Ellen filled my teacup and passed it to me, and I stirred it fiercely, round and round, even though I had never taken sugar. The liquid splashed into the saucer, and from there on to the beautiful Indian rug.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, as Ellen looked up in astonishment to see me so discomposed. ‘It is simply that I feel so wretched and—’ I stopped.
How to tell Ellen, so pink and excited and full of love for Robert Langley, that Neil did not care enough for me even to write? There was no other way than to spit it out baldly, and as I had never been one for prevarication I plunged straight in.
‘Neil only married me out of duty,’ I said. ‘Oh, it is true that he desired me once, but that is scarcely a sound basis for marriage, and now that we are wed he has not been to see me in months! He left on the morning after our wedding and I have had no word from him since.’ I glanced at her shocked face and carried straight on. ‘Oh, Ellen, I love him so much! I loved him even when I was at Glen Clair—though I tried to dislike him when I thought he was a whisky smuggler and a criminal—and then when he saved my life in the shipwreck…’ I ran out of breath, took a gulp of air and launched in again. ‘But now I cannot bear to love him and know that he does not feel the same way about me! He would never have married me if he had had a free choice, and his relatives hate me and think me quite inappropriate to be the next Countess of Strathconan, and it is all a terrible disaster!’
I stopped abruptly. Ellen’s eyes were as huge as saucers now, and she looked absolutely fascinated.
‘Good gracious,’ she said mildly. A little frown wrinkled the skin between her brows. ‘But are you sure that Neil does not love you, Catriona? Men are not always very proficient in speaking of their feelings. They seem to find it difficult and even embarrassing. Men can be very strange.’
This was true, of course, and Ellen had evidently learned this already in her marriage, just as I had. We looked at one another and sighed again in unison.
‘We both know,’ I said, ‘that Lord Strathconan expected his heir to make a great match.’
‘To his cousin, Miss Anne Methven, so I hear,’ Ellen said, nodding.
This was news to me, but when I thought about it I realised that it made perfect dynastic sense. No wonder Lady Methven detested me. Not only was I no heiress, and barely even a lady in her eyes, I had also cut out her daughter from her predestined role as Countess of Strathconan.
‘But only think,’ Ellen continued, ‘that Neil has known Anne Methven all their lives. If he had wanted to marry her he would have done so long since.’
There was some logic in that. ‘Very well,’ I agreed reluctantly. ‘Perhaps he did not wish to marry Anne. But that is the point, Ellen! Neil did not wish to marry Anne, and he did not wish to marry me—he did not wish to marry anyone. I am certain that that is why he stays away from me. Because he has realised that he does not wish to be married to me but does not have the heart to hurt me.’
‘So,’ Ellen said, fixing me with her bright gaze, ‘what are you going to do about it?’
Chapter Eighteen
In which Lady Strathconan shows her true colours and Neil makes an unexpected entrance.
Ellen was right, of course. I was not the sort of person to sit around complaining of my fate. I had waited for almost two long, solitary months with not a word from Neil, and now it was time to take some action. By the time that the carriage had rolled into the courtyard of the house in Charlotte Square I was resolved to take the mail coach for Lochinver and confront Neil there. I knew that everyone would throw up their hands in horror at my unmaidenly conduct in running off to the North West of Scotland alone on public transport, through snowdrifts and winter roads, but now that I was resolved on action I found I did not care a jot for their censure. For too long I had sat waiting and brooding, and it was not my way. If Neil’s silence meant that he no longer wished to be married to me then I would force him to tell me that to my face.
Fine sentiments, perhaps, but deep down I was afraid. I did not want to see Neil’s indifference to me or, worse, hear his words of repudiation. I remembered the expression on his face when he had ridden away from Applecross on the day after our wedding.
He had been glad.
I had seen it. And though I had tried to believe at the time that it was no more than the pleasure any man would take to be involved once more in the thick of the action, I knew I deceived myself. Neil had wanted to go away. There had not been enough at Applecross to make him want to stay.
I allowed the thought fully into my heart for the first time and it hurt. It hurt a lot. It was like the high spring tide racing across the flat sands at Applecross and drowning everything in its path. I felt bruised and lonely and foolish. I remembered overhearing Johnny Methven challenging Neil on his intention to marry me, and Neil telling him tersely that he knew what he was doing. Of course he had known—he had known that as a gentleman he had had to do the honourable thing.
Suddenly my pride that a Balfour was good enough to marry a Sinclair seemed childish and rather sad. I was out of my depth. I had loved Neil for his daring and his integrity and his courage, and for saving my life, and for a hundred and one other reasons that had blossomed during our time together on Taransay. And I loved him still, despite the fact that he had left me with no word for two long months. And though my pride had been childish my love for him was mature, and in its very maturity it was painful. I had ventured into marriage buoyed up by nothing more than a conviction that I was Neil’s equal in every way, but of course I was not. We were unequal because I loved him and he did not love me. He had liked me, he had admired me, he had desired me, but he had not loved me, and perhaps he had now found that having a wife simply did not suit him. Perhaps he thought it easier to ignore me. Out of sight, out of mind.
Well, I was not the wife to sit by quietly and accept that fate.
I arrived back in Charlotte Square to be informed by Ramsay, the butler, that their ladyships were in the turquoise drawing room. There was no letter from Neil awaiting me on the silver tray. My spirits plummeted lower. I had absolutely no desire to join their ladyships and be the subject of Lady Strathconan’s sympathy and Lady Methven’s gimlet-eyed disapproval, but I supposed that I ought in courtesy to inform them that I had returned, before we all went to our rooms to prepare for whatever tedious entertainment the evening had to offer.
Ramsay had retreated discreetly behind the green baize door, and the house was quiet. There was no sound but for the chink of china in the drawing room, where Lady Methven and Lady Strathconan were obviously finishing tea. I realised that Ramsay had, in a moment of inexcusable carelessness, left the drawing room door ajar. I crossed the hall and raised my hand to push open the door. And then I heard Lady Methven’s clear cut tones.
‘This is a disaster, Emily! Why did Sinclair have to come back now, when our plans are only half formed? Now we will never be rid of that appalling chit!’
‘Oh, yes, we will,’ Lady Strathconan said, and I barely recognised her voice, for it was so hard and cold, and there was something genuinely terrifying in it that had fear edging down my spine. ‘We will be rid of her, Margaret, and it will be this very night.’
They say that eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves, and certainly I had no one other than myself to blame for all that I heard after that, for I pressed my ear shamelessly to the door and listened for all that I was worth.
‘Neither of them suspects anything, and the ground is already prepared,’ Lady Strathconan was saying. ‘It is merely a matter of bringing our plan forward.’ She sounded excited, and I felt a curious tumbling, sick feeling inside as I realised that the woman I had started to think of as my friend was nothing of the sort. ‘She believes that Sinclair does not care and has not written for months,’ Lady Strathconan continued. ‘He believes that she has not replied to any of his letters and has had her head turned by Tolly Gulliver.’
‘It was clever of you to imply that she was out with Gulliver this aft
ernoon,’ Lady Methven conceded. Malicious amusement warmed her voice. ‘Did you see Sinclair’s face, Emily? To have come dashing back from the wilds of the Highlands in order to see his wife, only to hear she is in the arms of another man! No wonder he hurried off without waiting! He will be in a tremendous bad mood by the time we all arrive at the ball tonight.’
‘Which is precisely how we want him to feel,’ Lady Strathconan said with satisfaction. ‘Since it will make him all the more inclined to believe in Catriona’s infidelity.’
‘There will not be much question of that when Sinclair hears of her indisposition tonight and hurries back, all concern, only to find Gulliver in her bed,’ Lady Methven said.
I dug my nails into the palms of my hands very, very hard, to prevent myself from bursting into the room and confronting the pair of them. My mind was stumbling over itself in an attempt to make sense of all I had heard.
So Neil had returned from Lochinver that very day and his aunts had turned him away, telling him I was out indulging in a dalliance with Tolly Gulliver rather than taking tea with my cousin Ellen. And now they planned to trap me in some compromising situation with Gulliver in order to persuade Neil that I was false. What a pair of old witches! Who would have thought that the high-in-the-instep Lady Methven and the sweet-as-apple-pie Lady Strathconan would act the part of procuress, like madams in a brothel? I realised that, whatever their reason for doing this, it had to be extraordinarily important to them. I had not flattered myself that either of them liked me very much, but this, I felt, went beyond mere dislike.
‘Of course,’ Lady Methven continued, ‘divorce is unspeakably vulgar and will be a blot on the family name, but it cannot be avoided. At least the girl is not enceinte, which is more than could be hoped for after that embarrassingly coarse piece of behaviour when they ran off together from the wedding breakfast.’ She sighed. ‘I do wish that Sinclair were better able to control his physical urges. He is most intemperate.’ Her voice rose, though whether because she was moving closer to me or through sheer outrage, I could not guess. ‘And do you know, Emily, the morning after that vulgar fiasco at Applecross Catriona was still wearing the same gown? She looked as though she had been thoroughly—’
‘Quite,’ Lady Strathconan said hastily, cutting off the indubitably crude observation that Lady Methven was about to make. ‘But as I say, Margaret, that is all to the good. Sinclair, fool that he is, is in love with the chit, but when he sees himself betrayed he will never want either to see or to speak with her again. It is perfect for our purposes.’
Neil in love with me?
I stood there in utter disbelief. Surely Lady Strathconan was mistaken. She had to be. And then she said, ‘You should have seen his letters, Margaret.’ She laughed. ‘Actually, you should not, for they would have shocked you. But, believe me, they were most affecting.’
I think I almost gasped aloud, biting back my exclamation only at the last minute. I remembered that earlier on Lady Strathconan had made much of the fact that Neil thought I had not replied to his letters, and I thought that he had not sent any…I realised that he must have written, just as he had promised, and that Lady Strathconan had taken the letters and read them herself before destroying them.
My fury was so intense that I took an involuntary step back and collided with Jessie, my maid. How long she had been standing there was anyone’s guess, but at least I knew she would not betray me. I raised a finger to my lips and she stared at me, round-eyed, as the door to the drawing room opened abruptly and both Lady Strathconan and Lady Methven shot out as though their skirts were on fire.
‘Catriona, my dear!’ Lady Strathconan said sweetly, her face wiped clean of all guile. ‘I had not realised you were returned! When did you get back?’
It was then I think I really began to hate Lady Strathconan. Lady Methven had never made any pretence of disliking me. At least she had been honest and consistent. Lady Strathconan had betrayed my trust. Now she looked at me with soft, smiling eyes, and I wondered whether she had always been a conniving creature or whether she had changed since the days she had been governess to Ellen.
‘Oh, I have been here but a moment, ma’am,’ I said, matching her lie for lie. ‘I was giving Jessie my instructions for this evening, and then I was going to come in to greet you both.’
Lady Strathconan looked at Jessie, who looked blankly back at her.
‘I see,’ Lady Strathconan said. ‘Dismissed, Potts!’
Jessie looked at me.
‘I will see you in my chamber in a moment, Jessie,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
She nodded.
Lady Methven muttered something about being too familiar with the servants. I ignored her.
‘And how did you find your cousin, Mrs Langley?’ Lady Strathconan enquired, with a quelling look at her co-conspirator. No doubt she did not want Lady Methven upsetting me at such a delicate juncture in her plans. ‘She is in good health, I trust?’
It was then that I think I saw into her soul, for her eyes were still smiling but behind their gentleness was a steely coldness that was deeply chilling. I knew then that it had not been because of my Aunt Madeline’s indiscreet comments that Emily Strathconan had never visited Glen Clair after her marriage, but because the erstwhile governess had moved so far above her former employers that she never wanted to be reminded of where she had come from. I knew that she would never condescend to visit in Morningside because she did not want to remember the connection between herself and Ellen. And I knew that she did not wish me to be Countess of Strathconan in her place one day, because she was so fiercely ambitious and jealous of all she had achieved that she would never give up her prestige to a mere chit of a girl. I saw all those things in her eyes.
‘Ellen is very well, I thank you, ma’am,’ I said politely, ‘and sends you her best regards.’
‘How charming,’ Lady Strathconan said, and I wondered how I could have thought her warmth anything but counterfeit before.
I waited to see if either she or Lady Methven would vouchsafe the important news to me that my husband had called whilst I was out. Naturally they did not. It did not suit their plan to do so. The anger that was already burning in me started to grow.
‘I wondered,’ I said, ‘if there were any arrangements made for this evening, ma’am? I only ask because I fear that I feel a chill coming on, and would prefer to retire to my bed rather than go out.’
A look flashed between the two ladies. I pretended not to notice.
‘I am sorry to hear you are indisposed,’ Lady Strathconan said.
‘Feeble,’ Lady Methven snapped, though I do not know if she meant my excuse or my constitution.
‘There is a ball at the castle tonight,’ Lady Strathconan continued, with a glare at Lady Methven, ‘but if you are unwell, dearest Catriona, it will be far, far better for you to stay here in bed.’
‘Oh, indeed,’ Lady Methven said, suddenly catching on. ‘Far, far better.’
Well, of course I knew it would be ‘far, far better’ for their plans. Although I had not heard the whole of what they intended, my guess was that they would both depart blamelessly for the ball, leaving me to my slumber, in which I would be aided by a sleeping draught. At some point a servant—my money was on the sour-faced Mackie—would usher in Tolly Gulliver, who was either being paid to be a part of this grubby conspiracy or was merely conceited enough to think I would welcome him to my bed. A short while later everyone would return home early from the ball, bringing Neil with them, full of concern for his ailing wife, who would then be found in bed with another man…. It was neat, it was simple, it was clever, and it would be the death knell for my marriage.
‘I will have the footman bring up a hot brick for your bed, and I will prepare a tincture for your chill myself,’ Lady Strathconan said, smiling. ‘Poor, dear Catriona.’
Poor, dear Catriona indeed.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ I said, with what I hoped was a proper gratitude, going along with her
plans with the apparent meekness of a lamb to the slaughter.
Two hours later I heard the carriage clatter out of the cobbled courtyard on its way to the ball at the castle.
One long, tense hour after that, my bedroom door opened a crack and a flicker of candlelight appeared.
‘In here, sir,’ I heard Mackie whisper. ‘Mrs Sinclair is waiting for you, sir.’
I heard a step, and a man’s voice murmuring a word of thanks.
Mackie put the candle down on the nightstand. I lay as still as a trapped mouse, frightened even to breathe as she went out and closed the door softly behind her. There was a silence. Still I did not move. Nor did I open my eyes.
My heart was beating so hard now that I thought that the whole bed would be shaking with the force of it. This was proving far, far more difficult and more frightening than I had anticipated. My anger had carried me this far—anger, and a determination to expose the Ladies Methven and Strathconan for the evil, conniving conspirators that they were. But now I was terrified, and I was not reassured either by the cool handle of the knife in my grip or the knowledge that Jessie and Angus, the hall boy, were hiding in the wardrobe, waiting to burst out to save me as soon as I called them.
The bed gave slightly as someone sat down on it. I heard the chink of metal as the man undid his sword belt, and the thud of it as he threw it across the chair. I heard him shrugging himself out of his jacket, loosening his neckcloth, pulling his shirt over his head and finally unbuttoning his trousers. There was the slide of material on skin. Heaven help me—he was taking all his clothes off. I felt shocked and hot all over. I lay transfixed, as though I genuinely was awaiting ravishment. Then he threw back the covers and slid into the bed next to me.
He smelled of citrus and masculinity, and his skin was so warm against mine that I felt a treacherous desire to roll over into his arms.
I moved fast then, so that I was straddling his body with my knife at his throat.
Kidnapped: His Innocent Mistress Page 20