Night of the Highland Dragon

by Isabel Cooper

  There was a great deal she didn’t know. There was a great deal she’d chosen not to know in the last twenty years. Now, recognizing that lack, she had the urge to arch her neck and bare her teeth.

  Of course she didn’t. Only so much eccentricity would pass without comment, even in Lady MacAlasdair. “There, poor lad,” said Dr. McKendry, tying a last knot and stepping back. “I’ve plaster with me, but I’ll want to be making the cast properly once he’s in his own bed. If you’ll help me get him to his home,” he said to Shaw Senior and to Peters, the groom, “I’d count it a kindness.”

  “He’ll stay here,” Judith said and then looked at Mr. Shaw. “If you’d like, of course. It being closer to hand and all.”

  The castle would also have more room for the doctor to work, and it’d be far less hardship for one of the maids to bring young Jack his meals than it would be for his mother or one of his sisters. Such things were like McKendry’s bill though. One didn’t say them out loud.

  “Aye, that’d be most kind,” said Shaw.

  “It’s the least I can do,” said Judith, since they both heard what she didn’t say. “It was my roof he was mending, and my ladder that failed on him.”

  They passed through the great doors, heavy oak-and-brass monstrosities that Judith only had closed at night, and entered the castle proper. Walking was more of a relief than Judith had anticipated. As she went inside, a restlessness, almost an itch, lifted from her. Standing around never had been good for her peace of mind, particularly when others were working.

  They trooped across the courtyard like the soberest parade in the world, and then, thank God, Judith was able to step aside and let the others go up the servants’ stair. “I’ll only be in the way up there, I’m afraid,” she said. “You’ll let me know what happens, Doctor.”

  “Aye, I will that,” he said, distracted as a man in his position ought to be.

  Judith turned to her office and her own distractions—factoring McKendry’s bill and the cost of boarding Shaw into the month’s accounts and going through the list of able-bodied men in Loch Arach. Most of them would be busy with the harvest now. Winter would see them with more time on their hands, but winter was not when one wanted a hole in the roof, even above a seldom-used attic. She’d likely have to send to Belholm.

  Perhaps she’d even go this time. A change of scene might do her spirits good—and it would show Arundell that she got out more often than he might think.

  Seven

  “Mr. Arundell,” William said, handing his card to the surprisingly young man in a butler’s uniform who’d answered the door. “Calling on Lady MacAlasdair.”

  More open as well as younger than his counterparts in the city, the butler stared for a second, either genuinely surprised or trying to remember rules of etiquette he’d likely thought he’d never have to use. “I’ll see if she’s at home, sir.”

  William fully expected to be shown into a drawing room, to wait there for a few minutes, and then to hear that Lady MacAlasdair was most definitely not at home. His gamble would at least have gotten him entrance to the castle and a bit of time in which to look about.

  He hadn’t expected the lady herself to come through one of the doors at the end of the hallway, striding across the thick rugs with a list in one hand. “Janssen, have you seen—oh.” She smiled thinly, obviously wanting to curse. “Mr. Arundell. This is an unexpected pleasure.”

  “He’d come to call on you, m’lady,” said the young man who presumably was Janssen. “I’d been about to show him into the drawing room, not knowing if you were at home.”

  “Of course,” said Lady MacAlasdair. She was good, but William was better, and he saw her face change as she thought out her options. She clearly was at home, turning him out in front of the servants would cause talk, and if she pled business, he might ask more questions. She was trapped and she knew it.

  William knew it too, which made him feel rather like a cad. Had the lady not been a possible murderess, he would have felt worse.

  “We’ll be in the east drawing room, Janssen,” she said with another patently false smile. She handed the list to the butler. “Ask Dunbar to go over these figures, and tell him I’ll meet him in half an hour in my office.”

  “I hope I’m not inconveniencing you,” said William as Lady MacAlasdair led him through a door.

  “No, not at all,” she said, giving him the polite lie.

  Like the front hall, the east drawing room was stone-walled and stone-floored, smaller and darker than any such room in London would have been. Two high windows let in some afternoon light, but the oil lamps were lit even this early. The furniture was dark and old, polished wood and thick plush, and a stag’s head mounted over the mantel gave William a resentful stare as he walked in.

  “Alas, Actaeon,” he murmured.

  Lady MacAlasdair flicked a glance at him as she took a seat on an overstuffed sofa. “You’re well-schooled.”

  “One can learn a great deal from myths.”

  If the smile she gave him was more genuine than any she’d produced in the front hall, it was also far more predatory. William fancied for a second that he saw fangs. “Such as the dangers of trying to see what you shouldn’t, aye?”

  He took a seat opposite from her. The wooden chair was less comfortable, but the couch didn’t quite seem safe.

  “Or the need to know you can trust your companions,” he said.

  “You can trust dogs to be dogs. Just don’t be fool enough to hope for more.” Lady MacAlasdair sat with her hands clasped in her lap. What would have been prim and correct in any other woman merely highlighted the restless way her fingers brushed against each other as she talked. “What brings you here? Or is this a social call? You’ll have to excuse me—it’s been some time since I was in society.”

  She threw the last words out at him like a challenge: See? I’ve said it, and now you can’t imply it. Then she smiled again. Her lips were slim, William noticed, and darker than he would have expected from a woman of her complexion.

  “Primarily social,” he responded a second later than he should have. “I wanted to ask after that poor chap who’d broken his leg the other day. Dr. McKendry says he’s recuperating here.”

  “Kind of you,” she said. “Mr. Shaw’s doing as well as anyone can in his condition. The break was bad, I hear, but healing well. Or so I understand.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” William said. “And it’s kind of you to put him up. I hope he appreciates his good fortune in employers.”

  Lady MacAlasdair’s eyes narrowed, blazing green between long, dark lashes. “He’s been a good tenant and a good worker. I owe him this much at least.”

  “Yes, you seem very much alive to your responsibilities,” William said. “It’s refreshing in this day and age.”

  She shifted her weight, leaning forward on the couch, and swept her gaze over him from head to foot, stopping finally on his face. “What are you after, Mr. Arundell?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Beautiful as Lady MacAlasdair’s eyes were, he’d seen the expression in them from men with their hands on knives or their fingers on triggers.

  “What do you want here?” she asked, pronouncing every syllable carefully and clearly. “What do you want with Loch Arach? You’d not be asking so many questions if you were only after a change of scene, and you’d not be going to any length to charm me—which you’re not managing, by the way. So what is it you’re here for?”

  Responding wasn’t a matter of making up an answer, but of choosing the option he wished to use, like picking a waistcoat or a rifle sight. As always, William thought of plausibility, effectiveness, and closeness to the truth.

  Then he sighed and gave in—just not all the way. “An acquaintance of mine met a nasty end in these parts recently,” he said. “I thought perhaps if I spent some time near where he died an
d learned a few things about the place, I might gain a better perspective.”

  Lady MacAlasdair’s eyes didn’t change. “Nobody’s died in Loch Arach this year, nor last,” she said without even hesitating to think about it.

  “He wasn’t from here,” said William. “He was traveling. They found his body in the forest near Belholm,” he went on, heading off her next objection. If the stakes hadn’t been so high, he would have enjoyed the challenge of anticipation and response. Part of him did anyhow, which probably spoke volumes about his moral character, none of them good. “But he hadn’t been there very long either, and I thought he might have come here, or meant to. Places like this appealed to him.”

  “Places like this? Hah.” Lady MacAlasdair breathed the syllable out on a laugh. “I’m sorry for your loss, I’m sure, but what do you know about places like this?”

  “Not very much. That’s why I’m trying to find out.”

  She tilted her head to the side and watched him. Gradually, a little of the tension left her. It wasn’t much, but she’d shifted her weight back, metaphorically speaking. The defense was still very strong, but she’d dropped the offense for the moment. “What was he like, this friend of yours?”

  “Younger,” said William. “Black hair, brown eyes. Tall, for his age. Girls might have thought him handsome.” He called to mind all the description that Miss Harbert had given him. “Not very well off. He might have been selling things, trying to pay his way along.”

  “He doesn’t sound like your sort of company,” said Lady MacAlasdair. She cast a significant glance at his well-tailored suit, paused, and frowned again. “From the sound of it, you didn’t know him well at all.”

  “I’m here on behalf of someone who did.”

  “Hmm,” she said, and William could see her going through the possibilities. He knew what she was thinking when her lips twitched. If the woman had a poker face, she didn’t bother with it now. Her fingers brushed over the fabric of the sofa’s arm, fingertips going back and forth in a steady line. Her fingers were very long, the nails smoothly tapered. On her left hand, a large square-cut emerald flashed in the lamplight.

  She hadn’t been wearing a ring when they met the first time. And her clothing now was plain: a dark skirt and a high-necked, long-sleeved shirtwaist in a blue-and-green swirling pattern. It was pretty, but it wasn’t the sort of fancy that would justify extra jewelry.

  “Are felicitations in order?” he asked, though the finger was wrong.

  “What?” She followed his gaze to the ring. “No. It’s been in the family for a while. I dig it out and wear it on occasion, usually when things go a little mad. It’d be a waste otherwise.”

  William smiled. “A good-luck charm? Better than a rabbit’s foot. I’d a friend at school who carried one around, though if it helped him with exams, I never noticed.”

  Lady MacAlasdair laughed again, more willingly this time. “Both less messy than pouring wine on the deck, as they do for long voyages,” she said. “Though I’d never thought of it as a charm. It”—she touched the ring absently—“keeps my feet on the ground, maybe. Reminds me of where I come from and where I am now. I never thought of luck.”

  “Not superstitious?”

  “No,” she said. “Either you can change a thing straight out, if you know the way of it, or you can’t change it at all. No point asking favors.” She cleared her throat. “How did this man die?”

  “Badly.”

  She nodded. Then, as calmly as she’d asked about his friend: “Are you a policeman?”

  He felt the wind from that shot. “No,” William said. “Nor do I work for them. I’m not here to see anyone arrested. I’ll give you my word on that.”

  “Your word as a gentleman?” In her mouth, the common phrase took on an exotic flavor, or perhaps an antique one.

  “If you’ll take it.”

  “I never doubted you were a gentleman,” she said. “I’ll believe you.”

  The way she said it, William knew it was a choice. He hadn’t convinced her, this sleek, dark woman who he’d never yet seen looking less than watchful. She wouldn’t take anything on faith. She had consciously decided to accept what he said—for as long as it made sense to do so. He didn’t think she gave a damn about his word.

  “I hope I’ve set your mind at ease,” he said nonetheless, because one said certain things.

  “I wouldn’t hang well,” she replied with a grim little smile, and then went briskly on. “I don’t recall this man you talk about. We do have peddlers once in a while. Once in a great while. It’s possible.”

  “Possibilities are all I have to go on just now. It’s my duty to look into them.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Speaking of duty, I should be getting back to mine.”

  The lady got to her feet. Naturally, he did too, and the size and excessive furniture in the room meant they stood facing each other for a moment, only a step or two from touching. Close at hand, Lady MacAlasdair smelled of autumn leaves and woodsmoke. William felt his pulse quicken.

  Being a gentleman, he kept his eyes on her face. He did not let himself regard the way her breasts swelled beneath her blouse. He did, however, see the movement of her throat as she swallowed before speaking.

  “I still don’t know what you’re hoping to find here, Mr. Arundell,” she said. “Dead is dead. Bad, good—once it’s over, it’s over, and most of the time it’s better that way. No answer you’ll get here will change that, not from me nor from any of my folk.”

  Eight

  Judith didn’t sleep easily that night.

  She couldn’t blame all of that on Mr. Arundell. Sleep wasn’t as chancy for her now as it had been when she’d first come back from the outside world, but she still had bad nights caused by a scrap of conversation troubling her dreams, or a face looking too much like one she’d seen in pain, or seemingly nothing at all. Changes in weather, phases of the moon—the mind turned on itself once in a while, and it did little good to ask why.

  Why was never a good question. She’d tried to tell Arundell that. She doubted he’d take it to heart. People always wanted reasons—and he wasn’t the one to convince, if he’d been telling the truth.

  Judith thought he’d come closer to honesty than on the day he’d met her. The thought brought her no triumph, nor any real sense of relief. It was almost more disturbing to know that she could get a straight answer out of him if she pressed hard enough. It made her feel almost obligated to try.

  Almost compelled to.

  She paced the room in the moonlight, feeling the floor beneath her feet—reassuringly solid and cold, motionless and dry. She had learned that pacing helped. Flying didn’t, not unless she gave herself so fully to the flight and the hunt that she risked discovery. She had lived too long among humans to find comfort in inhuman things.

  Men had made the floor and the walls. She could not break them, not in this form and not without difficulty in the other. The rugs were braided wool, the dresser carved oak, the lamps on the wall brass and oil that she’d seen put in herself. These were normal things, everyday things. Judith caught them with her mind and steadied herself, turned away from the fields of blood and the sound of cannon.

  Once it’s over, it’s over, she heard herself say.

  She laughed into the empty room.

  Well, it was over, but nobody got through life unscarred, and a sleepless night had never killed her yet. She did hope Arundell was having as restless a time. She wouldn’t wish her dreams on him, but maybe a screech owl could take up residence outside his window. He hadn’t given her the dreams, but he’d certainly stirred them up this time, he and his need for perspective.

  He’d stirred up a few other things too. She’d meant to be disparaging with that glance at his clothing, to show that she was no country fool and to question why a man who could afford Savile Row suits would know a boy wh
o had to go peddling to make his living. She’d ended up taking in the breadth of his shoulders and the strong line of his jaw, and she’d sworn inwardly at the tightening sensation low in her body.

  Then, in those moments when they’d stood facing each other, she’d been damnably aware of his presence, his size, his masculinity. She’d felt it in her blood like wine. She’d wanted to pull him toward her, to taste his mouth and feel the muscles in his back beneath her gripping fingers, to hear the catch of his breath as she took him to the floor.

  When she’d been younger, she might have done it. Even knowing as little as she did about him, even with as much as he shouldn’t know about her, she might have—probably would have—either leaped on the man or at least made him a proposition in no uncertain terms. Back then, pleasure had always been worth the risk.

  Youth was very stupid. Age—she didn’t know what age was except tired and unsettled and beholden to too many talkative people.

  She’d taken care of her body’s immediate urges easily enough. Now, as she stood and leaned her head against the windowpane, she pictured Arundell’s face and felt her excitement return, not as strong as it had been that afternoon, but strong enough.

  A trip to the city wouldn’t help, then. It was like having a bad song in her head. The only way to get it out was to wait or find a worse one.

  Damn.

  At least lusting after Arundell kept her mind off the dreams, now that she was awake.

  It wasn’t the end of the world. She’d desired men before, some of whom it would have been impossible or unwise to bed. Waiting did work. If nothing else, Mr. Arundell was temporary. He’d stay as long as he felt he needed to, or as long as he’d promised his friend he would. Then he’d go back to London: out of sight, out of mind.