James stared. “I don’t take your meaning, sir.”
Carr laughed with delight. “I can see that you don’t! Let me apprise you, Barton, that you may recount it to Fia. I should like to tell her myself but I am this moment embarking on a trip to the continent and thus must forgo that singular pleasure.
“To begin with”—he laced his hands atop the knob of his walking stick and leaned forward—“I like this little insurance hoax of yours and I commend you on its previous successes.” Carr nodded pleasantly.
Good, thought James, Carr had bought in to the rumors Fia and he had so carefully spread. Perhaps there was a chance after all.
“But Fia should have realized I would never seek to become part of your little couplet.”
James’s hopes wavered.
“Any man I associate with in such a venture is a man I own.” He settled back and sighed. “I don’t own you, sir. Yet. It is a situation that I shall look into remedying.”
Before James could reply, Carr waved his cane gently in the air. “I do, however, own your partner, Thomas … Donne, I believe he calls himself? And him I’ve made my partner.”
The air in the small, shadowed carriage suddenly seemed dense. A cold finger touched the base of James’s spine. His fear for Thomas increased even as his hopes for his and Fia’s plans collapsed. Carr in league with Thomas? It made no sense! Why would Thomas not have told him? How did Carr own Thomas?
There was no possible way to salvage any of Fia’s plan, but at least he could try to protect Thomas.
“What sort of blackmail have you on Thomas?” he demanded.
“You mean you don’t know? Tch-tch. And here I’d been led to believe you were such good friends,” Carr returned blandly.
“I don’t care what Thomas did, or rather what you say he did!” James said angrily.
“Don’t you?” Carr asked. “That’s good, because if Thomas didn’t see fit to tell you about his past, it certainly wouldn’t be my place to do so, don’t you think?”
“You miserable bastard,” James ground out.
Carr’s bright eyes went flat. “Careful,” he warned.
There was nothing James could do. Even if he were to offer himself or his ship in Thomas’s stead, it would do no good. Carr was not the sort of man to honor a pact.
“Do your damnedest, Carr,” James said, his outrage thickening his voice. “You have pathetic horrors like this creature”—he jerked his head in Tunbridge’s direction—“willing to do your bidding no matter how filthy the work is. Between the two of you, you may even be able to ruin my shipping business.”
This time ’twas James who leaned forward, his blunt face bright with blood. “Try. I’m leaving in two days for the Cape. Even a creature like you might find it a challenge to work your evil that far afield. And I tell you this, when I leave I shall be glad not to have to share the same air with you!”
Without another utterance, James jerked down on the door handle and kicked the plush-lined door open. He jumped from the carriage to the ground, shoving his way angrily through the crowd.
Inside the carriage Tunbridge watched him go. “Shall I challenge him to a duel?”
“Duel?” Carr blinked. “No,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “No duel. I’ll deal with him later. Right now I am more interested in what he said. It disturbs me.”
“And what was that?” Tunbridge asked dutifully, though no interest colored his voice. Nothing much colored Tunbridge’s voice anymore.
“Barton said he would be leaving for the Cape.”
“Yes?”
“I could have sworn that was the route Thomas Donne was to have sailed. Which leaves me to wonder”—his gaze wandered toward the window—“just where and what he is up to.
“And did you note Barton’s surprise when I told him to convey my message to Fia? I swear he has not the vaguest notion where she is, which seems rather odd for two people supposedly in league, does it not?”
“Not particularly,” Tunbridge said after a moment. “You and I have been ‘in league’ for years—or so most people would assume. Yet I rarely know what you are doing or where or with whom. Perhaps the apple has not fallen so far from the tree,” he suggested bitterly, “and she feels no need to confide in her toadies, either.”
The idea found merit with Carr, for he pursed his lips thoughtfully. “You may be right. And I did tell her to be circumspect. But I dislike these little discrepancies.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Still, I have plans in France. A certain alliance to secure. I would dislike even more having to postpone that. So …”
“So I will stay here and try to determine if Fia and Donne are partnered?”
“Yes. Look for anything that suggests that Fia has plotted at a deeper level than I assumed, and I have been—” He could not finish his sentence, the word “duped” in association with himself was simply too onerous to consider. Of course Fia had not plotted with Donne from the beginning. The notion was preposterous.
“And if I do find evidence?” Tunbridge asked.
“Then you have my permission to make them suffer. Both of them.”
A little flicker of interest arose in Tunbridge’s sunken eyes. “Aye?”
“Suffer, but not die,” Carr clarified. “Do nothing to drive Donne away. Should they have plotted against me, I want to be the one to inform the authorities that Thomas Donne is in reality Thomas McClairen, transported for crimes against the Crown. I want to be the one that sends him to the gallows.” His smile was like a wound. “Indeed, I insist on it.”
Tunbridge left Carr at the quay where the ship sailing for Le Havre was berthed. He did not bother bidding his master adieu and he received no further words of any kind from Carr, though occasionally Carr would lean forward, peer out the window, and address his dead wife.
The man was mad, Tunbridge allowed, calling for the driver to take him to where the Alba Star had been berthed. But as was the way of madmen, Carr was also canny and unnaturally perceptive and certainly more dangerous, because these days he was influenced only by his own whims.
Tunbridge knew well how swift and irrevocable Carr’s whimsy could be—he’d been the instrument of those whims on more than one occasion. Twice he’d been an instrument of death. He very well might be again.
He thought all this without any perceptible heightening of emotion, not dread or disgust or exultance or even fear. Most of his emotions had bled from him years ago. More than anything else these days, he felt odd that he didn’t feel odd. He’d arrived at that place where a man is a curiosity to himself and only vaguely alarmed by the realization.
Once on the pier, Tunbridge spent a half hour questioning, threatening, and bribing until he’d secured the information that Thomas Donne had left port fifteen days ago and that a lady had been seen embarking a short time before the ship set sail. Whether or not that “lady” had disembarked, Tunbridge was unable to ascertain.
He returned to the waiting carriage and gave the driver instructions to Fia’s town house. During the ride he tried with little success to keep his thoughts from Fia Merrick and her probable liaison with yet another man.
Once he’d loved Fia with all the passionate intensity he nowadays managed to invoke only on the killing fields. He’d wanted her above all things and had been young enough, or perhaps still human enough, to believe he could have her.
Not only Carr, but also the beautiful Fia herself had disabused him of that notion. Both had been cruel, but his interview with Fia had been by far the worse. She’d looked at him without a shred of interest, her bright blue eyes as reflective and blank as silvered glass. She’d not even offered him the slight salve of hostility. Only utter disinterest and a simple, irrevocable “no.”
She hadn’t bothered to explain, or blame, or revile his black nature or his infamy. She hadn’t even bothered to laugh. Just “no.” He’d been a thing to her.
He was a thing. Carr had made him such slowly, degree by degree, sucking him dry of
his humanity. If only he’d had the balls to take his chances with the magistrates twenty years ago when he’d killed a tavern maid in a drunken fit. But he hadn’t. He’d run away, certain his secret was safe. But—a grim smile twisted his lips—one was never safe from one’s actions. Carr had been there that night. Oh, he’d not witnessed the murder himself, but he’d found a witness who’d signed a sworn statement attesting to his guilt. He had been under Carr’s thumb ever since.
Tunbridge jerked his head up, his gaze locked unseeingly outside the carriage. Oh, well.
There was nothing he could do for it now and at least he could soothe himself with the notion that Fia was no less a “thing” than he. He’d seen her. He’d watched all these years since she’d refused him, and he knew that no man, particularly that Scots fool she’d wed, had ever brought her a moment’s honest joy. She was as incapable of it as Carr. As Tunbridge himself.
And it made him glad.
He relaxed, pondering the bit of information Carr had uncharacteristically let slip. So, Thomas Donne was a McClairen. It surprised Tunbridge that Carr should have held this piece of information so long without making use of it. If he hadn’t made use of it.
The carriage drew to a halt, and with a start Tunbridge realized that an hour had passed since he’d left the dockyards. The door swung open and the driver pulled out the steps and stood back as Tunbridge emerged.
He climbed the steps to the town house and rapped on the lacquered front door. It opened upon the autocratic countenance of a butler, who bowed and said, “A good afternoon to you, sir, but I regret that my mistress is not presently at home.”
“Oh, that’s quite all right,” Tunbridge said, stepping inside. “For ’tis you I’ve come to see.”
Tunbridge left the town house twenty minutes later, having the information he’d sought. The stately butler had taken quite a bit of persuading. It would take him a long time to regain his self-esteem and forget that ultimately his fear had outstripped his loyalties. It was a lesson, Tunbridge knew, that could … damage a man if repeated too often. Not that it was any of Tunbridge’s concern.
The butler had confirmed that Fia had left the town house the same day that Thomas Donne, born McClairen, had sailed. The suggestive indications that Fia was bestowing on another man that which Tunbridge had once so fervently sought sent an unaccustomed wave of vitriol coursing through his thin body. His hatred piled atop his grievances, and underlying both yawned a chasm of unarticulated loss.
Oh, yes, Lord Carr, he thought grimly as he drove away, I will most certainly punish them both.
Chapter 22
What I’d like ta know, and some of the other women, too”—Mrs. MacNab set the small kettle of braised mutton at her feet and planted her big, raw-boned hands on her wide hips—“is what yer doin’ with yon young widow?” She jerked her head toward where Fia sat at a worktable near the castle walls, head bent in concentration over her most current sketch.
Thomas, in the act of reaching for their lunch, straightened. “What?”
“Tha young widow MacFarlane,” Mrs. MacNab clucked impatiently. “Ye dinna take advantage of the lass whilst at the manor. I can swear ta tha’ and I have, too, when the conversation warranted.
“And they say ye sleep out under the stars with the rest of the men come night,” she went on, “though anyone with eyes in thar heads can see by the way ye look at her yer near to burnin’ with want.”
“That obvious, eh?” Thomas said, finding his voice.
“Aye,” Mrs. MacNab returned dryly. “And anythin’ tha’ obvious cannot be kept long held in without somethin’ bein’ done about it; and tha’s what I’d like to know, what ye mean to do about it.”
Damn the woman. How was he supposed to answer that when he didn’t know himself? From the look in Mrs. MacNab’s eyes, she wouldn’t leave until she had an answer, and he wanted her to leave so that he could take this kettle to Fia and she would stop working and devote all her attention to him.
How spoiled he’d become in eight short days. For if he denied himself the pleasure he’d found in Fia’s arms, he certainly didn’t deny himself the one he’d found in her company. ’Twas no wonder she’d charmed the McClairen ladies—and men. She worked diligently and uncomplainingly. She did not presume upon her relationship with him, but offered herself on her own merit. And whilst she clearly did not consider herself one of them, neither did she place herself above them.
“Well?” Mrs. MacNab demanded.
“Are you asking me what my intentions toward Lady MacFarlane are, Mrs. MacNab?”
“Aye. Because we”—she cast a quick look behind her, where five McClairen women stood in an anxious little band—“we’ve grown fond of the gel and we wouldna like ta think our laird would use her harshly or disrespectfully, fer all tha’ she was once English.”
Once English. That’s how they thought of Fia, as one of their own who’d somehow been mistakenly born to an Englishman, like a changeling. And that she was, Thomas thought. How much so, they would never know.
What would happen if his clan knew the woman in their midst was the Earl of Carr’s daughter? Mayhap they’d still be as smitten as he. On the other hand, they might well stone both of them. Though he was their chieftain by virtue of his bloodlines, in truth Thomas knew little of the people he’d worked so hard to unite.
His “leadership,” if it could be called such, had been mostly in absentia. He presumed that their loyalty was not to him but to what he represented.
In the meantime, what could he say to Mrs. MacNab? “I promise you, Mrs. MacNab, that I will not use Lady MacFarlane harshly, nor will I disrespect her.”
“But …”
She was not satisfied. Well, neither was he.
“You have my word, Mrs. MacNab,” he said in a tone of voice that made his crew jump and his enemies quail.
“Yes, m’lord,” she said, then bobbed a curtsy and scuttled back to her brood of ladies.
Thomas retrieved the kettle, banishing Mrs. MacNab and her concerns from his mind. The day was bonny and bright and Fia sat a few dozen yards away at the large battered table Jamie had set beneath the overarching branches of an alder, her brow furrowed in concentration. She didn’t look up as he approached.
“What was this room used for?” Thomas asked, leaning over her shoulder and pointing. The scent of her freshly washed hair rose and inveigled his senses.
“This?” She didn’t turn.
“Aye.” He bent, cautious as a thief, and brushed his jaw lightly against the silky spiraling tendrils. Crisp. Cool. He wanted to wrap his hand in the luxuriance of it.
“There is where Carr fattened up the children for roasting.”
So lost in his vivid imaginings was he that for a half moment Thomas didn’t react. “What?”
She swiveled in her chair, her cheek in her palm, her elbow on the table, and regarded him with one arched brow. “The children. We fattened them up for roasting.”
At the expression on his face she burst out laughing and his confusion instantly became desire. Lud, she was lovely when she laughed!
“At least that’s what one of your men told me this morning. That Carr bought stolen children from the gypsies and fattened them up to serve to his evil friends.”
“What did you say back?” he asked worriedly.
Her delight dimmed. “I didn’t tell him a thing, of course. You may take as gospel that I feel no need, or the slightest inclination, to defend my father from any charges, no matter how horrifying or, in this case, ridiculous.
“And should you have any curiosity about that matter,” she continued, “Wanton’s Blush was ne’er a Medmenham Abbey—though I am certain it would have become one had my father’s tastes leaned in that direction.”
Her gaze never wavered, yet he sensed the deep hurt masked by her insouciance. He didn’t know how to respond. His feelings for her were raw and complicated; the anger that flooded him each time he thought of Carr grew greater each day. As
did his desire, to protect her, to be with her, to love her. Which he could not do.
“We’re a sad lot, aren’t we?” she said softly, seeming to divine his thoughts.
“Aye.” He smiled ruefully. “Most pathetic.”
She rose and stretched her arms as she looked about. The workmen were breaking off to take their midday meal. “Will you take me in?” she asked suddenly.
“Where?”
“The fattening-up room, of course,” she said, a shadow of her former roguishness in her tone. “I’m a bit stiff. I could use a little walk. And I’ve yet to go into that part of the castle. Jamie says ’tisn’t safe. So will you take me in?”
How could he refuse her when she smiled so winsomely?
“Your wish …” He bowed like a courtier and with a flourish ushered her ahead of him, trailing behind as she moved eagerly toward the castle entrance.
As they drew closer the scent of charred wood became stronger. He took her hand and helped her cross some of the rubble yet to be cleared from the doorway. He watched her, reading in her avid scrutiny amazement, sorrow, and interest.
Overhead, black timbers emerged like the stumps of rotting teeth from the half-tumbled ceiling. Daylight poured through the open roof. Whole sections of walls had crumbled in the heat, leaving standing only chimneys to mark the various apartments and suites they’d once served. The grand staircase curved twenty feet above them and then abruptly ended, suspended in mid-space.
“We think the fire began in one of the east-facing apartments,” he said.
“No one lived in those rooms,” she answered. “They were used for storage, and the blaze was set on purpose, which any number of men or women would have had cause and opportunity to do. I am glad they did, for if they hadn’t, Carr would have held on to the castle until he’d squeezed the last drop of blood from her.” When she turned, her eyes were shining with approval.
“You are doing a wonderful thing here, Thomas. I am awed. And”—her gaze fell—“I am so … I am pleased you have allowed me to be part of it. Thank you.”
“Don’t,” he said, her humility distressing him. “You are doing us an invaluable service. ’Tis I who owe you my thanks.” He gestured toward the outside. “We all do.”
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