by Jenny Brown
“Temper your language, Zoe,” Mrs. Endicott commanded. She turned back to Lord Ramsay. “May I have a word in private with Miss Gervais?”
He nodded curtly.
Mrs. Endicott ushered Zoe into her small office, but after she’d closed the heavy door behind them, she didn’t take her usual place behind the large desk. Instead she put her arms around Zoe and gently stroked her shoulder.
“Why all this wild talk, my dear? I should never have expected such vehemence from you, the most mature of all my student teachers. The Laird of Iskeny is your guardian. After having paid your school fees all these years, it’s understandable he should wish to see you, especially now when he is so ill.”
This laird had paid her school fees all along? This was the first she had heard of it.
“I thought my mother paid my fees.”
Mrs. Endicott’s eyebrows shot up. “My dear, we must speak frankly. As bright an ornament as you’ve proven to be to my establishment, I should never have admitted you into it had it not been for the laird’s influence—not with such a mother. But the Laird of Iskeny was quite emphatic that no other situation would do for his ward, and given his rank and wealth, I was persuaded to make allowances. All the more reason you should be grateful to him, instead of treating his emissary with such rudeness.”
“But if that was the case, why didn’t you tell me? Neither you nor my mother ever mentioned a word about my having a guardian.”
“The laird preferred it that way, and I respected his desire that I not burden you with the need to express your gratitude.”
“Am I to be grateful, too, that he’s put me into the power of a man like this Lord Ramsay?”
“Of course. I admit it is a bit irregular that he sent a man to fetch you to him, rather than entrusting you to the chaperonage of a lady. But the journey to Scotland is a difficult one and the laird’s illness requires it be made in haste. If I had a maid to spare, I should send her along to preserve the proprieties, but at such short notice it isn’t possible. But, even so, you should have nothing to fear from Lord Ramsay. As your acting guardian, he stands in the same relationship to you as an uncle or older brother. You need fear no stain on your reputation should you find yourself alone with him. But you must know that, Zoe. You’re well aware of the rules of propriety, so well aware that I’m at a loss to understand how you could have had the temerity to call him a rake to his face. What made you speak so rudely?”
“His rudeness. When he presented himself to my mother, he acted as if he’d come to make me his mistress. He pretended to give me jewels and then let my mother dicker with him over terms before he revealed he’d been sent by my guardian.”
“That does sound odd.” Mrs. Endicott brought one finger to rest against her long chin. “Still, I’ve heard no ill of Lord Ramsay. The laird writes that he is to be his heir, and that he has been away on the Continent for many years studying medicine. Beyond that, Lord Ramsay’s family is known to me. Their barony has an illustrious history in Scotland and stretches back to the days of the Wallace and the Bruce. You should consider yourself fortunate that he has offered to take you under his wing. It’s a rare opportunity for someone whose own ancestry is so uncertain.”
This reminder of her illegitimacy stung. Only long habit kept her from protesting that even if she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket, she wasn’t just Isabelle’s daughter, but the daughter of a duke, a man more noble even than Lord Ramsay, and that her father’s illustrious blood ran in her veins, too. But she kept silent. She didn’t want to see Mrs. Endicott’s eyes fill with the look of pity that was all too likely to follow such an assertion.
“It is true,” Mrs. Endicott admitted, “that the Selkirks are known to be somewhat eccentric, but then so is the laird. I’m told he has become quite mystical in his old age. But these mental oddities are often found in the finest old Scottish families. You must make some allowance for them.”
“So you will entrust me to a madman because your respect for his nobility outweighs any care you might have for what happens to a whore’s daughter?”
Mrs. Endicott shrank at the crude word Zoe had flung at her, but even though surprise had temporarily got the better of her, she still kept her back ramrod-straight. “There’s no need for such intemperate language, Zoe,” she chided, “especially from you, whom I’ve often held up as a model to our younger girls. Of course your future matters greatly to me.”
“My language isn’t any worse than what he used to my mother. He made it clear that he hates her. He means to do me harm. Why won’t you help me?”
“Because I can’t. Lord Ramsay comes at the behest of your legal guardian.”
“Even so, he displayed a most ungentlemanly curiosity about whether I was still a virgin. He asked me, point-blank. What if he intends to ruin me?”
“Then you must pray to our Savior to protect you,” Mrs. Endicott said with resignation, “and carry a knife.”
She walked over to a small desk and rummaged in the drawer until she found a penknife with a pearl handle. With a single press of some invisible mechanism it flew open, revealing a surprisingly long blade. Zoe took it from her and flourished it as if she were stabbing an imaginary assailant. Its hard, smooth handle felt good in her hand.
Reluctantly, she closed it, after closely examining its mechanism to be sure she understood how it worked. When she was done, she handed it back to Mrs. Endicott, who put a long silver chain through its bail. Then she draped it around Zoe’s neck as if it were a pendant, adjusting the chain so that the small knife was hidden snugly between her breasts.
“Should you find yourself in danger, the knife should be enough to protect you. But for now, we must give your guardian the benefit of the doubt. Truly, I find it hard to credit that he intends to dishonor you. You aren’t at all the sort of girl who attracts men with depraved lusts. And even if your guardian’s tastes did run to the debauching of young girls, well, I can’t imagine that the laird would have paid your school fees all these years only to dispose of you in such a way. Our fees are quite high, and young girls may be had so cheaply—”
“So I must trust I’ll be safe because I’m too ugly to tempt a rake?”
“That is putting it strongly, but you were always a practical girl, so I will speak plainly. One doesn’t often hear of men buying young girls whose strongest appeal lies in their good sense.”
The corner of Mrs. Endicott’s lips turned up in a troubled smile. “Though I must hope you’ve misinterpreted the conversation between your mother and this man. One hears of such things, of course, but with a girl like you, it seems so unlikely.”
Zoe turned away, not wishing to let her teacher see the emotions that must be clearly displayed on her scarred face with its eagle’s beak and the heavy brows that were all that her father, the duke, had bequeathed her.
No one would step in to help her. She would have to go to Scotland with Lord Ramsay and hope that this man they called the Dark Lord had not, in fact, bought her to use for some unsavory purpose.
If he had, she could depend on no one to save her but herself. But it had always been that way. Her hand flew to the knife nestled now between her small bosoms. As alone as she might be, Lord Ramsay wouldn’t get the best of her.
It took little time to pack up the belongings that had made Zoe’s little cubicle a home: a few books, her summer gown, an old bonnet, some maps she had received as a prize for excellence in the study of geography, and a rather bedraggled collection of ribbons. She packed them carefully into her trunk, pausing only when she came to the old doll, much the worse for wear, that had been given to her years before by old MacMinn, her mother’s coachman. She thought of leaving it behind, for it would take up valuable space in her box, but decided against it. It was one of the very few presents she’d ever received.
After she’d filled the last bit of empty space in her trunk with her favorite books, there was no further excuse for delay. Reluctantly, she made her way back dow
nstairs to the parlor, where she found Lord Ramsay glowering, his eyes burning holes in the carpet. On seeing her, he leapt up at once and gave the porter instructions to deposit her trunk in the hired post chaise. Then, with no further conversation, he stood up and led her out toward the equipage.
Though the afternoon was warm, she felt a chill as Ramsay opened the carriage door and reached out one gloved hand to assist her up the step. She thought of making a break for freedom, but his grip on her hand was surprisingly strong, giving her no choice but to seat herself on the cracked leather upholstery of the hired post chaise, noting as she did so how his surprisingly broad shoulders blocked the doorway she’d just clambered through.
Only after she had smoothed out her brown serge skirts and settled back against the worn squabs did he take his place beside her. As he did, the energy that radiated out from him seemed to fill the compartment, like the subtle scent of some unfamiliar spice.
She half expected him to say something gloating, now that he had her completely in his power, but he showed no interest in conversation. Instead, he reached into the pocket of his many-caped greatcoat and extracted a small volume, which he began to read with the appearance of intense concentration.
Absorbed in his book, he looked strikingly different from the elegant aristocrat who had stolen her from her home. Indeed, had she not witnessed that unforgettable scene in her mother’s withdrawing room, in which he had made his character so frighteningly plain, she would have guessed that the man beside her was an unworldly scholar on his way back to university.
His chestnut hair fell past his chin. It wasn’t pulled back into the queue as she would have expected but hung almost to his shoulders, falling in gentle waves that reminded her of the look of a long dead medieval saint chiseled into the stone pillar of some ancient village church. He had unfastened his greatcoat upon entering the chaise. Beneath it, instead of the cravat and waistcoat she would have expected to see, he wore only a loose shirt of rough linen, open at the throat, where it revealed a tuft of reddish gold hair that glistened rather startlingly in the diffused light of the chaise compartment.
She pulled her eyes away from him and forced herself to peer through the window at the carts and wagons that were heading out of the city as their owners returned from the day’s markets. But her thoughts kept returning to her companion. He was a startlingly handsome man. His face might have been called beautiful had he been a woman, but there was nothing unmanly about his beauty, just something sensuous and haunting, as if he had a dash of elfin blood mixed with the ichor of his aristocratic ancestors.
When he raised his hand to turn a page, the sleeve of the homespun shirt fell back and for a moment she thought what she saw was a trick of the compartment’s dim light. She blinked her eyes to clear away the disturbing vision, but when she opened them again, it was still there. On the flesh of his forearm, the head of a serpent was picked out in delicate lines of blue. Its body entwined with that of another of its kind, rising along his arm, to where both vanished beneath the edge of his rough linen sleeve.
It was startling. Disturbing. She pulled her eyes away, wishing she hadn’t seen it.
What could he possibly want with her?
The fear she’d confessed to Mrs. Endicott—that he’d kidnapped her for some carnal purpose—seemed far-fetched. The man across from her was far too attractive—and far too magnetic—to need to stoop to such a stratagem to get a woman.
But before she could pursue the thought further, Lord Ramsay interrupted her reverie. “I assume you haven’t eaten.” His voice was curiously melodic. “There’s a hamper beneath the seat. Take what you like.” He returned to his book, giving her not a second glance.
It had been a long time since she’d eaten, so despite her anxiety, she helped herself to a chicken sandwich, but her companion ignored the food as if he had no need to satisfy any earthly hunger. When she was done, she replaced the hamper beneath the seat. When she brushed against Lord Ramsay’s leg by accident, he flinched and shrank away from her.
She turned her attention back to the scene passing outside the window. While she had been eating, they’d left London behind. Now they appeared to be heading north on the Great North road, the fabled route leading to Gretna Green, which was the chosen route of the scoundrels bent on abduction who were so often the villains of the novels beloved by the girls at school.
How very fitting! After all, she had been abducted.Unbidden, the image swam up in her mind of Lord Ramsay, transformed into just such a villain, throwing himself at her feet while making the kind of fervid declaration of love such villains were prone to. The vision was so ludicrous that, to her horror, she felt a giggle rising within her, and though she clamped her lips shut, she was powerless to suppress it.
Her captor looked up. “I see nothing humorous in our situation.” His tone was quelling. “What made you laugh?”
She thought of telling him a falsehood, but given how little respect he had already shown her, she doubted she could sink any lower in his estimation by telling him the truth.
“It was the road we are taking. The Great North Road features so heavily in the romances my school friends and I used to read to each other, late at night, when Mrs. Endicott thought us safely asleep. It amused me to find myself abducted by a nobleman, locked in a closed carriage, and headed for Gretna Green, just like the heroine of a novel from the Minerva Press. But of course, in such novels, the heroines are always great heiresses. One doesn’t expect to find oneself abducted when one is the ugly, portionless daughter of a courtesan.”
“Is that how you see yourself?” The faintest shadow of amusement quirked his full lower lip into a half smile.
“I know what I am,” she replied. “I’ve always been recommended for my sense. And since you’ve given me no choice about going with you, why should you begrudge me what pleasure I might take from imagining the envy my situation would arouse in Miss Ecclesford, who is to have ten thousand pounds and is betrothed to a wall-eyed banker. She’d ask nothing more out of life than to be kidnapped by a handsome young nobleman like yourself.”
Lord Ramsay peered intently at her, as if seeing her for the first time. “You haven’t been kidnapped. I’m merely taking you to your guardian. I’d thought Mrs. Endicott had explained the situation to you.”
“Mrs. Endicott assured me that you are descended from a noble but eccentric race, and that, given my lack of looks and the hefty amount my guardian had lavished on my education, you were unlikely to have snatched me from my mother to make me your whore.”
His eyebrows lifted, and again that half smile played at the corners of his lips. “One always wonders what women say to each other when they’re out of the hearing of men, but, still, I find it difficult to believe your schoolmistress expressed herself like that. Did she really? ”
“Not exactly,” Zoe admitted. “Mrs. Endicott would never speak so crudely.”
“But you would?”
“Why not? Being what I am, I can’t expect to be treated like a lady no matter how I comport myself. So I take what pleasure I may in the liberties allowed to a courtesan’s daughter.”
For a moment she thought he would laugh at her wry joke, but then, as if he had forbidden himself humor, his lips tightened and he shrank away from her on the seat.
“I must thank you for reminding me of who you are,” he said grimly. He sat silent for a moment, his eyes brooding. Then he set aside his book and leaned closer to her with a look of determination on his face. “What if your Mrs. Endicott was wrong? What if I did take you from your harlot of a mother to use in that way?”
He was trying to frighten her. It was obvious. But if so, his threat was poorly chosen. She was a practical woman and knew herself to be too ugly to raise any such desire in a man like him. Had there been the slightest question of it, the way he shrank from her touch as they rode along in the carriage would have removed it.
“She did sell you,” he went on relentlessly. “When it was a mat
ter of your mother’s comfort and someone else’s life, you know her well enough to know what choice she’d make.”
Zoe shivered. She did know. And the anger in his voice made her think, too late, that perhaps her lack of looks might not matter. Perhaps he might take pleasure in hurting her, simply out of hatred. If so, she mustn’t let him see her fear. There was a chance he’d only threatened her with his lust because he’d thought it would terrify her. If she behaved as if lust were a matter of no concern, perhaps he’d see no point in punishing her with it.
With as much control over her voice as she could muster, she said lightly, “So then it’s true—you do intend to take my maidenhead.” That flirting tone her mother used so well was hard to get right.
“I do not,” he said icily.
“Then why were you so curious about my virginity?”
“I have no curiosity about it at all, Miss Gervais. I seek only to fulfill the Dark Lord’s wishes. His instructions were that I should bring you with me when I came to claim my inheritance—once I’d satisfied myself that you were still a virgin. Which I did.”
“So it’s this Dark Lord of yours who cares about my virginity, not you?” She did her best to sound as if she held conversations about her maidenhead every day.
Ramsay’s luminous gray eyes met hers again, and in them she saw again the surprise he had betrayed in response to her earlier frankness. But when he replied, his voice was grim. “My only concern is to see my dear Charlotte avenged. Your virginity or lack of it matters only to the Dark Lord. He has some use for it.”
Summoning up all her courage, she asked, “Who was Charlotte?”
“My sister.”
“And what did my mother do to her?”
“She sent her to her death.”
The look in his eye shut down any further inquiry. Changing the subject abruptly, Zoe asked, “And this man you call the Dark Lord”—the man whose name alone had been enough to terrify her usually fearless mother—“who is he?”