by Ari Thatcher
Rescuing Lord Ravenscliffe
By
Ari Thatcher
Rescuing Lord Ravenscliffe
Copyright © 2016 Ari Thatcher
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Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Book List
About the Author
Chapter One
Aberdeenshire, Scotland
“Mama, my life is too dull with Spalding and Cassandra married and gone away. I must have some entertainment before I go mad.”
That statement was all that had been required to send Lady Agnes Wentworth and her sister Matilda off to Grandmama Thomson’s home not too far from Invernochty. Well, a bit of pouting, sighing, and wistful, pleading glances might have helped.
Standing in the open doorway to the garden, Agnes smiled and took a deep breath of the fresh Scottish air. Matilda thought she was foolish to think the air might actually be different in Scotland compared to their home in West Sussex, but it was true. Today the air smelled of adventure and excitement. Surely she’d find something to amuse her now.
“Lady Agnes, do come join the conversation.” Grandmama’s voice sounded pleasant enough, but there was the firm edge of an order there, too.
How was Agnes supposed to find adventure while sitting in a room filled with prim young ladies and their mothers? Matilda looked down her superior nose and smirked. Agnes refrained from sticking her tongue out in return. That was exactly what her sister hoped would happen, causing Agnes to receive another scolding on the carriage ride home.
They were in Scotland and she was trapped in a drawing room listening to two awkward sisters singing and playing the pianoforte.
No gentlemen were present. Agnes hadn’t even glimpsed a man since the butler showed them to the drawing room. The footman who’d served their tea couldn’t have been out of leading strings long enough to be called a man.
Restlessness had her shifting in her chair, drawing a stern glance from their hostess. Agnes smiled apologetically and turned her gaze back upon the sisters at the piano. Their voices were sweet enough, she supposed, but the rich tenor of an unmarried young lord would be just the thing to enrich their performance.
A handsome, unmarried lord, of course. One with stylishly wavy brown hair and seductive brown eyes. A flirt. No, if he were too obvious, Grandmama would give her a sharp pinch on the arm. He’d have to express his attraction entirely with his eyes, until the music ended and he could ask her to walk through the garden.
Agnes sighed. She’d met no such gentleman since she’d arrived at Grandmama’s house. While it was a relief not to be put on display everywhere she and Matilda went with the intent of landing a husband, she missed dancing and flirting and rides in a curricle. Even a friendly game of croquet would be better than sitting, sitting, sitting.
At long last they were allowed to stroll about and chat. Agnes took the opportunity to step out into the garden. Urns of peonies lined the walkway near the door, which looked out on the formal, structured pathways and sculptured hedges.
Gravitating toward the shade of the trees to one side, Agnes ambled slowly. If she was lucky, her absence from the drawing room might go unnoticed.
The music of birds singing in the trees was much more her type of entertainment. Sweet and soft, with no sad longings expressed. Birds were always cheerful.
She heard the tiny cheeps of baby birds, which warmed her heart. New beginnings pleased her, whether it be friendships, babies or puppies. The promise of what was to come made her fanciful for her own future. One day, hopefully soon, she’d begin her adventure as a bride.
One of the baby birds’ cheeping sounded distressed. The noise came from the grass beneath a tree. Approaching with careful steps, Agnes discovered a chick had fallen from its nest. “You poor dear. Will your mother find you here to feed you?”
More likely a cat would find it. It looked too young to fly up into the tree.
Agnes studied the branches, one of which was low enough to reach if she stretched up on her toes. She couldn’t swing herself onto a branch with the chick in her hand, though. “How am I to return you to your nest?”
Bending low, she scooped the chick into her hands. The poor thing fluttered and cheeped frantically, its gray feathers puffing up. “Don’t fear, I’m not going to hurt you.”
In fact, Agnes still wasn’t certain exactly what she was going to do with the chick. Glancing up and the branch and down again at the trembling creature an idea came to her. She tucked the chick into the bodice of her gown. “There, that will keep you safe.”
With the bird’s safety assured, she jumped and grasped the thick branch. Hanging for a few moments, she considered her next move. Walk up the trunk while she hung, or swing herself back and forth until she could pull herself up?
Grandmama would be shocked to see Agnes swinging from the branch. She’d be no less shocked to see her climbing, but that method suggested her legs would be less exposed. She quickly climbed the trunk as she hung onto the branch, and hooked one leg around it.
“Agnes, what are you up to now?” Matilda whispered loudly, stomping through the grass.
“I’d think that’ quite obvious, sister.” She pulled herself upright, then checked to see that the baby bird was still safe. Balancing her feet on the narrow branch, she reached up to the nest above. The mama bird was nowhere to be seen, thank goodness. Stretching out her arm with the chick in her hand was precarious enough without a distressed mama bird pecking at her.
Matilda’s hands were fisted on her hips. “Come down from there before someone sees you.”
The leaves on the tree were full enough that Agnes had little fear of being seen. “If you walk away and ignore me, no one will suspect anything is amiss.”
Once the chick was in its nest beside its siblings, Agnes inched her way back to the trunk. Getting down proved more difficult than climbing up. She landed on her seat in the grass with an oomph.
“Why must you always embarrass me? Can’t you behave properly even once?” Matilda helped Agnes to her feet and batted at whatever clung to the back her gown. “Look at this. Your gown has grass stains on your backside and dirt on the front.”
Ignoring her sister, Agnes pulled the fabric away from her breasts and peered down at the damp spot she felt there. Ugh.
“Now what?”
“The birdie, um, relieved itself in my gown.”
The look on Matilda’s face was worth the sticky mess. Her skin turned green, then white, and she gagged before she caught herself. She shook her head at Agnes in a perfect imitation of their mother. “We can’t go inside with you looking like this. What will we tell Grandmama?”
Excuses were never in short supply when Agnes was enjoying herself. “I tripped over my hem and fell?”
“Perhaps if you’d been walking backward. The grass stains are on the back. And how do you explain the d
irt down your front? You look like a fairy run amok.”
“I’ll say found a puppy and picked it up, and when it began squirming, making the front of my gown filthy, I lost my balance and fell.”
Matilda shook her head, her exasperation plain to see. “Let’s simply say you fell and leave it at that. Change the subject immediately thereafter.”
Agnes brushed her gown and adjusted her bodice while they walked back to the house.
“I don’t know why you feel you must rescue every lost or injured creature you stumble upon.”
“See? Even you admit I stumble often.” Agnes bit her cheek to keep from grinning. “No one will find anything amiss. I am safe.”
At least until they were tucked away in Grandmama’s carriage, that is. Then Agnes would receive the tongue-lashing she’d grown so used to.
***
Several days later, Agnes walked alone in the woods, glad for the silence surrounding her. Matilda wasn’t one for speaking overmuch, but some of the ladies they’d visited of late had bored her to death. They talked forever, scarcely pausing long enough to catch a breath. It was more than one should be expected to bear.
Here in the woods she was alone with her thoughts. The fog was just lifting, and birds sang sweetly. Agnes had slipped away before her sister or grandmother would be awake. At least she hoped so. But no one would come looking for her for an hour or two, at the least.
Turning a bend, she started at the sight of a man approaching, leading his horse.
“Good morning,” he said in a voice that warmed her skin.
“Good day.” Never at a loss for words, Agnes had no idea whether she should continue the conversation or simply walk past him.
“I hae na come across anyone this early most days.” He smiled and her heart danced a jig.
“I haven’t been here long. Why are you leading your horse?”
The handsome man paused, rubbing his horse’s nose. “He hurt his hoof.”
“Poor thing.” She stood on the other side of the horse’s head and stroked its neck. “You are a beautiful creature, aren’t you?”
“Well now, some have been known to say so, but they would say anything for a kiss.”
Agnes gasped.
He winked.
“I was speaking to your horse.” But she couldn’t deny the man was a beautiful creature. His thick black hair was tousled, his blue eyes bright, laughing.
“Does this mean you dae na want a kiss?”
How dare he? How presumptuous. He hadn’t even given her his name. Even then, she’d have to know him much better to allow him to kiss her. Well, a little better, perhaps.
A kiss meant nothing. It implied no relationship. No promise of expectation. Several of her friends had been kissed by multiple men. One, at least, had kissed three. The others not so many. And they’d gone on to marry that one.
She wasn’t in a ballroom and this wasn’t London where everything one said or did made Society think there was a match implied.
“I’m guessing your silence means na kiss.”
Wait, had she missed her chance? She hadn’t even decided whether to kiss him or not.
He was jesting, to be sure. He didn’t really want to kiss her.
But she longed to kiss him. She couldn’t take her eyes away from those full lips curved up at the corners. “Perhaps…just one?”
One of his thick eyebrows rose. “As ye wish.” He stepped around the horse, keeping the reins in one hand and lifting her chin with the other. His fingertips brushed against her skin. His gaze followed their path. “So soft. So perfect.”
When would the kissing start? She leaned toward him and stretched on her toes.
He covered her lips with his firm mouth, pressing harder than she expected. Harder than she’d ever imagined. His tongue ran over her upper lip. Her knees grew limp. She grasped his broad shoulders, unwilling to end the magical moment.
Then he withdrew, a gleam sparkling in his eyes. “I thank ye, fair lass.”
Her skin heated. Hopefully her cheeks were already pink from the brisk air and he wouldn’t notice. He bowed in a grand, sweeping gesture, pretended to doff his cap and led his horse away.
“Wait,” Agnes called. “I don’t even know your name.”
He turned and walked backward, his grin spreading wider. “That would spoil the mystery, would it not?”
She watched him leave with a heavy heart. How would she find him again? No other man excited her this way. He was mystery itself, and she’d come to Scotland for just that.
This couldn’t be the end.
Chapter Two
A week after the morning when his horse had thrown a shoe and injured its hoof, Ewan Hardie, Earl of Ravenscliffe once again rode the overgrown path that was a much shorter route home that the main road. He and his brother Tavish were in no hurry to return. Ever since their stepmother’s brother had come to visit, they stayed away from the estate as much as possible.
Visit was a polite term for the length of time Ben Walters had already stayed, and the man showed no sign of leaving anytime soon. He claimed he missed his sister and nephew Jamie, Ewan’s young half-brother. Yet Walters spent no time with the lad. At eight years old, Jamie spent most of his days with his tutor.
Something about Walters made Ewan’s skin crawl. The man showed no affection for any of them, even his blood kin. He lived extravagantly on Ravenscliffe’s income, dressing like a dandy and gambling heavily.
Ewan suspected Walters had a mistress in Invernochty, which helped explain some of his expenditures. As earl, Ewan could throw him out at any time, but the relationship Ewan, Tavish, and their sister Donella had with their stepmother was already strained.
If Ewan sent his stepmother to live in one of their other houses, Jamie would likely go with her. His brother deserved not to be treated like an unwanted burden. So Ewan and his siblings tolerated their step-uncle.
Ewan’s horse twitched his ears as if hearing a sound to his right. Ewan focused his attention in that direction. Hopefully it wasn’t the six-point stag he longed to shoot, since he didn’t have his rifle with him.
All he heard was the plodding sound of their horses’ hooves in the dirt. When his horse turned his head to the right, Ewan twisted to see what was there.
“What is it?” Tavish urged his horse beside Ewan’s.
“I do na know. Cadifor is distracted by something.” Ewan patted his horse’s flank.
“Maybe a fox. He’s eager ta stretch his legs.” In spite of his lighthearted reply, Tavish also studied the woods.
“You’re right. It’s an animal of some kind. Why would a highwayman travel this far off the road? For that matter, why would a highwayman be in the area at all? There are so few travelers this far from the road to Aberdeen.” He kept his tone light, belying the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.
Ewan felt the eyes of someone on him. Something predatory, dangerous. Much the same feeling as when he caught Walters studying him silently. He’d begun to suspect Walters wanted him dead. But that would make Tavish the earl, not Jamie. If Ewan and Tavish both died suddenly, everyone would find it too suspicious. Yet he wouldn’t put it past Walters to try.
Most importantly, Ewan’s friend Malcom Lennox, the magistrate, would be suspicious, and would leave no stone unturned to find the murderer.
Ewan was a fool, lettin’ his mind run that way. He blamed it on his outing the night before. He’d stayed too late with Lennox and the others playin’ round after round of Hazard. Luckily, he’d lost nothing but sleep.
Tavish had roused him early, reminding him of his promise to attend a horse auction in Invernochty. Ewan never reneged on a promise, no matter how tired he was.
They’d found nothing to bid on, and Ewan convinced Tavish to return directly after the auction ended. Now, wantin’ nothin’ more than sleep, Ewan continued down the path, listening for any unusual sound.
That sound came quickly. Shots rang out. Before Ewan had time to react, a
musket ball hit his shoulder, throwing him off balance. His arm burned. He fought to keep not keel over. Spooked from the repeated percussion, Cadifor galloped down the path. Ewan tightened his thighs around his horse to stay on. Each pounding step increased his pain.
He couldn’t hear Tavish’s horse behind him. Ewan prayed his brother hadn’t gone after the shooter alone.
His gaze grew hazy, dark. He bent forward, clutching a handful of Cadifor’s mane. He couldn’t succumb to the cotton wool filling his head. He must remain alert. Must gain control of Cadifor so he could find Tavish and seek help.
The entire right side of his shirt was damp and cool, yet his shoulder continued to burn. He grew weaker, the darkness closing in on him. His last thought was of Donella, who’d be under Walters’ control if anything happened to Ewan and Tavish.
Then the darkness won.
***
Agnes followed her sister’s horse through the woods. The afternoon air was cool in the thick shade, but her woolen riding suit kept her more than warm enough.
Shots rang out in the distance. Matilda halted. “We should return home. Oscar, don’t you agree?”
The young groom, a small-statured, dark-haired local boy of about fifteen years, glanced from one sister to the other, not speaking.
Agnes rolled her eyes. “That hunter is far away. We’ll stay on Grandmama’s land and will be safe enough.”
Matilda peered over her shoulder at Agnes. “I imagine you’ve studied a map well enough to know where the line is dividing Grandmama’s land from the rest of the woods.”
Her sister could be such a drudge. “We’ve barely entered the woods. Those shots were far away. We aren’t in any danger.”