The Reckless One

by Connie Brockway

  “Forgive me, Mistress,” Jamie said gruffly. “I just found the lass—enchanting is all.”

  “Enchanting?” the woman echoed thoughtfully. “Good. She’ll need to be enchanting, and more, for her purpose. What happened next?”

  Favor pressed her ear to the door, straining to hear Jamie’s reply. “… wary and hard, as hard a man as I’d not like to cross. But she had him eating out of her hand soon enough and sending him into the arms of the French as docile as a lambkins.”

  Favor’s throat knotted with guilt.

  “But then, just as he’s about made it to the lieutenant’s side, the lass calls out a warning. The Englishman dashes one way and we dash the other.”

  The door to the cabin suddenly swung open and Favor scuttled back. An elderly woman stood before her, her lantern raised. Favor squinted at the bright light, trying to see past its glare.

  “Listening at doors, Miss?” the woman asked.

  “If it aids my cause,” Favor answered calmly.

  “Ach!” A wide grin split the face of the thin woman. She turned her head toward Jamie, who filled the door frame behind her. “Bold!”

  The bright light dangled a moment longer in front of Favor’s face. Finally, irritated by it, she forced herself to face it squarely. “Would you kindly take that thing out of my face, Madame?”

  A low chuckle greeted her imperious tone. The old woman lowered the lantern to her side. “Speaks like a McClairen wench. Uncrowned royalty is what the McClairens always thought themselves.”

  Muira’s smile faded. “That’s good, lass. You’ll need all that queenly bearing and more. But tell me, come nightfall does a haughty manner keep the vision of Merrick murdering your kin at bay? No.” She answered her own question fiercely. “Only an act of recompense will do that.”

  Favor backed away, caught off guard by the old woman’s bald-faced reference to the night Favor had all but destroyed her own clan. She chided herself for her naivete. She’d thought Muira might offer her a word of welcome. She should have known better. She’d had a decade’s worth of letters to instruct her differently.

  The old woman studied her impassively and Favor returned the examination. Muira Dougal, née McClairen, had the sort of face seen on ancient Greek coins, genderless and refined, arrogant and haunted. Her eyes were heavily hooded, the narrow face hung with crepelike flesh. Her thin mouth was uncompromising. Only the bright blue eyes blazed as though lit by a fire from within.

  For a full five minutes the two women faced each other, neither willing to break the silence. Even Jamie seemed loath to interfere in their silent discourse. He shuffled uneasily on his feet, glancing anxiously from one to the other. On the one side stood the woman who had for nearly a decade, single-handedly bound the far-flung McClairen clan together. On the other side stood the girl whose brother was that same clan’s long-missing laird, in essence an uncrowned king, the girl that Muira Dougal intended to sacrifice in order to return the McClairens to their full glory.

  “Yer nineteen years old.” Muira finally said, her tone giving nothing away.

  “Oui, Madame,” Favor answered.

  “Jamie says you improvised your escape here. Called out a warning to the English bastard you’d duped. Is this so?”

  “Oui.”

  “From here on there’ll be no more improvising. None at all. Is that understood?” The woman’s hand darted out like a striking snake and grasped Favor’s chin.

  “Oui, Madame. D’accord.”

  “Agree? I did not ask you to agree. I asked if you understood.”

  Favor felt herself flush. “Oui.”

  “And there will be no more French,” Muira muttered distractedly. “She had only a smattering of French. Remember that.” She looked over to Jamie. “You knew her. What do you think?”

  The big man cocked his head. “I don’t see much of the McClairen in her, that’s a fact. They be a black-headed breed, like yerself. All of them taller than she by some measure. Regal, yes, but gay. This one is handsome enough but fierce-looking.”

  “Hair can be dyed, brows can be plucked,” Muira murmured. “A resemblance can be created out of gestures and habits, a way of standing, a turn of speech.”

  She twisted Favor’s chin, pulling her face this way and that in the light. “There’s not much here to work with, I grant you, but it’s there in the angle of her jaw and the purity of her skin. Her nose is all McClairen. And when I add the rest …”

  Resentment made Favor pull away from the cold, dry fingers. She disliked being spoken of as though she were unformed clay waiting the potter’s hand. She already had a set of features, individual and her own. ’Twasn’t much, true, but when one could not call her future her own, even so little was precious. Though she did have Thomas. The thought of her long-unseen brother brought an attendant wave of worry.

  “Thomas is gone?” she asked.

  “Aye, lass,” Jamie answered.

  “Good,” she said, but she could not keep the wistful note from her voice. She hadn’t even been aware her brother was alive until a few years before when his letters had begun arriving at the convent. Thomas McClairen, bondage servant, sea captain, Marquis of Donne and laird of the McClairen.

  She hadn’t seen him since he and their older brother John had been taken to London to await trial for treason. He’d been sentenced, deported, and sold into bondage for his part in the uprising of ’45. Their older, thus more “dangerous,” brother, John, had been hanged, drawn, and quartered. John had been sixteen.

  “He’ll be gone a fair length?” she finally asked.

  “Long enough for us to accomplish what we must,” Muira answered.

  Favor nodded. Thomas would be a dangerous man to defy and impossible to deceive. He’d spent his years of servitude on the deck of a ship, his master being the captain-owner of a small shipping business. He’d won his master’s respect and later his trust. After his bond had been satisfied, Thomas had bought a share in his former master’s shipping business and become captain of his own vessel.

  He’d prospered and looked to prosper even more but his sight was set on a different goal. He’d returned to Scotland seeking the downfall of the man who’d betrayed the McClairens and stolen their birthright: Lord Carr.

  To accomplish this he’d taken “Donne” as his surname, it being one of the McClairen lairds’ old, long-forgotten French titles. In London he’d established himself as a disreputable ne’er-do-well and attached himself to a group of young devils who habitually made a pilgrimage to Wanton’s Blush, once the McClairens’ castle, now a hellhole of gaming and debauchery. There he’d befriended—to whatever degree such a creature as Carr was capable of friendship—Carr himself, all the while looking for the perfect manner in which to, in one fell stroke, destroy Carr and all he owned or held dear.

  All this Thomas wrote to Favor in letters, in dribs and drabs. Favor pieced the hints together, discerning Thomas’s goals in what he said and what he omitted. But something had gone wrong with Thomas’s plan. His last letter to Favor had said only that his resolve had been shaken and he needed to regain it somewhere far from Scotland. Which was good for Favor’s purposes.

  Thomas knew naught of Muira’s plan. If he caught wind of it he would do everything in his power to keep Favor from becoming involved. But she was involved. Muira had written hundreds of pages to her elucidating just how very involved she was.

  Because Favor was responsible for her clan’s near extermination.

  And if the good Abbess at Sacré Coeur had eventually convinced Favor that God had forgiven her, she knew very well that the same could not be said of her clan.

  Favor pulled her thoughts away from her dark musings. She looked up, finding Muira’s cool, appraising gaze fastened on her. How could she have thought that woman would have a kind word for her? Muira held her responsible for the death of every person she’d ever loved and more, of the death of her heritage.

  Favor’s return to Scotland was no prodigal’s
homecoming, no happy end to a decade-long exile.

  It was penance.

  Chapter 7

  THE NORTHEAST COAST OF SCOTLAND

  MCCLAIREN’S ISLE

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  Lord Carr looked down from the tower window at the bleak courtyard of Wanton’s Blush. A storm was coming in. A stiff wind smote the rocky island with backhanded fury, ripping what leaves were left from the branches of oak and rowan and hurling them across the square. Overhead, dark mauve-veined clouds rolled ominously westward. If one turned around and looked out the east windows, one would see huge waves shattering themselves on the jagged rocks surrounding the island.

  If one were to look out the east windows. Which Carr would not. Had not, in fact, in years if at all avoidable. Not that his present view pleased him any too much.

  Like a cheap whore too long in the trade, Wanton’s Blush was showing her coarse antecedents. All the accoutrements Carr had so painstakingly plied upon her homely surface could no longer hide what she was: a Scottish drab.

  The redbrick he’d ordered to cover her façade had crumbled in places, the gaping pox marks exposing the gray hand-hewn rock beneath. The courtyard he’d had paved with shimmering pink granite had heaved, pushed from below by tough Scottish turf that sprouted like hairs on a hag’s chin.

  The corrosion had seeped inside, too. Oh, not drastically—and not yet too apparently—but the signs were there. The expensive plaster moldings had cracked in several rooms. Chipped marble mantelpieces went unrepaired. Water stains darkened the walls of the south wing. Nothing too remarkable but telling.

  Carr had acquired Wanton’s Blush for the price of some information. In his youth he’d come to Scotland for an extended vacation, thinking to stay until his creditors in London forgot the immense sums he owed them. He’d accepted that he was bound for a lengthy visit. There he’d met Janet McClairen, the doted-upon cousin of this very castle’s one-time owner, Ian.

  She, being rich and smitten with him, and he, having nothing much else to do, married. They’d lived here, under Ian’s benign auspices until Carr had decided he was tired of the décor. So, when the opportunity had arisen with the ill-fated Jacobite rebellion of ’45, he’d relayed pertinent information about its leaders to Lord Cumberland. After the rebellion had been squelched and Ian and his kin either executed or deported, the grateful Cumberland had seen that Wanton’s Blush and its lands went to Carr. Then, Carr had changed the décor.

  He’d made Wanton’s Blush over, sparing no expense in converting her into a showpiece. A U-shaped fortress built on the highest outer curve of the island, the main body stood perpendicular to the sea. Two wings sprouted from towers at the north and south corners, protecting the wide interior courtyard from the constant winds. Italianate gardens had once bedecked the terraces Carr had cut beneath the courtyard but the years had watched the slow encroachment of the native weeds. And since none of Carr’s guests were wont to spend their waking hours idling there—their waking hours being primarily nocturnal—he did not fight too hard for those Italianate conceits.

  The problem was, Carr admitted without regret, Wanton’s Blush no longer interested him. It had served its purpose—indeed, still served its purpose: enticing from afar the wealthiest and most notorious gamblers of England’s most distinguished families.

  Carr was no fool. He still poured enough money into the cursed place to tempt jaded palates. Wanton’s Blush still boasted the best wine cellar in Scotland, the best chef in England, and still contained a premier collection of artwork and artifacts, treasures he would take with him when he left here and returned triumphant to the scene of his former humiliation. The old venom seeped to the surface.

  After Janet had died, Carr had set about accumulating enough wealth to pay off his dunners and set himself up as befitted his station. It had been slow going. Too slow. So he’d married another heiress whose wealth hadn’t been nearly as grand as she’d intimated to him, the bitch. She’d met with an accident, as had his third wife.

  By then he’d had the wealth he needed, but King George, grown sanctimonious in his dotage, had long since taken umbrage with Carr’s unfortunate habit of losing wives. He’d not only made it clear that Carr would not be welcomed back in London, nor in any society that the king—damn him—controlled, but he’d written him an edict: If any female ever again died while under Carr’s care, Carr would pay for it with his own head.

  And so, Carr had sat up here in this northern nowhere for twenty-five years. Twenty-five years in unofficial exile—first self-imposed, later imposed by a king’s will.

  But soon all that would be over, Carr thought, drumming his fingers. Wheels were turning. The wooing of some, the blackmailing of others, flattery, coaxing, threatening … all his exertions were on the cusp of bearing fruit. Soon. A few months and he would once more reign in London’s exalted society.

  But first, he thought, turning from the window, he needed to attend to a few immediate matters, a bit of housekeeping before he quit Wanton’s Blush once and for all.

  He crossed the room, approaching a shriven, unkempt figure hunched over a Uttered table. He wondered if the old witch knew the reason the sea-facing windows were draped. Probably. She seemed to know everything. Not that he cared overly much. What could one old Gypsy do to such as him? Except be of use.

  “Well, what do you see, Pala?” Carr asked, examining the nails of his hand.

  The woman shifted, her layers of discolored shawls and patched skirts swirling out and settling over her feet. A seamed and leathery face peered up at him from between a curtain of lank gray hair.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  She stabbed one filthy finger at the little pile of ivory knobs scattered across the table’s mahogany surface. “She loved you. No man owned so much love as you had from her.”

  A little thrill, all the more exotic for being so very rare, ran up Carr’s spine. Pala was referring to Janet, his first wife, the only woman he’d ever truly loved. For a second, Janet’s face danced before him: a black silken fall of hair, pale skin, dark amber-colored eyes. She smiled, an off-balance smile, utterly charming. Her eyes glowed with unhappy affection, unhappy because loving him had never made Janet happy.

  “Yes,” he said to himself. “She did.”

  “She loves you still.”

  The Gypsy’s voice abruptly dispelled his sentimental mood.

  “She loves you even from the grave.” The Gypsy’s sly accents curled through the air, wheedling and testing.

  Calmly Carr sauntered over and looked down at the table where Pala had spread her divining tools.

  “Oh, yes. I’m certain she does.” His lips curled into a semblance of a smile. “Is that why she’s haunting me? Her and her thrice-cursed clan? Because she loves me so much!”

  He slammed his fist down on the table and the intricate configuration of bones burst apart, skittering across the surface and falling to the floor.

  Pala speared him with a venomous glare and dropped to her knees. She scooped up the knucklebones and cradled them against her sunken chest, crooning indecipherable gibberish under her breath. “You have broken one!” she said accusingly.

  “Yes?” His brows lifted with mild annoyance. His composure had returned. “What of it? You could buy the hands from a dozen corpses with the money I’ve given you.”

  “Pala never asks for money.”

  Carr smiled. At times the old Gipsy could be amusing. “Of course not. I forget your exact words but the gist of it was that such an act might sully the purity of your discourse with the spirits. Yet you’ve never refused my ‘gifts.’ Correct me if I’m wrong.”

  Pala crouched lower. Her mouth was sulky.

  “How much do you imagine my ‘gifts’ have amounted to since I found you lurking in my stables two years ago?”

  “I am not lurking,” she protested feebly. “I … I follow the spirits. They tell me you are in danger. I come to warn you. Did I not warn you of the mad dog?”
r />   Carr regarded her through hooded eyes.

  “You know this true!” Pala insisted, jerking her head up and down. “For you, I read the portents, I listen to the spirits whisper, I see what has gone before and I see what will come. Has Pala not been of use to Your Grace many, many times?”

  “A few,” Carr allowed, pulling a chair out from beneath the table and dropping down into it. Pala had warned him about the rabid dog. Just as she’d seen the foundering of a smuggler’s ship and the rich trove that washed ashore from it. And certainly she knew more about him than any other living person, far more than anyone could without supernatural aid.

  He stretched out his legs and laced his fingers across his flat belly. The feel of the silk-embroidered waistcoat soothed him.

  “Please, most gracious sir.” Pala’s voice dropped to an unctuous mewl. “I read the bones for your guests, too. They like.”

  “You’ve been an effective little diversion, I’ll grant you that,” Carr murmured. “It is hard enough to lure Lord Sandwich away from his cursed Hellfire Club and harder still to keep him here with his rich and largely insensate companions. You sometimes manage to do that, what with your augury and omens. How much real, I wonder? How much fraud?”

  He leaned forward, fixing Pala with a meaningful stare. “Don’t ever take me for a fool, Pala. Don’t ever be so unwise. Or greedy.”

  The Gypsy’s gaze slipped away from his. She dropped her bones into a leather pouch, drawing the thong about her neck and tucking it into her bodice. “I don’t lie to you. I tell you only what the spirits tell me. What the bones say. If they lie …”

  She shrugged and Carr smiled at her sophistry. The old witch was a woman after his own heart. If the bones lied, how could it be her fault? She was simply a messenger.

  “You know why I trust you, Pala?” he asked. “Aside from the fact that if you were to ever prove untrustworthy you know I would kill you, that is?”