry. I would fight to the end if I had the slightest idea how.”

  “Och, lass, I have faith in you. You’ll think of some way around this scoundrel.”

  “I don’t know that he’s a scoundrel. He seemed a gentleman—quite pleasant, really. It was clear that he was surprised to find he would have to turn Andrew’s sister out on the streets.”