Wickedly Ever After

  Marshall stood and walked to her side. He leaned over and placed a kiss on top of her head. “It’s all right, my sweet. We all know what you really want for breakfast.” And with those humiliating parting words, he closed the door behind him.

  Although they had planned to stay until Sunday, Athena thought it best, given the current atmosphere, to leave immediately after breakfast.

  Marshall saw them to the driveway, and helped them ascend the carriage. He bid Athena farewell with a chaste kiss upon her hand. As his carriage drove them away, he glanced up at the window of his mother’s boudoir. She peered down at him, and closed the curtain before disappearing into the room.

  He shook his head. He knew his mother too well to think she would come round to his way of thinking. It might have been different if his mother remembered falling in love—that is, if she had ever done so. Sometimes, he thought his mother was born ancient.

  The carriage turned onto the road into town and disappeared beyond the trees. He looked up into the sky. The day, which had dawned so sweetly, had begun to grow hostile.

  Just before he turned to go back into the house, he noticed a carriage, coming from the opposite direction, turn onto the road to his property. He wasn’t expecting visitors, so he watched as the matched pair of white horses cantered toward his driveway. The exquisite, black-lacquered carriage, bearing a crest on the door, came to a halt in front of the steps leading up to the house.

  Two people got out of the carriage.

  Marshall’s jaw tightened. The weather wasn’t the only thing that had suddenly grown hostile.

  TWENTY-TWO

  A half hour later, after the guests had left, Marshall yanked on the bell cord in his study. He grabbed a sheet of paper, scribbled something on it, then folded and sealed it. The butler appeared, and Marshall gave him terse instructions to pack a valise.

  His boots hammered on the marble floor as he made his way through the house. He went out to the stable and looked around until he found Keane, the groom.

  Elliott Keane was the newest member of his staff. He was a slender man, though Marshall knew he had a strong back on him. Perhaps it was his sun-browned complexion that had bewitched his sister. Or his gentle temperament, which made him such an ideal handler of horses. Or maybe it was his hazel eyes, which were now rounding nervously as Marshall approached him.

  “Mornin’, sir,” he said, as he tipped his hat to Marshall.

  “Keane,” Marshall acknowledged, an undeniable edge to his voice.

  Elliott slipped off his cap. “If I may be so bold, sir, I’d like an opportunity to explain. About Miss Justine, I mean.”

  “You will be given ample opportunity, Keane. But for now, pack your bags.”

  “Oh, sir. Please don’t sack me. I’ve done nothing dishonorable, I swear.”

  Marshall straightened. “You and I must have a very different view of what’s considered dishonorable.”

  Elliott wrung his hat. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but we don’t. Miss Justine is just as important to me as she is to you. I’d never do anything to harm her.”

  Marshall crossed his arms imperiously at his chest. “I suppose courting her behind my back is not dishonorable?”

  The younger man hung his head. “I didn’t realize we were courtin’, sir. That just seemed to happen. While she was exercising the horses or taking rides, we’d talk. That’s all.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  Elliott put his hat back on his head. “Sir, I don’t want to create any fuss or friction between you and Miss Justine. I’ll be going. But please, sir, let me go on seeing her. Not as her servant, but . . . as a man, like.”

  “You dare ask me to go on seeing my sister after being sacked?”

  Elliott squared himself up under Marshall’s gaze, though his voice echoed the uneasiness he felt. “I do, sir. Respectfully, sir. I want permission to court Miss Justine. Not behind your back, but under your eye. That is, after I find another job.”

  Marshall sized Keane up. It took a brave man to ask him that. More than that. It took a man in love.

  “I think you and I need to do some more talking, Keane. I want you to come with me on a trip up north. But first I want you to take this note to Miss Athena McAllister at Endsleigh Grange. Wait the night there, and then bring her and Lady Willett back to Ashburnham in the carriage tomorrow morning.”

  Elliott eyed the note, more confused than ever. “So . . . I’m not sacked?”

  Marshall laid his broad hand on Elliott’s shoulder. “I wanted you to pack for a few days, not forever.”

  Elliott’s broad smile lit up his young face, and it suddenly became clear to Marshall just what had bewitched his sister.

  “Thank you, sir!”

  By eleven o’clock the next morning, Athena, Hester, and Marshall set out from Ashburnham in the coach, with Elliott Keane at the reins.

  Athena had had trouble reading Marshall’s note. The penmanship looked only slightly clearer than if a pigeon with ink on his feet had walked all over the paper. But she made out the words “trip” and “Scotland” just as clearly as if she’d written them herself, and she practically jumped for sheer joy. Hester dashed off a note to her husband, despondent that he probably wouldn’t miss her at all if she remained away from home to serve as Athena’s chaperone.

  “You’ll love it once we get there,” Athena kept saying, and her elation buoyed the others in the carriage during the long ride there. “I haven’t set foot in Scotland for twenty years, but in my mind, the memories of Tigh na Coille are just as fresh as if they were rememberin’ yesterday.”

  Marshall cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, but is your accent returning?”

  “Och, no,” she said, making him chuckle.

  The weather blessed them all the way to the border of Scotland, and they made good time. In only four days they crossed into the town of Jedburgh.

  They were greeted by the sight of vast rolling hills sprinkled with black-faced sheep grazing tranquilly on emerald grass. The air was brisk and fresh, perfumed by the fragrance of moist earth. Tiny cottages slept at the edge of the farms, each with its own crop, which from a distance looked like a vast patchwork quilt in varying shades of green.

  Athena stuck her head out of the carriage. The furious northern wind whipped her hair from its pins, and she couldn’t care less. Here she felt alive, free of constraints, each of her senses heightened. She felt drawn to this land like a compass needle points true north. And now that she was here again after so long, her entire being hummed as with the quickening of a night before a storm.

  The carriage came to a fork in the road. But instead of going west toward Ayrshire, where Athena came from, it continued to travel north toward Edinburgh.

  She turned to Marshall. “Elliott is guiding the horses in the wrong direction.”

  Marshall heaved a tense sigh. “We’re not going to Tigh na Coille. We’re headed for the Highlands.”

  Athena’s expression deflated with disappointment. “Why?”

  Marshall took some time before he answered, and when he spoke, his tone was circumspect. “Your parents passed away in the Highlands, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “In light of our upcoming nuptials, I . . . felt sorry for you, not having your father or mother to take part in the wedding. So I . . . thought it would be a fitting tribute to their memory by visiting them where they . . . passed over into the next world.”

  Athena’s face softened as she placed a hand on his cheek. “Oh, how sweet!” she cooed. “Hester, isn’t he the most thoughtful and considerate man you’ve ever met?”

  “Few men would have contemplated such a meaningful gesture, Captain Hawkesworth.”

  Marshall smiled nervously, wiping the perspiration from his upper lip. The less Athena suspected, the more peaceful the rest of the trip would be.

  The next day, as their carriage rumbled up the unpaved drover’s road toward the Highlands, the lands
cape changed considerably. As they traveled northward, their eyes beheld roofless ruins, the skeletal remains of thriving villages, with nothing but scorched earth to mark that the cluster of homes were not archaeological remains, but recent reminders of abandoned homesteads.

  “What is the cause of all this desolation?” remarked Hester, aghast at the sight.

  “The rich and powerful,” answered Athena, “removing all the crofters from their homes—even burning them out.”

  “To what end?”

  Athena’s nostrils flared with indignation. “To become more rich and powerful. Landlords have thrown decent hardworking families off their ancestral land to make way for sheep runs.”

  Athena recounted the brutality of the stories she had heard. Tenant farmers were told that the land would be cleared for “improvements,” then expelled from their homes, rescuing what little they could before their houses were burned to the ground—sometimes with the elderly and infirm still inside. Many families emigrated to England, some to the Americas. An unhappy number were replanted along the coast, forced into the unfamiliar work of subsistence fishing, living under the open canopy of heaven while they rebuilt their homes one piece of timber at a time.

  They spent the night in Golspie, precisely one of the fishing villages Athena had talked about. In the morning, however, Hester was too weary to embark on the final bone-jarring leg of their trip into the mountains. Athena insisted she remain behind. Marshall paid the innkeeper’s wife to look in on her, and ordered Elliott Keane to stay behind to look after her needs.

  Once they loaded the carriage with provisions, Athena and Marshall set out for Kildairon, the upland stretch of land where her parents had perished. There were no coaching inns along the way to change horses, so Marshall didn’t overtax their horses by urging speed.

  They reached the place known as Kildairon by midday. The rugged terrain was harsh but beautiful, virgin land consisting of heaths and deer forests and veined by burns flowing with clear water. They let the horses water at a still, shallow turn in the burn, and walked up the river.

  With a hand to his eyes to shield them from the sun, Marshall looked out along the horizon. His expression became one of bafflement. “What were your parents doing all the way out here?”

  “From what Grandfather tells me, they wanted to build a home in Kildairon. My father was a gambler, I’m afraid, and he lost Tigh na Coille in an unlucky hand of cards. Grandfather never fails to mention that foolishness every time my father’s name comes up. Father then asked my grandfather for a small loan to buy this land, which my grandfather refused. But my father was very stubborn, and he sold all he had left in the world, whatever he hadn’t lost in the card game, to purchase it. One day, my father and mother set out for Kildairon to inspect it for a house. I never saw them again.” Athena’s gaze trailed off to a distant point on the horizon.

  Marshall reached his arm around her shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “What happened to them?”

  “Their carriage was beset by highwaymen . . . ruffians, marauders, God knows who they were. They were never identified or brought to justice. A traveling villager found my parents. They were murdered—shot inside the carriage—their purses and their horses gone.”

  He pulled her close and placed a kiss on top of her head. “I’m so sorry.”

  Athena heaved a profound sigh. “It was difficult at first. I was only ten. But it happened a long time ago. The sadness has faded. Now . . . I just miss them.”

  Marshall nodded. “My heart still aches for my father. It’s good to know there will come a time when it won’t hurt anymore.”

  They held each other in that embrace, each drawing comfort from the other. It felt as if they were the only two people in the whole world. The rushing sound of the water below them filled their ears.

  “Athena,” began Marshall, “doesn’t it puzzle you that your parents would have chosen such a remote outcropping of inhospitable land to make their home? I mean, the nearest town is eight miles away, there isn’t a spot of farming land here, and the timber isn’t enough to subsist on, let alone sell for profit. Doesn’t it seem odd that they would want to settle here?”

  Athena took another look around. “I suppose. I can’t say for certain what they were thinking. Maybe Father was trying to reconnect with family. Years ago, a cadet branch of Clan McAllister went up into the Highlands. Perhaps he was trying to unite with our roots.”

  Unconvinced, his head turned aside. “There’s no Scottish heritage for Bretherton to consider.”

  Athena’s eyebrows drew together. “What does Calvin Bretherton have to do with this?”

  Marshall revealed a head-to-toe hint of shame. “Ah. I had intended to tell you earlier.”

  Athena raised a hand to her hip. “Tell me what?”

  “After you left Ashburnham the other day, Bretherton came to see me. He came with the Duchess of Twillingham.”

  “What did he want?” she asked with asperity.

  “In a word, you. He wanted to renew his marriage proposal to you. I refused, and told him we were about to publish the banns. Then he asked me—no, he commanded me—to stand down. The duchess insisted that Bretherton’s suit came first, and threatened all sorts of retribution for poaching his fiancée.”

  “I see,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her. “And just when did you plan on telling me this?”

  “Just as soon as I found out why it is that Calvin Bretherton’s suit blows so hot and cold.”

  “So this trip to Kildairon was not really to honor the memory of my parents, was it?”

  He gave a sheepish smile. “Not really.”

  Her words came out in slow, measured notes. “You thought it was impossible that Calvin Bretherton could want me for myself, so you came to Scotland to see what allure my dowry had.”

  “You make it sound more sordid than it was.”

  She was undeterred. “Then tell me, how sordid was it precisely? Athena is too fat and ugly for Calvin to want to marry. Therefore, there must be something valuable in her dowry.” Her eyes blazed with green fire.

  “Dammit, Athena, can’t you be rational? Why must your temper always boil over?”

  She closed the distance between them. “Me boil over? You’re the one closest to the burn!” With a mighty shove, she pushed him backward over the grassy crag.

  His body made a loud splash in the stream. Drenched from head to toe, he flailed wildly to sit up in the freezing water.

  “That wasn’t funny!” he shouted.

  She giggled. “It is from where I’m standing.”

  He wiped the water from his face, and shook his head. He dragged himself to the burn’s edge. He tried to stand, but his legs buckled and he stumbled back into the water.

  “Athena, I can’t stand up. I think I’ve broken my ankle.”

  The mirth drained from her face. “Oh, Lord, what’ve I done?” She ran back a few paces toward a slope in the riverbank, clambered down and waded out to the spot where he sat. The water came up to her knees.

  “Help me up!” he said, and reached up a hand.

  She bent over. “Here, put your arm over my shoulders. Lean on me.”

  He threw his arm over her slumped shoulders, and helped himself to a kneeling position. Then, with lightning speed, he slid his hand to her bottom and gave it a firm push.

  Athena toppled over into the icy water, which quickly saturated her warm spencer and stabbed her skin like sharp knives. She huffed out of the water, long strands of her red hair sticking to her face.

  “You were right,” he said with a smirk. “It is a lot funnier from where you were standing.”

  Her fists splashed the water. “Why you deceitful, odious . . . Englishman! That was a dirty trick!”

  “You started it, Miss McAllister,” he said hollowly. “Maybe it’ll cool that fiery temper of yours.”

  The water rushed along her chest. “Just look at what you’ve done to my clothes.”

  He s
crambled to his feet. “What I’ve done? Ha! It’ll be a wonder if we both don’t catch our death of cold.” He extended his arm to help her stand. “Give us your hand.”

  “I’d like to give you my foot . . . right up your arse.”

  He retracted his hand. “Suit yourself.”

  “Oh, very well!” She reached out her hand.

  He grasped her hand and lifted her, but his boot slipped on the rocks below and she crashed back into the water.

  She came up for air. “You did that on purpose.”

  Now he was laughing. “No I didn’t,” he managed.

  “Yes you did!” she sputtered.

  He raised a hand defensively. “On my honor. See? Gesture of remorse.” He dove back into the water beside her.

  “You’re as mad as a March hare.”

  “And you’re as mad as a Scotswoman in a freezing burn. What a pair we make.” His face softened with a smile, and he leaned over and kissed her.

  His wet lips smoothed over hers easily, and she gave in to the seductive sensation. He swept her into his arms, embracing her tightly as he deepened the kiss. Oblivious to the current rushing around them, they felt only the current exchanging between them. Where their bodies touched, the sheen between them heated, gluing them together.

  Marshall guided her to the water’s edge, hovering over her as he tasted deeper of her lips. The shallow water lapped at her loose hair, making it fan out like a gentle fire over the smooth dark stones. It was an image that radiated to his loins, because his whole body felt on fire for her. He dropped his head again to suck on her sweet wet-strawberry lips, and his eyes closed to revel in the heavenly pleasure.

  Her hands grabbed his sodden lapels, and she pushed her tongue into his mouth. The brazen gesture made him smile, and he rewarded it by letting his tongue dance with hers. She moaned softly, and he opened his eyes to see her desire.

  Her eyes were seductive slits, inviting him, beguiling him. Her creamy mouth, half open in wanton pleasure, promised more voluptuous pleasures. She was a wild thing, natural and untamed, yet he still yearned to bond with her feral nature. Even her hair spoke danger, igniting the water in burnished whorls that gleamed and glinted . . .