A Well Favored Gentleman

by Christina Dodd

  “Oh, Ian.” Wilda clasped her hands at her bosom. “That is so romantic.”

  “And…um…” Brice stood and shook Ian’s hand. “Aye, I suppose it’s all right. Someone had to marry Alanna. Has to be someone who can control her, so it might as well be you.”

  Ian almost groaned. Not that he hadn’t thought the exact same thing—especially when she’d announced she was swimming into a cave—but did bumbling old Brice have to say so to her face? If he was trying to sabotage them, he was going about it the right way.

  Edwin stood up. “If it’s all right with Brice, it’s all right with me.” He marched over and shook Ian’s hand next and kissed Alanna’s cheek. “Congratulations, cousins.” Wheeling, he left the great hall.

  Wilda stared after him. “Poor man,” she murmured.

  “What’s his problem?” Ian asked.

  “Nothing.” Wilda widened her eyes. “He’s just poor.”

  “Without money.” Alanna translated for Ian. “Wilda always feels sorry for poor men.”

  “When she could have a rich one,” Brice said.

  “Edwin is so nice. I can’t hurt his feelings,” Wilda said.

  “You could if you wished to badly enough.” Brice grabbed her arm.

  She tried to jerk away. “You’re hurting me!”

  “Stop struggling.” He dragged her toward the study. “I want to talk to you.”

  Leslie slapped his palms against the arms of his chair. “I live in a place where people listen to Wilda as if she makes sense. I must be in hell.”

  “You would know, Father.” Father and son glared, locked in their old hatred.

  They couldn’t fight again, Alanna decided. Not when Ian had so neatly declared his independence from his father, and his devotion to her. Patting Ian’s hand, she said, mildly, “I think Brice must be in love at last.”

  “What?” Ian glanced down at her, breaking the connection with his father.

  “Brice,” she said again. “He’s in love in Wilda.”

  Ian focused on her completely. “Everyone’s in love with Wilda.”

  “But he’s always sworn to marry a woman with money, and I see him discarding that resolve without a qualm.” A hint of a smile tilted her lips. “Better still, Wilda’s in love, too.”

  “Really?” Ian looked toward the study. How did Alanna know this without seeing their auras? How could she look into the human heart and capture their emotions? “I had hoped for someone more worthy of Wilda’s sweet nature.”

  “Brice is the laird of the Fionnaway MacLeods, with a lovely manor and extensive lands.” Alanna scowled at him. “To marry into the MacLeods is an honor not often given to the English.”

  “He wanted your lands,” Ian said shortly.

  “So Edwin could administer them. Give Brice credit for being a loving brother.”

  “Loving is not a matter I associate with families.” Ian glanced at his father.

  “My mother taught me loving is a weakness,” Leslie answered. “I did my best to teach you, also, but you were ever a recalcitrant pupil.”

  Alanna had noted Ian’s attempt to mend the rift between them, and noted, too, Leslie’s unequivocal rejection of him. Leslie was stupid to discard his son so rudely, for she claimed Ian now, and she would protect him as she would protect Fionnaway. Stepping between them, she said, “We’ll retire to my bedchamber and have a tray there. You should do the same, Mr. Fairchild. You’re looking tired.”

  Leslie ignored her as a thing of no importance. That had always been Leslie’s mistake.

  “In a hurry to renew your passions?” he taunted. “Or are you in a hurry to count your newfound fortune, Ian?”

  “There’s no fortune,” Ian retorted.

  Alanna pushed Ian toward the door, and he went willingly.

  “Of course there is,” Leslie called. “Hasn’t she told you about the pact…and the stones?”

  Horror brought Alanna around to stare at the grinning old man in the chair. He knew something, and he was wicked enough to use his knowledge to ruin them all.

  She abandoned Ian without a qualm and walked back to Leslie. “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s no need to play stupid with me.” Leslie smirked like a fisherman who’d hooked a siren. “I know about the sea opals, and I know where they come from.”

  She stood over him and wished she could squash him like a worm. “And why do you claim to know that?”

  “Your father, my dear, was one of my closest friends—and when he drank, he sometimes told fantastic stories.”

  Her father. Her asinine, careless father had told this unscrupulous man about the sea opals. Had he betrayed their secret to other people, too?

  Leslie looked around her. “So, son. We’ll start mining them right away.”

  “Nay!” Alanna cried.

  “No?” Leslie arched his brows in jeering innocence. “But why not?” He tapped his finger to his mouth. “Oh, wait, I think I remember. There’s some silly tale that demands the shore be kept unsullied for those pesky selkies.”

  “You don’t care, do you, Leslie?” Ian stood beside her now, outrage evident in every line of his body. “If you could drive her away forever, you’d be happy.”

  Leslie’s eyes slid toward Ian with the oiled motion of bearings in a gasket. “Drive who away?”

  “My mother.”

  A hard trembling started in Leslie’s hands and traveled up his arms to his chest. From there it radiated outward until his whole body bobbed in a palsy. “Have you seen her?” he asked harshly. “Don’t go looking for her. She poisoned me. She’ll poison you, too.”

  “When did she poison you?” Ian leaned toward him.

  “Years ago. So many years ago.” The old man grabbed the shirt over his chest in his bloated fingers, concentrating on each rattling breath as if it were his last.

  Alanna almost wished it would be.

  Ian relaxed. “A slow-working poison, then.”

  “The stones…” Leslie gasped. Gradually he regained control. His hectic flush faded, and he managed to speak with only a faint breathlessness. “The stones must have a lode. We can be rich. So rich.”

  “Father,” Ian said gently, “I’m already rich enough.”

  Leslie glared at his son with such malevolence, Alanna quaked. “You are so stupid. Sometimes I wonder if you’re really my son. You can never be rich enough.”

  Ian went to the door and called the footmen. “My father needs to be taken to his bed.”

  The footmen scurried in, still obviously frightened by Mr. Fairchild, but even more frightened of Ian.

  “No!” Leslie exclaimed. “I don’t want to.” The men lifted the chair. “Put me down. Put me down!” Leslie struck at them as they bore him stoically toward his chamber.

  As he was about to disappear, Ian said, “No mining, Leslie. There’ll be no mining, and that’s my final word.”

  Alanna waited until all commotion had died down, then she turned to Ian and said, “That went well, I think.”

  “You’re joking.”

  She grinned.

  “You are joking.” He sounded relieved as he wrapped his arm around her and turned her toward her room. Their room. “I never plotted to marry you and bring you under my father’s jurisdiction,” he said.

  “I know that.” She turned her surprised gaze on him. “Do you think I’d believe anything your father said?”

  Ian hugged her closer, and she sensed his relief—and his rising passion. “I would not have him be a ghost between us tonight.”

  “He hasn’t the power.”

  She thought she heard a pleased rumble as he opened the door to the bedchamber. She preceded him and glanced around affectionately. The large bed would easily accommodate her and Ian. There was a table and chairs where they could eat their repast. The fire leaped in the hearth, and no one could tell that behind one of the bricks…she stared…that behind one of the bricks…Surely the light tricked her eyes…

  �
�It’s a very pleasant chamber.” Ian smiled at her meaningfully. “And I’ve waited long to have the right to visit it.”

  She walked toward the fireplace. One brick looked out of place. One brick…surely not the brick…

  “Alanna?”

  She counted. Twelve down. Four over. And with her fingers she pried the brick from its bed.

  “What are you doing?” Ian strode to her side. “Why do you look like that?”

  She lifted her stunned, disbelieving gaze to his. “The box is gone. Someone has stolen the stones.”

  Chapter 24

  “What do you mean, someone has stolen the stones?” Ian strode forward and peered into the empty spot among the bricks.

  “’Tis where we keep them, and they’re gone.”

  He’d never seen Alanna look like this, almost wild with grief and shaking with rage. Clasping her arms, he drew her toward him, but she fought and broke free.

  Most of his life he had been rejected, frequently in family moments, occasionally in hideous public scenes. Yet Alanna’s refusal to accept his comfort, minor though it had been, scraped painfully into old wounds. He stood very still, watching her as she ran a slender, freckled hand through her hair, creating a wild copper sun around her head.

  “I’m going to confront him.” As if inactivity were the one thing she could not bear, she paced across the bedchamber toward the door and away from Ian. “I’m going to warn him I want them back, and he’d better not tell where they came from or I’ll…I’ll…”

  “Who?”

  “What do you mean, who?” She swung around and glared as if Ian were personally responsible.

  So he’d been sullied with the same brush that blackened his father. “Who is this you’re going to command? Surely not Leslie.”

  “Why not? He’s got them.”

  “Does he?” Long years of experience made him answer with assurance. “Yet I wonder why, if your father told Leslie about the stones, he’s waited four years to mention them.”

  “Because he didn’t know where they were hidden.”

  “Has he looked for them?”

  “Nay,” she conceded grudgingly.

  Ian took no pleasure in her admission. After all, it would have been easier if the thief had been Leslie. Easier, and yet…so difficult. “In any case, how would you threaten my father to make him keep his silence? He’s dying and already terrified of what awaits him on the other side. There’s nothing to threaten him with.”

  “He doesn’t look as if he’s dying anymore,” she said. “He just looks a wee bit ill.”

  “He’s dying.” Ian said it without a doubt.

  Her hands slid up to hug herself. “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  So did his father, and his father, like a crab before a massive wave, scrambled ever more desperately to get out of the way.

  Biting her lip, Alanna looked away from Ian, and toward the fireplace. “But then who has stolen the stones?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me. How many people know of them? And of their hiding place?”

  “There are only two of us.” She frowned as she thought. “The box remained in its hiding place last week on the day I returned. I saw the stones. Armstrong was there.”

  “Armstrong?” He realized he hadn’t seen the man in the past week. “He’s gone. He could have stolen the stones.”

  “Not Armstrong! Nay, I sent him on an errand.” She hurriedly added, “He heard something outside the door, but when he looked, the hall was empty. He said I should be careful.”

  “Yes,” Ian said, but his mind wasn’t on her words. She avoided his eyes guiltily, as if she wasn’t telling him everything. Oh, for the insight his ring provided! Then he would know if she blamed him for his father’s misdeeds. He would know if she was regretting this marriage to a Fairchild. “Shall we organize a search?” he asked.

  “Nay! We don’t let anyone know that the stones exist, much less announce some are gone.” She swayed as if she faced a strong, erratic wind. “I’ve failed in my trust. I thought I would do better than my mother, and instead I’ve led us into disaster. This is what comes from running away.” Cupping her hand over her eyes, she said, “It’s a cataclysm I’ve brought on us all.”

  Ian didn’t move. He couldn’t. Alanna had mourned her mother’s poor judgment in a husband; now she stood before her bridegroom and complained of disaster. Maybe she didn’t mean him, but maybe she did, and probably it was his fault.

  He had ferreted out the witch. He had demanded she bring about Leslie’s temporary revival. He had discovered her secret and forced her to unmask. He had refused to accept defeat and he had wed her, claiming a source of wealth someone else coveted.

  Oh, Leslie had not stolen the stones, but Ian knew no infamy occurred in Leslie’s vicinity without his instigation. So who had his father trapped in his sticky web of evil? The answer was obvious. The one who had told him the legend. The one who had stolen the stones.

  Brice. Edwin. One of the servants. If Ian had been paying attention, he would know the culprit. He would have seen the truth spinning in the air around their heads. But he had been chasing Alanna, forging dreams for her to dream, every sense intent on the woman he was stalking. He had barely noticed the others, and now, without his ring, he could not catch even the faintest stench of evil in any of them.

  A faint knock on the door made Alanna jump and shudder, lower her hand, and stare at the portal with anguish.

  “Expecting the devil?” Ian asked pleasantly as he moved past her to the entrance.

  “Wait.” Alanna touched his arm. “It could be our thief.”

  “Thieves don’t return to the scene of the crime.”

  “They do if they think there’s more to be stolen.” The knock came again, a little louder this time.

  Ian found himself reassuring her. “It’s more likely our dinner.” He opened the door, expecting to find Mrs. Armstrong with a tray.

  Instead, a babble of words came from the petite, caped and hooded woman who stood there. “I know it’s your wedding night and only a madman would interrupt you—not that I’m a man, I don’t have the body and my voice is too high—but I think I’ve gone slightly mad and I have to speak to Alanna. Please, Ian, can I speak to Alanna?”

  Ian’s initial reaction was annoyance. He and Alanna had bigger problems than Wilda ever could. But a slightly desperate, breathless quality tinged Wilda’s tone, and he opened the door wide and stepped aside.

  But Wilda still hovered on the threshold, her small features contorted by unease.

  “Come in, dear.” Alanna cast Ian a perplexed glance before moving forward to take Wilda’s arm and usher her forward. “We’re glad to have you visit, but why are you dressed like that?”

  Wilda moved to the fireplace and stood jiggling up and down in constant, nervous motion. She glanced at Ian, then glanced again, and asked plaintively, “Aren’t you going to shut the door?”

  He did.

  “It’s my disguise. I didn’t want anyone to know who it was if they saw me.”

  “We have so many diminutive, slender, blond women living here in Fionnaway,” Ian observed.

  Pushing back her hood, Wilda cast a defiant glance at him. “I know you won’t like this, but I don’t care, I have to do this, so just let me alone.”

  He looked inquiringly at Alanna, who shrugged in bewilderment. He said, “Wilda, you are my favorite cousin. I just want you to be happy.”

  She didn’t smile as he expected her to; she frowned and said, “I’ll do it whether you like it or not. I can’t be happy until—” She bit her generous lower lip. “Oh, Alanna, do you remember yesterday telling me you were the witch? I didn’t believe you, of course, so silly to think a woman who looks like you could be a witch. But I said I wanted a spell, and you said you were the witch, and I knew it wasn’t true, but you said you might see the witch and tell her I wanted her. Did you see her when you were out? I know you were busy getting married, but I re
ally, really need her right now. Have you told her?”

  Ian almost staggered from the shock. Wilda sought the witch, and she wanted her with a determination quite unlike his simple, easily swayed cousin. “What do you want the witch for?” he asked.

  Wilda swung on him as if she wanted to strike him, and her gentle voice rose. “For a spell. I told you that. I want a spell.”

  Alanna seemed at as big a loss as Ian. “If I could convince you I really was the witch—”

  “Then you couldn’t help me, could you?” Wilda lifted her dainty chin. “I need a witch, not a lady.”

  Ian could see a horrifying scenario unraveling before him. Wilda talking to the servants, to the visitors, asking after a witch. Someone would know of one, of course. Someone would send Wilda chasing across Scotland on, literally, a witch-hunt. Wilda would be hurt, and he couldn’t bear that shining, open-faced ingenuousness to be damaged. She’d gone through enough just because she was a Fairchild; she didn’t deserve to suffer because she was Ian’s cousin, too.

  Ian found himself speaking before he realized it. “The witch is still in the manor.”

  “She is?” Wilda asked.

  “She is?” Alanna collected herself swiftly. “Ah, aye, she does linger here occasionally.”

  Placing a firm hand on Wilda’s shoulder, Ian pushed her toward the door. “Go to your bedchamber. Wait for me there. I’ll find her, then come and fetch you.”

  “Would you?” Wilda clasped her hands.

  “For you, Wilda. Only for you.” He smiled at her, then closed her out and turned to Alanna.

  Only to find he didn’t have to explain. She knelt by the fireplace, lifting cold ashes from the bucket with the hearth spade. “There’s bits of charcoal here for highlighting, but you’ll have to go and find me some ragged work clothes from somewhere,” she said. “Ask Mrs. Armstrong. She’ll know where to get them.”

  A strong sensation gripped him by the throat as he watched her. The firelight flickered across her features, touching them as he longed to. Her high cheekbones brought a tilt to the changeable eyes he admired. The fractious lock of hair fluttered in the waves of heat coming off the flames. Her lips moved slightly, but unceasingly.