A week passed before Christel heard the sound again. A thump and a creak, as if the planked floor protested the tread of a heavy boot. This time Christel was sure she had not imagined the sound. She flung off the covers and rose, drawing on her wrapper as she eased her door open. She listened and heard another creak above her head.
As was her custom since the last time she had heard the sound, she kept a sconce lit in the hallway beside her room. She lifted the glass, grabbed the candle and quietly paced herself beneath the muffled sound above her until she reached the end of the hallway, where it dead-ended into a brick wall. The candle fluttered, but she could find no crack.
An old servant’s corridor must have serpentined through these old walls. Her breath suddenly caught. She blew out the candle.
Someone was on the other side of the wall, she realized, afraid to move lest the floor creak and give away her position. Footsteps continued past her and down a stairway. She had no idea about the layout of the inner hallway between the walls, but she did know that the kitchen was directly below this area of the house on the bottom floor. If the rooms above this floor had once belonged to the servants, it made sense that this corridor would take them directly below stairs.
Whirling around, she retraced her footsteps to the stairway. She had no sword or pistol in her possession. She imagined that, depending on the intruder, she could scream, but something about the cadence of the steps as they had walked past seemed familiar. Since Lord Carrick was not in residence, that left one other who would know the inner meanderings of this house.
She found Leighton coming out of the pantry carrying a wedge of cheese and bread in one arm and a bottle of wine in his hand, like some recalcitrant adolescent stealing food and drink after sneaking into the house after curfew. Surprise etched itself briefly on his handsome countenance. He was still wearing his cloak. Mud caked his boots.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
His mouth cracked into a smile. “Until your return to Scotland, I had resigned myself to utter boredom. Now everywhere I go, you seem to be there awaiting me.” His eyes slid the length of her in masculine appreciation. “And in your nightclothes, no less. Are you Blackthorn Castle’s new gatekeeper?”
Aware of the firelight behind her, Christel moved to the side of him. Still, she felt undressed as she clutched the neck of her nightdress. The hesitant movement raised his eyes to hers.
“Pity my brother is not here to see you,” he said.
Tucking the bottle of wine beneath his arm, he proceeded to walk past her toward the back wall. She followed on his heels. “Is stealing food and drink not stooping to new lows for you?”
“Big brother told me to stay away from Anna and so I am. But I will not stay away from Grandmamma. Sadly, I have arrived too late tonight and will have to make it up to her. But now I am off to sleep. I will be gone in the morning.”
“She knows you come here?”
“Aye, she is more tolerant of my faults than my dear brother.”
“Does her tolerance extend to your bedding your brother’s wife and getting her with child?”
Leighton stopped dead on the stone floor, his action so unexpected that she walked past him. His fingers wrapped around her arm, spinning her around. His silver eyes flashed. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me.”
“Oh, aye, my hearing is excellent. I just did not understand you.”
She dropped her gaze to the hand still latched onto her arm. “You are hurting me, Leighton.”
“Where did you hear that accusation? From Camden?”
“Does it matter? Tell me you did not bed Saundra? Ever?”
“Ever,” he said flatly. “I defy you to tell me who would say I did. I will ask you again. Was it my brother who accused me of such?”
Christel studied him. Leighton was a rake, a bounder, and most likely a liar, but no one could fake the pain she’d briefly glimpsed in his eyes—raw, honest emotion.
“I did not hear the accusation from Lord Carrick,” she finally said. “But he must believe it of you. Why else would he hate you?”
“I can name a dozen reasons, starting when I was five when he took a strapping for me for a transgression he did not commit. But to my credit, I did try to correct the matter. Our good papa only then took the strap to my backside, thus convincing me that great pain comes from taking responsibility. ’Tis better to lie. My brother, on the other hand, prefers pain.”
“You are despicable.”
“Aye, I am,” he said readily. “I am a thief, a pirate, a libertine and plagued by a general lack of morals. I dislike our government to the point of subversion. I am not averse to stealing what my brother thinks belongs to him as long as he is not wed to it. Sleeping with my brother’s wife is low, even for someone like me.”
He was being honest with her. Why admit to treason and lie about this? “Are you telling me that you and Saundra never . . . ?”
“If she was guilty of adultery, ’twas not with me, Christel. She and I . . . were always only friends.”
“Then why would people suspect such a thing?”
“Because of who I am. Because when Saundra needed a shoulder to cry upon, I was there. She cried a lot. Camden was . . . is a bastard.”
“You are as wrongheaded about him as he is about you.”
“Am I?” His eyes narrowed. “They argued fiercely that last night. Three people saw him go up into that tower just before she jumped. By the time the rest of us reached the tower, ’twas too late.”
“He did not push her or cause her to jump.”
Leighton clenched his jaw, looked away, then brought his fierce gaze back around to her. “Neither did he try to save her.”
“You are a fool.”
“He wanted a divorce. He was taking Anna from her. The proud Carrick name would better stand the scandal of her death than the scandal of adulterous affairs and divorce.”
Christel whirled on her heel, but he grabbed her arm, and this time his touch was not so gentle. “Who told you I fathered her child?”
“If you touch me again, I will lay you flat on the floor, Leighton. And I will not be kind about it.”
He lowered his arm and adjusted his load. “You do not have many friends, Christel. I now see why. You are about as soft and gentle as a quill-stuffed bed.” Leaning nearer until they were nearly nose to nose, he said, “I know things about you, too, Madam Claremont. And I do not play nice any more than Camden does when angry.”
“Do not threaten me. You are not going to do anything to me. Anyone who has spent the past year keeping Seastone Cottage afloat because of your loyalty to my uncle is not going to suddenly murder his niece.”
“You put too much faith in people, Christel. You always did.”
Leighton attempted to leave, but Christel stepped in front of him. “Did Saundra ever tell you that she was trying to leave Scotland with Anna? How could she have supported herself on her own?”
“Are you asking if I was helping her? No, I was not. Nor did she ever ask for my help, financially or otherwise.”
“Surely someone must have known her heart.”
His mouth crooked. “You were the only one she ever truly trusted, Christel. You would know more about her secrets than I.”
He stepped past her and continued his way across the kitchen. “Leighton . . .” She stopped him as he popped open a hidden panel door near a breakfront filled with white and gold porcelain plates.
“Write Anna a letter. Tell her you miss her and that you are visiting France or Italy or Africa. I do not care where, as long as you make it convincing. You can slide it beneath my door or leave it on the desk in the library. Please,” she added in afterthought. “If you do this . . . I will not tell anyone that you are visiting here.”
“Blackmail, Christel, me gel?”
“I would rather think you would write the letter because you love your niece, my lord Leighton.”
Chapter 12
Potholes rutting the narrow drive made Camden’s approach to Blackthorn Castle excruciatingly slow.
Leaning nearer to the window, he looked toward the distant meadow as the coach passed beneath the imposing stone watchtower on the drive that opened into the parkland. The morning was fresh and pure. Yellow gorse hugged the ground, scenting the air with a honeyed coconut aroma. In the distance, sunlight turned the front of Blackthorn Castle golden.
When he’d left here almost seven weeks ago, the trees had still been brown, the roads frozen. Only that morning, he had docked the Anna in Prestwick. In another week, the ship would be sailing without him, her hold filled with goods.
“You have not taken your eyes from the window for the past hour,” Sir Jacob remarked. He sat in the seat opposite Camden.
Jacob’s coach had been waiting in Prestwick that morning, and Jacob had offered to deliver Camden to Blackthorn Castle, where they would conclude their business. “One would think you are actually glad to be returning home,” Jacob added with amusement.
It wasn’t the sight of the estate that lent impetus to his impatience, Camden realized. The moment the coach stopped and the step lowered, he opened the door and climbed out. None of his footmen or groomsmen greeted the coach upon its arrival. As he approached the stone portico, the door opened and the staid butler appeared, red-faced and breathless. “My lord!” he said as Camden walked past him into the house. “We did not receive a message that you were arriving.”
Making a perfunctory comment, Camden removed his tricorn and gloves, and peered up the winding staircase. “Where is everyone?”
“Most of the servants are at the old gardener’s cottage today.”
“Indeed. And why would they be at the gardener’s cottage?”
“Oh, ’tis no longer the gardener’s cottage, my lord. Miss Douglas and Doctor White have renovated it and ’tis now the new surgery.”
Camden’s hands paused over his gloves. “Miss Douglas?”
“Aye, my lord. Blackthorn Castle has been without a physician since the last one was lost in the blizzard of eighty and fell over the—”
“Smolich.”
“Aye, my lord. Miss Douglas thought that Doctor White should be available to the servants and tenants’ families. The dowager agreed, and they found the old gardener’s cottage unused.”
“Are my grandmother and daughter upstairs?”
“Oh, nay, my lord. They are also at the cottage.”
Camden held out his hand to retrieve the cloak Smolich had just taken. “Is there anyone not at the cottage besides you?”
“The cook, my lord. Supper is at eight.” Smolich’s gaze settled on Sir Jacob. “Will we be having guests overnight?”
“Aye, Smolich. See that he is settled.”
Camden’s first glimpse of the old stone cottage stopped him. He vaguely remembered that the place had gone neglected for years, its thatch roof one with the brambles that had overgrown this section of the estate. Not so any longer.
A slew of people worked on what used to be a yard overgrown with prickly gorse. Furniture sat outside in the sun while the floors were being varnished, the roof and windows replaced, and the chimney flues cleaned.
Wearing a double-caped military cloak, Camden was hard to miss, and people stopped working when they saw him. One of the men oiling the door hinge spotted him. “My lord!”
Snow melt had made the ground wet. Camden was careful to remain on the flagstones, but his shoes were no longer spit-and-shine black by the time he crossed the yard. “Are my grandmother and daughter inside?”
“The dowager has gone to the herbal with Doctor White. Lady Anna is upstairs with Miss Douglas.”
Stepping past him, Camden said over his shoulder, “Send word to the dowager that I am home.”
The man dropped the rag in his hand. “Aye, my lord. At once.”
Pausing in the doorway, Camden looked around. A new coat of whitewash had already dried on the walls. The room held a pungent, though not unpleasant, scent of varnish and beeswax.
As he walked inside, Christel suddenly came into view on the landing above him. She stood on a spindle back chair before the tall window, her arms outstretched, struggling to hang a length of drapery. A blue kerchief wrapped her hair. An apron covered the front of her dress but did little to hide a shapely backside and two perfectly formed ankles. He stood transfixed, his head brushing the beam that ran the length of the ceiling.
With muted anticipation and without taking his eyes from her, he climbed the stairs, and he wondered in the next thundering beat of his heart if she had thought about him as much as he had thought about her. The stair creaked beneath his step. She looked over her shoulder, seeing him at the same time that he reached the second-floor landing, and her smile was so powerful that it was like a physical force against him.
“My lord . . .” The chair wobbled. “You have returned!”
He caught the back of the chair and steadied her with a hand on her waist. “ ’Twould do me no good if you broke your neck because of it.”
He possessed a profound desire to kiss her. Picking a cobweb off her bodice, he lowered his gaze to her mouth. “Only you could look carnal covered in dirt and grime.”
“What are you doing here?” she whispered. “Your staff received no word of your arrival.”
“I believe I live somewhere on this estate, though I cannot be sure this is the same place I left in January.”
And there was nothing civil inside him as his gaze went over her face, her breasts, the curve of her waist, traveling lower. He had no need to stretch his memory to recall the promise of what lay hidden beneath her clothes.
His arm was already behind her back, dragging her off the chair and full against him. He surveyed her with a slow smile, an action as indicative of his current unreserved mood as it was of something else he could not define.
She might have glimpsed the maelstrom of emotions that broke within him, but he also bore witness to hers. Her sigh touched his ears. “I have missed you,” she said as her feet finally touched the floor.
“Papa!” Anna’s voice came from the hallway behind Christel, startling him to step away and turn.
Anna came running toward him, the green ribbon in her hair trailing after her. Dirt smudged her nose and apron. With his leg, he could not lean down on his knee, but it didn’t matter to his daughter as she flung her arms around his waist.
“Oh, Papa! I am ever so happy you are back.”
He laughed, and because it was already too late to save his clothes, he lifted her in his arms. His daughter smelled of grown-up things like sandalwood and talcum, as if she’d played with Christel’s personal effects. “Your words are music to my ears, pup.” His eyes drifted upward, and from over his daughter’s head, his gaze touched Christel’s. “I have missed you, too.”
“How is it you could allow the niece of a known smuggler and blockade runner to take on the job as Lady Anna’s governess?” Sir Jacob asked from the doorway behind Camden. He had already changed for supper.
Camden stood in his dressing room, his hair still damp from a bath. With a word, Camden released his valet and finished tying his own cravat. “We have already discussed Miss Douglas, Jacob,” he said, an edge to his tone.
“Aye, but the last time she was not Lady Anna’s governess.”
“No offense, Jacob . . .” Camden slapped his friend on the shoulder as he snagged his dinner frock from a plump upholstered chair near the window. “You are thinking like an officer of the Crown,” he said, sliding his arms into the sleeves. “Always suspicious.”
“Does she know that you are the one who paid the taxes and the note on Seastone Cottage?”
Camden yanked the cuff of his shirt from beneath the coat. “I would like to know how you know that.”
“Then your solicitor neglected to inform you that I own the bank that held the mortgage on Seastone Cottage. I am apprised of all business of import.”
Camden walked to the d
oor and edged it shut. Out of courtesy for their long-standing friendship, he tempered his agitation as he faced the only man who had never turned his back on him. “Then you must have known that bank note was due soon. If I were not such a trusting friend, I would believe the only person inconvenienced by her presence is you?”
“Bloody hell, Carrick,” Jacob snapped, his temperament equally volatile. “Why do you trust her? She is rumored to have been wed to one of the most notorious spies in the colonies during the war. She is alleged to have been one herself and is suspect in the deaths of three of our men in Virginia.”
Camden tightened his jaw. He knew the story. Lieutenant Ross had related it to him in a more sympathetic version, considering the three had murdered her husband in cold blood. “Only three men? Why not make her responsible for the loss of the war as well?” He hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. For whatever the matter was between him and Jacob—and Camden suspected it had much to do with Jacob’s desire that Camden wed his daughter—they were in bed financially. Camden needed Jacob’s political and monetary support to bring to fruition his plans for Blackthorn. It was one of the reasons he had gone to Glasgow. Why he had remained an extra week.
He also knew that Jacob had always been a devout loyalist, while Camden had already begun to see beyond the symptomatic blindness that had come with his own oath to the Crown. He was by no means a Whig, but neither was he blindly loyal to any man’s cause, not any longer.
“Whatever happened, the war is over,” Camden said. “Most certainly, ’tis finished for me. I have given all but my life and my daughter to Crown and country. You will afford me my indulgence when it comes to the feminine company I keep.”
This seemed to pacify the worst of Jacob’s concerns. “If our positions were reversed, Carrick, as a friend, would you not ask me these questions concerning your new governess?”
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