“You’ll want a nice riding habit, Mrs. Blackburn. You do ride? No? Pity. Parnell is an avid rider. Still, there is nothing wrong with being decorous rather than robust.” She peered closely at Kate. “One can hardly accuse you of the latter.” Her elderly mouth pleated with sympathy. “You look unwell, child. Are you feeling up to this trip?”
Kate smiled gratefully at the old woman. No. She was not. She had not seen Kit since yesterday, and every waking moment she felt his absence more keenly.
He was still here, somewhere, but he hadn’t dined with them last night, and so dinner had become for her an arduous, drawn-out affair. It hadn’t made it any more palatable that each kindness, each pleasantry, drove home to her the magnitude of her insupportable ingratitude. Though the marquis did not know the source of her lassitude, he could not fail to notice it. He had been wonderfully solicitous. And Merry, her campaign to continue her mourning having been successful, not only appeared at the dinner table but then proceeded to captivate everyone with unexpected charm.
All the while Kate kept wondering where Kit was, at what hour he would leave, if he would think of her, and if so, how long she would retain a part of his heart. She had finally conceded that she’d lost a portion of her own that she would never recover. But… he hadn’t made any claim upon her affections. He’d all but handed her to the marquis.
Thank God one of them had some common sense.
“Mrs. Blackburn?” Lady Mathilde asked worriedly, and Kate realized she’d been talking to her for some time.
“I’m sorry. What were you saying? I am, I confess, extremely tired.”
“Ah!” Lady Mathilde waggled her finger beneath Kate’s nose. “Fatigue often becomes illness. I should have expected as much. After all, you traveled here in an open coach. To think!” Her eyes grew round with amazement at such a feat.
“I should have cautioned James against this, but… well, I am a selfish old woman,” she said remorsefully. “And he was so eager to introduce you.” She trailed off, a blush staining her papery cheeks.
Kate squirmed under Lady Mathilde’s obvious approval, feeling base and guilt-ridden and… No! She must stop this wrong thinking. But how? And where? Under the MacPhersons’ interested gaze?
No. She just needed time. Everything had happened so quickly. She had not anticipated becoming Kit’s lover any more than she had anticipated the marquis’s interest. Both had happened within hours of one another. Was it any wonder she felt confused, her head spinning, her thoughts a jumble, and her heart brok— her heart sore?
She was a soldier’s daughter. When outstripped and outgunned, one fell back and regrouped.
“I fear you are right, Lady Mathilde,” she said, coming to a decision. “My travels have dealt more roughly with me than I realized. I would do best remaining here and recovering my full health.”
Lady Mathilde nodded sadly, unable to hide her disappointment. “I shall inform the marquis that we will be staying after all.”
“Not a bit of it,” Kate declared. “It would be unconscionable for you to cry off at such short notice.” Kate could not refrain from smiling at the sudden hopefulness in the old lady’s face. “I will speak to the marquis.”
Twenty minutes later the marquis and the others stood outside, preparing to leave as Kate stood beside them, saying temporary farewells. She had told the marquis that not only was she more tired than she’d originally realized, but that she felt she might actually do some good in staying back and offering what comfort she could to Merry, still cloistered in her rooms.
The marquis, of course, had agreed. He had been about to have the luggage returned to their rooms when Kate had asked him not to abandon his plans on her account. She asked with such gentle gravity that he could be in no doubt that she intended to use the weekend to sort out her thoughts. Being a gentleman, he had made no further protest but only took her hand and reverently kissed the backs of her fingers.
“I doubt any person could be more anxious that convivial hours pass swiftly than I will upon quitting your company, Mrs. Blackburn.” It was a truly handsome compliment. He was a truly handsome man. “I would not leave you here, even with the militia and my servants, had I not just received word from Captain Watters that he is within hours of bringing to justice those responsible for our mutual sorrow. He is well away from here.”
“I was never afraid,” she assured him.
“I know you will be well.” He still didn’t look happy.
“You are concerning yourself unduly, milord.”
He collected himself and stood back. “I look forward to that time when I can introduce you to my friends, Mrs. Blackburn.”
“You are kind, sir.”
He hesitated, seeming about to say more, and she shifted uneasily, not ready. He smiled wanly, understanding, and turned toward his aunt and uncle. “My dears, if you are ready?”
As they settled in the carriage, a horseman emerged near the top of the drive, a tall, lean man on a big roan gelding, the wind in his cloak and the sun bright in his hair. Kate’s lips curved into a smile of welcome and anticipation. Kit had come back after all.
Her heart fluttered in equal parts trepidation and anticipation. She waited, frozen in the open doorway. Even from this distance, she felt his gaze on her, his regard as sweet as the warmth of the sun on her cheeks. She took a step down the stairs, wondering why he was waiting, and then, abruptly, she understood: he wasn’t going to come any closer.
No. She stepped off the landing down to the first stairs, pulled by an invisible cord. Below her, John stowed the carriage steps inside as a hundred yards away Kit lifted his hand in farewell.
She was being left behind. But, oddly, looking at the lonely figure raked by a rising wind, it felt more like she was the one doing the abandoning. Then why was he still there, his arm aloft, like one seeking permission to leave?
And what else could she do but grant it?
She raised her hand slowly. He turned his horse. A few seconds later he had vanished beyond the trees. Ten minutes later the carriage left, too.
He’d been given his leave. He was his own man again. And wasn’t that better? Wasn’t that what he’d wanted from the beginning? To strip himself of every obligation? And, by God, he’d managed that right enough.
Aye. It would be better for Kate, too. She was off to dine on gold plate and drink from crystal goblets. Tonight she would be dressed in silk, and her eyes would sparkle like black diamonds, and her skin would glow beneath the light of a thousand candles. She would smile and grow warm with the exertions of the dance and her cheeks would flush, and the marquis, unable to resist her, would come and tell her she was beautiful. But he would never know how truly beautiful she was because he would never see her eyes still black with passion, her skin damp, her hair wild about her shoulders— Or maybe he would.
Kit spurred Doran into a canter, as though he could outdistance his thoughts, and the big gelding’s long legs effortlessly ate up the miles. Nothing kept him here any longer. He had thanked the marquis for his generosity and once more been forced to accept his gratitude for bringing him Kate. He’d stood, listening politely to the marquis’s plans to introduce her at some house party and murmuring appropriately over the marquis’s concern that Merry was staying back. And he had held his tongue because it was none of his concern, none of it, not Merry, not the marquis, not Kate.
The sound of the surf mingled with the wind rushing in his ears, and still it did not drown out the sound of her voice: “Can you think of any reason why I should not stay?”
A thousand. None of them good enough.
He’d fulfilled his obligation to Colonel Nash’s daughter, and he was free to pursue his own inclination, to repay that final debt, to find his betrayer and Douglas’s murderer. And then he could …What?
Rejoin his regiment, he supposed. He was a soldier, a good tactician and a canny judge of a battlefield. With luck in a few years he might make major.
But why? Toward what e
nd? So that he could live out his life independent, separate in heart and soul from all others. That was, after all, the promise he’d made himself after their betrayal at LeMons.
But he wasn’t. He never could be. Not ever again. No matter whether he’d done his duty by her, fulfilled his vow, discharged his obligation, he would always be tied to Kate Nash Blackburn by bonds stronger than oaths and duty and intent and purpose. He loved her. He always would—
“Halt!”
Four men stepped out from behind boulders on either side of the road, two in front and two behind. They had pikes. One held a primed pistol. Kit hauled back on Doran’s mouth, grabbing the hilt of the claymore sheathed between his shoulder blades. With a steely hiss it slid halfway from the scabbard before he heard a familiar voice behind him. “Ye never learn, do you, lad?”
Kit turned as Callum Lamont strode up, a musket leveled at his belly. There was murder in his face and an unholy excitement in the faces of his men.
“You’d think after being gulled in France, you’d be a mite more careful who you trust.”
There was no hope of running. But that didn’t mean he had to cringe.
“For God’s sake, Callum,” Kit drawled, letting the blade slip back into its sheath. “Speak up, lad. You sound like a half-wrung pullet.”
Callum made a chopping motion with his hand, and Kit’s head exploded in pain.
And then there was nothing.
TWENTY-FOUR
DEALING WITH PHYSICAL DISCOMFORT
THE THIRD BUCKET of snow thrown in his face revived Kit. He gasped for breath, shivering and retching, the burning in his arms and shoulders obliterating the pain of broken ribs. They’d thrown a rope over a hook suspended from the croft’s low ceiling and bound his wrists at each end, and then …then Callum had had a bit of fun, but he still didn’t have the information he wanted.
He was good at beating a man, Callum was. Better than Kit would have suspected of a buggering, trumped-up sod of a Scottish whoreson. Through the red veil of pain threatening to drown him, Kit tallied the damage: a couple of broken ribs, one eye closed, a tooth knocked out, and two fingers of his right hand aligned into a symmetry God never meant.
“I know you came for the treasure,” Callum said, pacing back and forth in front of Kit. “But you won’t have it. It’s mine. I killed before for that treasure, and I’ll kill you now for it. You’re only choice is whether you want to die fast or slow. Either way, you’ll tell me where it’s hid.”
“I don’t know.” He’d already told them a dozen times, and each time won another beating. Soon he wouldn’t be answering at all.
“You do.” With a savage snarl, Callum jerked Kit up by his shirt collar, splitting the abused material down the back. Behind, one of Callum’s men whistled.
“Sweet Jesus. The bastard’s been branded,” the one called Ben whispered.
“Impressed?” Kit sneered thickly. “Maybe you’d like one. Or maybe you’d rather taste the whip? Callum here always enjoyed the tickler.”
“What’s he mean?”
“Callum and I are old mates, aren’t we, Callum? Saved my life in prison.”
“That true?” one of the men asked.
Kit kept talking, because as long as they were listening, Callum’s men weren’t beating him. “There’s something I been meaning to ask you, Callum.”
“You’re here to answer questions, not ask ’em.”
He ignored that. “Who betrayed us, Callum? Me and Ram and Dand and Douglas? Do you know?”
“I knew it!” he crowed, grinning broadly. “I knew you never tumbled to it! Ha! That’s rich, that is! Lovely, even.”
“Who was it?”
Callum’s smiled thinned. He leaned down, bringing his face within inches of Kit’s. “Tell me what I want to know, and as soon as I have the treasure, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Kit ground his teeth. “I don’t know.”
Callum straightened, thwarted. “A right fine piece of work the Frogs done on him, eh, lads? But I’ll wager I can do as good.”
Kit met his glare through a haze of agony. He’d be damned to hell if he showed a shred of fear to the likes of Callum Lamont. “You’re sure you’re up to the task, Callum? You sound a bit hoarse. Maybe you’re coming down—ah!”
Callum’s fist slammed against Kit’s jaw, snapping his head back. “We’ll see how quick ye are with a quip by nightfall. Get me the reins from your horse, Ben.”
“Dinna think you should, Callum?” Ben asked.
“What?”
“It’s just that it was hard to wake him last time, and if ye lay on too hard, he’ll not be able to tell us where Murdoch and his wife stored the gold.”
“Lad has a point,” Kit said.
“Shut up.”
“Yer sure he knows where it is, Callum?” another asked. “We been at him, and he swears he don’t know nothing. And I’m thinkin’ maybe he don’t.”
“Thinkin’?” Callum shouted. He impaled each of his men with a challenging glare. “Well, they say there’s a first for everything.”
Kit waited, trying to gather what strength he had. He knew men like these, had trained them, led them, and fought beside them. They respected but one thing: strength. Right now Callum had pitted his will against Kit’s, and the smuggler understood well enough that to fail to get the information he sought would undermine his power.
Kit would have smiled if his face hadn’t hurt so. Callum could beat him until the marrow ran like jelly from his bones—he didn’t know where any “treasure” was.
“Why do you think he knows something, Callum? She tell you?”
She. Merry.
“Nah. I had it direct from our partner. He’s proved oft times enough that he knows what’s what and, more important, what’s where, hasn’t he, now?”
“Aye,” a couple agreed.
“I thought he was in France,” Ben said.
“Not no more. He didn’t want to lose his part of that last wreck any more than we did, lads. King’s ransom, it’s worth. We been working on it, him at the castle and me here in Clyth.”
At the castle?
Callum was boasting now, trying to impress his men with his cleverness and his partner’s usefulness. “He found out that Murdoch’s wife sent her cousin a letter telling where the loot was hid, and that the widow and lover here come to fetch it for themselves.”
Someone grabbed a hank of Kit’s hair and lifted his head. “That true, Cap? You come here to steal our booty?”
“Yours? You’re wreckers.” Kit did not keep the sneer from his voice. Wreckers were worse than pirates, who at least met their victims on level ground. Wreckers waited for storms to bring in ships looking for safety, using lanterns and shore fires to lure them onto reefs where the sea and surf would batter them to bits. Then they collected the ship’s cargo from the beaches, murdering any survivors who made it to shore so they couldn’t carry tales. “Murderers.”
The backhanded blow caught Kit on the temple, snapping his head back. “Where is my gold?!”
“If you wanted the letter Grace Murdoch wrote to Mrs. Blackburn, why didn’t you just have your bride steal it when she ransacked Mrs. Blackburn’s room at the tavern?” he asked scornfully. “Why? Because there isn’t a letter. Where is the fair Mrs. Lamont anyway? Outside, waiting in the carriage? I wouldn’t have taken her for a squeamish lass.”
“Mrs. Lamont?” Callum stared at him.
“Surprised I know?” Kit asked, hoping for a brief respite to gather his wits. “I found her in the stables, hiding her luggage in anticipation of going off with you. It’s why she stayed home, isn’t it?”
Something was wrong. Callum had stepped back, blinking rapidly, his expression dumbfounded. Shocked. And suddenly Kit understood. “She set you up.” He laughed. “We’ve both been set up.”
“What’s he talking about?”
“Shut up.”
Sensing Callum’s thickening anxiety, a worry that hung ove
r him like the stink on a peat bog, Ben edged forward. “What’s he mean?”
“Look outside,” Kit ordered. “Is the militia here yet? Nah. He’d wait a while to be certain you’ve killed me first. You still have time to escape, Callum. Best take it.”
“The militia!”
“Shut up!” Callum bellowed.
“I thought she meant she’d eloped with you, but she meant Captain Watters. Your partner,” Kit said. “I should know. Nothing in the army is quick, and the replacement for the dead captain arrived right quick. Watters killed Captain Greene, didn’t he? Then he lay low. Probably in this very croft. That’s why he told you to take me here, so he’d know exactly where to send the militia.”
“What militia?” Panic had entered Ben’s voice.
Kit ignored him, musing through it. “He kills Greene, dons the dead man’s own tunic and sash, rides to the castle and takes over the militia, marries the girl, collects a fortune, kills the witnesses—and the partners—and rides out. Cocky bastard. But brilliant.” He didn’t bother hiding his admiration.
Callum closed the distance between them, slamming his fist into Kit’s gut. “Shut yer hole!”
Kit gasped, fighting the clouds dimming his vision. “She’s leaving with him, Callum,” he croaked. “Maybe already left.
“Think about it! She was with the marquis when he received word that Kate Blackburn had arrived in Clyth. She rode to the inn that afternoon and searched her room, looking for whatever it was that told where Grace had hid the treasure.
“She found it. Don’t you see? They already have the treasure. They set this up to get rid of everyone who knows that she conspired at Grace’s murder, everyone who knows that Captain Watters doesn’t exist, everyone who might want a piece of that treasure. That’s you, Callum!
“You fool, they set us up. She rides off with Watters or whatever the hell his name is and the treasure and you and I and all your men are killed, surrounded by Greene’s militia—”
My Seduction Page 24