A Stroke of Malice

by Anna Lee Huber

  Regardless, Gage promptly collected these kisses from Alana, my friend Charlotte, and her great-aunt, Lady Bearsden, before Lord Edward could change his mind. The three ladies and Gage, along with my cousin Rye, were waiting for me and Trevor at the edge of the ballroom after we’d danced our set. It had been a rather vexing experience, as my brother insisted on weaving and stumbling, much like the drunkard he was to play, throughout the dance. His theatrics had swiftly grown tiresome, and so I was leading him from the floor at a faster pace than was probably necessary.

  “Whatever you do,” I announced to the ladies, “do not accept an offer from my brother to dance this evening. Not unless you want to be lurched about like a ship on a stormy sea.”

  But far from being chastised, Trevor grinned. “How do you know I wasn’t plaguing only you?”

  I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t suggest that’s a chance they should take.”

  “I’ll risk it, love,” Alana declared, tossing the tresses that straggled down from her dilapidated topknot over her shoulder. She’d taken to her role as a draggle-tail doll with equal relish, even sending her maid to drag the hem of one of her gowns through the dirt in the courtyard. “Besides, I trust our brother knows what I shall do to him if he dares to fling me about.” She arched her eyebrows at him martially, before pulling him toward the dance floor.

  I shook my head at the bedraggled pair they made. Though truth be told, the entire assemblage before me was a rather motley sight, where a lady in royal Elizabethan garb danced next to a chap who looked like a Punchinello puppet, and a dashing fopling stood next to a rather humdrum fellow. It was also apparent that Gage wasn’t the only man who had anticipated Lord Edward’s edict about kilts. A colorful array of tartan patterns swirled across the floor next to the ladies’ equally vibrant skirts.

  I turned back to find Charlotte staring at me with barely concealed excitement. From the daringly low cut of her stylish gown and the light wash of rouge across her cheeks, I deduced she was supposed to be a coquette or a flirt of some kind. As such, the way she clung to Rye’s arm might just have been part of her character, but I could tell there was more to it. When Lady Bearsden spoke up impatiently, that confirmed it.

  “Tell her. Tell her now, or I shall burst,” she exclaimed with her usual flair for the dramatic.

  I could guess, for I had been expecting to hear such news for weeks, but I smiled in anticipation, wanting to hear it from my friend’s lips. “Tell me what?”

  Charlotte could read in my eyes that I already knew, and she laughed, nodding her head in eagerness. “Rye has asked for my hand in marriage, and I have accepted.”

  I stepped forward to envelop her in my embrace, not caring what sort of scene we might be making. After all that Charlotte had endured in her first marriage to a cruel, murderous man, she deserved this happiness.

  I would never have dared to play matchmaker, but truly, there could have been no better mate for her than my cousin Rye. Quiet, kind, and darkly handsome, Rye had often hovered with me at the edge of the boisterous play of our brothers, sisters, and cousins, but at least we’d had each other. In the months since he’d begun courting Charlotte, I had watched both of them blossom. Charlotte was more confident, and Rye more natural and at ease. And there were also Rye’s young children to be considered. Charlotte desperately wanted children, but had been proven barren by her late husband. Now she would have the chance to be a stepmother.

  “Oh, I am so happy,” Lady Bearsden exclaimed through her tears. “And everyone must know about it!” Then she turned on her heel and rushed off to do just that.

  Charlotte laughed. “I begged her to let me tell you first. Though she nearly expired from the quarter of an hour’s delay.”

  “Then you proposed this evening?” I asked Rye.

  He nodded and gazed down at Charlotte with such tenderness that I felt a catch in my throat. “Truth be told, I’ve wanted to ask her for weeks, but well . . . I couldn’t screw up the courage until tonight.” He glanced down at his slashed velvet doublet. “Perhaps it was the costume. But I think it was the gleam in her eyes.”

  I knew Rye would make an excellent husband, for I’d already witnessed it. I hadn’t known his first wife, Mary, well as I’d been wed to Sir Anthony Darby for much of their marriage, and he had kept me largely from my family. But when I had seen Rye and Mary together, I could tell how content they were because, in stark contrast, I was so miserable. When Mary died, Rye had been devastated. For a time, I’d feared he might never recover. But his meeting Charlotte at my and Gage’s wedding had changed that.

  “Congratulations, Rye,” I told him, taking his gloved hand in mine as Gage offered Charlotte similar felicitations. “I couldn’t be happier. I honestly couldn’t.”

  His eyes spoke the words I knew he couldn’t say aloud. “Thank you, Kiera.”

  “Are you engaged to be married, then?” Alana asked soon after she and Trevor had returned from the dance floor.

  “Yes,” Rye replied with an amused smile.

  “I knew it!” she declared with relish.

  “Yes, dear, but ye needn’t shout it to the entire ballroom,” Philip chided almost distractedly as he joined us. His face beneath the powder and face patch was strained, and he kept glancing across the room as if searching for someone.

  “I needn’t, but perhaps I wished to,” Alana countered, wrinkling her nose.

  I threaded my arm through Philip’s, gliding my fingers over the coat of fine pale blue silk. Lace ruffles dangled from his shirt cuffs and spilled through his embroidered waistcoat down the center of his chest. Dandified and far from au courant this style of dress might be, but all the same, my brother-in-law looked rather magnificent.

  “Surely you mean to wish them well,” I prompted, wondering if it was the drink which had allowed his Highland accent to slip and made him speak so brusquely.

  He blinked down at me before turning to Rye and Charlotte with a sheepish smile. “Yes, o’ course. My apologies. I do wish to heartily congratulate ye. You are a fortunate man, Mallery.”

  Philip was the most courteous gentleman I knew, and yet I read in his eyes that his thoughts were still not focused entirely on the newly engaged couple. Whatever preoccupied him was no small matter.

  As if to confirm this, his gaze shifted to meet mine. “Might I steal Kiera and Gage away from ye for a moment?”

  Gage’s eyebrows arched in mutual curiosity as we moved toward one of the pillars, leaving Charlotte and Rye to spread their happy news to others.

  “What’s this about?” Alana asked her husband.

  He frowned, his hand pressing against the breast of his coat. “I received a rather . . . presumptuous note from a . . . a lady here this evenin’.” He swallowed, seeming to struggle to form the words. “Askin’ me to meet her . . . elsewhere.”

  Alana’s eyes flashed. “Who?”

  “I’d rather not say . . .”

  “Who?”

  “It might not be what it seems . . .”

  “Who?!” she demanded in a dangerous voice.

  But I grasped his difficulty almost immediately. “You’re wondering if it truly came from this lady or if it’s someone else’s idea of a jest.”

  He exhaled, relieved at my deducing the matter so succinctly. “Aye.” His brow furrowed. “I mean, clearly . . .” he gestured to his clothes “. . . I’m happy to cooperate in this evening’s mayhem. But I draw the line at arrangin’ clandestine meetings wi’ a woman who isna my wife.”

  My sister’s gaze softened at this pronouncement, and she stepped closer to him, a spark in her eyes. “No interest?”

  Philip stared down at her as if she’d grown two heads. “O’ course not. Dinna be daft.” All the same, he draped his arm around her waist, anchoring her to his side.

  “You could go to the meeting and ask her if she se
nt the note,” Gage pointed out. A pointed glare from Alana prompted him to add, “And of course, ask your wife to join you.”

  Philip shook his head. “Nay. That’s courtin’ trouble.” He scowled. “And yet if she’s bein’ played as I am, I dinna wish to leave her waitin’ in some isolated corner o’ the castle.”

  “If she goes, she deserves it,” Alana stated without sympathy.

  “And if she thinks it’s part o’ her role?”

  Alana arched her chin upward, refusing to be swayed.

  “Then why not seek her out here,” I suggested, to which they all turned to me curiously. “Ask her to dance and find out whether she sent the note, and if she also received one. Then make it clear, either way, that you have no intention of keeping the appointment. If she happens to be the mutual victim of such a prank, I’m sure she’ll be relieved to have you tell her so.”

  Philip seemed much struck by this idea. “Aye, I think you’re right. It’d be better to be forthright.”

  I turned to gaze across the room at Lord Traquair, the duke’s heir. He stood conversing with the Earl of Dunadd, seeming oblivious to the daggered glares his father’s latest mistress, Mrs. Blanchard, continued to send his way. For all that she was acclaimed to be one of the most gifted actresses of the age, she wasn’t very adroit at hiding her contempt.

  “The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced this is likely some bit of mischief concocted by the Lord of Misrule, or perhaps the villain,” I suggested, having forgotten it was Marsdale’s task to undermine and disrupt Lord Edward’s orders and the general merriment of the evening. “In any case, I overheard an argument earlier that seemed to indicate you aren’t the only one who may have received a forged note.”

  Gage’s expression was questioning, but I decided the conversation I’d heard between Traquair and Mrs. Blanchard outside the lady’s retiring room—which, courtesy of the child inside me, I had already visited twice—was not worth repeating.

  “Then I shall definitely speak to the lady in question,” Philip replied before thanking me and striding off.

  I looped my arm through Alana’s and pulled her toward the door, my heels tapping against the gleaming wooden floor in my haste. “You are not going to stand here glaring at them, making an already awkward encounter even more so.”

  She drew herself up, donning a mask of righteous fury. “I have a right to know who may be trifling with my husband.”

  She forgot that, as her younger sister, I had witnessed just such a display far too often to ever be swayed by it. “You trust Philip, do you not?”

  “Yes, of course, I do. But . . .”

  “Then ask him later. I’m sure you can convince him to tell you.” I slid my eyes sideways to glance at her coyly. “Or is he no longer susceptible to your charms?”

  She tossed her head, taking a cue from her husband’s earlier words. “Don’t be daft. Of course he is.”

  “And if he keeps drinking whisky and spirits like everyone else at this party, his Highland accent will be as broad as any Scotsman, and his resistance even weaker.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “And why would my husband wish to resist me?”

  I shrugged, not caring to correct her if she thought I was somehow insulting her. My goal had been to distract her, and I had achieved that.

  I glanced up at Gage where he walked on my other side, his lips quirked in amusement. He might not have any brothers or sisters to provoke, but that did not mean he couldn’t appreciate our ability to badger and irritate one another almost to the point of violence over the most inconsequential things. Something I was sure the duchess’s children could appreciate as well. In fact, at that very moment, Lord Henry looked as if he might wish to commit some sort of violence to his brother Lord Edward.

  Poor Henry. His brother definitely hadn’t spared him in making him his fool. I couldn’t help but empathize, even as my lips curled into a smile at the sight of him. He’d been obligated to don a pair of purple tights and a multicolored tunic which strained across his broad shoulders. His pointed shoes were fitted with bells, as was the hooded cape worn over his head. But perhaps worst of all, he’d been forced to wear a codpiece. One which, though I tried not to look, was fashioned of embossed leather.

  However, for all the ridiculousness of the ensemble, and the embarrassment Lord Henry must feel wearing it, he certainly didn’t show to disadvantage. Many of the female guests were far less polite than me, openly ogling his muscular stature. Fool though he might have been cast to be, I suspected any number of the ladies would have been interested in receiving his attentions.

  One glance at Lord Edward told me he’d anticipated this very thing, sending his fool off time and time again to perform one gallant, if inane, act after another for one of the ladies present. Though I was quite certain he was enjoying his younger brother’s discomfiture, I also wondered if he had nobler motives for his edicts. For not ten months before, Lord Henry had lost the woman he loved, and in the time since, I had heard numerous murmurings about his morose seclusion and refusal of female companionship. Perhaps this was Lord Edward’s way of prodding him out of his glum isolation.

  In any case, Lord Henry did not scowl all night. As the evening wore on, there were moments when I was quite certain his beaming smile and open-mouthed laughter were genuine. As was the merriment of most of those in attendance.

  The evening advanced steadily toward midnight and beyond, and yet the delectable food overflowing from the table in the dining room continued to be replaced and the decanters and carafes of wine, ratafia, and whisky continued to flow. So much so that nearly every nobleman with a Scots accent to hide saw his carefully cultivated voice stripped of pretension. I danced a reel with one lord who hailed from just west of Glasgow whose accent had become so thick I could not understand more than one in five of the words he spoke.

  At one point, the festivities paused so that we could troop down to the landing which overlooked the guard room below to listen to a group of wassailers who had either hiked or been driven up to the castle in wagons from the village. Their singing earned them applause, as well as the generosity of some of the guests, who added their own coins to the traditional boon of pennies being distributed by the staff along with cups of mulled cider and pieces of cake.

  Afterward, the dancing and drinking resumed, as did a number of parlor games and even an amateur theatrical. The play was far from inspiring. In fact, the entire production seemed to be centered on the premise of a lord accused of exposing himself quite shockingly to females along the route he traveled. At the end, the audience was finally let in on the reason for the excessive amount of jokes about cocks when the lord opened his greatcoat to the spectators to reveal a peacock costume beneath. It was dreadful, but everyone laughed nonetheless, mostly because they were too foxed to do otherwise.

  Given my current state, and the fact that any falls at this stage could be dangerous to the child, I’d elected to limit my indulgence in spirits. This also meant I was one of the only people present who was in full possession of their faculties. Even Gage was a trifle disguised, though out of consideration to me, he was not as top heavy as he might have been.

  As the night wore on, the merriment and bonhomie among the guests began to show signs of strain. This was not surprising. Parties fueled by copious amounts of whisky, wine, and frivolity often had the tendency to unravel. Especially when those who might be better served by withdrawing continued to remain.

  The duchess’s family was no exception. What tensions had been adroitly masked earlier in the evening began to show. The duchess appeared to be biting back her most strident thoughts even in her role as a shrew, and Lord John continued to cast glares at his sister, who spent much of the evening close to Marsdale’s side.

  If it was because Marsdale played the villain for the evening, I didn’t know why Lord John didn’t simply apprehend him, as it was his
task to do. But I began to suspect it was something else. Something to do with the closeness that was evident between Lady Helmswick and Marsdale. A closeness I imagined Lord Helmswick would not approve of.

  Or perhaps he wouldn’t care. After all, the Duke of Bowmont was clearly unruffled by anything his duchess did. In fact, he was the one member of his family who seemed not to exhibit the least amount of discontent with any of the others. He had thrown himself into his role as a ballad singer with relish, his cheeks red with drink, and he seemed to have no care beyond the moment’s pleasure.

  Given the frenzied gaiety and the fissures beginning to appear in some of the merrymakers’ facades, as well as the continued consumption of strong spirits, my nerves became attuned for impending hostility and confrontation, blunting my enjoyment. So when Lord Edward announced his intention of leading a ghost tour through the castle, I leapt at the opportunity. Gage was less eager, but then his senses were dulled to the potential for discord. In any case, it didn’t take long to convince him to join me, especially when I declared my intention to go with or without him.

  Gage was nothing if not protective of me, particularly since I carried his child. And this time, though I didn’t yet know it, I had more cause than usual to be glad of his escort.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I’d expected the tour to be rather dull, but Lord Edward swiftly proved me wrong. For one, he was not nearly as drunk as I’d assumed him to be, and for another, he was an excellent storyteller. He caused the hair to stand up on the back of my neck at his tale of the maid whose own neck had been snapped during a fall down the ballroom staircase, and who hovered nearby, waiting to bestow the same fate on others. The green lady in the north tower and the courtier supposedly spiked on the gun terrace were similarly affecting.