Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction: Mackenzies (Mackenzies Series Book 9)

by Jennifer Ashley

  More grunts, curses, rancid breath as a man got under Alec’s reach, and Alec found knuckles in his face. His head snapped back, but he jabbed at the same time, rewarded with foul words in a broad London accent.

  The man Alec had come to meet lay on the shingle and didn’t move. Dead? Injured? Unconscious?

  The three men were now trying to put Alec into one of these states. He called up all the cunning he’d learned fighting in the streets of Edinburgh and Paris and then again in battle. Strength alone wouldn’t help him here, but the wily tricks Will and Mal had taught him would serve.

  He elbowed, jabbed, brought his fingers straight at eyes that glittered in the darkness. The men hid their cries of pain in grunts and curses—they must be used to attacking hapless victims in darkness and silence.

  Alec ducked away from another blow and came up on his feet, his knife held ready. His back was to the river. The three men advanced with more confidence—Alec had nowhere to go.

  To hell with being silent. Alec dragged in a breath and let out a Highland scream, one that had stricken terror into the British at Prestonpans, scattering King George’s men like leaves in the wind. He rushed at them, yelling like a demon, his knife raised to deliver killing blows.

  The three men hesitated. They were backstreet thugs, going after easy marks—a soldier rushing at them with a murderous battle cry was beyond their ken.

  Alec reached the first man and struck. His knife went through the man’s coat, cutting to the bone, then he was moving to the second.

  Who wasn’t there. He and the third man had turned and fled down the shingle to deeper darkness, leaving their unlucky companion to Alec.

  Alec took a step back and let his smile spread wide as he lifted his knife. “Shall we dance, laddie?”

  The man had his hand on his arm, blood black on dirty fingers. His eyes were so wide, the whites glittered as pale smudges. He turned to flee and gibbered as he slipped on the gravel and went down on his knees.

  Alec took two running steps at him. The man managed to gain his feet, and he loped off, limping, holding his arm. Alec stamped on the rocks beneath him, making the sound of giving chase and let himself laugh as the man’s struggling gait moved a little faster.

  “Bastards,” Alec muttered, his laughter dying. “You all right, man?”

  He crouched next to his drinking companion, finding him too still. Alarmed, Alec rolled him to his back, his alarm turning to dread when the man’s eyes stared motionlessly at the sky.

  Alec opened the man’s coat, pressed his hand over his heart, which wasn’t beating.

  “Bloody gobshites. Damn it.”

  Alec balled his fist, sorrow and anger roiling through him. He didn’t even know the man’s name—the meeting had been set up by a smuggler called Gair, whom the Mackenzie brothers sometimes hired.

  If Alec left the poor man here, he’d be stripped of everything by morning, his body left in the river. But if he went for help, he risked exposure. The London watchmen being what they were, they’d more likely arrest Alec for the murder than show any sympathy. And if Alec was arrested …

  Well, he’d be a dead man. No more, no less. And he might bring death on the rest of his family.

  But leaving a fellow human being to be picked over by vultures didn’t sit well with him. This man might have a wife and children waiting for him at home.

  Alec leaned down, slung the man over his shoulder, and trudged with him back to the streets.

  He left the unfortunate Glaswegian on the doorstep of a church—they’d know how to care for him and find his family. At least the man could rest the night and release his soul on hallowed ground.

  At eight o’clock the next morning, not one minute later, Celia swept into Lady Flora’s house. She’d barely slept the previous night and had risen before her mother this morning, which had never happened in all the years of Celia’s life. Her mother had pressed a cool hand to Celia’s forehead and asked if she were well.

  “Yes, yes,” Celia had said impatiently. “Lady Flora scolds if I’m late, is all.”

  “That she does.” The duchess removed her hand, no caresses. “Don’t mind her, dear. She’s had a bereavement.”

  Yes, they all tiptoed around Lady Flora, Celia reflected as the door closed behind her in Lady Flora’s echoing house. Not only because she was grieving for her daughter, Sophia, who’d been a lovely and charming young woman, but because Flora was what Celia’s father called a femme terrible—beautiful and frightening.

  Celia immediately surrendered her portfolio to the footman and followed Rivers, who appeared at the head of the staircase to lead her up. Celia breathed hard as she reached the last landing, her stiff stomacher squeezing the air out of her.

  Rivers, stately and not in the least winded, opened the door to the studio.

  “Lady Celia Fotheringhay,” he announced as Celia pattered past him into the room. The footman came behind with the portfolio, placed it noiselessly on the table, and withdrew.

  Mr. Finn was at the fireplace, his back to her, his hands stuck to the flames. The day was predicted to be warm, summer at last making its way to London, but a fire was always welcome to chase away the damp.

  Rivers cleared his throat, but Mr. Finn did not turn, as though he could not absorb enough of the fire’s heat.

  Celia nodded at Rivers, putting not only thanks and dismissal into the nod but the assurance that she would be well. Rivers made a cool bow before he departed, leaving the door open.

  Mr. Finn continued to study the flames. His back in its plain coat conferred strength in its simple lines.

  Celia could sketch him from behind, the square of his shoulders, the straight strength of the back that tapered to his waist. His coat, a faded brown wool with the patch Celia had noted yesterday, bore a pleated peplum to make the bottom of the coat fuller, as was fashion. The coat’s skirt touched thighs covered with slim broadcloth breeches. The brown of these was a different color from the coat, which meant he’d bought the pieces separately, likely from a secondhand shop, cobbling together a suit.

  White stockings hugged muscular calves that immediately marred the portrait of a half-starved man having to work for his keep. Celia had seen the spindleshanks of poor men, whose stockings sagged in deep folds.

  In fact, Mr. Finn was robust and in raging good health compared to the gentlemen she and her mother carried charity baskets to at the hospitals and parish poor houses.

  He still did not turn, though he knew good and well Celia stood behind him. Celia opened and closed her hands, not sure if she was offended or relieved he didn’t acknowledge her. She hadn’t made up her mind how to speak to him, what to say. The memory of him sitting so near, baring so much skin, made perspiration bead on her brow, the room suddenly close.

  On the other hand, he was being appallingly rude. Celia’s father, one of the loftiest men in England, would never stand with his back to a lady. The duke would turn, smile, say something congenial—he did this even for the lowest servant, who was supposed to be beneath his notice.

  Celia decided she’d try her father’s approach, a kind inquiry. There was a reason her father had so many friends.

  She cleared her throat, a much softer version of Rivers’s noise. “Mr. Finn?” she walked to him, making her brocade skirts rustle. “Are you well, sir?”

  Mr. Finn came to life. He straightened from the fire and swung to her, his smile blazing like the flames on the hearth.

  Celia’s mouth popped open, damn the flies. Mr. Finn’s face was an unholy mess. A large, purpling bruise ran from his temple to his cheekbone, blackening the area under his left eye. Deep cuts sliced his right cheek, the corner of his lip, and his chin.

  As Celia stared, Mr. Finn’s smile widened.

  “Well now, lass, that depends on what you could call well.”

  Chapter 5

  Good heavens, Mr. Finn—what on earth happened to you?”

  Alec looked into Lady Celia’s stunned face and eyes th
at held deep concern. He’d half hoped she’d grow angry with him when he didn’t respond to her presence and stalk away, but he realized that Celia Fotheringhay had more resolve in her than Lady Flora guessed. Studying the fire had given him time to come up with a story.

  “Aye, well, an Irishman isn’t always welcome in an English tavern, is he?”

  Celia’s eyes narrowed, and Alec saw with a jolt that Lady Flora had underestimated her perceptiveness as well.

  “Hadn’t you better give up on the Irishman idea, Mr. Finn?” she said. “We both know you are a Scotsman. It is all right—there are plenty of Scots in London. I know not all fought for the Young Pretender or even condoned his presence. My father has Scotsmen advising him, good and wise men. I will not be frightened in the presence of one.”

  He made himself look surprised and then grateful. Alec Mackenzie had indeed fought for Bloody Prince Charlie, if reluctantly, had watched men die for him, including Angus and Duncan, his flesh and blood.

  Alec tried to stem his bitterness as he answered, keeping to his persona as Will had taught him. If a man was to live a lie, he had to believe it with all his heart.

  “’Tis a relief, I will admit, to have you know the truth,” he said. “Please understand, lass, that I’m never sure how an Englishman—or Englishwoman—will respond to me. As happened in the tavern last night.”

  Celia flushed. “I apologize for my fellow Englishmen. But you must know how very frightened we all were. The army of Highlanders nearly reached London, and we feared we’d be massacred in our beds.”

  “Ye needn’t have worried, lass. It would have taken some doing to massacre every person in London. Prince Teàrlach’s force wasn’t quite that large, so I’m told.”

  “Perhaps not.” Celia gave him a conceding nod. “But men like my father had much to fear. My brother, Edward, fought in many of the battles. His descriptions of Highland soldiers were quite terrifying, and my father … well, he was afraid he’d be seized and run through, the poor man. He was ready to have us on a ship to the Continent, though my mother pointed out that the French were about to sail against us, and this was no solution. Did you fight on the King’s side, Mr. Finn?”

  “No,” Alec said sharply, then mitigated his tone. “I’m a drawing master, my lady, not a soldier.”

  “I see.” Her eyes held compassion, so much so that Alec burned with it. “Not all Scotsmen fought, I understand, though you feel the consequences of the Uprising. I take it the men you tried to explain this to last night did not listen?”

  “They did not.” Alec tried a grin, which pulled at the cuts on his face. “And they reasoned they could relieve me of my few pennies at the same time.”

  “Oh dear.” Celia studied him with flattering attention. “Have you put a poultice on those cuts?”

  “I’ll be well. Now, then, I believe we have a drawing lesson—”

  “Wounds can take sick if not properly attended,” Celia persisted. “Lady Flora should have prepared calendula for your cuts, and a poultice of hyssop or rosemary for the bruises. Or, rather, she’d have had her cook or housekeeper prepare it. I cannot imagine Lady Flora herself in the stillroom.”

  Celia’s light laughter at her statement trickled into the empty spaces in the man that was Alec Mackenzie and tried to fill them up.

  Alec pushed the need for that away with vehemence, at the same time part of him cried out for it.

  He’d begun losing what made him whole when Genevieve, Jenny’s mum, had died, and then he’d lost Angus, his other self. He and Angus hadn’t been the closest of brothers—Alec and Mal had been best mates while Angus had stuck to taking care of their irascible father—but Angus had been Alec’s twin.

  Alec and Mal had derided Angus for being their father’s toady, but the day Angus died, a light had gone out of Alec’s life. He hadn’t recovered from the blow of his loss and probably never would. Even Duncan’s death, as terrible as it had been, hadn’t leveled Alec like losing Angus.

  He could not allow Celia to take him to a stillroom to nurse him—standing with her in the cool, stone-walled room, dried herbs scenting the air, Celia gently touching his skin would be too bloody enticing.

  Alec shoved these thoughts down under the façade he desperately lifted in place. “I’ll be well,” he repeated firmly. “I heal quickly. Now then, let us draw.”

  He turned to the easel where he’d already pinned paper. Alec had bullied Lady Flora into lending him a dressing-table mirror from one of her guest rooms—she’d sighed and told Rivers to see to it.

  The mirror was about a foot wide by two feet tall perched atop a small walnut drawer, polished and pristine. The drawer pulls were delicate polished brass rings and the drawer had a matching keyhole. The whole thing was meant to be set atop a chest of drawers or dressing table, so a lady could apply her powder or see the effect of her jewelry.

  Alec positioned the mirror on the table next to the easel and motioned for Celia to sit on a stool before it.

  Celia complied, her green-brown eyes on him. Studying his bruises? Wondering what to tell her father about a Scotsman pretending to be Irish?

  Lady Flora was so certain she’d be able to wrap the Duke of Crenshaw around her elegant fingers, certain Celia was malleable and easily led, but Alec was quickly losing his faith in Lady Flora’s convictions. No doubt Lady Flora had the haut ton of Britain terrified of her, but Celia was proving herself to be far from the mindless young debutante Lady Flora thought her.

  Celia perched on the stool and settled her skirts. “Why was Lady Flora so angry at my drawing yesterday?”

  Alec hid his start by straightening the mirror. He’d wondered if she’d ask about that. Lady Flora had spoken too openly, underestimating Celia’s percipience. “Perhaps she’s a wee bit jealous of you, my lady,” he extemporized. “Of your talent.”

  Celia let out another laugh that sounded like music.

  Lass, don’t soften me. I must be hard as granite.

  “Lady Flora, jealous of me?” Celia said. “How absurd. It isn’t talent—it’s a knack. I can catch faces and, as you say, landscapes. The idea that I will draw portraits of famous Whigs was Lady Flora’s, and my mother leapt at the scheme. I must redeem myself somehow, you see.”

  Alec felt a bite of puzzlement. Celia on her stool was like a flower with her blue and green brocade skirts spread around her like petals. Lace decorated her cuffs and fichu that crossed over her stomacher, but the lace lay quietly instead of standing up in the froths Lady Flora wore. Sixty women in Brussels must slave every day for a month to make enough lace for one of Lady Flora’s ensembles.

  “Now what can a lass like you have to redeem herself about?” he asked in true curiosity.

  “Quite a lot, I assure you,” Celia said. “At least, according to my mother. Refusing to run off with a rake is apparently more shocking than remaining chastely at home.”

  She closed her mouth with a snap, as though she’d said more than she meant to.

  There was far more to that story, and Alec wanted to know it. “What rake?” The anger that had simmered in him since Angus’s senseless death boiled up, the mad Highlander delighted he might have someone to take out his rage on.

  Celia snatched up a pencil. “He is not important. Shall I attempt your hand again? As your face is not fit to be seen today. Although …” Her eyes fixed on him, her focus unnerving, as though she’d decided learning to draw bruises and cuts might be a good thing.

  Alec’s heart burned at her scrutiny. She was seeing him as she had yesterday, below the skin, as her drawing of him had revealed. Celia had caught the true Alec Mackenzie, the man he couldn’t contain under drab clothes and pretense, the one he must hide at all costs.

  He abruptly turned the mirror until it reflected Celia, her face flushed, her pencil poised. “My face isn’t fit to be seen as you say,” he said, “so you will draw your own.”

  Celia stared at her reflection as though she’d never seen it before. “Me?” She bli
nked, and the reflection blinked back at her. “I doubt my mother sent me to a renowned drawing master to return home with pictures of myself.”

  Alec minutely adjusted the mirror. “Why? Your mum might quite like a picture of her daughter.”

  “Her Grace.”

  “Hmm? What’s that, lass?”

  “My mother,” Celia answered. “She is Her Grace. Never Mum. Or Mama. Or even Mother.”

  Alec stared. “Good Lord, she expects her own daughter to call her Your Grace?”

  “I avoid the problem by rarely addressing her directly.” Celia moved her gaze from herself and rested it on Alec. “What do you call your mother?”

  “I called her Mum.” Alec’s mother had been a duchess, as his father was the ninth Duke of Kilmorgan. But it had been a title to his mother, not what she was. The merry, laughing Allison McNab would never have insisted her sons call her Your Grace. Sadness touched him. “She’s gone now, poor woman.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” Celia did sound sorry—she wasn’t mouthing a polite condolence.

  “Long ago it was. Me dad, he never truly lived again. He didn’t pine away—oh no, that’s not his way.” Bluster and rage was more the duke’s way of grieving. “But he lost himself that day.” The one thing saved from the fire at Kilmorgan had been the portrait of Allison, Duchess of Kilmorgan, mother to six unruly sons, only three of which were left. Alec was determined not to make it only two.

  “I apologize, Mr. Finn. I did not mean to bring up a painful memory.”

  Alec blinked, realizing he’d sunk into his real self, leaving Mr. Finn far behind. Celia had a way of making him forget about everything but the truth.

  How did Will do it? Be a different person continuously without slipping back into his own personality?

  Alec cleared his throat. “Dinnae worry yourself. She was a happy woman. Now, are we to have this drawing lesson or no?”

  “I beg your pardon.” Celia flushed and flicked her gaze back to the mirror. “I do not much understand the use in drawing me.”