by Karen Ranney
Matthew shot him a chastising look. Matthew had strict and odd views of celibacy that Dixon didn’t share. The fact that he’d been forced into a monklike state in the last few months had been due more to circumstances than inclination.
Dixon turned and called up to his coachman. “Find the stables, Donald, and introduce yourself. We’re going to be staying for a few days.”
Donald nodded and tipped his hat with his whip hand.
“Whose guest are you?” the young woman asked when she greeted him.
“Guest?” Dixon asked.
She nodded. “I need to indicate it for our book,” she said, gesturing toward the other girl holding the leather-bound volume. “We’re listing all the guests. You have come for the graduation, have you not?”
“I’m afraid we haven’t,” Dixon said. “Graduation?”
She looked annoyed, a strange expression for such a young and vibrant face. “The Caledonia School for the Advancement of Females, sir. The very first graduating class.”
“We’re friends of the family,” Dixon said, hoping the information would wipe the look of annoyance from her face and summon a smile.
It didn’t, but he forgot about her the moment he entered Balfurin.
Once, the entrance to the castle had been a narrow corridor leading to the Great Hall, with other rooms branching off that cavernous chamber. Sometime in the last decade, however, since he was last at Balfurin, massive changes had been made to the interior of the castle. He followed a steady line of people into a commodious foyer tiled in black and white. When he was last here, the area had been a narrow little closet of an entranceway. To his left was the Great Hall, and above, where once there had been a narrow curving stair, was a set of steps sweeping up to the very top of the castle.
He wanted to stop the press of people, demand some time to absorb the changes, but he was soon born along with the crowd into the Great Hall. Here, at least, there were few changes. The claymores and broadswords had been removed from the walls, but the flags and banners belonging to the MacKinnons were still in evidence.
Thank God. For a moment, he’d thought George had found a way to circumvent the primogeniture laws and sold the castle outright.
He moved to the back of the hall, Matthew accompanying him. With some difficulty he found a place beside a pillar. In moments, a procession began, white gowned girls walking two by two through the middle of the Great Hall holding thick white pillar candles before them. They were chanting something he couldn’t translate. He could speak French, German, and in the last ten years, Malay, but his Latin was rusty. He was reminded of his schoolboy lessons of ancient Rome, and wondered what the hell George had gotten himself into that a group not unlike the Vestal Virgins were parading through Balfurin.
An older woman stepped up to an elevated area at the end of the Hall. She waited until the crowd became aware of her and then began to speak. “It is my great pleasure and privilege to introduce Charlotte MacKinnon, the Countess of Marne.”
Applause greeted the woman who replaced her at the podium.
She was dressed in a similar fashion to the girls who stood in front of her, their candles still flickering. Her auburn hair had more than a touch of red to it, as if there was fire in it. He was too far away to see the color of her eyes, but he somehow knew they’d be green. Her face was pale, but spots of color showed on her cheeks, as if she were embarrassed or excited to be standing in front of the crowd of people in Balfurin’s Great Hall.
She began to speak and he found himself fascinated by the low timbre of her voice.
“Those women who are graduating from the Caledonia School for the Advancement of Females have completed a rigorous course of work in Latin, geography, mathematics, linguistics, French, history, and art appreciation. They have also been schooled in household management, millinery, and fashion, all subjects that will enable them to become good citizens, wives, and mothers. When our students leave Balfurin, they do so armed with a knowledge of the world, and hopefully a thirst for education that will continue throughout their lives.”
She smiled, and her face was transformed from simple prettiness to beauty. He moved closer, his back to the pillar, eager to see her in a better light.
The crowd laughed at one of her comments and she blushed, looking down at the podium for a long moment before continuing to talk. One by one, the teachers were introduced, a fair number of young to middle-aged women being acknowledged to applause. She was artful at sharing praise and singling out those who appeared shy.
Finally, the girls advanced onto the stage, received their rolled diplomas, and stepped away, each one to a thunderous round of applause.
At the end, the redheaded woman hesitated, and then stretched out her arm, indicating the assembled column of girls in a sweeping gesture.
“Ladies and gentlemen, fathers and mothers, I give you the first graduating class of the Caledonia School for the Advancement of Females.”
A very nice speech, but it didn’t answer his question—what had happened to Balfurin, and where was George?
In the last four hundred years, the Great Hall had probably been as crowded. Instead of a graduation from the Caledonia School for the Advancement of Females, however, the talk had no doubt been of warfare, stealing a neighboring clan’s cattle, or going to battle against the English. Dixon couldn’t help but wonder if the first earl—ensconced in a heaven reserved for Scottish warriors—was wincing at Balfurin’s new, less warlike demeanor.
When the ceremony was over, and the crowd invited to ascend to the ballroom for dancing and refreshments, Dixon gradually became aware of the looks sent in his direction.
He moved through a door he doubted many people knew about since it was set flush into the wall and looked like part of the decoration. He didn’t worry that Matthew had followed him—Matthew was always five feet behind him, a constant, protective shadow.
People passed him, intent on the curving staircase. He ignored them and walked through the first floor of Balfurin.
The framed souvenirs of war that had been mounted on the wall were gone, replaced by watercolors of native plants. Bouquets of heather brightened the shadowy corners. Heather should be growing free in the glen, not looking oddly miserable and out of place confined to copper urns.
A footman, tall and straight, in blue livery, bowed to him.
“May I direct you to the ballroom, sir?”
“No,” he said, as amenably as possible in the midst of the unpleasant experience of rediscovering Balfurin.
The castle had been softened, the interior furnishings almost feminine. Dixon wasn’t certain he liked the change. It played hell with his memories.
Were there any servants left who might have known him as a boy? Anyone at all, who could recall the shape of his boyhood face in the man who stood before them? Was that the reason he’d come home to Scotland after all this time? To find a trace of himself? To find his identity? He’d spent the last ten years of his life immersed in a culture where family was valued over wealth or prestige, where ancestors were more honored than the living. Perhaps he was simply trying to find his own roots.
The area where he walked had once been dreary from the absence of light. Now the corridor had been widened and windows added. He wondered what view they would reveal in the daylight. Candles illuminated a room he could call a parlor in another home, comfortable with overstuffed couches and chairs angled to catch the best of the light from the mullioned windows.
What the hell had happened to Balfurin?
“It is a very big place, master,” Matthew said. Dixon glanced at him, surprised to realize that he’d forgotten the other man’s presence for a moment.
“Balfurin’s larger than I remember. Aren’t places from your childhood supposed to look smaller?”
Balfurin both resonated in his memory and yet felt alien. Too many things had changed and yet the castle itself was timeless.
A couple passed him, intent on the stairs. He gestured to
Matthew and followed them, annoyed that strangers seemed to know Balfurin better than he. At the head of the stairs, the crowd bunched together and then stalled. It wasn’t until they moved forward that he discovered why—they were being announced by an elderly man in stiff brocaded blue livery and wearing a powdered wig.
Finally, someone he recognized.
“Hello, Jeffrey,” he said as he came abreast of the old man.
Jeffrey turned and frowned at Dixon, his bushy white eyebrows meeting together over soft brown eyes that looked too young to belong to the old man. Abruptly, his annoyed expression changed, becoming almost frightened. His mouth hung open; he stepped back a pace, and stared at Dixon.
“I know I’ve been gone some time,” he said, “but it’s really me, Jeffrey.”
Jeffrey’s hand quivered as he stretched it toward Dixon, one finger extended, as if Jeffrey thought he was a ghost and had to touch him to assure himself Dixon was corporeal. His eyes softened, and for a moment Dixon thought the elderly servant was going to cry.
Instead, Jeffrey took a step forward. He cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, and thumped the wooden floor with his gold-topped staff. In a voice louder than he’d announced the other guests, he intoned, “The Earl of Marne, and Laird of Balfurin.”
Conversation abruptly stopped. People ceased mingling. A quiet as profound as midnight on the ocean stole over the room. As Dixon moved closer to correct Jeffrey, the woman from the Great Hall stepped forward. The crowd parted silently for her.
Her face was flushed and then seemed to grow paler the closer she came to him. She’d changed clothes, and the feathers on the shoulders of her gown bobbed as she walked. She looked not unlike a cygnet, a young swan of grace and dignity.
“A most exquisite female,” Matthew said from beside him. Since Matthew was rarely given to comments about women, he glanced at him curiously. There was an expression of intensity on his companion’s face that he’d never before seen.
He didn’t have time to comment, because suddenly she was standing not two feet from him. Unlike some women who do not improve on proximity, this woman was even more striking up close than she was from a distance. Her complexion was perfect, her skin clear and radiant, her teeth—her lips were parted in a determined, if grim smile—were perfectly formed and white. Her hair was truly more red than brown, and her features so perfect that he was tempted to ask her to remain still for a few moments so that he might be able to measure each against the other.
How odd that the music was still playing.
Nor was her figure to be missed. How could he? He was a man who’d been celibate for too long.
“George,” she said, her voice low and intimate, “I might have expected this of you.”
Instead of waiting for his reply, however, she walked past Jeffrey into the corridor. He had no recourse but to follow her, Matthew at his side.
“Madam, you are mistaken,” he said, annoyed that she’d taken him for his cousin.
She smiled at two late arrivals, and waited until they were announced before turning to him.
“In what? The fact that you are here? Or the fact that you chose the worst night in five years to return? Where have you been? And why in the name of the archangels have you come back?”
“Madam, I must correct you,” he began, only to be interrupted once more.
“Why now, after all this time? You’re not welcome here, MacKinnon. I don’t have any use for a husband, especially you.” She fisted her hands and held them out in front of her as if they were playing a children’s game. Perhaps she wanted to hit him and was only barely restraining herself.
He took a precautionary step backward.
“Did all my money run out, George? Is that why you’re back? I’ve not got any spare to give you, and you’ll not take from the school’s coffers. It’s barely paying its way as it is.”
Now that was really too much.
“A MacKinnon has never been a thief, madam.”
She answered with an unladylike snort of derision and a quelling look. “Pity I didn’t know that five years ago when you absconded with my dowry after a week of marriage.”
“The actions of a man betray his soul,” Matthew said.
Dixon glanced at Matthew, wondering why he chose now to become inscrutably Oriental.
“Who are you?” she asked, then shook her head as if chastising herself for her rudeness. But she didn’t alter the question or soften it.
Matthew tucked his hands into his sleeves and bowed from the waist. “I am Matthew Mark Luke and John.”
She looked startled, but then so did everyone upon learning Matthew’s full name.
“Matthew was raised by missionaries,” Dixon said. “They couldn’t decide which book of the Bible to name him after so they picked four.”
“It’s a good thing they weren’t reading the Old Testament at the time,” she said. “Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah would have been much more difficult.”
Matthew smiled, a rare enough expression that Dixon stared at him. The younger man wasn’t easily charmed, and it was disconcerting that this red-haired virago had been the one to do it.
“Is it your hair?” he asked. “Does it give you your fiery nature? Or were you born a blond and your temper colored your hair?”
“You claimed, once, to have liked my hair,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
“A lot of things that were real five years ago may not be real now.” Including his identity.
“I haven’t been able to divorce you, George. Perhaps I should just kill you instead. It’s something I shall have to consider.”
With that she turned and walked away, leaving him staring after her.
Chapter 2
T he orchestra was playing, the sound of lush music traveling through the corridors of Balfurin, bringing the old castle to life. Moonlight streamed in through the archer’s slits, recently fitted with glass. Everyone looked as if they were having a delightful time. The food on the sideboards was disappearing at a rapid rate, as were the wines. Even the overly sweet punch, set aside for the younger students, was being refilled in the large silver bowl.
Charlotte skirted the dance floor, nodding and smiling at her guests. The effort to appear cordial and welcoming was nearly killing her. She wanted to stand in the middle of the ballroom, spread her arms wide, and start screaming.
A cluster of girls stood in the anteroom, and she nodded to them, hoping they wouldn’t engage her in conversation. She needed a few minutes to gain her composure, calm herself, before becoming the chatelaine of Balfurin once more.
Damn him.
Closing her eyes, she took a few deep breaths but it didn’t work. She was still furious.
Damn him. Damn him for showing up tonight of all times. Damn him for not disappearing forever. Damn him for ruining the one evening in the world that mattered to me. Damn him for his interference. Damn him for being alive.
Gradually, she became aware of the whispers on the other side of the anteroom. If the three girls clustered there wanted a bit of privacy, they should have considered how high the ceilings and how well sound carried.
“…it was in her family for ages, and she’s heartsick.”
“Marybell can’t locate the ring her grandmother gave her either.”
“My mother will never forgive me. She told me not to bring it to school and if I tell her it’s missing, she’ll just get all puffed up like she does when she’s right.”
Charlotte pushed aside all thoughts of George in view of this new crisis. She crossed the anteroom and addressed the three girls.
“What is missing?”
None of the girls looked eager to impart any information, but Charlotte merely waited. She’d found that silence was a remarkable persuader.
“My brooch,” Anna finally said. “I had it yesterday, but when I went to put it in my case, it was gone. It’s gold, with a lock of my parents’ hair inside.”
“And Marybell’s ring, and Jess
ica’s necklace,” another one of the girls said.
“Why haven’t you reported any of these items?” Charlotte asked, even though she knew the answer. They wouldn’t be found, any more than the other jewelry gone missing this term.
The regrettable fact was that one of her students had a habit of thievery. She could only hope that it was one of the graduating seniors and they wouldn’t return to school.
“Make sure Miss Thompson gets the list before you leave,” she said. Each of the girls nodded, and Charlotte forced a pleasant expression on her face as the three girls left the anteroom.
What else? Surely, this night would soon be over. She’d been so elated earlier in the evening and now she only wanted her bed.
“Your ladyship?” She turned to find Maisie standing there. “Is there anything I can do?”
Turn back time itself to five years earlier. She’d have refused to marry George MacKinnon.
Charlotte shook her head and began to pace back and forth. What was she to do now? Every time she turned, one of the feathers brushed her lips. Finally, too annoyed to tolerate it any longer, she grabbed the offending feather and jerked it free, hearing the worrisome sound of stitches ripping as she did so.
Maisie came to her side. “Your ladyship, you’ll ruin your dress.”
“At this moment, I don’t care.”
The maid drew her hands away from the feather, and carefully removed it. “Is it true?” she asked. “Is he your husband?”
“I’m very much afraid he is.”
“It’s a wonderful thing for him to have returned after all this time, your ladyship.”
She turned her head and looked at her maid. “No, Maisie, it isn’t. The man should have greeted me on his knees, hands outstretched, with an apology on his lips. Instead, he arrogantly stood there smiling at me.”
“He’s very handsome,” Maisie said. “Every woman in the ballroom noted it.”
“Did everyone hear what I said?”
“I don’t think so,” Maisie said, and at this moment Charlotte didn’t care if her maid was being tactful or not. She was going to choose to believe that no one else had heard the words she’d thrown at George.