Highland Pleasures [6] The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie

by Jennifer Ashley

  He walked unerringly to the wallpapered panel and removed it from the wall. Behind the panel lay the cables that ran the machine, which issued the air through the register below it. Daniel had the machine unhooked and out of its slot in two minutes—it had taken Violet an entire day to put it in.

  The device was a fan encased in a metal box, turned by gears hand-cranked by the lever in the room above. Tubes of water circulated around the fan, cooling the air that came out of the machine to a chilly temperature.

  Daniel examined the device closely, turning it this way and that. “Oh, what I couldn’t do with this.” He turned it over again. “You know, if you hook this up to electrics, ye could get more power from it, get the fan to turn faster.”

  Violet watched his quick eyes take in every facet of the machine, his fingers running over it. “Mind if I take this away with me?” he asked. “Won’t keep it long. I’m trying to build something like it—as a part of something even bigger.”

  His gaze held interest, a focus more intent than Violet had seen in him since he’d entered the house. Gone was the lazy aristocrat, bored by the entertainments of his acquaintances. Gone even was the roué who’d dared her to take the cigarette, who’d kissed her lips with such finesse.

  He was alert, interested, and had a razor-sharp intellect. Dangerous.

  Daniel held in his hand evidence of Violet’s fraud, the fact that she took money from people and pretended she brought forth spirits in return. Mr. Mackenzie could rush out of here and take the device to the police, or worse, a newspaper. The police could arrest and imprison Violet and her mother; the press could stir up a mob to chase them out of the country—again.

  Though Daniel’s eyes didn’t hold the vindictive glee of a man wanting to expose her, he might show the device to his friends. What if Mortimer discovered the secret?

  “No,” Violet said quickly. “I need it.”

  “To impress gents like Ellingham? You know, your gift is enough without props. You had them in the palm of your hand, love. You’re a master.”

  “Not really. My mother has the true gift.” Violet’s mother, Celine, could hold a room—indeed, a concert hall—in thrall with her trances and her conversations with her spirit guide. Violet didn’t trust her own talents to keep an audience’s attention without effects.

  Daniel looked at the device with a kind of hunger Violet had seen men reserve for courtesans. Not an average gentleman, was Daniel Mackenzie.

  Daniel looked over the device one last time then replaced it in its niche. He closed the panel, dusted off his hands, and straightened up. Violet found him standing in front of her, very close.

  “Mortimer brought me here tonight because he owes me money,” he said. “He was banking on me being so impressed by your performance that I’d forgive the debt. He used you. I don’t like that.”

  Violet shrugged. “He is my landlord. He can come into the house whenever he likes.”

  Daniel frowned. “Don’t stand still and resign yourself to him. He’s a right bastard, and if I’d had less compassion tonight, I would have let the bone-breaker have him.”

  “Bone-breaker?” Violet hadn’t seen such a person in the dining room, only Mortimer’s friends, fair flowers of the English aristocracy.

  “A man who works for a man to whom Mortimer owes even more money. Except the bone-breaker now works for me.” Daniel leaned forward a little, taking all the space around Violet. He didn’t do it deliberately, as though he tried to intimidate her. He merely leaned to her, uninhibited, as though they were great friends. “I don’t like you beholden to Mortimer. If he gives you trouble, you tell me, eh, lass? Right away. Promise me?”

  Violet opened her mouth to say something like, Why on earth should I? But the breath for the words drew in his warmth, the scents of smoke and liquor, and the words melted on her tongue.

  Daniel was speaking again before Violet could drag her thoughts together, and she only caught the last words.

  “And all this has given me a beautiful idea.”

  A smile replaced his scowl so quickly that Violet blinked. Mr. Mackenzie’s lightning-swift changes of mood were astonishing and a little bit frightening.

  The next moment, Violet found her back to the colorful wallpaper, Daniel an inch away from her, his touch on her face. He was shaking his head, his smile vanishing again, his voice low, almost as though he spoke to himself.

  “You’re the loveliest lass I’ve seen in a long time.”

  “Mr. Mac—”

  “It’s cold here.” Daniel’s words cut through hers, drowning sounds and thought. “Come home with me, and let me warm you.”

  Violet had taught herself a hundred retorts for forward gentlemen, but they dissolved under Daniel’s heat, and then the touch of his mouth. Daniel kissed her, replacing her breath with his.

  Let me warm you.

  Upstairs, he’d stunned her with a quiet press of lips. This time he kissed her fully, pushing her back against the wall, his mouth on hers.

  Violet couldn’t breathe; she couldn’t stand. She put her hand to the sideboard next to her to steady herself, and Daniel’s strong hands came around her waist.

  He parted her lips with his, his body a firm length of heat. No one should be so strong and vibrant at this hour of the night, no one this overwhelming. Violet’s knees were buckling. Only Daniel’s arms and the solidity of the sideboard kept her from falling.

  Daniel brushed his lips to the corner of her mouth, so softly he made her shake. Then he licked his way inside her mouth again, the taste of him bold, dangerous.

  Black spots spun before Violet’s eyes. She gasped and found her mouth full of Daniel, tried to break away only to be wedged between the sideboard and wall, blocked by Daniel’s body.

  Because Daniel was a handsome, virile, funny, intriguing, and sensual man, the situation should have had her melting in surrender. And Violet might have, despite her better judgment, if the panic hadn’t come.

  Daniel’s face vanished, to be replaced with flashes of another—a red-bearded man with a white, mean face, small eyes, and hands that took and hurt. Sixteen-year-old Violet screamed and beat on her attacker. No, no, please no! Someone help me!

  But no one came. Her fists contacted an unyielding body, a weight she couldn’t move. Violet screamed again, terror swallowing her. This can’t be happening! This can’t be happening!

  “Lass?” a voice asked from far away. It was a voice Violet wanted to reach, one that meant safety, but waves of panic poured over her and wouldn’t let her free.

  “Are ye all . . .” the distant voice said, and then it grunted.

  Violet’s vision half cleared to see Mary, her maid, with the bolster from the parlor sofa in her hands. Violet’s attacker backed from her, rubbing his neck.

  Her panic returned. She needed something stronger than a pillow to stop him. Violet’s hand connected with a heavy vase on the sideboard. Without stopping to think, she lifted it, brought it around, and bashed her attacker on the side of the head.

  Violet heard a heavy groan, a “Lass,” and Mary’s startled cry.

  Her vision cleared completely. Violet was standing in the dining room of the London house, a vase in her hand, a round-eyed Mary next to her holding a red velvet bolster.

  Mr. Mackenzie, blood on his face, stared at Violet with a stunned expression. He said, “Lass,” one more time.

  Then he fell over like a tree in a high wind, crashing headlong onto the dining room floor. The vase slipped from Violet’s numb fingers and shattered next to him.

  Mary dropped to her knees, the bolster rolling away, her hands going to Daniel’s cold face and closed eyes.

  “He ain’t breathing,” Mary said frantically. She patted his cheeks.

  Violet sank next to Mary, her movements wooden. She stared down at the handsome face of Mr. Mackenzie, his lips pale no
w, his chest not rising.

  Mary hastily unbuttoned his coat then tore open his waistcoat and shirt, pushing aside his undershirt to jam her hands to the space over his heart. Dark hair curled over his chest, his pectorals well defined. “I can’t find his heartbeat,” Mary said.

  Violet’s numbness left her with a jolt. She brushed Mary aside, and leaned down to put her ear to Daniel’s bare chest, trying to hold her breath and listen.

  She heard nothing but the pounding of her own heart. The room whirled around her, undulating as though the machines were running again, the spirits rampaging.

  Violet lifted her head. “Mary,” she said, barely able to squeeze out the words. “Oh God, I think I’ve killed him.”

  Chapter 5

  Mary got to her feet in panic. Violet shook Daniel, patted his cheeks, pried open one eye. He never responded, and his skin was growing clammy and cold.

  “Mary, quickly, go for the doctor.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Mary said, voice filled with fear. “Miss, if you’ve killed him . . . Oh Lord, he’s a rich man, and we’re nothing. We’ll go to prison. We’ll be hanged.” Mary’s hands fluttered. “What about your poor mum?”

  “Stop! Stop, let me think.”

  But Violet couldn’t think. She sat back on her knees, the room still darting and spinning. Mary waited to be commanded, because Violet always knew what to do.

  But this was different from deciding how much to charge for the performances or from Violet telling her mother what to wear every day, and where to go and what to do. Violet had done all this since the age of seven, when she’d realized her mother had no idea how to take care of a daughter. Or herself, for that matter.

  Violet pressed her fingers to her temples. If she’d killed Daniel Mackenzie, even accidentally—a man from one of the wealthiest families in Britain and nephew to a powerful duke—Violet would be made to pay.

  If she claimed she’d struck out in fear, that Daniel had attacked her, Violet would be blamed for putting herself into his power in the first place. If she argued that Mortimer had brought Daniel here, and Daniel had lingered inappropriately, she’d be blamed for taking up such an unladylike profession. After all, she’d allowed gentlemen to enter her house, unchaperoned, at such an hour.

  Even if the jury were sympathetic to her, Violet still would be punished for killing him or hurting him, if he recovered. She’d be sent to prison or transported, Mary along with her, and possibly her mother too. Violet had seen firsthand the unevenness of the law and its prejudice against women. A jury of men would look upon Violet and happily condemn her before leaving the courtroom to visit their mistresses on their way home to their wives.

  “Help me get him into the cart,” Violet said quickly. “And go wake up Mama and pack what you can. We are going.”

  “Going? But miss—”

  “We can’t risk staying. Mortimer and his friends will know Mr. Mackenzie came here tonight. Even if we’ve only hurt him, we can’t count on the Mackenzies not bringing the law down on us. No matter what, if we are far away when he’s discovered, the better for us.”

  Far away, in another country, with different names and different personas. If no one connected Daniel and his visit to this house tonight, well and good. If they did connect it, then Violet, her mother, and Mary wouldn’t be here to answer awkward questions. Not being here when the investigation was conducted would be best. At least Violet’s mother, upstairs in her laudanum slumber, was truly innocent of everything.

  Pieces of the vase had blood on them. Violet instructed Mary to put the broken vase into a box, which she would drop over the railing of the boat on the way to France. Mr. Mortimer might rage over the price of it, but that was the least of her worries.

  The next hour was one of the most harried of Violet’s life. Time seemed first to crawl and then to fly past.

  She and Mary arranged Mr. Mackenzie’s body on the handcart on which they carried groceries home from the markets. As they buttoned up his clothes again, they discovered a fat wad of money stuffed into his coat pocket.

  Mary and Violet looked at each other over it. So much cash, right in their hands.

  “Some thief will just take it if we leave it on him,” Mary pointed out.

  But if constables caught up to them, and Violet had all Mr. Mackenzie’s money, her claim of hitting him in her own defense went out the window.

  Violet compromised. She peeled several large notes away from the others, and put all the rest back into his pocket. A small amount from such a large stash wouldn’t be missed, would it? And Violet would need the money to buy tickets.

  Violet changed out of what she called her parlor clothes to an old pair of breeches, over which she put a wide skirt and linen shirt. To finish, she tied a scarf over her hair. Any person who spied her in the dark would see an elderly immigrant woman, perhaps taking foodstuffs home or getting ready to go clean for the day at a middle-class woman’s home.

  Mr. Mackenzie still lay motionlessly on the cart when Violet went out into the tiny yard behind the house to wheel him away. No moon shone tonight, London so thick with coal smoke in January that no moonlight or starlight could penetrate the gloom. Better for her errand.

  She and Mary covered Mr. Mackenzie with sackcloth and then stacked a few bags of coal on top of him. The shapes in the cart Violet pushed would be several small upright lumps, not the horizontal form of a man.

  Violet went alone, guiding the cart through the passages to the main street and quickly across to the warren on the other side. She saw a constable down the block of one street, but he was walking the other way and never saw her.

  She was thoroughly sick to her stomach by the time she decided she’d laid a false enough trail. Violet doubled back with the cart until she reached a quiet, narrow street east of Portman Square, and the house where she knew a doctor lived. He was a kindhearted man, Violet had come to know, often looking after people in the neighborhood for no charge. If Mr. Mackenzie wasn’t truly dead, the doctor would help him. And if Mr. Mackenzie was dead, the doctor would make sure he was returned to his family.

  Violet waited until the street was free of constables or any late-night strollers. This was a poorer neighborhood, with gaslights fewer and farther between. She crept forward, happy she’d kept the handcart well oiled. In the shadows of the silent house, Violet pulled back the sacks and rolled Mr. Mackenzie from the cart.

  As his body landed on the cobblestones, Violet choked back a sob. Daniel had been so warm when he’d kissed her in her upstairs room, so vibrant. He’d looked into her eyes and known her for the fraud she was—a fraud in every way.

  He’d seen to the heart of her as no one had before. He’d kissed her, because he’d known Violet wasn’t a respectable lady, but at the same time he’d been tender, not demanding.

  Tears filled her eyes, and Violet tried to banish them. Crying never helped.

  She leaned to Daniel’s inert body and kissed his cold lips. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She smoothed his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

  Wiping her eyes, Violet climbed to her feet, restored the sacks to the cart, and pushed it away, her stomach roiling.

  She made her way back to their rented house, taking a roundabout route. Halfway there, she abandoned the cart and changed from her peasant clothes into the plain skirt and shirtwaist she’d brought with her. Violet walked the rest of the way back to the house as herself, a basket over her arm, as though returning from a very late errand.

  Back inside, her bewildered mother was out of bed, demanding to know why they had to go. Violet had already sworn Mary to silence about Mr. Mackenzie, knowing her mother would fall to pieces at the truth. Instead Violet invented the story that Mr. Mortimer had come here tonight to make trouble about the rent, and had thrown them out.

  Her mother believed her and in a remarkably short time was ready to leave. Celine
could move quickly when her fear of bailiffs was roused.

  The morning was still dark when Madame and Mademoiselle Bastien and their maid left their London house for Dover, and ceased to exist.

  Daniel opened his eyes, let out a groan of pain, and snapped his eyes shut again.

  Some daft idiot had left the curtains to his bedroom open, and the light of morning stabbed directly into his brain. He never opened the curtains until at least noon, often later, depending on how bad was his hangover.

  Today’s was a pounding monster of one. What the hell had he been drinking?

  Time passed. When Daniel made himself peel open his eyes again, the light was not as agonizing, though the headache remained.

  He didn’t at first recognize the man who turned from the fireplace in Daniel’s upstairs bedroom, then he remembered Matthew Simon, bone-breaker and debt collector, who had pounded his fists into Daniel until Daniel had subdued him.

  But the blow that had put this dent in Daniel’s skull hadn’t come from Simon. He remembered all that had happened now, as clearly as the afternoon light pouring through his window.

  “Mr. Mackenzie, sir.” Simon leaned over the bed and released a sigh of relief, with a breath that made Daniel note he would buy the man a toothbrush and tooth powder. “I thought you were a goner for sure.”

  “I’m a robust, obnoxiously healthy Scot,” Daniel said. He tried to sit up then decided the pillows were the best place for his head. “How did I get here? What happened?”

  “A constable was called to a doctor’s house in Marylebone—he’d found you near to his doorstep. I was coming to find you after having a little rest at me old mum’s place, to take you up on your offer of a job. I asked around about where you lived—everyone knows, so it wasn’t hard to find. When I got here, a couple of constables were carrying you inside. I said I was your new man, and I’d take care of you. They didn’t know no more about what happened to you than where they found you.”

  “So she dumped me in the street,” Daniel said, putting his hand to his temple. His skin stung there, and he made a soft noise of pain.