The rooster, Lord Stanton, puffed up even more where he stood, gripping the handle of his cane, his face flushing red. “This is a lady?” His bulging eyes scanned Cat from the top of her wet head, down her stained shirt and trousers to her muddy boots.
Damn it all, she was going to throw her mattucashlass into the old man’s thigh. She could hit him straight between the eyes, but one mustn’t kill someone they’ve just met unless he was trying to kill her first. She had learned something from her drunken father. Just his thigh then.
Her hand went to her leg where a leather strap held the scabbard, but she paused. Ladies fight with words at court, not blades. Behave with cold decorum. Evelyn’s coaching just before they had departed pressed through the haze of her anger. She inhaled fully. How would Evelyn act in this situation?
She stood tall, shoulders back. “I am Lady Catriona Campbell, student of the Highland Roses school, run by Lady Evelyn and Lady Scarlet Worthington.” Although Cat couldn’t rid herself of her Scottish accent, she sought a clipped, slower pronunciation to smooth over her country brogue. Her muddied hand came forward to indicate her foot. “After being set upon by bandits, I sent my injured maid back to Scotland with the carriage and our driver, even though I injured my ankle in the exchange. I forfeited my gowns in an effort to arrive here with Lord Worthington as fast as possible, at the request of the queen, with whom I am friends.”
One man gasped at this, another coughed into his hand. The others stared with widening eyes, except for the red-faced rooster who only glared.
“And now, gentlemen,” she said with an icy tone, “I require a bath, a physician, and a solid meal. Lord Worthington will not be available until he has procured these for me.” She finished with her gaze trained on Lord Stanton, holding it without blinking until he glanced to Nathaniel.
“Friend of the queen?” he asked. “When would you even have the chance to meet Queen Mary?”
Cat remained completely still, her stomach dropping.
“Queen Mary?” Nathaniel asked, though his lower voice indicated that he’d come to the same conclusion.
“Yes,” Stanton said, swelling with the pompous look of someone who had information and thus the upper hand. “Wife to our new sovereign.”
Anger and dread seeped up through Cat, making her exhaustion worse until she felt dizzy. “Then we are too late,” she said softly.
Stanton didn’t acknowledge her but kept his gaze on Nathaniel. “King Charles is dead as of the morning of February six. James II, his younger brother, is now king of England, Scotland and Ireland, and his wife, Mary of Modena, is our queen.”
Chapter Nine
Nathaniel kept his practiced, cold expression. Any sign of surprise would be taken as weakness by his father’s peers. Charles was dead. Damnation.
He looked to Cat. While battered, muddied, and half drowned, she had spoken with regal strength. But with the shocking news, she’d lost her edge of queenly condensation. She stood alone, eyes cast down. The desire to wrap her up and carry her to a warm, clean room was overwhelming.
As if feeling the need in the air, Holling’s longtime housekeeper, Jane Pitney, strode around the corner behind the men. Short and rounded, with her graying hair hoisted up in a tight bun, he knew her gentle looks were deceiving, for her heart had withstood the tempers of his father all these years.
“Excuse me, my lords, but I will see to Lady Campbell,” she said, her voice firm, yet low. She’d obviously overheard the necessity for her interruption. Having perfected her abilities to bend nobles to her will decades ago, Jane walked through the parting men.
“Mistress Pitney,” Nathaniel said, returning her nod of greeting. “This is Lady Catriona Campbell of the Highland Roses School in Killin, Scotland. She is a friend of Her Grace Catherine, Duchess of Braganza,” he said, using Queen Catherine’s non-royal name. “Lady Campbell,” he said to Cat, “this is Mistress Pitney. She will see to your needs.” He bent to pick her up, but Cat set her hand on his chest.
“I will walk slowly without injuring my foot further,” she said. She leaned closer to him. “While ye deal with the mob of old goats.”
Her words slid against the tight anger he held in check, loosening the knot and beating back the impatience that could make him lose his temper. Her truthful observation was a balm against his annoyance at this pack of parliamentary wolves.
“I have had Benedict bring refreshments for you and the gentlemen,” Jane said. “It waits in the library.”
“Thank you, Mistress Pitney,” he said with stiff dignity and looked at Cat. “You are in excellent hands.” He kept his frown, the usual mask he wore at Hollings. Anything else would be perceived as weakness. She looked between him and Jane and started off, favoring her right leg.
After she and Jane walked back in the direction he’d come, he turned to the gathered group. “Gentlemen.” Without a glance at any of them, he strode through their parted midst, one arm set at his back, toward his father’s library. It was his library now, although it still held the old man’s tenacious scent of spice and lemon oil, which Nathaniel had come to think of as the odor of tyranny.
The walls were lined with cherrywood shelves, holding a vast collection of books, even after his sister, Evelyn, had taken a third of them up to her school in the Highlands. Thick woven rugs muted his clipped steps, and he hoped the mud from them wouldn’t be too much for Benedict to remove in the morning.
He walked directly to the padded leather chair behind the desk where a crystal decanter of fine, amber-colored brandy stood with an empty glass. A silver tray of cold, sliced ham, cheese, thin biscuits, and a currant-speckled scone sat next to it. Two similar trays sat near six arranged chairs set before the desk.
The group of men filed in, taking seats after their leader, Lord Stanton, found one of his choosing. Stanton can be your biggest enemy or your most helpful ally. His father’s words floated back to him easily in the room, as if his ghost resided within the walls. Silence was broken only by Nathaniel pouring himself a brandy, the sound of the liquid in the crystal reminding him of his father’s talks. The man always started with a fresh brandy. He looked at Stanton. “Where do we stand with King James on the throne?” he asked.
And as his thoughts moved to Cat and his past military experience, did his oaths to Charles carry to James? But this wasn’t the forum to seek answers to questions that had become quite personal during his journey home.
Lord Stanton’s bulbous nose was always red, and he withdrew a handkerchief to squeeze the end, tucking it back in the pocket sewn into his jacket. “He is more Catholic than Charles, which was why many were trying to remove him from the line of succession.”
“I blame his second wife from Italy,” the man sitting next to Stanton said. Lord Wickley, Earl of Sedgewick, was tall and angular and wore a wig longer and whiter than most.
Nathaniel leaned back in his plump chair as if he weren’t covered in mud, nearly starving, and determined to go above to make sure Cat was getting what he’d promised. “I have heard Mary of Modena took refuge in her religion after she lost her four-year-old daughter several years ago.”
Stanton nodded. “James is popish and determined to rule like his brother, who let Catholics go about practicing their corrupt religion. Although, unlike Charles, James says he will reestablish parliament after his coronation this spring. His nephew, the Duke of Monmouth, has sent word that he opposes the coronation, but so far, it has been a peaceful succession. If James ends up getting a male heir on that young queen of his, peace may be out of the question, for they will no doubt raise the heir as a Catholic.” He said the last word as if it were a blasphemy. “Even a female heir raised under the Pope’s influence is a threat.”
Lord Wickley sat in a high-backed chair that reflected his stiff personality. “I was against James sitting on the throne years ago when it came out that he had taken the Eucharist with a priest, converting to Catholicism while in France. But when we pushed to have Charles tak
e him out of the line of succession, he dissolved parliament, and sent James off to Edinburgh with a reprimand.”
“Has King James revoked the rights of the Anglican Church thus far?” Nathaniel asked, his gaze moving to study each of the men sitting as witness in the room. He knew them all, his father’s noble contemporaries.
“No,” Stanton said, withdrawing his handkerchief to swipe his nose again. “Therefore, we are tentatively backing his right to the crown.”
Nathaniel took a sip of the brandy, letting the fire slide down to his stomach. The political chess game that these men played irritated him. The battle was slow and full of lies and hidden desires for personal gains. Was it his time in the Highlands that pressed him to cleave the truth out of these men with a sword?
“What is it you want from me?” he asked and took a bite of the ham layered with cheese. Jane would have taken the same up to Cat. Was she already enjoying her warm bath? Hopefully she was ensconced in the rose room that had been his mother’s. It was by far the prettiest bedchamber on the estate.
Wickley looked to Stanton, who gave him a nod to proceed. “We need to know where the house of Worthington stands. With the new king or with an independent parliament?”
Nathaniel set his fisted hands on the desk, something he’d seen his father do a thousand times before. “I will not tie a noose around my neck just because my father trusted the lot of you,” he said, his voice even. “I will decide as King James moves forward, weigh his actions, not your predictions of how he will act.”
“Your father would have sided with parliament,” Stanton said, thumping his cane on the floor by his heavy feet.
“I have no desire to become Benjamin Worthington, Lord Stanton,” he answered and picked up his brandy. He swirled the potent liquor slowly in the crystal glass. He took a drink and set the glass back on his cherry-wood desk before staring out at the old man. “I will always push for a parliament and less power to a single monarch, but I will not be persuaded to commit treason.”
A flustered murmur rose and fell through the group of four other men seated in a cluster behind Stanton and Wickley. “Treason or revolution,” Stanton said. “Attempting to save this country from a Catholic war on our people could be labeled as either.” He leaned forward, weight on his cane. “There have been discussions with William of Orange.”
“King James’s son-in-law?” Nathaniel knew of the man who had married James’s eldest daughter, Mary, by his first wife. The couple were both staunch Protestants and living in Europe at present.
Wickley nodded. “He may be persuaded to rule with his wife.”
“And she would depose her own father?” Nathaniel asked, crossing his arms.
“She has had little to do with James since her marriage, which he tried to stop. Yet Charles was making a good effort at looking like he supported the Anglican Church at the time and proclaimed that it should take place,” the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Kellington, called forward. “It appeased the people at the time, thinking that James would be passed over in the succession, thus putting a devout Protestant on the throne. If James was to abdicate, the crown would pass to Mary and her husband, William.”
“We were barred from court when James first arrived,” Lord Kellington said, his bushy eyebrows pinching low under his wig. “James said the court was closed in grieving for his brother. He has only now allowed some of us back in the doors of Whitehall. And with limited access to him and the queen. Our daughters attend her,” he said, nodding toward Wickley and Stanton.
Stanton coughed into his fist and cleared his throat. “If the woman you brought was truly invited by the Duchess of Braganza, you will be allowed access as her escort, since you brought her here from that rough country.” The old man’s eyes narrowed. “If one is to believe anything of the story she told.”
Nathaniel held the man’s gaze. “And you would have me do what?” he asked. “Slip a poison into James’s drink, leave an adder in his queen’s bed so that she cannot bring us a Catholic heir?”
None of the men even twitched in response, which of course meant that they wouldn’t mind if any of that was to occur, though they would behead him for involvement afterward.
“I would never condone such acts,” Stanton finally intoned, so no one could say he supported the treasonous ideas. “See if he is holding private mass. Perhaps the Duchess of Braganza will tell her…friend, Lady Campbell, if James truly plans to reconvene parliament or continue as Charles did, spending the country’s money on mistresses and ridiculous celebrations.”
“James showed great discipline and battle strategy in both the French and Spanish armies for his brother. I doubt he will be frivolous at court,” Nathaniel said, his gaze slowly taking in each of the men. Had any of them become angered enough about the dismissal of parliament to poison Charles?
Stanton looked nonplussed, his gray eyebrow rising with a wry look. “We shall see.”
Nathaniel folded his hands before him on the desk. “I will take Lady Campbell to Whitehall as requested, to attend the Duchess, and will determine whether King James truly intends to reconvene parliament.” Lady Campbell, not Cat, not the fiery siren that called to him in and out of his dreams. Sitting in his father’s study, tension mixing with the essence of lemon oil and tobacco, it was easier for Nathaniel to withstand her siren’s song. Until he could figure out if King James wanted to let the populace know that the Scottish Presbyterians had organized to fight Catholicism and the English government, he shouldn’t tell Cat about his past. So, despite the heat building between them, for her honor, and the duty he owed his sisters to marry strategically, he must stay away from Cat Campbell.
…
They were bloody too late to save Charles. From the date that the pompous rooster said he’d died, the king had already passed before they left Finlarig. The whole trip was for naught, although she would still see Queen Catherine, or Duchess whomever, or whatever she was now called. Cat represented the Highland Roses, and she certainly wanted to offer their benefactress help and condolences.
Washed, oiled with the essence of roses, and wrapped in a clean robe, Cat reclined in the grand bed against no less than five plump pillows. Drapes of mauve velvet hung about the large bed, tied back to four posters of mahogany wood. If she didn’t know where she was, she’d believe herself already in a royal palace. “Frig, he’s rich,” she murmured, picking up some ham and cheese that she’d piled onto a thin biscuit. Luckily the man had never seen the small cottage that she had built in the woods after her father died. The whole dwelling could fit inside this bedroom.
Were all the rooms at Hollings like this one? Rich satins and silks covered the chairs and bed and flanked two full windows set into the outside wall. A screen, painted with a vine of roses, sat in a corner to hide a boxed chamber pot. She frowned at the expensive trappings.
The housekeeper, Mistress Jane, had led her to the room. She’d said that it had been Nathaniel’s mother’s room. Cat closed her eyes, thinking of the woman whom Nathaniel had said cried all the time. Were the walls heavy with her tears like the ones she had sensed in their old house in Killin after news came that her father had died on the battlefield? A vision of her own mother rose behind her eyelids, her face slack with pain, tears flooding her eyes to wash down her cheeks. Despite the fire lit in the beautifully tiled hearth, Cat shivered. This was not a room for her.
She opened her eyes to look at the door to the hall. Was there another room where she could sleep? Surely there were a hundred rooms in this English fortress of silk and marble. Jane had left her alone with the food and bath over an hour ago. Night was full on from the darkness outside. Cat had luxuriated in the warm bath until the water had grown cold, then washed her long hair with the rose soap. If a physician didn’t arrive soon, she’d find another bed and sleep with her ankle wrapped and propped. There was another door to the left of the bed. Where did it lead?
Rap. Rap.
As if summoned by her thoughts, the door opened,
and Jane walked in, her skirts rustling in the silence. With a glance at Cat in the bed, she beckoned behind her. A man with spectacles on the bridge of his nose followed her inside.
“Doctor Witherspoon to examine Lady Campbell,” she announced. Was she always so formal?
“Let us see what you have done, milady,” he said, his smile open but condescending.
“I injured my ankle falling from my horse,” Cat said. “There may be a fracture in the tibia or talus bones, but it could also be that the ligaments of the ankle are sprained.”
The physician’s heavy brows rose. “You are educated in healing?”
She straightened, shoving one of the silk pillows behind her back to further prop herself up. “I am a midwife and healer in my village in Breadalbane parish. From the pain, bruising, and swelling, in this area…” She pointed to the front and side of her ankle. “It is still difficult to tell, though after four days now, I believe it is just sprained.”
He nodded, his pudgy fingers pressing along the area.
“Aye, right there,” she said at the shooting pain.
“And you have put snow upon it and kept it immobile on your journey?” he asked, turning to a black satchel he’d set on the small table next to the bed.
“As best I could. The swelling has receded.”
He nodded. “I will bind the ankle and leave my recipe for bone tea to be drunk twice a day for a fortnight, just in case.”
“Comfrey, nettle, rose hips, feverwart?” she asked.
“Yes,” Doctor Witherspoon said with a smile. “And you are quite educated in herbs. Breadalbane is lucky to have you.” The doctor wrapped a narrow strip of linen around her ankle and foot to give it support. “There. You can remove the binding when washing, but you should avoid putting pressure on the foot until it stops hurting.” He pointed to her neck where the slash from the thief’s knife had nearly healed. “What happened there?”
The Wicked Viscount Page 11