Patrick cocked his head. “Someday,” he said slowly, “you are going to learn how fortunate you are to have a brother to annoy you. Family is a blessing, MacKenzie, not a curse.”
James snorted. “Spoken like a man who has never lived in the shadow of the Earl of Kilmartie. What the hell do you know of curses?”
Patrick leaned back, a frown snagging low on his thin face. “Enough to know yours is not as bad as some.”
A pulse leaped below his friend’s right eye, and not for the first time, it occurred to James he knew very little of Patrick’s history. They had been roommates at university, commiserating about their lot in life as useless second sons with an all-too-frequent pint. It was only natural their friendship had continued when Patrick had mysteriously shown up in Moraig six months ago, a lean, hunted look on his ribbed frame. Money was tight, and sharing a domestic space had made sense, at least until Patrick had started plying his trade and collecting every cast-off animal in town. More importantly, their casual bantering burned the edge off each other’s loneliness.
But that friendship did not make him privy to Patrick’s inner thoughts. He had no idea what made Patrick so closed off to his past, or what had happened to the man since his easier-going Cambridge days.
“Look.” James sighed, loath to keep poking at his friend’s implacable secrecy. “Can you stitch me up, or do I need to take myself to the sawbones on Kirtland Street?”
As James had suspected, the prospect of trying out his veterinary skills on a living, breathing human was too great a temptation for Patrick to pass up. Like any dependable friend, the man expressed a proper amount of sympathy over the blood-crusted head wound as he began to irrigate the injury with clean water.
And as predictably as the turn of the minute hand on a stopwatch, Patrick abandoned all concern and convulsed in laughter when James haltingly explained how the injury had been acquired.
“So this bit of damage was done with a chamber pot?” Patrick choked out. An acrid bit of astringent wafted down to James’s nose, stinging almost as much as the cloth his friend pressed against the wound. “And here I thought your pretend wife seemed so nice.”
“Pretend?” James winced as his friend’s fingers probed at the tender flesh of his scalp. “You mean I didn’t marry her?”
Patrick held up a needle and examined the point. “I only know what you told me at the Blue Gander. You told me you were protecting her from someone who wanted to hurt her, by pretending to be married. Looked to me like you were having a right fine time doing it too. The way I hear it, you always were one to feel sorry for a lady in distress,” he said, trying to work a length of thread through the needle’s eye. “Now look at where it’s gotten you.”
James fidgeted in his chair, fingering the corset in his lap. It was the first time his friend had ever mentioned James’s past, or hinted he was aware of the rumors that trailed James across time and space. Yes, he was ever one to help a pretty face, and once again, look at where it had gotten him: about to be sacrificed to the surgical skills of the town veterinarian, and missing half a year’s savings.
His fingers tightened on the fine cotton fabric of the corset. He knew that if he lifted it to his nose it would smell of brandy and lemons, because he still imagined he could catch those scents from his shirt. He wished he could forget her, whoever she was, wished he could simply relegate the evening to that bulging coffer of things best forgotten about his past.
But his pride, as much as his financial circumstances, demanded otherwise.
Patrick muttered something unintelligible as he missed the first attempt to thread the needle. As he waited, James liberated the busk from the center of the corset that still sat in his lap, and turned it over in his hand, searching for some hint of who the woman was. No name had been engraved on it, just a delicate etching of flowers that trailed down the center of the thing. He peered closer, and just made out something along the lower edge.
G. T.
Were they her initials? Or those of a lover?
He swallowed hard at the thought, and acknowledged he was no closer to finding her than he had been on waking. The thought of failure—the thought of losing her—pulled at him as surely as the needle Patrick finally set to his scalp. He tried to think of something, anything, but the pass and pull of the needle.
Unfortunately, his mind wanted to think of her. Perhaps it was because he was sitting still, paying penance to Patrick’s medical skills. Or perhaps the fog of forgetfulness that had dogged him since waking was finally lifting. Whatever the reason, he realized he could remember more.
She had been an enthusiastic, if not entirely skilled, flirt. After a quarter hour spent watching her work the crowd at the Gander, he had become increasingly inebriated by both the woman in his sights and the ale in his tankard. She had shown such joy in her untutored efforts, it was a pleasure to simply watch her. She had unfurled like a new butterfly, testing her wings, finding them functional. She looked like someone who had spent her entire life in darkness, only to awaken to find sunlight streaming through her window.
And then, her flirtations with every other man in the room had no longer mattered, because that shaft of sunlight became focused squarely on him.
He realized with relief he would recognize her now if he saw her on Moraig’s streets, something he had not been sure he could do an hour ago. His memory on waking had been little more than a few still, snatched images, so indistinct as to be meaningless. But he remembered more now.
He remembered movement. She had not been still a moment out of the entire night. Her hair had been so blond as to appear almost white. She had been full of life, pulsing with energy and excitement, and waves of that memorable hair had spilled out of her pins as if they too could not bear to be contained. Her mouth had been wide and frequently laughing, and he remembered tossing back the ale the barmaid kept pouring into his tankard and thinking, This is a girl I could marry.
Not that he remembered much about the marrying part.
Or the not-marrying part, for that matter. He was still a shade confused on the issue. He recalled joking with her, wanting to soothe the panic that had sprung into her eyes at some imagined slight or insult from someone in the pub. He had poured his own ale into her empty glass, and then offered to marry her and spend the rest of his life refilling her cup.
At least he was no longer confused about why he had gotten caught up in this mess, because now, of all things, he remembered the kiss. She had thrown herself into his arms, there atop the old scarred table in the public room of the Blue Gander, and pressed her lips against his in front of a cheering, jeering crowd. He remembered being all but knocked over by the unexpectedness of it, her breath surprising and sweet and filling his senses. He remembered the feel of her lithe body surging against his chest. Remembered her own gasp of surprise against his lips, as if she too was shocked by the intensity of it.
James swallowed hard against the prison of that memory. “I need to find her,” he muttered.
“I don’t blame you,” Patrick agreed far too easily, bending over James’s head. “I wouldn’t mind having a go with her myself. She was a right pretty piece of . . .”
Before he could even think, James snaked a fist out and grabbed his friend’s necktie, pulling Patrick’s face down within inches of his own. “That’s my pretend wife you are disparaging, so I’ll thank you to think twice.”
Patrick carefully disengaged himself from his friend’s grip and gave him a cocky grin for his trouble. “Same reaction as last night. Just checking to see if you were still arse over elbow for the lady. I suppose I should count myself fortunate. You knocked out MacRory’s two front teeth last night for far less an indiscretion.”
James blinked against a swirl of confusion as Patrick set in again on his scalp. He knew he had busted the butcher’s teeth last night—the innkeeper had told him as much. He even remembered doing
it now, recalled the satisfying crack of his fist, a woman’s high-pitched scream, and the violence of shattered glass and splintered wood. And of course, there had been the inevitable rush of guilt as MacRory had spit out a mouthful of blood.
But no one had yet told him why he had done it. Had he brawled with the butcher last night, over the girl? “Why did I hit him?” James asked.
Patrick shrugged, which was in hindsight a reaction best avoided when one was putting a needle to skin. “Hell if I know. He said something about the girl, I suppose. One minute you’re laughing, and the next you’re swinging. Never seen you like that, truth be told.”
James winced as his skin twitched under Patrick’s painful ministrations. His thoughts were a jumble inside his head. His purported reaction last night made no sense. He had spent his adult life carefully controlling those impulses, ensuring a veneer of respectability that would stand fast, no matter how thin a shield it actually was. After the failures of his youth, he had sworn never again to be brought to violence, and certainly never again over a woman.
Only he had apparently abandoned all that effort last night, and all for one false female. She was a thief, had probably plotted to steal his purse from the moment she first sat upon his lap and felt its promising bulge through his coat pocket. If he wanted to see her brought to justice, what did it matter what Patrick thought of her?
“I suppose it doesn’t matter.” James gave his thoughts of her a good hard shove and returned his attention to the fact he had almost hit his best friend. The pain in his head had numbed to a dull ache, but the bite of each pass of the needle made his eyes pull shut. “I do not know where she is, anyway.”
“Well, the first place I would look if I had misplaced my wife and my horse in the same night would be David Cameron’s house,” Patrick said, leaning in close to inspect one damnably sure stitch after another.
James squinted up at his friend. Patrick was already in dangerous territory, ribbing him about the girl and poking him with the unremitting needle. But mentioning the woman he sought and the man he despised in the same breath was tempting violence. “Why would I want to visit Cameron?” he asked carefully, his nails digging crescent moons into the upholstered seat beneath him.
“Because that great black beast you have tied up to the fence post outside is his mare. Treated her for founder, just last month. Lame as Gemmy, that mare is. She’ll make a decent broodmare, but will be useless as a riding animal. If you traded that horse for Caesar, you’ve been swindled, my friend.”
James’s head buzzed in alarm. Not because he thought he might have done something so stupid as to trade Caesar. It was more the mention of David Cameron, Moraig’s magistrate.
James knew Patrick still counted the man as a friend, a side effect of the time the three had shared at Cambridge. They were all second sons, thrust into the requirements of receiving a proper education but denied the benefits that came with any rightful claim to a title. Surrounded by young men who were wealthier and more assured of their lot in life, the three had come together to form a sort of club.
But despite this history, and the fact that both he and Cameron hailed from Moraig, James had long since ceased to think of David in a friendly manner. In fact, he tried very hard not to think of him at all, although his position as the town solicitor and Cameron’s role as the town magistrate made some degree of professional communication necessary.
He could not avoid thinking of him now, however. A memory returned from the previous evening, of pulling the girl up on the table and standing beside her as the room spun around them. It was not real. At least, it was not supposed to be real. He remembered staring down at her, her hands reed-slender in his own, as Cameron—equally as deep in his cups as anyone else in the place—had performed the mock ceremony with the dramatic flair of a born thespian, and then grandly pronounced them drunkard and wife.
He had no memory of why he had agreed to such a farce. It was outside the bounds of decency, and it made a mockery of marriage and love and things James generally viewed as sacred. It made no sense for him to have risked his reputation in such a way. He could only imagine the girl had asked it of him, and that he had done it for reasons separate from the way she made his body stand at attention.
But David Cameron . . . he was a wild card in this. The man of whom they spoke was a surprisingly decent magistrate, fair and direct in his dealings. But outside of the job, he still acted exactly like the spoiled second son he had always been.
“About Cameron . . .” James swallowed. “Do you think . . . I mean, could he have . . . performed a legitimate ceremony last night?”
He held his breath as he waited for Patrick to answer. Damned if that wouldn’t muck things up, even worse than they already were. The ceremony had sounded real enough to his ale-buzzed ears. It would be just the kind of sick humor Cameron had specialized in so long ago at Cambridge, before life had thrust them in opposite directions. David might be Moraig’s newest magistrate, but James doubted the man’s new professional geniality extended to the point of forgoing such a delicious joke, or a chance to exact such an ironic measure of revenge.
Patrick squinted down at him. “I was there for only the last bit of it. If you’ve a mind to find out, you’ll need to ask Cameron himself.” His friend ducked down and snapped the last bit of thread with his teeth. “All finished.”
James reached out an unsteady hand and balanced himself against the sawdust bag that hung temptingly from a rafter. Normally, when he felt this coiled up, he used it to release his pent-up energy, working his muscles into compliance and his mind into submission. But given the way his head was pounding, he suspected it would be several days before he felt well enough to use the sparring bag again. One more thing to add to his growing list of reasons to be annoyed with the girl.
Patrick sighed as James pushed himself upright. “If you were one of my four-legged patients, I’d recommend a bath and a few days’ rest before you go traipsing all over town.”
“I’ve seen what you do to your four-legged patients.” James headed toward the hallway on unsteady feet. “And if poor Gemmy is any indication, I prefer to keep my limbs and my balls intact.”
A bath, unspeakably tempting as it was, would take time James did not have. No, he would have to make do with a quick wash in his room, using the sliver of plain, brown soap that awaited him there. He would sacrifice the thirty seconds it would take to make use of his toothpowder and put on a clean shirt, if indeed one even awaited him in his near-empty chest of drawers.
But the few days’ rest Patrick suggested was out of the question. Every minute he let slip past without pursuing the few clues available to him was another minute she could use to cover her tracks. He had no choice. As soon as he could manage to stumble his way out the door, he was off to Cameron’s.
And God help the man—or brother—who tried to stop him.
Chapter 9
ARRIVING IN TOWN on the back of a potato cart that smelled of moist earth and rotting vegetables was more tolerable than Georgette had first imagined.
It helped that Elsie Dalrymple was a fountain of local lore, distracting Georgette from the indignity of their conveyance by pointing out the distant loch shimmering in early afternoon sunlight and the thin blue band where fresh water met the sea. As the wagon rocked over the rutted road and Georgette cradled the kitten protectively against her chest, Elsie spun fanciful tales about Kilmartie Castle, which sat high on a bluff over the loch. And as they drew closer to town and began to pass curious residents, Elsie diverted Georgette’s embarrassment by elaborating on the history of Moraig itself and its role as a smuggling port twenty years ago.
By the time they pulled to a stop outside the Blue Gander, Georgette felt as if she could have grown up here, so complete was her knowledge of the town.
Of course, if she had grown up in Moraig, it would not matter that her memory from the previous eveni
ng showed no signs of returning. She would know precisely the sort of man Mr. James MacKenzie was, and what made him so irresistible that she had agreed to marry him after a courtship the length of a heartbeat.
She no longer felt panicked over what she had done. She felt resolved. There was no time to waste in tracking him down, no reason to delay the inevitable. She needed an annulment.
But first she needed to find him.
Elsie tumbled out of the cart first, shaking out her skirts and ignoring Georgette’s expectant look. Georgette cleared her throat. “A ladies’ maid helps her mistress down if there is no footman about.”
Elsie dissolved into giggles. “Oh, that’s rich, miss. Are we pretending the potato cart is a coach now?”
Georgette had to admit, it did seem a little silly. She slid from the back of the wagon, her reticule and kitten uncomfortably in one hand. Small steps, she reminded herself. It took time to train a proper servant.
“I enjoyed seeing you again, Joseph.” Elsie smiled at the young man who had served as their coachman. “Perhaps I’ll see even more of you later tonight.”
The boy flushed red. Georgette grabbed Elsie by the elbow and pulled her out of earshot as the cart began to move off. “A ladies’ maid does not say such things,” she hissed.
Elsie lifted a hand to one hip. “Why not?”
“It’s . . . it’s just not done.” Georgette shifted the kitten from one hand to the other, trying to remember why it was not done.
Elsie’s eyes trailed back the cart, which was already threading its way into Main Street traffic. “I suppose you think I should not associate with the likes of Joseph Rothven anymore,” she sniffed. “Well, I don’t see why being a ladies’ maid should turn me into a nob. And he was good enough for you last night.”
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