by Arnette Lamb
“Please, Papa,” Agnes begged. “There isn’t much time.”
Her eyes were now glassy. Lachlan’s fear returned with a vengeance. “Time? What do you mean?”
Perspiration dotted her brow, and her head lolled against Cathcart’s shoulder. On a sigh, she said, “The arrow was poisoned.”
* * *
As he cleansed the star-shaped wound that marred Agnes MacKenzie’s shoulder, Edward Napier struggled between anger and gratitude. The duke’s daughter was either the bravest or the most foolhardy woman he’d ever met.
But she had saved his life—at the risk of her own.
The unselfishness of her act moved him in a way that was new. Gratitude didn’t begin to describe his feelings; he’d need time alone to explore what was in his heart. The event was too vivid: the sight of the crossbow aimed at him; the fear for his children; the image of Agnes MacKenzie moving into the path of danger, the horrible sound of the quarrel bringing her down.
“Are you well, Lord Edward?” she asked. “You look as if you might swoon.”
He banished the memory but knew it was only temporary, for he’d never forget her bravery, her generosity.
“Never mind about me.” His voice caught, and he had to clear his throat. “How are you feeling?”
Fatigue rimmed her warm brown eyes, and her skin was as pale as snow on ice. She gave him a valiant smile. “I’ve been better. But your children are safe now.”
He had spoken briefly with her the evening before, and Edward recalled every word of their conversation, for at the time the casual exchange had been a welcome respite from the troubles that had plagued him of late.
“Are you done?” demanded the duke of Ross.
“I doubt he’ll ravish me, Papa.”
Edward summoned patience. Most men in the duke’s position would have forbidden another man—even a physician—to touch a female relative. No matter how unskilled, a female healer was the preferable choice in the circumstances. Necessity had forced MacKenzie’s hand, and now that Edward had ministered to her, the duke reverted to propriety.
To spare his wife and his other daughters, MacKenzie had barred them from the room. Under the father’s watchful eyes, Edward had cleansed and stitched the star-shaped wound. The arrowhead had missed her clavicle. No bones were broken, but she’d have a powerful array of bruises on the morrow.
If the arrow tip had been poisoned, as she believed, the poison was weak. That or the act of traveling first through the wooden bindings of the heavy book and the layers of thick vellum had somehow worn away the potion. Yes, that theory had merit.
“Well, Cathcart? You’ve seen enough of my firstborn. She’s half naked, for God’s sake.”
She was half naked for her own sake, but Edward didn’t point that out to the worried duke. Instead he counted to ten and gave her a reassuring smile.
“Did you hear me?” roared the duke.
“I’ll be done as soon as the bandages arrive,”
The door opened. Edward looked up and blinked in confusion at the sight of the unusual woman entering the room. She wore a fashionable if plain gown, and her thick black hair was upswept and coiled at the crown of her head. In bearing and fashion she typified the style of Scotswomen of the day. In heritage and complexion she bore the striking features of the Orientals.
She bowed from the waist. In one hand she held the blood-stained quarrel, in the other she carried a valise. In perfect English she said, “I am Auntie Loo. I’ve brought the bandages you requested and a gown for Lady Agnes.”
His patient tried to rise. “Come quickly,” she said.
With the heel of his hand, Edward held her. “Stay where you are or you’ll rip those stitches.”
She grunted, and the distressed sound again roused her overprotective father. “Stop yelling at my daughter, and take your hand off her breast.”
Edward took no offense. He hadn’t noticed her breasts. Well, he had noticed, but not in a disrespectful or lustful way. She was injured. He was helping her.
A basic truth dragged at his conscience. The assassin had been sent for him. Had he remained at home in Glasgow, the bowman would have sought him there. Agnes MacKenzie would be unharmed and making merry at the wedding feast. But strong reasons had compelled Edward to make the journey. The groom, Michael Elliot, was Edward’s friend, and he had wanted to share in the joyous occasion. Christopher and Hannah deserved a holiday, and until moments ago, the excursion to Edinburgh had been good for Edward’s family.
Reluctantly, he stepped back as the woman named Auntie Loo examined the wound. Satisfied, she waved the arrow before Agnes. “There wasn’t enough poison on the barbs to kill you.”
“ ’Twas monkshood.” His patient huffed. “Tell me that when my limbs turn to useless stumps and my tongue rots in my mouth.”
The duke cursed. The women paid him no mind.
From within the folds of her dress Auntie Loo produced a small stone bottle. “The ache in your heart will hurt you more than this latest wound.”
Stubbornness lent the Lady Agnes a queenly air. “So you say. What do you know about it?”
The woman tisked, but her eyes twinkled with mischief. In broken, affected English, she said, “Golden One too strong for Englishman’s death powder. But Chinaman’s poison send you to the harpers. This potion make you rest and call up your demons.” She waved the bottle, and with a crooked, loving smile, said, “More better you lose one skinny arm?”
Perspiration beaded Agnes’s forehead. “Then I couldn’t cover both of my ears against your nattering—in any dialect. I will not drink that mind-stealing concoction.”
Auntie Loo stared pointedly at Lachlan. Reverting to the King’s English, she said, “Your oft foolish daughter will live to trouble you again, my lord.”
Wringing his hands, the duke paced. “Nay, she will trouble me no more. Her outlandish behavior is at an end.” He gave her a stern glare. “You’re coming home with us to Tain, and I’ll not let you out of my sight until a husband catches your fancy.”
She rallied her strength for what Edward suspected was an old argument. “Never,” she swore. “You cannot force me to live with you. You cannot force me to wed.”
Uncomfortable at witnessing their strife, Edward fished out the bandages and began wrapping the cloth around her shoulder. Too caught up in his anger, the duke did not notice that Edward was again ministering to his patient.
“That’s where you are wrong,” MacKenzie spat. “I forbid you to put yourself in danger again.”
“That’s where you are wrong.”
“Agnes,” he said on an expelled breath. “I indulged you when you begged to go to China to learn those foreign fighting skills.”
Foreign fighting skills? To what was the duke referring?
She glanced at the woman named Auntie Loo. “Where I saved a member of the royal family.”
He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I also allowed you to travel with Burgundy.”
“Where I foiled two attempts on the life of his heir.”
Edward had heard the tale. According to the French duke, Agnes MacKenzie, with only a knife for weapon, had brought down two would-be assassins. She didn’t appear so formidable now, and if he hadn’t seen her in action, Edward wouldn’t have believed the tale. It baffled him that this beautiful woman was capable of so much daring.
MacKenzie threw up his hands. “You nearly drowned pulling that gin-soaked beggar from the Thames.”
That rescue was news to Edward.
“She was only a babe,” Agnes said. “Her mother fed her the vile drink apurpose. She would have sold her own child to any man with an unholy urge and a copper.”
MacKenzie paused and pointed a threatening finger at her. “I’ll cease your allowance. You’ll have no funds to continue that futile search. Your sister is dead.”
Like the shadow of the moon eclipsing the sun, the light faded from her eyes. Tears pooled, but she blinked them back. “Nay. Virginia live
s, and I will not forsake her..”
“Virginia is dead, and you must get on with living,”
She stiffened. “I tell you, I will find her.”
The duke eyed her with cool regard. “Without money?”
“I’ll earn it myself.”
MacKenzie chuckled, but the sound held no humor. Edward decided that the duke was goading his daughter into disobedience. A now familiar stubbornness engulfed her, and her expression mirrored her father’s belligerent stare.
“Why can you not be like your sisters?” said the duke.
“Like Mary? Pregnant without benefit of marriage?”
“What?” His face turned crimson.
“You didn’t know?”
“I know that she loves Wiltshire.”
“Then you’ll have me be like Lottie, who pries into everyone’s business?”
“Lottie is a good wife and mother.”
“Then like Sarah, who is not my blood sister.”
“Who told you that?” her father demanded.
“Sarah did.”
“We are not speaking of Sarah, Lottie, or Mary. We are discussing your sedentary future in Tain.”
“Nay.”
“Then I’ll betroth you to Revas Macqueen.”
Revas Macqueen was the richest and most devout bachelor in Scotland. Although not yet thirty, the Highland earl epitomized the old patriarchal chieftain.
Lady Agnes huffed in mock laughter. “You’d sell me to him?”
“I’ll give you away to the first man with the wherewithal to control you.”
“Do,” she spat, “and you shall never see me again.”
Anguish and determination made a battlefield of Lachlan MacKenzie’s expression.
Guilt swamped Edward, for he was to blame for the enmity between the duke of Ross and his unconventional firstborn daughter.
Edward leaned over her. “I order you to rest.” Watching her, he admonished the duke. “As her physician, I insist that you leave her alone for now. She’s not going anywhere.”
“As your better, I command you to hold your tongue.”
“Leave off, Papa.”
Edward had enough. “Stop! Both of you.”
A change came over the duke of Ross. He squared his shoulders, tipped back his head, and stared down his regal nose at Edward. “You overstep yourself, Cathcart. Should you do it again, you’ll be very sorry.”
Not since his first year at Oxford had anyone spoken so disrespectfully to Edward. His pride smarting, he gazed at the beautiful and brave Agnes MacKenzie.
“Do not let my father bully you, Lord Edward.” Her friendly tone belied the tension in the room.
Edward had ceased practicing medicine in noble circles for precisely these reasons. The poor appreciated his help; the ruling class disdained him for his efforts in treating the person—above and beyond the illness.
“Stand aside, Cathcart.”
Agnes murmured, “My father thinks himself a king.”
Her strength and determination drew Edward like iron to a magnet. “Then it follows that you are a princess.”
“Without a kingdom at the moment. Have you room in Glasgow for an exiled Highlander?”
“I forbid it, Agnes MacKenzie!”
Her smile grew radiant. “Please, Lord Edward?”
His guilty conscience reigned. “Very well.”
The duke turned livid. “You cannot live unchaperoned in his household. Think what it will do to your reputation.”
“Auntie Loo and the earl’s honor are enough chaperon. Isn’t that true, Lord Edward?”
Now that the danger had passed and his patient would recover, Edward had second thoughts.
“I do so love Glasgow,” she said.
“If you step one slippered foot into that city, I’ll betroth you to Macqueen.”
As if her father hadn’t uttered the dire ultimatum, she said, “Take me with you, Lord Edward.”
“But I cannot come between you and your father.”
Lord Lachlan slapped the table. “Well said, Cathcart.”
“You can, and you must take me with you.”
“Why must I?”
“Because you owe me your life.”
2
“PISCINARIAN!”
“Weasel brain!”
“Hannah! Christopher!” Lord Edward glared at his children. “Behave yourselves.”
To hide a smile, Agnes used her free hand to pick up her teacup. She sat with the earl and his children at a corner table in the public room of the Dragoon Inn. Three days had passed since the attempt on his life, and this luncheon was the first outing he had allowed her. In further compliance with his instructions, she had fashioned a sling from cotton cloth to cradle her right arm against her breast. The wrapping eased the pain in her shoulder, and she could use her left hand as well as her right.
“ ’Tis your fault,” Christopher grumbled.
“ ’Tis yours,” Hannah argued.
Until moments ago, the Napier children had behaved surprisingly well. Now they were restless and eager for dessert.
Hannah wore a pink satin gown fashioned with small panniers and puffed sleeves. The ensemble was stylishly feminine, with one outrageous exception: a man’s cravat, tied in intricate loops, cascaded from her neck. Her father, dressed in his tartan kilt and black velvet coat, and her brother, garbed in a brown frock coat and knee breeches, wore identical scarves. How interesting, Agnes thought, that the earl indulged his daughter. Had he tied the scarves himself?
The children squirmed. The earl glanced at the front doors. He’d done that often since Agnes joined them. He should have chosen the table in the far corner, between the kitchen and the side exit. She’d apprise him of that later.
Christopher wadded his napkin. “You’ve botched it now, Hannah.”
“Have not.”
“Both of you will stop bickering or forfeit your dessert.”
The lad dropped his fork. “She started it, Father. She kicked me.”
“He pinched me with his crepit thumb.” Turning and holding the back of her chair, the four-year-old Hannah scrambled to her feet and pulled up her dress. Twin bruises the size of a lad’s thumb and fingertip marred her chubby thigh. “See?”
Murmurs rumbled from a table nearby, but the earl didn’t seem to care that others were observing him in the act of disciplining his children.
How uncommon and welcome.
“Sit down, Hannah.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Agnes choked back laughter. The earl’s eyes snapped open, and he stared at her, startled.
Words failed her, and with alarm, she worried that he might change his mind about taking her with him. He had not mentioned it today, and her father had been present during his brief doctorly visits. She must not give him any reason to withdraw his offer. Leaving Edinburgh in his company posed her best escape from her father. Once they were settled in Glasgow, Edward would come to appreciate her expertise. For now she must appease him.
She scanned the diners. Her sister Lottie occupied a table with the mayor of Edinburgh, but they were blessedly out of earshot. Two clergymen sat near the hearth and cast disapproving glances at both the earl and Agnes.
“Have we mortified you, Lady Agnes?” The earl popped a last bite of bread into his mouth.
“Mortify me? Impossible. My family is quite large,” she began by way of honest explanation. “We often bickered and usually embarrassed our parents. Yet we were welcome at table.”
That got Christopher’s attention. “What if the king came to visit you?”
Agnes pretended to ponder it. Putting down her cup and keeping a straight face, she said, “Then I would have sat close by His Majesty and discovered if he talks with his mouth full.”
Hannah erupted with giggles. Christopher guffawed. The earl made an admirable effort to contain his laughter. He failed, and when humor overcame him, Agnes felt her heart tumble in her breast. Edward Napier didn’t laugh o
ften, she was certain of that. But what man could with an assassin on his heels? Agnes would ease his burden and in the doing gain a respite from the guilt that weighted her soul.
When he’d mastered his mirth, he said, “I’m glad you can speak kindly of the duke of Ross.”
The duke of Ross. The battle between Agnes and her father had been years in the making, but no matter their difficulties, she loved him deeply. A final resolution would come; she lived every day of her life with that goal in mind, but the separation was pure torment.
Quietly, she said, “He’s the best man o’ the Highlands.”
A hush fell over the table. Into the silence Lord Edward said, “I cannot argue that, nor would I try. But I am encouraged to know that all of us poor Scotsmen below the Highland Line have a prize of our own at which to aim.”
At his engaging remark, her melancholy fled. “Are you the best man o’ the Lowlands?”
“Oh, nay,” he said, but his expression told a different tale. “I’m average on the most successful of days.”
And she was a goose without wings. Edward Napier, the brilliant and forward-thinking scholar, was also a bit of a rogue. The subtle challenge in his eyes begged her to trade quips. The urge to play his verbal game thrummed through her. A part of her longed for the distraction of a courtship, but she’d answered that call once before and regretted it to this day. Like others of life’s best distractions, Edward Napier would have to wait.
Practicality forced her to turn the conversation to Hannah. “That’s a lovely neckcloth.”
Wiggling with glee, the girl slid her brother a coy look. “Papa made it all tied up—for me.”
“ ’Tis silly,” spat Christopher. “A lassie cannot wear a man’s clothing—”
With only a stern gaze, the earl silenced the boy, but in that glance passed a wealth of communication. Christopher succumbed to good manners.
The earl turned to his daughter. “Sit down, Hannah.”
“ ’S’Christopher’s fault.”
“You put my toad in the laundry basket.”
“You took all the letters.” Her bottom lip quivered, and she sent her father a beseeching look.
His features softened, and he reached for her. “You’re tired, aren’t you, Button?”