There was a copper taste of fear in his mouth that mingled with smoke. He would not have even been here tonight if he had not arrived home earlier than planned from Prestwick and found her gone. He hoped to God that whatever had started the fire had been a candle left burning or a spark from the hearth. He didn’t know why she’d not been in bed when the fire had begun, but by whatever providence, she hadn’t been.
He held her tightly and her sobs weakened. The sound of approaching horses came to him above the crash of waves on the beach. He had left his pistol in the saddlebag on his horse. He had no weapon. But the pace of the horses did not imply someone who was traveling in stealth.
A rider came out of the salt sea mist. It was Leighton. He held the reins of the two horses trailing behind him, heads down. He stopped a few feet away. “I saw the fire,” he said as if it had only been yesterday that he had left Blackthorn Castle.
“Which direction did you come from?”
“South. No one came that way from this direction.”
Christel had not stirred, and Camden realized she was asleep.
“I have to get her back to Blackthorn Castle,” he said.
But his leg would not bear her weight if he tried to stand with her in his arms.
Leighton dismounted. For a moment, they faced each other, then Camden let him take Christel from his arms. Camden stepped into the stirrup and settled in the saddle. Leighton handed her up.
“I will remain here and see who might come,” Leighton said. “See if anything is salvageable come daylight.”
She awoke to find herself in a clean, white nightdress. The sleeves encompassed her arms in petal-like softness. Sitting up in bed, she shoved the hair out of her face and glanced around. A great weariness weighed down her limbs, and she lay back in the pillows. She felt as if she had fallen off a cliff and bounced against every rock on the way down. A whisper of movement turned her head.
“Grams,” she rasped.
The mattress dipped. Grams fanned her fingers through Christel’s tangled hair. “How do you feel, dear?”
A frown served as a reply before Christel’s gaze moved searchingly around the room. She lay in a large tester bed. The curtains were drawn around her except where Grams had stood in front of the richly draped window framed by the soft morning light. Christel placed a hand on her brow. The light hurt her eyes.
“Where is Lord Carrick?” she asked.
“He stayed with you until I arrived this morning. He returned to the cottage. He did not want to awaken you.”
“He should have. I am not injured.”
The strength of Grams’s gaze held her immobile. “Ye will remain in bed. You have had a terrible upset. Doctor White gave you something to sleep.”
Christel’s strength ebbed as quickly as it had flowed. She found she did not want to get out of bed. Indeed, she wanted to bury herself in the pillows. She felt as if someone had died and had ripped a hole in her heart all over again. The pain was almost unbearable.
Christel curled closer to Grams’s warmth, the familiar scent of citron, and wept. “ ’Tis gone, Grams.”
“I know, dear.”
Had she left a candle burning? Unlikely. If she had, it would have burned down to a nub hours before she’d arrived home last night.
It was just a cottage, she told herself.
But it was not just a cottage. Seastone was her home. Her sanctuary. Papa’s gift to her mother. The destruction of something sacred. She had nothing left of her parents.
When she awakened again, the sun was lower in the sky, and she found Anna spooned next to her on one side.
Camden was lying atop the covers next to her on the other side, her back to his chest. He still wore his cloak, and it felt cool, as if he had just come from outside and lain down. He raised his hand and smoothed the hair from her cheek with infinite tenderness, and she turned against his shoulder. Fully dressed as he was, he did nothing more than hold her. It was everything for now.
Three days later, Camden, Christel and the sheriff went to what remained of Seastone Cottage. “Don’t see what could o’ caused the fire, my lord,” the sheriff said, mounting his horse as he prepared to leave. “Candle, maybe. A fire still burning in the hearth. Seen many a fire caused by carelessness—”
“Like Ferguson’s cottage?”
“You think the fire could have been deliberately set? Why?”
“I do not discount the possibility.”
Earlier, Camden had watched as Christel had walked through the soot-covered debris. All that was left of Seastone Cottage was the tall chimney stack thrusting up among the blackened beams and charred rubble.
But without witnesses or proof, nothing more could be done, so the sheriff rode away, leaving Camden with the hound. Dog had tagged along with Camden this morning, but the object of the hound’s loyal heart stood on the hill staring out at the sea. He could see the resolute set of her shoulders, traces of defiance in her expression, as if to say she was finished mourning. He noticed that about her. Christel did not just turn away from pain; she ran with heart and soul tucked deep inside an armored breast plate and then sometimes vanished across an ocean.
He would remain to sift through the debris and then send someone back to retrieve the cow and chickens still alive in the barn. He would probably be here the rest of the morning.
Christel turned at his approach, and the wind caught her dress. She wore no cloak. The front of her blue woolen serge clung to the high curves of her breasts, tight at her small waist. Raw, hot sensations were like a potent fuel rushing through his veins.
“Are you trying to catch your death?” He unlatched his heavy woolen caped cloak and laid it over her shoulders, drawing her to him. “It’s too chilly for you out here.”
She seemed diminutive beneath its bulky weight. Where the cloak went just below his knee, it dragged the ground with her.
“I want to thank you for coming with me to the cottage,” she said.
She rose onto the balls of her feet and pressed her lips to his cheek. It was such a spontaneous gesture that when she drew back, he felt suddenly dizzy, the way he used to feel when he climbed the main mast of his ship and looked out across an endless blue sea and saw only water and sky.
The way he had felt the night he had gone to the surgery—the night Blue had been there and Camden had seen her with the little Ferguson boy and girl on her lap, comforting them with a lullaby, and he’d felt raw with a sudden sharp stab of longing, the way he had when she had held Anna.
She had not known that he’d been there in the darkness and that he had watched her through the windows, knowing as he’d done so that he could believe in something bigger than himself with her so near.
Maybe he didn’t give a damn what anyone saw.
He bent his head and kissed her, pulling her into his arms, holding her pressed against him with his hand to the small of her back. She accepted the hot suck of his mouth. Then slowly he pulled away and she accepted his fingertips smoothing the hair from her face.
“I wish to walk for a while,” she said. “If you do not mind.”
His thumb traced her lower lip. Wind whipped his hair and caught the sleeves of his shirt. “I expected you might,” he said. “Stay on the beach.”
She was too distracted to note the order and comment. But as long as she remained on the beach, he could see her up until she reached the crumbling basaltic cliffs.
Christel’s hound remained sitting beside him, its tail thumping against the sand. Camden squatted on his haunches and offered his hand for a friendly sniff. “You are about to become a permanent resident at Blackthorn, boy.”
The dog rolled over and gave Camden his belly. He scratched the hound’s pale pink tummy, his black-gloved hands stark against the hound’s skin. Something in Dog’s guarded brown eyes reminded him of Christel’s eyes. Not their color, for Christel’s were a Caribbean blue, but they both held the same cautious scrutiny of the world.
Then he released t
he dog and, bracing one elbow on his knee, watched the hound chase Christel down the beach.
The current path of Camden’s life left little room for ruminations. Yet here he was, hunched on the ground, watching the spotted hound flit about Christel, listening to the sea and the wind and wanting to do all in his power to protect her.
He was about to impale himself on the staff of shire politics, but he realized now that getting more involved than he already was had been as inevitable as the sunrise, from the very beginning.
She had a way of making him look deeper into himself and not only asking questions but also seeking the right answers. Nothing as complex as the meaning of life, which he had always left to the clerical philosophers and dreamers of the day, but complicated all the same.
It was time he and Leighton sat down and had a talk.
Chapter 17
St. Abigal’s vicarage lay fifty yards behind the old stone kirk. Tianna brought Christel to the door and knocked.
Surrounded by a trimmed box hedge, the house was an old stone two-story dwelling with sash windows on the second floor and a quaint box bay window overlooking the drive and a small thatch ice house. Smoke snaked out of the chimney, and the warm scent of almond pastries lingered in the air.
Carrying a wicker basket large enough to fit Dog, Christel’s sister looked every bit like the fabled Red Riding Hood on her way to Grandmother’s house, all the way down to the rust-red redingote she wore. Tia had come out of the woods earlier as Christel had been leaving the kirk. “I was not sure you would be here,” Tianna had said when they’d met each other on the path. “Lord Carrick came to Rosecliffe tonight looking for you.”
Christel was unused to having to account for her whereabouts to anyone, and it both startled and annoyed her that he had gone all the way to Rosecliffe looking for her. But strangely, it wasn’t on her account but his that she worried. “Was he all right?”
“I sent him off to Dunure.”
Dunure was a known smuggler’s nest! “Truly, Tianna. Do you want to see him injured or killed?”
Tianna laughed and grasped Christel’s arm, leading her up the path to the vicarage. “If Leighton is there, he will not let anything much happen to his lordship, though I would not worry. Lord Carrick can take care of himself. Besides, Leighton knows that you have been spending time here. Their ride back will give them a chance to commune.”
The door suddenly swung open and a little girl and boy flung themselves against Tianna. The girl spoke in French, telling Tia how glad she was to see her and that they had almond pastries awaiting them. “Very nicely spoken,” Tia said.
The girl curtseyed and primly recited, “Merci beaucoup, Mademoiselle Etherton.” Her wide-eyed attention turned to Christel as Tia introduced her as her sister. The child leaned up and whispered something in Tianna’s ear.
Tianna’s eyes smiled into Christel’s. “She thinks you have the most beautiful hair.”
“Thank you.”
“I come once a week to teach them French,” Tia said. “But today”—she kissed the top of the child’s head—“I have come to eat pastries.”
“You are late, Miss Etherton,” a gruff voice boomed from the doorway.
Wearing a woolen priest’s robe, a silver-haired man wheeled on a chair into the room. His bushy, gray-streaked brows arched as he looked at Christel. “This must be Miss Douglas. I have heard much about you.” He held out his hand for her to take. His palm wrapped around her fingers. “Believe me when I say I am sorry for the destruction of your cottage.”
Her throat tight, Christel nodded her gratitude for the words.
Tia warmly touched the man’s shoulder. “Christel, meet Colonel Reverend Nunn. He and his wife tend to the business of the kirk. That includes making the best almond pastries in all Ayrshire. How else could he get me here as often as he does?”
The reverend laid his hand over Tianna’s with fatherly affection. “She comes three days a week to make sure I work these old legs.”
“He fought with the Highlanders in North Carolina,” Tia said.
“Even reverends are not given divine protection from mortars. I grew up here,” he said. “A year and a half ago, I replaced the former rector after his lordship, for a better term, broke with canon law and lost support of the religious council. He was excommunicated.”
“Because he demanded that Saundra be buried on consecrated ground.”
“His lordship will not even follow God’s law if he thinks ’tis wrong.” Reverend Nunn cleared his throat. “Miss Etherton said that you are Lady Anna’s governess.”
“Yes,” Christel said without preamble, looking past the reverend to see his wife and four towheaded children, ranging in age from four to ten, standing at their mother’s side. “Come all of you,” his wife said. “Dessert is ready.”
Screaming children scattered into the adjoining room.
“I was about to begin my coffee without you,” the reverend told Tia.
Pushing the wheeled chair into the next room, where a stove emanated warmth, Tia smiled at Christel. “I indulge him because his wife pays me in delectable pastries,” she said.
“Do not let her fool you. She comes every Monday and Thursday evening and lets an old man win at chess—”
“Don’t believe it. I cannot play.”
The children had vanished from the room, leaving only the three of them at the table. Tia poured coffee into porcelain cups, their flower motifs faded with age, and sat next to Christel.
Reverend Nunn offered her a cigarette from a green tin box, then winked at her. “Have you ever smoked, lass?” His eyes twinkled.
Smoking was one of the first vices she’d indulged upon in her life after she’d snuck pipe tobacco from Papa’s stash in his drawer. She wrinkled her nose. “I find tobacco to be positively revolting.”
He chuckled, and the conversation turned to the weather and the planting that had begun on time this year. “ ’Tis only unfortunate that he and his brother cannot work together, since they are both on the same side when it comes to the welfare of Blackthorn Castle and its tenants. Still, this is the first year Carrick has remained through spring planting. The dowager is beside herself and in high enough spirits she has filled my donation plate for the last two weeks.”
Christel wrapped her palms around the coffee cup and raised it to her lips, looking away from the scrutiny of his gaze. She was living at Blackthorn Castle now, practically sleeping in his room. When she was with him, the rest of the world ceased to be.
They sat at the table quietly eating almond pastries, drinking coffee, and talking. Christel watched as Tia set out tins of herbs with instructions on their use, made a visit to the children, and took a list of families that might be in need of a doctor or supplies.
“Tia is our lifeline,” Reverend Nunn said after an hour, when Tia stood to leave.
“Thank you, Reverend.” Tia held out her hand and he took it. “Please give my gratitude to Moira and thank her for dessert.”
Christel bid him good-bye as well, and she and Tia left the vicarage. A soft, misting rain began to fall. Christel and Tia both pulled their hoods higher to cover their heads.
“I thought you could use something positive in your life,” Tia said when they reached the yard that opened into the cemetery.
Christel had never seen her sister in this light, and it gave her a new perspective on her older half sibling. “Thank you, Tianna.”
“These were the people you were helping that night in the stable, and we wanted you to know that none of us had anything to do with what happened to Seastone Cottage.”
Seeking warmth, Christel tucked her shoulders deeper into her cloak. She suspected the cottage had been torched in retaliation for her helping Blue and Heather.
Christel stopped. She faced her sister. “Did any of your people have anything to do with possessing stolen rifles and attempting to frame Lord Carrick on charges of smuggling?”
Tia’s mouth tightened. “Leight
on told us what happened on the Anna. I assure you, we had naught to do with it. Those rifles are kept at the armory in Ayr. Anyone in power has access to them. The ones in the Fergusons’ hidey-hole came from a contact three years ago while Leighton was still running guns with your uncle during the war.”
“What about the sinking of the merchant ship outside Troon three years ago and the disappearance of the gold?”
Tia lowered her head. “That was a terrible, terrible incident,” she said quietly.
“Were you and Leighton involved?”
“None of our people are responsible for the deaths of those men. Four of them were Scotsmen from Prestwick. The officer in charge had been Leighton’s contact at the armory. They were friends.”
“And what of Saundra?” Christel found herself asking. “Whose side was she on during all of this?”
“Lord, I do not know. She changed. Something happened.”
“Do you believe she killed herself?”
Tia looked up at the sky and into the fine mist, as if it could cleanse her. “Perhaps some things are better left alone for all our sakes, Chrissie.”
The use of her old childhood nickname caught Christel’s breath, and it was she who looked away. “What about for Anna’s sake?”
“I will not stop you from hunting the truth,” Tia said. “All I can say is that I am sorry you became involved. I would rather it have been Rosecliffe burned than Seastone Cottage. You did not deserve it.”
“I want to be involved,” Christel said. “I want to find the people responsible . . . for everything. Whoever is behind this burned my cottage and is a threat to Lord Carrick. You tell Leighton I will be involved in finding the truth.”
The sound of horses came from beyond the trees, distant at first, then louder as the horses approached the kirk. Tia and Christel smiled as they saw Camden and Leighton rein in. The horses stomped and puffed steam into the cold chill of the night, and they looked to have been ridden hard.
Christel felt the silliest thump of her heart, as if she’d been an adolescent schoolgirl all over again, and not four years away from the ripe spinsterish age of thirty. Still, she could not help her smile as Camden nudged his heels and sent the horse to where she stood, all flushed and glittering inside like a warm star awash in the night.
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