by Karen Ranney
His chest hurt, as if he couldn’t breathe.
He’d tried to avoid thinking of her, and all he’d succeeded in doing was fixing her face firmly in his mind. He could hear her voice, and see the sparkle in her eyes as she waited for him to serve the next volley in their conversation. He’d never known another woman like her. Women in the Orient were submissive as a rule, catering to a man’s whims and wishes even before he knew what they were. Women in Scotland were more demanding.
Charlotte was neither and both, an amalgam, an enigma, a puzzle. When she loved, he suspected, she’d love deeply and forever.
Had she loved George? That was a question he’d never asked along with another for which he hadn’t yet found the answer: why had George left her?
Balfurin looked the same as it had three weeks earlier, but this time the castle seemed almost welcoming, as if humor and gaiety and a host of other pleasant emotions dwelled inside its red-brick walls. There were no students in attendance now, and fewer staff, but the atmosphere would still be cozy. A hint of spice, the warmth from the fire, a tentative smile from one of the maids, even old Jeffrey’s rusty grin would all welcome him.
And Charlotte.
What was he going to do about Charlotte? He’d not wanted to leave her for a moment, let alone the three weeks it had been. Had she missed him as well? Or counted herself fortunate that her long-lost husband had disappeared again?
Of the two of them, his actions were more suspect. He knew he wasn’t George, knew that Charlotte was not his wife. She had no such inkling.
Was he going to be able to leave her alone? There, the question that had followed him all the way from Edinburgh. He wanted her, in a way that both fascinated and disturbed him.
At the moment, he wished he’d never seen Balfurin again, had never wanted to mend those broken ties that had kept him far from Scotland all these years.
Matthew was right. He’d stirred up the ghosts of the past, and they weren’t pleased.
He turned and walked back to the carriage, giving the signal to the coachman. He didn’t have the answers for the questions he’d raised, but then he hadn’t in the last few weeks, either. Perhaps the best thing he could do was to see her again, come face-to-face with his errant desire, and tell her the truth.
The task might well prove to be impossible, or more than he could manage. He didn’t want to leave her. Instead, he wanted to become George, more now than at any time in his life.
Jeffrey was there to open the door for him.
“Do you never sleep, Jeffrey?” he asked, entering the castle.
“The countess is entertaining, your lordship,” he said, bowing. “Shall I inform her of your arrival?”
Dixon consulted his pocket watch. “At this hour?”
“I believe so, your lordship. I’ve heard a great deal of laughter coming from the parlor.”
“Really?”
Jeffrey bowed again, a gesture Dixon wished he wouldn’t make. The old man looked incapable of rising. He waited until he was certain Jeffrey had gotten his balance, and then strode past him to the stairs.
“No, leave her. God knows she deserves a little levity. Who are her guests?”
Jeffrey sent him a look from beneath his bushy brows.
“I take it you don’t approve?” Dixon asked as he began to mount the steps.
“In my day, women acted like ladies, my lord. They were accompanied by proper chaperones, escorts and the like. Lady Eleanor’s entourage was only women. Silly, giggling females, the lot of them.”
He was halfway up the stairs when he turned and looked down at the elderly servant.
“You’ve been here a very long time, Jeffrey.”
“Aye, your lordship.”
“You’ve seen a great many things in all that time.”
“’Tis true. I have.”
“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” Dixon asked.
Jeffrey eyed him as if he knew full well that he wasn’t George. “About life in general, your lordship? Or is there some other reason you’d be asking me?”
“Disregard the question, Jeffrey.”
“She’s got a suitor,” Jeffrey said.
Dixon turned and looked down at the elderly man. Jeffrey looked in the direction of the parlor. “The countess. He called on her the other day. A so-lic-itor,” he said, elongating the word.
“Indeed,” Dixon said, pushing back the sudden anger he felt.
“Spencer McElwee. He came to tell her how beautiful she was, and she, lapping it up like a cat to cream.”
“What else did he tell her?” At the older man’s offended look, Dixon rephrased the question. “Did you happen to accidentally overhear any more of his remarks?”
“He was all for getting her divorced,” Jeffrey said. “Wanted to marry the countess himself, I think.” Jeffrey’s smile, thin and twisted, seemed to indicate he knew they were playing with words. “Of course, until you showed up, your lordship. Your returning stopped his plans.”
Dixon didn’t question the elderly servant further, merely headed up the stairs.
“Your lordship.”
He stopped and looked down at Jeffrey.
“Finding the treasure might solve a lot of problems at Balfurin,” Jeffrey said.
“The treasure?”
“I’m thinking that a great many people have gone looking for it, your lordship. Whether or not they found it is the question.”
There was a wealth of meaning in Jeffrey’s words, but Dixon was only left with more questions. He was tempted to ask the elderly retainer if he was speaking about George, but the time wasn’t right. He had to talk to Charlotte first before revealing his true identity to the servant.
“Money isn’t the answer for everything, Jeffrey.” Dixon continued up the stairs, well aware that both of them had only hinted at the real issue: where was George, and how much longer was Dixon going to pretend to be his cousin?
Returning to Balfurin was proving to be as complicated as he’d feared and he’d yet to greet Charlotte.
Tonight was the first occasion Charlotte could ever recall that she wished she didn’t have the kind of memory that held dear every single word she’d ever read. One of Queen Elizabeth’s poems seemed oddly appropriate for the occasion:
I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly to prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned.
Since from myself another self I turned.
Stanza after stanza of poetry filtered into her mind, along with treatises, lectures, and other bits of writing. Perhaps her mind offered up the series of documents for her to peruse instead of thinking about George.
Why hadn’t he greeted her upon his return? Why hadn’t he even knocked on her door to tell her he’d come home?
She closed her eyes, placing her arm over her forehead, deliberately concentrating on anything else but her husband. Immediately, she envisioned Lady Eleanor’s anatomical drawing of the male organ, except this one was fully erect.
A muffled sound of disgust escaped her. What had happened to her? Lady Eleanor’s influence, no doubt, but she didn’t even have that excuse, did she? She wasn’t an impressionable girl. She was a grown woman.
She’d defied her parents, and lived at Balfurin essentially alone for a full year. She’d started the Caledonia School for the Advancement of Females by herself. Ample reason, therefore, to think that she was not without some measure of courage. But tonight she was beginning to realize that she wasn’t as brave as she thought. In fact, she was beginning to believe that she was a coward in a great many ways. Otherwise, she would knock on George’s door and demand to know why he hadn’t even shown the most rudimentary politeness to her.
Why didn’t she?
Charlotte sat up in bed in the dark. Was that him? She listened for his footfall in the corridor bu
t the sound didn’t come again.
She leaned against the headboard, frowning at the door.
Forget about George. Instead, she should concentrate on organizing the volumes in the library, a task she’d set aside for herself and one she truly anticipated. In all these years at Balfurin, she’d never spared the time to catalogue the books left behind by all the generations of MacKinnons. The library was the only true heritage left, since the rest of the castle had been allowed to fall into ruin.
Why hadn’t he even said hello? Something. Anything. Anyone else would have demonstrated a little decency, a smidgeon of politeness.
Think about the books. There were treatises on philosophy, some very fine illustrated texts that looked to be old.
Pity she didn’t have any books on how to garner the attention of one’s husband. Hadn’t Lady Eleanor mentioned something? Charlotte focused her attention on the night-darkened ceiling, wishing she could recall conversations as easily as she did the written word.
“My dear, it’s no sin to be ignorant. Ignorance is only a sin if it’s willful, if you reject knowledge. I have several books I would suggest to you, if you are of a mind to procure them. Queen Marguerite of France wrote a series of tales, called Heptameron. They are shocking in some aspects, but a good primer, all in all.”
Dear heavens, did she really need a book? She’d managed well enough on her own the other night. She’d done quite well, as a matter of fact. So well that she hadn’t been able to forget it.
Or George.
She didn’t need instruction as much as she needed her husband. They would teach each other.
She reached over and grabbed the matches, lighting the candle. She set it back on the table, and began to unplait her braid. Slipping from the bed, she stripped the nightgown from her body and bathed in the cold water from the ewer before slipping on another, prettier nightgown. This one was taken from the bottom drawer, where it had sat for five years. Since it was part of her trousseau she’d thought of disposing of it more than once, or giving it to one of the maids upon the occasion of her wedding. But she’d worked long hours on the intricate embroidery on the yoke, and couldn’t bear to think of it being worn by another woman. In a way, it represented her marriage, unused, unnecessary. Or maybe herself: unwanted.
But not tonight.
She bent down and retrieved an item from the drawer of the chest beside the bed, and only then left the room. She knocked on his door, wishing that the sound did not echo down the corridor. But there was no one else with chambers on this floor, and none of her servants were assigned to patrol the hallways of Balfurin at night.
He didn’t answer, but she wasn’t going to retreat. She knocked again, and this time she heard a noise beyond the door. She fixed a smile on her face, thinking that she should have brushed her hair. As it was, it cascaded past her shoulders in an undulating wave.
When he opened the door, he was attired in his dressing gown, but it was all too evident that he was naked beneath it. How odd that she didn’t know if he liked nightshirts or not. She should know something as elemental as that.
What had she wanted to say?
He needed to shave. He looked swarthy and dangerous, almost menacing. Surely that was the only reason her heart was beating so heavily.
Come to my bed.
Horrified, she wondered if she’d said the thought aloud, but evidently not, because he stood there regarding her with no more interest than if she was one of her students. They stared at each other for a long moment. She’d lost the ability—or had she ever had it?—to know what he was thinking. His gaze was hooded, his expression unreadable.
“Was your journey home uneventful?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You were not injured on the trip?”
“No,” he said.
Was he going to give her a one-word answer to all her questions?
“You haven’t taken ill, I trust?”
His mouth curved up in a smile and she was startled into silence for a moment—for just a moment, until his sheer beauty dimmed a little. It truly wasn’t fair that he’d grown so attractive in the last five years.
“No, I’m fine,” he said.
“Are you very certain? You really are in good health?”
“I’m in fine health. Thank you for your concern.”
There, that question was answered. He hadn’t returned to Balfurin to die.
“I was worried about your leg,” she said.
“My leg?”
“The broken one,” she said, looking down at his bare feet. “The one that prevented you from crossing the hall and giving me the courtesy of a greeting.”
His smile broadened.
“Forgive me, I was rude. I was given to understand you were entertaining.”
She gripped both edges of her wrapper with one hand and stared at him. “You were never so accommodating in the past.”
His smile disappeared. “This isn’t the past.” He looked from her to the open door behind her. Was he telling her to return to her room? Very well, she would not shame herself any further.
She turned and walked across the hall.
“Charlotte.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What is it, George?”
His face hardened.
“What are you holding?”
She glanced down at the object in her hand. “It’s a velvet whip, I believe.”
Several long moments passed before he spoke again.
“Would you care to tell me why you have a velvet whip in your hand?”
She studied it with great care as if she’d not been half horrified when Lady Eleanor had given it to her along with a few whispered instructions.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said, wishing she’d never knocked on his door.
“Thank you for missing me.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she said, and closed the door before she could admit that she’d missed him every hour of every day.
Chapter 20
C harlotte bid a relieved farewell to The Edification Society, determined to keep them from Balfurin for their next semi-monthly meeting. However, she doubted she’d be entirely successful. Lady Eleanor was as determined a personage as Charlotte had ever met. Nor did it help matters that she’d caught the footman winking at the older woman.
When George was exceptionally pleasant to the women, Charlotte wanted to kick him. They needed no enticements to remain. In fact, she was very concerned that the snow might block the road to Inverness, thereby keeping the group at Balfurin.
Thankfully, however, the weather cooperated, the snow holding off until after their departure. Then winter blanketed Balfurin, enshrouding the trees with ice so delicate that it looked like lace and freezing the River Tam. Balfurin’s chimneys chuffed white smoke against a perpetually gray sky.
The women’s departure, while a welcome event, also marked a turning point in her relationship with George. To the staff, they no doubt appeared perfectly amicable. He nodded to her when they passed in the hallway and Charlotte nodded back at him. They occasionally shared a meal in the family dining room, the sheer size of the enormous trestle table making conversation inconvenient. Any other communication between them was assisted by Maisie and Matthew, neither of whom appeared put out by being placed in the position of messenger.
But while the world might see them as polite to a fault, Charlotte knew that the situation was really quite different. She was annoyed with George and made no pretense of hiding it when the servants weren’t present. He, on the other hand, was evidently under the delusion that she was invisible. He was ignoring her. No, not simply ignoring her, but making a point of ignoring her, which only annoyed her further.
Therefore, any rational person would understand why she’d had enough. She’d ordered a tray sent to her room rather than sit with George and endure another hour of his carefully averted eyes. He never even smiled at her anymore, nor did he make any pretense of civility.
&n
bsp; One would think he endured her presence because he was forced to do so. She hadn’t made him return to Balfurin.
In fact, the very last thing she wanted was to have George underfoot. She was used to being left alone in her pursuits, unencumbered by a husband. She didn’t want to be disturbed by George’s proximity or his irritating ability to make her heart beat faster and her chest feel tight.
She especially didn’t want to think about that night nearly a month ago. But it was there just as it had been every moment since it had happened. She’d gone to her husband’s bed, and yet she couldn’t regret it. How else would she have known the pleasure from lovemaking?
But he didn’t seem in a hurry to repeat the act, didhe?
Charlotte stood at the window, watching as night surrounded Balfurin. They hadn’t a marriage. They had a…Her thoughts ground to a halt. Exactly what was their relationship? An arrangement? Certainly not a union.
A hint of snow lingered in the air, and Charlotte had given orders that the fires were to be replenished through the night. One thing she’d learned about the castle: if the walls were allowed to grow cold and damp, it would take days to warm them again.
George was acting strangely. He’d begun to cultivate an odd routine of leaving Balfurin early in the morning and not returning until afternoon. Charlotte pretended not to be interested, adopting an attitude that whatever her once absent husband did was of no consequence to her. As long as George left her alone to run the school and maintain order at Balfurin, she was content.
However, her curiosity was getting the better of her, especially since he left the castle every morning attired in little more than a kilt, the ends of the plaid thrown over his shoulders. The man was blessed with muscular legs, and very attractive ones at that. She knew Cook prepared him lunch; whatever else he carried in his pack was a mystery. Nor did he share the information with her. When she asked Matthew why George seemed so intent upon walking the length and breadth of Balfurin land, the servant only bowed and refused to comment.
She heard him say something across the hall, and then he laughed. Who was he talking to, Matthew or one of the maids, forever lurking around him waiting to do him a service? Perhaps she should think about rotating some of the staff, especially since they were acting so decidedly lovesick.