Lieutenants Graham and Langley were standing by the window, talking in low voices. It was clear that both had taken an inordinate amount of trouble with their appearance. Lieutenant Graham was a symphony in dress uniform and silver lace, whilst his colleague had at least brushed his hair and pressed his jacket. All this for Ellen! I wondered idly what it must be like to have so much power. Not that Ellen was the type of woman to manipulate a man. She was far too gentle and honest.
As we went in I saw both men focus on her as though they had never seen anything quite so pretty. Indeed they might not have done, for this morning she was dressed in sprigged yellow muslin—not in the first stare of fashion, perhaps, but fresh and bright—and with her blonde hair curling in ringlets about her face. As for me, I was in an old dress of hyacinth blue and merited not a first glance, never mind a second.
Lieutenant Graham came forward eagerly. ‘Ladies.’ He was still looking at Ellen. ‘We called to see if you had recovered from your ordeal last night.’ He took Ellen’s hand, bowing over it. ‘Indeed, you look radiant, if I may say so, Miss Balfour. It is good to see that your nerves have not been overset by your experience.’
Since Ellen had not suffered any ordeal the previous night, other than the worry that her father might be apprehended as a whisky smuggler, I thought this a bit much. However, I was not one to resent her the attention. Not much, anyway.
Ellen thanked Lieutenant Graham very prettily, I thought, and brought Langley, who had been brooding in the background, into the conversation. Neither gentleman thought to ask after my health, so I went and sat on the window seat and watched Ellen pour tea whilst she dealt with them. She had far more social graces than I had. Miss Sterling had evidently schooled her well in matters of etiquette whilst I was running wild at Applecross.
‘Are you stationed at Kinlochewe for long, Captain Langley?’ Ellen was asking.
Langley shook his head. ‘Just passing through on our way back to Ruthven Barracks, ma’am,’ he said.
‘But staying long enough to call on you again, if we may, ma’am,’ Graham added, winning a glare from his colleague.
‘I am surprised that the Army can spare you both from your duties for so long,’ Ellen said, with a warm smile.
‘Oh, we are here to hunt smugglers,’ Graham said, stretching his long legs and leaning back with his hands behind his head, in the kind of nonchalant gesture that I thought would probably break Aunt Madeline’s spindly chair. ‘So we have leave to come and go as we wish, ma’am.’
‘And have you had any success, sir?’ I asked politely.
Graham smiled at me as he passed me a teacup. I could tell what he was thinking—keep the plain companion happy, and then she will speak kindly of me to her beautiful cousin.
‘Alas, no, madam,’ he said. ‘For they are cunning and wily, and they have the connivance of the local populace.’
‘Shocking,’ I said.
‘Indeed, madam,’ Lieutenant Graham said. ‘I beg you not to distress yourself.’
‘I am sure,’ I said, with a glance at Ellen, ‘that if either my cousin or I knew any information likely to help you in your search we would disclose it at once.’
‘Of course,’ Ellen said, smiling with limpid innocence.
Both men looked suitably dazzled.
The door opened, and Mrs Grant appeared once more in the aperture. She had a smudge of flour on her cheek and a flustered expression on her face. I could tell she was unused to such frequent interruptions to her daily routine.
‘Oh madam,’ she said unhappily to Ellen, ‘there is another gentleman here now. It is Mr Sinclair! I don’t know what your papa will say to see so many visitors.’
Chapter Seven
In which I give Mr Sinclair a piece of my mind.
I was so startled to see Neil Sinclair that I almost overset my teacup. He strolled into the room with an assurance that immediately made both the lieutenants seem at a disadvantage. Lieutenant Graham looked like an overdressed popinjay next to Neil’s dark elegance, and Lieutenant Langley simply seemed gauche.
I know it is customary on these occasions for a young lady to be immediately assailed by the memory of her embrace with a gentleman, and to be so overcome by her emotions that she can scarcely look at him and certainly not speak to him. And it is true that I had spent a fair proportion of the time before I had fallen asleep the previous night thinking about Mr Sinclair and the way he had kissed me. I will not deny it. But now I was in no danger of swooning at his feet. On the contrary, I was ready to tell him exactly what I thought of him.
Neil bowed to the room in general. ‘Ladies…gentlemen…’ A nod to the redcoats before he turned back to Ellen. ‘I heard you had visitors, Ellen, and apologise for intruding, but as I was passing and can claim a cousin’s privilege—’
‘It is lovely to see you, Neil,’ Ellen said, tilting her head so that he could kiss her cheek. She looked at me thoughtfully.
‘You know my cousin Catriona, of course, and these gentlemen are Lieutenants Graham and Langley, from Ruthven. Gentlemen—my cousin Mr Neil Sinclair.’
Mr Sinclair smiled at me. ‘You are well, Miss Catriona?’
For a moment I thought he was going to have the audacity to claim a cousin’s privilege with me, and come across to kiss me. Something of this must have showed in my face, for I saw his smile deepen. He remained where he was.
‘I am very well, thank you, Mr Sinclair,’ I said starchily.
I knew that his claim to have been passing was all a pretence. I did not flatter myself that he had called to see me, either. No, I was sure that he had known the excise men were calling, and had deliberately walked in to discover how much they knew about the smuggling incident the night before. His eyes met mine with a dark gleam. He was daring me to say something, to give him away.
You go too far…
I saw the fleeting smile on his lips as he read my thoughts.
An interesting by-play now arose between Mr Sinclair and the two lieutenants. I sensed that both of them had taken Neil Sinclair in immediate dislike, and the reason for it was sitting only a few feet away. Where Ellen was concerned Graham and Langley were already possessive, and barely prepared to tolerate each other let alone an interloper. But Graham was also a strategist. Neil Sinclair, as a lieutenant commander in the Navy, was the senior officer. And even more important to Graham was the fact that Neil Sinclair was heir to Lord Strathconan, and therefore doubly influential. Such a man could not be ignored.
So when Langley burst out, ‘And who the devil might you be, sir?’ Graham kicked him sharply on the ankle.
‘Sir.’ He gave Neil a respectful bow, and Neil inclined his head in acknowledgement, a cold smile on his lips. I could tell that they disliked each other.
Ellen passed Neil a cup of tea. ‘Lieutenant Langley and Lieutenant Graham are here to catch the whisky smugglers, cousin,’ she said. ‘You may not have heard, but poor Catriona had her coach stopped last night, after you had parted with her at Sheildaig.’
Mr Sinclair had taken his tea and strolled over to the window, so that he was now standing beside me. His leg brushed my skirt and I moved ostentatiously away, along the seat. He looked down at me.
‘How vastly disturbing that must have been for you, Miss Catriona.’
‘Vastly,’ I said. ‘But I have no doubt that I shall survive.’
He smiled. ‘Perhaps you should have permitted me to escort you on to Glen Clair instead of rejecting my company?’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘You are all concern, sir,’ I said, ‘but that would have been most improper without Mrs Campbell’s chaperonage.’
‘Of course,’ he murmured. His gaze moved over my face and seemed to linger on my mouth for a moment. I knew that he was thinking about the kisses we had shared there in the wood, with the shadows falling and the scent of the pine needles as they were crushed beneath our bodies. ‘You are the soul of propriety,’ he added.
I shifted. ‘Besides,’ I said sweetly
, ‘I did not expect the Navy to be able to spare you for yet another day. How comes it, Mr Sinclair, that you are here today, once more so far from the sea?’
In truth I had remembered that Mr Sinclair had said he had been granted leave but I was happy to pretend that I had forgotten.
There was a smile in his eyes as he took my purposes and realised that I was going to make this very, very difficult for him.
‘I am running an errand for my admiral,’ he said easily. ‘He had despatches for my uncle, Lord Strathconan, so I offered to carry them.’
‘Carrying messages!’ I said. ‘Do they not have a servant for that?’
‘You are on your way to Glen Conan now, sir?’ This was Lieutenant Graham, interposing with respectful enquiry.
Neil turned courteously towards him. ‘I am. And yourself? How does your work progress, Lieutenant? Catching smugglers in these mountains is a devilish tricky business.’
‘We almost had them last night,’ Langley said eagerly. ‘We pursued them—’
‘But lost them in the high passes,’ Graham finished, smoothing his lace cuffs. ‘And, alas, we found no trace of the still.’
Probably because you were not looking, I thought.
Neil was all sympathy. ‘Very likely they signalled ahead to warn of your coming,’ he said comfortingly. ‘And it is hard to find the stills at the best of times, amongst all the nooks and crannies of these hills.’
‘You seem disturbingly well-informed on the ways of smugglers, sir,’ I said. ‘Do you know any of these desperate scoundrels in person?’
Neil laughed. ‘Who knows? They say that the parsons hereabouts hide the whisky in their pulpits, so widespread is the defiance of the law.’
‘You do not surprise me,’ I said. ‘I thought as much last night.’
He looked at me with the same challenge in his eyes that I had seen before.
Denounce me if you dare…
I was about to take it further, but then I caught sight of Ellen, looking piteously white and worried by now, and I did not have the heart to make her suffer further. I turned the subject to how beautiful the glen was looking in the summer sunshine.
‘I was thinking on much the same lines, Miss Catriona,’ Neil said, smooth as silk. ‘Perhaps you would take a stroll with me in the rose garden on such a beautiful morning? I think we have matters of business still to discuss.’
‘There is no point in asking me to show you the rose garden, Mr Sinclair,’ I said, barely civil, ‘when I have been here a mere day and do not even know where it is. You must allow me to be excused and apply yourself to my cousin, I think.’
Both Graham and Langley were positively bristling at the thought of Ellen showing Neil the rose garden, whilst Neil himself merely looked amused and slightly bored by their posturing.
‘It would be delightful if we were all to stroll down to the loch, would it not?’ Ellen said quickly, rising to her feet. Lieutenant Langley leapt forward to offer her his arm, but only succeeded in knocking over the little tea table. Graham took advantage of his confusion and sotto voce swearing to step forward and guide Ellen towards the door. When they had gone out, trailing a dejected Langley in their wake, Neil turned to me and offered his arm.
‘Shall we?’
‘Must we?’ I said. I sighed. ‘I suppose we must.’
‘Unless you would prefer to stay and talk with me here?’
‘I do not want to talk to you anywhere, Mr Sinclair,’ I snapped. ‘I would have thought that was obvious.’
‘I do not think,’ Neil murmured, ‘that a lady has ever been so reluctant to have my company the morning after I have held her in my arms. You are a salutary lesson, Miss Catriona.’
I glared at him and, ignoring the proffered arm, swept past him and out into the hall. The others were already outside. I could hear their steps crunching on the gravel, and Langley’s eager conversation and Graham’s more languid tones.
‘I hope,’ Neil said, ‘that those two will not come to blows over our cousin.’
‘Can you be surprised at their admiration?’ I asked. ‘Ellen is vastly pretty, and most agreeable, too.’
‘I suppose so,’ Neil said. ‘Though there are some men who prefer substance over style.’
‘Your uncle Lord Strathconan for one, so I hear,’ I said, ignoring the little voice inside me that whispered he was talking about me. I was not going to allow Mr Sinclair’s flattery to turn my head. ‘I hear that your aunt by marriage is an admirable woman.’
‘Did Ellen tell you that?’ Neil asked. His lips twisted in a sardonic smile. ‘Either she is all generosity, or she is a poor judge of character.’
‘Maybe she is both,’ I said. I was curious about Lady Strathconan now, but not quite ill bred enough to ask a direct question. Had Ellen been wrong in thinking the Earl had made a love match? Had she misjudged the admirable Miss Sterling? I glanced at Neil, but he looked abstracted, locked deep in thought.
We were following the others down an overgrown path towards the loch. I heard Neil sigh and glanced at him curiously.
‘It pains me that Glen Clair is so neglected,’ he said in answer to my unspoken question. ‘I love this place, and have done since I came here first as a boy. Your uncle has let it go to rack and ruin—’ He broke off.
‘Uncle Ebeneezer seems to drink away any profit he makes,’ I said. ‘A pity, for it could be a beautiful house if only it were cared for again. I would like—’ I, too, stopped. For what was the point in telling Neil that I already loved Glen Clair and wished I could fill its corridors with warmth and happiness and laughter? That was never going to happen whilst Uncle Ebeneezer ruled here.
We watched Ellen and her admirers as they reached the water’s edge, and then Neil drew me aside through a little rickety wooden gate into the orchard. It was cool beneath the trees.
‘The roses are in the walled garden to the west of the house,’ he said. ‘Should you ever require to know.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Should a gentleman ask me to show the roses to him in future, I will be sure to remember.’
Neil smiled. He rested a hand against the trunk of the nearest apple tree. ‘You seem out of charity with me today, Miss Catriona,’ he observed.
‘You are perceptive, sir.’ Through the lattice of the branches I could see Lieutenant Graham take out his handkerchief and solemnly dust the log on which Ellen and I had sat earlier before he permitted her to sit down. Neither he nor Langley seemed to have remembered that there had originally been two other people in the party. Neil and I might well have been on the moon for all they cared—though I saw Ellen cast a quick glance over her shoulder towards us, and gave her a little reassuring wave.
‘I suppose,’ Neil said, ‘that you are angry with me for kissing you last night.’
I looked at him. He did not look regretful. He was smiling slightly. In fact he looked as though he would do exactly the same thing again, given the slightest opportunity. It was time to depress his pretensions.
‘How like a man to think that,’ I said scathingly. ‘How like you!’ I swished away from him through the ankle-high grass beneath the trees. ‘I don’t care about the kiss,’ I said, not entirely truthfully. ‘At least no more than I would if any insolent fellow thought to steal a kiss from me.’ I turned to face him. ‘What I do care about is these games you play, Mr Sinclair—turning out as a whisky smuggler one night and then arriving in your guise as Naval officer the very next day.’
As soon as I started to speak my anger with him flared into so tight a ball in my chest that I was afraid I would not be able keep my voice down. I did not understand why I was so upset, but it was something to do with the fact that, despite what had happened between us, I liked him. I liked him very much, and I could not seem to help myself. And so in some complicated way I wanted him to be a better man, a man of integrity. Now, with the proof of his dishonour clear, I felt cheated—and far, far more disappointed in him than I should, than I had a right to be. What was i
t to me, after all, if Neil Sinclair chose to while away his time breaking the law? I had not trusted him from the start.
‘I do not understand you,’ I said. ‘Is it so tedious serving in the Navy that you must seek out other excitements—illegal ones, irresponsible ones? Do you want to be caught? What sort of a man are you, heir to the Laird of Strathconan, to take the King’s commission and flout his laws?’
After my first few words Neil stiffened and listened to me in silence, his eyes dark, narrowed and intent, never leaving my face. When I stopped, short of breath and mortified, he did not speak for a moment.
‘You do not understand,’ was all he said.
I stared at him, baffled. I had expected some kind of excuse at the least. Not even to bother to offer one seemed lazy in the extreme. It suggested that not only did he see nothing wrong in breaking the law, but also that he did not care what I thought either. That hurt me.
‘How do I not understand?’ I burst out. ‘Because I do not connive at your deceit like everyone else does?’
‘You drink the whisky,’ he said. ‘I wager you eat it in your marmalade. You know a dozen people and a dozen more who benefit by the smuggling trade. Of course you connive, in your own way, and it is hypocritical of you to deny it.’
That silenced me for a moment, because it was true. I thought of Uncle Ebeneezer, and of Ellen’s desperate desire to protect him, unworthy as he was of her loyalty. We were all of us culpable in one way or another. I shrugged, wrapping my arms about me for comfort.
‘That is so,’ I said. ‘I concede it. But that does not make what you do right.’ There were other words in my head, words that were more impassioned, words that were more of a betrayal of my feelings for him.
I wanted you to be better than the rest. I wanted you to be an honourable man…
‘You will not give me away.’ It was a statement, not a question, and his arrogance angered me.
‘What? To that man milliner down by the lake?’ I jerked my head in the direction of Lieutenant Graham. ‘Even if I did tell him about you he would not be able to catch you.’
Kidnapped: His Innocent Mistress Page 7