As Allan returned to his seat, Celeste confronted her father, ready for a fight. The earl wore a bemused smile. To her surprise, he lowered one lid in an affectionate wink.
“Ballantyne tells me scattered bands of Highlanders hide out in my hills,” the earl said, “and these heathen folk dare to raid local villages and farms despite the military stationed nearby.”
“They raid because they would otherwise starve.” Allan shifted in his seat. “Are ye certain, your lairdship, that a guard need be put upon her ladyship while she is inside the castle? And what of your own safety?”
“I am armed. With numerous servants in my employ, many of them no doubt Highlanders, the danger to my daughter could arise from within these walls. I can take no chances. While Celeste is well educated for a woman, she lacks practical understanding. Her fortune has made her the desire of more than one impecunious scoundrel, and her artlessness leads her to believe them sincere. She canna see beyond the end of her nose either figuratively or in fact.”
“Papa! I am no fool,” Celeste protested in a choked voice. “And I need no armed eunuch at my gate as if my room housed a harem.” She approached Allan’s chair and glared down at him. “Be warned that should ye choose to become my guardian, I shall make your life miserable!”
Chapter 2
Heels clicked on flagstone floors. “Sirra?”
A dark figure appeared above the back of a bench. “It is arranged?”
“Aye, and his lairdship suspects naught. ’twill keep the rascal under our eyes and the peerage safe. Ye’re keeping your part?” The smaller figure glanced around fearfully. Moonlight shining through stained glass turned his wig orange and blue.
“Trust me. Meet here again in a fortnight.”
“Ye’ll be comfortable in this chamber, m’lady. ’twas furnished by your grandmother, Lady Elizabeth Galbraith. Your aunt Olivia died in that bed at the tender age of eighteen. Her portrait hangs beside the door.” The house steward, Crippen, spoke in a monotone brogue.
“Indeed.” Celeste knew the steward’s inspection was mere protocol. A complaint from her would produce no change—the earl had insisted she occupy the chambers in the east tower, which were accessible only by use of a spiral staircase. Celeste’s legs already ached from ascending and descending those narrow stone steps.
“Beryl Mason will be your personal maid,” Crippen continued.
Celeste nodded at the white-capped woman beside him. “Aye, we met earlier today.”
The steward said, “If ye have any need, m’lady, dinna hesitate to ring. Our desire is to serve ye well.”
“Many thanks, Mr. Crippen,” Celeste said in her best lofty manner. “This bedchamber is chilled. I require a larger fire.”
“ ’twill be attended, m’lady.” Crippen bowed and retired. The wooden door closed behind him with a hollow boom, and a small chunk of plaster fell from the wall.
Shivering, Celeste glanced around her bedchamber. It looked, if possible, worse by candlelight than by daylight. Faded tapestries lined the outer walls. A high, four-poster bed hung with brocaded curtains nearly touched the mildewed ceiling. One of the lathe-and-plaster interior walls seemed to bulge inward, and the floor had a definite slant. Nevertheless, aside from its architectural flaws, it was a chamber befitting a princess … a consumptive princess doomed to pine her life away in seclusion, or maybe a doddering maiden princess whose one lover died sixty years earlier on the eve of their wedding.
Pushing her glasses higher on her nose, Celeste met her maid’s gaze and forced herself to smile. “I am certain we shall suit each other, Beryl.”
The maid appeared to be in her early twenties, a few years older than Celeste. Her square face was handsome with its full lips and black-lashed blue eyes. A large knot of red hair and a generous figure completed her somewhat earthy attractions.
Someone rapped at the chamber door.
“Enter.”
The latch lifted, and the heavy door creaked open. “My lady? I bring fuel for your fire.” Celeste’s unwanted bodyguard carried a sack over his shoulder. His beatific smile was back.
“I am grateful.” Too late Celeste remembered to remove her eyeglasses. With an inward grimace, she realized that he would often see her wearing the ugly device during his stint as her guardian. She might as well swallow her pride and pretend unconcern. The admiration of a servant was inconsequential, after all.
Celeste watched him kneel beside her hearth and poke at the smoldering peat. He added two additional bricks of fuel and blew until they began to burn.
Beryl joined Allan at the fire and slowly ran a finger across his shoulders until her body pressed against his. “Meet me in the rose garden tonight?” she murmured in a seductive tone. Feeling her face burn, Celeste turned to arrange her hairbrushes on the dressing table.
“I have duties, as have you.” Allan’s voice sounded friendly yet detached. “Why not ask Dougal?”
“Wherefore would I be wanting to meet me own brother?” Beryl snapped.
He ignored her. “My lady?”
Celeste met his direct gaze and felt as if she should curtsy. “Aye?” He is a servant, she reminded herself, lifting her chin.
“By the earl’s command, I shall sleep in your drawing room to keep watch o’er your chamber door. Should ye have need of protection, my sword and my life are yours.” He bowed and made a hasty exit.
“As if I need a bodyguard,” Celeste said. “Where do ye sleep, Beryl?”
“In the servants’ quarters o’er the kitchen.”
Celeste studied the maid’s flaming hair, met her fiery gaze, and decided not to inquire further. “Assist me with my gown, if ye please.”
Beryl lifted the gown over Celeste’s head, then unlaced the corset and helped her mistress step out of the hooped bustle and underskirts. Celeste tried not to stare at Beryl’s arms, which were hairier and more muscular than many a man’s.
While Celeste sat in a padded chair, Beryl unpinned her mistress’s hair and brushed until it crackled. Celeste closed her eyes and groaned with pleasure. “Ye’ve a gentle touch, Beryl. After the tales Mr. Ballantyne told, I expected a wilderness inhabited by half-naked, tattooed savages clad in kilts. I was almost disappointed to find ye civilized.”
Beryl remained silent, so Celeste chattered on. “I ne’er had a personal maid until last autumn when Papa hired Marie. She refused to leave Edinburgh, professing fear of the Highlanders, which is purely nonsense. Certain I am that ye’ll be an excellent replacement maid, Beryl.”
Celeste tipped her head back to smile at the Highland woman.
“Why d’ye wear that?” Beryl pointed the brush at Celeste’s glasses.
“I canna see without them,” Celeste admitted.
“Not at all?”
“Only a blur. Have ye lived at the castle long?” she asked. Establishing rapport with this maid would require concentrated effort.
“Nigh a year. Allan got me the work. We are soon to wed.”
“Ah,” Celeste said, concealing her skepticism. “I, too, intend to wed soon. Roderick is my father’s heir. I first met him only last month, yet I feel as though I have loved him always.”
“In his mate, Allan requires strength and courage to match his own. He despises weakness and timidity—such women he uses and tosses aside.” Beryl’s tone implied that Celeste was the useless type.
“Ye wish to marry a man who uses and discards women?” Celeste turned in her chair. “Allan claimed high principles. I must inform my father of his deceit. Perhaps he’ll be relieved of this ridiculous duty. I should prefer to have ye near, if attended I must be.”
Beryl’s gaze traveled over her mistress in a way that made Celeste uncomfortable. On further consideration, she would prefer not to have this fierce maiden too near. Wishing she had donned her bed gown, she drew her chemise up over her shoulders and tightened its drawstring. “Roderick will come soon and marry me. He promised to love me forever.”
Taking Celeste’s ha
ir in her hands, Beryl divided it into three sections and began to braid. “He is rich?”
“Nay, but he is fine and good.” Smiling, Celeste recalled her cousin’s burning dark eyes. “In his presence, I feel womanly. But Papa insists he courts me only for …” Her voice and her smile faded.
Roderick was not her only beau. Lord Werecock had also promised eternal fidelity; and, but a fortnight past, the viscount of Downeybeck had knelt at her feet in the university gardens and composed a sonnet “To the Ringlet Upon Her Shoulder.”
Papa insisted these admirers cared solely for her fortune. It was true that no suitors had approached Celeste until news spread of the comfortable inheritance in English funds left to her upon her eighteenth birthday by her mother’s mother. Celeste preferred to believe that her youth and reclusive lifestyle accounted for the gentlemen’s previous lack of attentiveness. Surely such tender admiration could not be feigned. They must truly love her … mustn’t they?
Beryl tied off the brown braid with a ribbon and dropped it over her mistress’s shoulder. “I’d advise ye to make haste and marry ere ye join the ranks of maidens who’ve perished in this tower. Your aunt wasna the first.”
Startled, Celeste looked up. An enigmatic smirk curled Beryl’s lips. “I changed the water in your basin, and I’ll bank the fire. D’ye need aught besides?”
“I–I think not.”
When Beryl had retired, Celeste paced the chamber’s warped floorboards. Pausing before Lady Olivia’s portrait, she wrinkled her nose. “Ye’re no true relation to me, my lady. Which fact disturbs me not at all, for either the artist had no talent or ye were a bloodless weakling. I’ll be fearing not your haunt or any other.”
She rubbed her upper arms. “Bodyguard, indeed. Personal maid, indeed.” Disappointment at her failed efforts to befriend Beryl pushed out her lower lip. “I need no friends; I need no one. When Roderick comes for me, I’ll run away with him if Papa refuses his consent.”
Not even to herself could she speak aloud the doubts that gnawed like mice at the fringes of her self-respect. Only recently had Roderick brought to her attention certain disturbing truths. Celeste had often heard her father relate the tale of her parents’ whirlwind romance—they had married within three weeks of meeting. He also frequently told of his joy at Celeste’s birth. The one fact he omitted was the two-month interval between these important dates.
She opened one of the casement windows and leaned upon the sill. The castle rooftops below lay in shadow. Only a squirrel could escape by that route. Flashes of lightning glared upon hilltops far beyond the fortress walls and revealed lowering black clouds. The drapes billowed behind her, and several candles snuffed out.
Celeste’s chin lifted. She spread her arms wide and felt her chemise whip about her legs. Heart pounding in strange ecstasy and defiance, she laughed aloud. “I am strong!”
A knock at the door whipped her around. “Who is there?” She grabbed her bed gown off a hook and slipped it on, buttoning with shaking fingers.
“Are ye alone, my lady?”
The bodyguard. Celeste pressed a hand to her racing heart and hurried to lean against the door. There was neither lock nor bar.
“To whom were ye speaking just now?” he persisted.
“Am I not allowed a soliloquy?”
A pause. “Ye needna fear me, my lady. Sleep well.”
She hardened her heart against his beguiling voice. “Beryl says ye plan to wed her.” Silence.
“Allan MacMurray? D’ye hear me?”
His reply sounded distant. “Allan Croft is my name. If ye must ken, I hear your every word. The walls and door are none too sturdy.”
“So ye o’erheard my conversation with Beryl? How impolite!”
“I coughed and made noise, hoping ye’d take the hint. In future, please say naught ye’d desire no man to hear.”
Celeste recalled what he had already overheard, and her face flamed. “Are ye pledged to marry Beryl? Ye told my father otherwise.”
“Beryl may say what she will, but I won’t wed her.”
Celeste blinked, uncertain which report to believe. “God give ye rest this night.” She hesitated over his name. Nobility addressed most house servants by their first names, yet Celeste felt shy about treating this man with such informality. “Regretful I am that ye’re saddled with this nonsensical post, but … but I dinna promise to be an easy charge.”
“I ne’er expected ye would be.”
Celeste nearly jerked open the door to demand an explanation for that remark but decided to wait until morning. After extinguishing her remaining candles, she climbed into bed. Firelight from the adjoining chamber shone through cracks in the door and beneath it. Celeste laid her eyeglasses on a bedside table, knelt on the counterpane, and tugged at her bed curtains. They refused to move. Rather than relight a candle and discover the reason, she gave up and left the curtains open.
Beryl had forgotten to warm the bed linens. Teeth chattering, Celeste waited for her body to heat them.
Could he hear every little sound from her chamber? How embarrassing!
Sometime during the night, she awakened with a start. Only after a moment of terror did she remember her whereabouts. The castle lay in deadly silence except for a strange noise. Celeste lay rigid beneath her coverlet. Rats? Bats? Ghosts? Fear made her hands clammy and formed a lump in her throat. “Mr. Croft?” she squeaked.
No reply. Had some assassin dispatched her bodyguard? Did a threat to her life lurk in one of the room’s dark corners? Or had everyone else vanished in the night, leaving her alone in the ancient fortress? “Allan MacMurray!” She panicked, sitting bolt upright. “Where are ye?”
The sound stopped. Had her cries frightened it away? She heard rapid steps, and the door creaked open. “Did ye call, my lady?”
“I heard a noise. It has stopped now,” she admitted, holding her coverlet beneath her chin.
“D’ye wish me to search your chamber?” he asked in a groggy-sounding voice.
“Please.” She found her glasses and hooked them over her ears.
Allan knelt at her hearth to light a candle at the banked embers. He cupped one hand around the flame as he rose. His cropped hair, no longer hidden by a wig, appeared dark. Celeste watched him check behind her curtains and screens, then lean out each of the two windows. His bare feet padded silently as he returned to the doorway and faced her. He still wore his knee breeches and a full-sleeved white shirt, partly untucked and unbuttoned.
His white teeth flashed as he spoke. “Naught to fear. Perhaps ye heard the call of a wild creature in the hills.” Dared the rogue laugh at her?
Celeste swallowed hard. “I thank ye,” she managed to say.
When he was gone, she lay back. How strange to have a man in her bedchamber, and at her father’s behest! “He wouldna dare touch me,” she whispered to calm her turbulent emotions. “I needna fear him. He is my servant. Mine to order as I will.” The idea had its attractions. She imagined him wild with desire for her. How she would laugh and spurn him, her devoted slave! He would learn that woman was not intended solely for man’s amusement. He would learn not to speak to her in that contemptuous tone, as if she were a silly child having night terrors.
And again she heard the sound—a rasping, rhythmic purr. She opened her mouth to call, but then a suspicion entered her mind. Slipping into her bed gown, she braved the darkness and crept to the door. Sure enough, the noise came from her drawing room. She pulled open the door.
Allan stretched full length on his back beside a freshly stoked peat fire. One arm pillowed his head. His mouth was ajar, and he snored.
The snoring ceased. Celeste froze.
“ ’Tis hazardous to creep up on an armed man, my lady.” She saw silvery eyes glitter between his lashes. “Ye were snoring.”
“Ye’re mistaken. I wasna asleep. Go back to bed.”
Stunned by such arrogance, she returned to her room. While lying in bed, she heard movement in the drawing ro
om. Inconvenient though his presence was, she felt secure. A giggle welled up and spilled over. Not asleep, he says. Ha!
Chapter 3
You have been paid for the job; get on with it.” The cultured voice held a dangerous edge.
“I need more. ’Tis a risky piece of work. I willna take the chance of holding the blame.” Green-and-gold moonlight shining through stained glass patterned the speaker’s cloak. Silver eyes glittered beneath his hood.
“I’ve pledged you my protection.”
“And what value has the pledge of a traitor, I’m asking meself?” Disgust colored the man’s thick brogue.
Instead of working her embroidery, Celeste watched Allan prowl the library. His wig was askew. He pulled out a book, thumbed through it, and replaced it. Rubbing a hand over his scalp, he jerked off the maltreated tie wig, dropped it on a chair, and stalked the length of the room once more. Celeste admired the glint of his auburn curls. Never would she have guessed that his hair would be a hue entirely at odds with his thick black brows.
Sunlight barred the carpets, and birdsong wafted through the open windows on a balmy summer breeze. On such days, even Kennerith Castle seemed to echo with songs of joy.
“Will ye read to me while I do my needlework?” Celeste requested, lowering her lorgnette. “ ’twould pass the time and employ your idle hands.”
He spoke with a hint of asperity. “My lady could endeavor just once to exercise something other than her tongue and her hands. Ye’ve been at Kennerith these four weeks, and not once have ye ventured farther afield than the rose garden.”
Celeste lifted her lorgnette and attempted to intimidate him with a cold stare. “If my indolence vexes ye, ’twould trouble me not at all if ye were to seek gainful employment elsewhere.”
Allan met her gaze. His lips twitched.
“What amuses ye now?” she asked.
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