by Lily Maxton
Mal, who’d always thought of himself as a patient enough fellow, experienced a moment when said patience simply snapped in half.
“Enough!” Mal roared, thumping on the wall behind him with his fist for good measure.
A few children jolted in their seats. They all went quiet.
“What were George and Frances teaching you?”
“Those two only speak Gaelic,” Abigail said, pointing at a pair of boys on the other side of the room. “They were being taught English. The rest of us were working on numbers and letters. Though we can already read fairly well.” She indicated the front row.
“So you’re all at different places.”
“Aye.”
He had a feeling if he let his authority slip for even a moment, everything would descend into sheer chaos. So even though he felt like a bit of an idiot, he said, “You’ll address me as sir or Mr. Rochester.”
“Aye, sir,” she amended.
“All right—” Now he had to think of a way to teach a few of them at a time while keeping the rest occupied enough that they didn’t start swinging from the rafters or trying to kill one another. He found himself almost hoping that the real Mr. Rochester would present himself, if it meant sparing Mal this headache.
But it would also prevent Mal from getting closer to Llynmore, and he wasn’t willing to give up just yet.
“Oh, look at this,” Lady Arden said when she walked in again. (About an hour later, not a few minutes—Mal was keeping track.) “Everyone is so studious!”
Somehow, he’d wrangled them into small groups based on their level of education and written a problem for each group to solve while he went around and spoke to them individually. When this setup had threatened to descend into chaos regardless, he’d promised whoever came up with the correct answer the quickest would get sweetmeats the next day.
Now he had to go find some goddamn sweetmeats.
He didn’t tell Lady Arden this.
She set a large wicker basket on the table at the front of the classroom and opened the lid to reveal shiny red apples.
“Take one and pass them along,” she said.
They all seemed a bit in awe of Lady Arden, taking an apple meekly and passing the basket with nary a word. Mal supposed if he flounced in every once in a while bearing baskets of food like some benevolent queen they might be in awe of him, too.
While they ate—noisily, with mouths open (animals, the lot of them)—Lady Arden spoke to him. “I think you’ll do quite well, Mr. Rochester. Please don’t run off and elope.”
Mal frowned at her.
“Oh!” she laughed, unembarrassed. “I didn’t mention it, did I? The last schoolmaster eloped and left us quite in a lurch. You’re a godsend.”
She went on to tell him about the students he’d have to go meet on his off days, because they lived too far from the quarry to attend at the one-room schoolhouse. Then she gathered up the basket and turned toward him, smiling.
“You should come to Llynmore for tea tonight. Lord Arden will want to meet you, I’m sure.”
Mal hesitated only for a moment. The last thing he wanted was to make nice with the earl of Arden and his wife, but if he accepted the invitation, he’d be exactly where he needed to be.
“Do you, by chance, have a servant named Catriona MacPherson?”
The countess shook her head. “We have a Catriona, but her last name is Douglas, not MacPherson. Do you know her?”
His heart lurched. It might be her. She could have lied about her last name; she’d lied about everything else.
Would he see her tonight?
“No,” he finally said. “I thought I knew her, but I must have been mistaken.”
…
Annabel stood behind Georgina’s chair, twisting her hair up into elaborate ringlets that Georgina probably wouldn’t have bothered with on her own. She stared at her reflection in the looking glass—oval face and lightly pockmarked skin, soft, curved lips, pale eyes, and dark, winged brows.
She’d been called beautiful before. She’d been told she’d be even more beautiful if she covered up her scars. She didn’t know if either of those things were true.
She only knew how Mal had looked at her and how it had made her feel.
What had he seen in her that she didn’t see in herself?
“You’re usually more excited about guests than this,” Annabel murmured.
Georgina closed her eyes, soaking in the feel of Annabel’s nimble fingers separating tendrils of hair. It reminded her of when she was young and her mother had helped with her toilette.
“I am excited,” she said. “Did he do all right on his first day?”
“He did even better than I expected,” Annabel said. “You should play after dinner.”
“Why?”
“Because your playing is enchanting and good schoolmasters are hard to find. I want to keep this one. I’m desperate, George!”
Georgina snorted softly, amused. “So you’re prostituting my skills for your own gain.”
Annabel poked at her shoulder. “I’m not prostituting you. Only your music.”
“Mmm…an important distinction.”
Annabel laughed. “Though I suppose he’s compelling, in a rough sort of way.”
Georgina sat up straighter. “What are you saying?”
“Well, none of the genteel men in Edinburgh caught your attention. Maybe you’ve a craving for something different.”
“A craving? For something different?” she echoed. “If Theo heard you…”
“We do not tell Theo what we discuss behind these walls,” Annabel said solemnly, though her reflection in the mirror was smiling. “Anyway, I’m not talking about falling in love or ruining yourself. I’m simply saying that a little flirtation never hurt anyone.”
Annabel stepped back to examine her work. Then, almost as an afterthought, she grabbed two intricate silver combs and stuck them in Georgina’s hair.
“Perfect!” she said.
“Yes,” Georgina said, a little drily. “I’m sure I looked horrid until you did that.”
Annabel swatted her. “We should go down.”
Georgina followed her sister-in-law down the stairs and into the great hall. It was dark outside, but the fire blazed in the hearth behind the long dining table, and wall sconces burned merrily at the edges of the room. She smoothed out her blue silk dress. She’d bought it for balls in Edinburgh, and now she only wore it when they had guests at Llynmore.
When Theo had first seen it, he said it made her look too mature and she should have gone with a lighter color. Something more in line with a blushing debutante—white, or a very soft pink.
Obviously, Georgina had ignored him.
While Annabel straightened a flowery centerpiece on the table, Georgina stood to the side, thinking about the new schoolmaster.
Compelling, Annabel had said. In a rough sort of way.
There was another man she would describe like that, but he was so far away he might as well be on another planet. And, just as she’d told herself a hundred times before, she told herself again—it was for the best. It wasn’t only for the best, it was really the only choice she’d had.
She was not Catriona MacPherson, who stole sheep, stitched gunshot wounds, and didn’t think about any moment beyond the next one. She was Georgina Townsend, sister of the earl of Arden. She had a family who loved her. She had obligations.
Two sharp knocks sounded at the heavy castle door, and Georgina heard Catriona answer.
Before she quite knew what was happening, she heard a bark and a muffled curse, and the tapping, skittering sound of nails across a wooden floor. A sheepdog hurtled into the room, straight toward her.
And this close, there was no mistaking the black coat with white and brown markings, the spot around her eye.
Unsteady, pulse rioting, Georgina used Lu as an excuse to sink into a crouch. She wrapped her arms around Lu’s neck and pressed her face into Lu’s soft fur, listened to
the dog’s happy, panting breaths.
If the collie was here, that meant…that meant…
“Mr. Rochester!” Annabel greeted. Georgina couldn’t look. What a coward she was. She pretended to be so strong and so in control, and she couldn’t even look at him. “Your dog has made quite the entrance.”
When Mr. Rochester spoke, his familiar lilting brogue broke over her, and there was no more doubt in her mind.
“Forgive me. I didn’t know she’d follow me here. Lu, come—”
He broke off midsentence. The seconds ticked by.
Stand up, she told herself angrily. Stand up.
Cold, numb, she let go of Lu and pushed to her feet, lifting her gaze slowly as she did. When she met hazel eyes, a shock went through her entire body, like she’d been struck by lightning, smitten where she stood.
Malcolm Stewart was in the entryway of the great hall, hands open at his sides, face as blank as cut marble.
Chapter Sixteen
There she was.
Mal couldn’t take her in all at once. He saw her in quick impressions at first—pale eyes, dark hair. It was only after a few seconds passed that he saw her, whole.
And when he did, one thought emerged from the million racing through his mind—Who is this woman?
She wore her hair up in artfully tousled ringlets, the kind that probably took an hour to perfect. Expensive silver combs glittered in the candlelight, against the shadow of her hair. Her dress was a luxurious deep-blue silk that clung to her curves, netted with silver lace. She was dark and light. She was stars against the deepest winter night.
Like a painting of a duchess hung in a museum, she was a woman of mystery, of elegance, of wealth. The world held in the palm of her hand.
She looked nothing like the Catriona MacPherson he’d known, with a plaid thrown over a sturdy linen dress and hair shoved into a quick chignon. That woman had been practical, prepared to live and work outdoors, and her clothes had reflected that practicality. This woman was drowning in fripperies, lips tinged with pink.
Rouge?
Catriona had never bothered with rouge.
He shook his head, angry with himself. He didn’t know why he was thinking about her like she was two different people. The Catriona he’d known and this woman were one and the same, he just couldn’t reconcile them in his mind. Couldn’t figure out what was real and what was false.
Lady Arden was speaking, but she sounded very far away, like Mal was listening from underwater.
“May I introduce Mr. Rochester, the new schoolmaster?” She looked at him, smiling, seemingly unaware that his whole world had just been forced off kilter. “Miss Townsend is my sister-in-law.”
Miss Townsend.
Miss Townsend.
Lady Arden’s sister-in-law.
The missing puzzle pieces began to rearrange themselves—she was the earl’s sister. The music box was probably hers.
Damn. He was a bigger fool than he’d thought.
All this time he’d assumed Catriona must be a servant at Llynmore. Because if she lived at Llynmore there were only two possibilities: she was either a servant or an aristocrat, and he couldn’t believe the latter. She’d played shinty with them. Drunk his bitter coffee without complaint (or not much complaint, at least). She’d slept outdoors with them, for God’s sake.
Not once had he imagined she lived an entirely different life, in an entirely different world.
Still, the whys were not entirely clear to him. Why would an earl’s sister throw her lot in with the likes of them? Was she bored? Had she wanted the music box back that badly? Had it all just been the lark of a spoiled rich girl?
He was supposed to do something, he realized, belatedly, when an awkward silence seeped into the room. They were waiting for him to bow.
Everything in him rebelled. He would have bowed to the Catriona he’d known before. He didn’t want to bow to the elegant, remote stranger in front of him.
He inclined his head, instead. It was probably a slight, but he didn’t care. Finally, he found his tongue. “Miss Townsend…it doesna sound very Scottish.”
She flinched, almost imperceptibly. But he was watching her closely enough to see it. A bitter satisfaction filled him. She was not untouchable. Not untouchable at all.
“It’s not Scottish, I’m afraid,” she said.
Now it was his turn to fight back a flinch. The soft brogue he’d grown so used to had vanished. Now, her voice was crisp and English—direct and unmusical. Her Highland accent had been false…though it had sounded real. All those days they’d spent together, and she’d never slipped. Not once.
Maybe she wasn’t a common Scottish lass or an earl’s sister. Maybe she was an actress, fooling them all.
Lady Arden was looking back and forth between them, a frown pulling at her mouth. “My husband’s family was raised in England—their father was English. The Arden title passed through their mother’s line.”
“Ah,” he said.
It was worse than he’d assumed. She wasn’t only an aristocrat; she was a half-English aristocrat.
“We’ll have tea in the library,” Lady Arden said. “But as long as we’re here, would you like a tour of the castle?”
“Aye. I’ll put Lu outside,” he said.
Unfortunately, the traitor of a dog was staring adoringly up at Catri—Was her name Catriona? It bothered him that he didn’t even know that small detail.
He slapped his thigh. “Come, Lu.”
“That’s an interesting name,” Lady Arden remarked as she passed him.
His gaze went back to Catriona. She was watching him, face carefully expressionless.
“It’s short for Luath, like Rabbie Burns’s dog.”
“I bet my sister-in-law approves,” Lady Arden said. “She’s always insisting we give things proper names.”
“Is she?” Mal said. His lips twisted in a brittle, wry smile. It seemed an odd request for a woman who went through names like a snake shed its skin.
After he shut the door on Lu—unmoved by a pathetic whine and sad liquid eyes (or if not unmoved, at least not swayed)—he followed Lady Arden and Catriona through the castle. The countess seemed proud of Llynmore—it was an odd mix of old and new, of medieval and modern. Ancient, violent tapestries were illuminated by expensive glittering chandeliers, dark, shadowed recesses stood across from brightly lit receiving rooms. They passed over a lush colorful rug and onto bare stone steps.
She said the tower house had been built in the fifteenth century. She went through some of the castle’s history, finishing by telling him that much of it had been in disrepair before the Townsends had inherited, and she and her husband had slowly begun restoring it to its former glory.
She loved this heap of rocks, he realized.
Mal wondered if Catriona loved it, too, but she’d been quiet these past few minutes. From time to time, he glimpsed flashes of her downturned face. He had the unbearable urge to goad her. Anything was better than silence—anger, disdain, haughtiness, guilt, regret. Though he wasn’t sure which he’d find, and he wasn’t sure which to hope for.
They reached the library, a spacious room with sash windows, a mahogany desk by the bookcases, and armchairs scattered throughout. A pianoforte stood on the end opposite the desk and books.
Mal was introduced to an older woman—Lady Arden’s aunt, Mrs. Blair—and a man who couldn’t be more than thirty, if that, but who stood with almost preternatural poise. Lord Arden.
Mal sized up the earl. On first glance, he didn’t look much like his sister, aside from the sable-brown hair. But on second glance, Mal could see the similarities—the same bowed upper lip and stubborn jaw, the same long, dark lashes.
He wondered what he’d do if he knew Mal was responsible for the sheep stolen on his land, for the trinkets pinched from his home. Probably ship him off to the nearest gaol and call for the hangman’s noose. Men like Lord Arden were all the same underneath their polished exteriors—stone-cold bastards
with stone-cold hearts.
“How was your first day of lessons, Mr. Rochester?” Lord Arden asked.
“It was…” Maybe he should have tried to be tactful, but he found he didn’t have it in him. “Like hell on earth.”
Lord Arden barked a laugh, which surprised Mal. “And the children are the demons?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re the first schoolmaster who’s told the truth. Honesty is a virtue.”
Oh, if he only knew.
Mal paused. “How many schoolmasters have there been?”
“You’re the third since it opened half a year ago.”
Three in six months? Not exactly a promising start. He wondered what the children thought of their absent teachers—had they felt abandoned? Then he cursed himself for wondering. The random and probably horrific things that went through the minds of young people were not something he felt like dwelling on.
Laughter drifted to him from the other side of the room. Almost against his will, Mal’s head turned, like a hound following a scent.
Catriona was sitting at the pianoforte, fingers lightly resting on the keys. Lady Arden had leaned across the instrument to say something to her, and Catriona responded with laughter and a teasing gleam in her eye.
It was a shock to his senses. Like he’d been dipped in icy water.
The glint in her eyes was familiar enough, was something he recognized, but he realized she had never laughed much in camp with Mal and the other men. Except for the first time she and Mal had played music together, she’d kept that part of herself contained, closed off from them.
If it was real at all. He didn’t know anymore what parts of her were true and what parts were only fabrication.
Who are you?
The question was ceaseless, unrelenting.
Lady Arden stepped back and Catriona bowed her head, nimble fingers gliding over ivory. The sound that came from the instrument was slow and melodic, soft and haunting.
“’Tis the Last Rose of Summer.” One of Thomas Moore’s ballads. Mal recognized the sad strains of it.
Before he knew what he was doing, he’d crossed over to the piano, pulled as if by some enchantment. He stared down at her bent head. Hard flecks of diamond shimmered from the silver combs, reflecting the candlelight with each subtle movement.