by Quinn, Paula
She backed away from the window—from him, and sat down, noticing him for the first time as she went.
His confident smile remained, higher on one side than the other, making his green eyes twinkle with pure, well-honed charm. His flaxen hair was long—for a nobleman—and tied back at his nape.
“I am the Viscount of Bamburgh, Louis Pratt,” he greeted. The old woman snored as if in response. “My grandmother, Lady Bamburgh.”
“Julianna Fenly,” Julianna told him after a few moments of her making certain the woman was still asleep. She didn’t use her real name in case folks who ran in Phillip’s circle of friends knew of his death and suspected her. As far as she knew, people believed him missing. She gave no title because she had none to give. Her husband’s will had not been read. Her father’s titles had been stripped. His debts, which according to some were many, had been paid out, leaving her almost penniless. “You are far from home.”
“Mm, aye,” he agreed with a well-practiced smile. “We are traveling. My grandmother has relatives in Ashington.”
“I see,” Julianna remarked and then looked toward the window again.
“Where are you from?” her companion asked, his voice dipping to a smoky drone.
She supposed she could go back to Alnwick. The guards would either kill her or serve her. But it wasn’t home. She could never go back to Berwick and live with so many ghosts.
“Rothbury,” she replied and flicked her dark gaze on the woman. There wasn’t much else to look at but his grandmother. So she did.
She had known dozens of men like Bamburgh in the past. Pretty, dangerous, and terribly boring once the charm wore off.
That was the trouble with William. He ruined her for anyone else. The night he’d kissed her—the night he left—he was already a man, having survived a world much harsher than hers. She knew that world now. She’d lived in it.
“Ask her why she has no escort!” Lady Bamburgh snapped, awake after all, startling them both.
Julianna pinned her dark gaze on the old lady and fought the temptation to snap right back. “My escort was murdered last eve by a band of robbers. I was able to fight my way out of their grasps and escape. I am returning home now to bring my dear mother the antidote she needs to live.”
Lady Bamburgh gaped at her and then scowled even harder. Julianna knew the look. Dissatisfaction, as if Julianna had anything to do with what happened to her. If it had happened, that was. There was little mercy from the noble born toward anyone who was beneath their station. She’d seen it growing up. She was guilty of it toward others.
She was surprised to find the viscount still smiling at her. She blushed a little, hating that it made her ever redder, but glad that the flare of her dry temper didn’t anger him.
“How did you manage to escape?” he asked, feigning surprise.
She quirked her lips and met his gaze. “I jabbed out one’s eyes and drove my knife into one’s temple, sure to—”
His smile faded as he held up his hand to stop her. There wasn’t much room in the carriage and his hand nearly struck her. She flinched backward and reached for her knife.
His grandmother caught her eye. For an instant, her gaze softened on Julianna, but just as quickly, it cooled.
The viscount apologized profusely and kept the conversation light. Julianna kept it lighter.
They arrived at a large marketplace in Rothbury a few hours later and Julianna stepped out of the carriage and looked around. How far was Lismoor from here? She had no horse and no idea which way to go.
“Can we take you somewhere, Miss Fenly?” Viscount Bamburgh asked, coming up behind her.
She turned to find his chaperon wrapped and returned to his head, keeping his head warm.
“We have a private carriage coming to pick us up and take us home,” he continued when she didn’t answer right away. His gaze fell to the red curls falling freely over her eye, the curls he’d nuzzled his face in to avoid his grandmother’s smell.
“What about your grandmother?” she asked, sizing him up.
He laughed softly and she thought he was quite pretty, with an extremely charming smile. But he was not to her liking. Not anymore.
“It was her idea to invite you.”
Hmm. Julianna glanced at the old woman being aided into another, more ornate carriage pulled by two beautiful white horses. Curious, she thought and nodded. Why not? Lady Bamburgh might offer an interesting ride.
Suddenly, the thought of going any further scared the hell out of her. Why did she think William might be there? Why had she already spent a small fortune on the hope that he would be? What if he wasn’t? Chances were, he wasn’t.
She could no longer deny her madness. She missed William. Traitor or not, damn her. She just wanted to see him again. She would be content then. He would stop haunting her then.
“All right,” Julianna accepted. “Do you know the way to Lismoor?”
Chapter Two
Julianna left Lady Bamburgh’s carriage in Lismoor’s quiet village and took a look around. The village was close to the castle, and it was a good estimation of how the lord took care of the people living closest to him. There were a few women outside in the early winter chill. They looked at her and spread a word or two among some men where they worked close by—a miller, a tanner, a smith, a few males stepping out of their homes and seeing her. The people appeared well fed and content.
She smiled slightly and waited until one of the men who’d left his home reached her.
“Who are you?” he asked. He didn’t sound like a Scot. He was average height, with graying hair cut short around his head. He had a bit of a belly protruding out from over his belt.
“Miss Julianna Feathers,” she answered, keeping her eyes on his. It was the first place a thought was revealed. She didn’t need to look at his hands to know if he was going to strike.
“Welcome to Lismoor, Miss. I am Walter. I’m the reeve here” He smiled back. He didn’t look as if he were oppressed. “Are you here for the governess position?”
She nodded and followed him to a large stable. He didn’t say another word while he and a groom, who wasn’t William, saddled two horses.
“I will take you to the gates, Miss Feathers,” Walter said and led her out of the stable once they were both ready. She caught him take notice of her straddling her saddle and she would have sworn he smiled ever so lightly. “Come.”
Julianna looked up at the castle perched at the top of a hill, in the middle of the forest. Its stone keep was wide and built to withstand battle. On one side, a small walkway connected it to a tower. A tall curtain wall and occupied battlements surrounded the other three sides. She swallowed. It was patrolled by Scots. Highlanders, by the steely look of them. It was time to gather her wits and present a few charms of her own. Though she found the thought of the savages terrifying and repugnant, she needed this work and the coin now more than ever. She also hoped to find William in the bargain. If she needed to plow her way through a few Highlanders to do it, she would.
She and her escort were given entrance into the main gate, where she was asked to dismount and bid farewell to Walter. A Highlander took her by the elbow and led her toward the keep and the long, narrow stairs leading up to the doors.
She heard a sound to her left and looked down to see a man ride into Lismoor on a big, black horse. Was he a man? He looked like something far less tamed. He had long, dark hair snapping behind him like a pennant and a long beard and even more hair on a face that was difficult to see. Was he a demon? Her blood chilled in her veins and her mettle nearly abandoned her. Was possibly seeing William again worth this terror? She remembered the morning the Scots came pouring into Berwick castle. Shouting and killing.
She closed her eyes and then hugged the wall when she grew dizzy staring over the stairs. Her escort tugged her elbow. She would have tugged him back but she didn’t want to fall over the side.
Another man met her at the entrance, and at the sight of t
his one, Julianna’s heart nearly beat straight out of her mouth. She recognized him. She’d seen him before at St. Peter’s! With William! She remembered this one’s scar. It ran down his face, from under his eye to his chin. The look of him, with his long hair and his belted plaid swinging around his knees could have frightened the sun from the sky if he looked up at it. But he knew William. He had to.
He eyed her as if he might remember her, as well.
She lifted her fingers to her hood, making sure her recognizable hair was covered.
“I’m here about the position for the new governess.”
He looked up at the heavens and smiled. “Ah, God is good!” he praised. “Come in! Come on!” He cleared a path and swept his arm before him.
Suddenly, her feet dug in and she was too afraid to move. Was she truly mad enough to enter a castle filled with Scots? The MacPherson had to be the earl. Her heart thundered in her chest making her feel ill. “Is…is Miss d’Argentan inside?”
“No, lass. She’s in Invergarry with her husband and their bairns. Why did ye not tell me ye knew Aleysia?”
Julianna’s head was spinning. Everything around her was spinning. What should she do? When two more plaid-swinging, sword-carrying Highlanders passed by her, her mouth went dry. No! She would not fall faint! She’d faced terrifying things before.
“Who did you say you were?”
“I’m Commander R—”
An ear-piercing scream went out through the keep, rattling the walls and making the candle flames dance—and getting Julianna’s feet moving into the entrance of the great hall. She stopped because she wasn’t completely mad to barge in on a group of Scots while they ate and drank.
Her belly rumbled. The screaming continued. “Ehm, how old is the child?” she asked.
“Two, Miss. Elias is two.”
The sound grew sharper, louder than the men trying to talk over it. Her escort shoved his pinkie into his ear and shook it.
“Is someone beating him?” Julianna asked, suddenly alarmed. If someone were hurting a child here, she would be using all her poison in one place.
“Sorry, I didna hear ye, lass.”
Julianna repeated her question and he shook his head as he led her out of the great hall, down three steps and into the main keep. “Nicholas would have our heads if we put a finger to the wee lad.”
Nicholas. Not William. She refused to be disappointed. The earl had to know where William was. But it would have to wait. She hurried down the hall toward the crying babe with her escort chasing after her.
The screeching grew closer, piercing her eardrums. She moved faster, desperate to make it stop.
She barged into a small, softly lit room with a few trunks against the wall, and a table beneath one of the windows. There was a little wooden bed, a table beside the bed, and a crying babe under it.
“Elias,” Julianna said as she removed her jewelry and put it in her bag. She got down on her belly and covered her ears. She didn’t shout over him but made him curious to hear her when she whispered. “You can come out now. I am here.”
“Lyahs want Avice,” he cried.
Lyahs, Julianna thought. Elias. “Who is Avice?” she asked another mean-looking man on the floor next to her.
“His nursemaid,” the man told her.
“Where is she? Why does no one fetch her?”
“Avice left,” the first man with the scar said. He looked twice as mean. Did he say he was the commander? “She left when Nicholas…Lord Rothbury returned home.”
Julianna hid her anger when she turned her smile on the boy. She knew what it felt like when your nursemaid left in the night when she had promised to love you.
“Elias, I am Julianna. Why do you not come out here and—”
He opened his mouth and began wailing again. Tears dripped from his eyes and soaked the floor beneath him. He looked so terrified she almost wanted to cry with him.
She rose up and sat on her calves and motioned for Scarface to come closer. She usually took control over situations quickly. This was no exception. But these were savages. She couldn’t forget that.
“Is he like this all this time?” she asked. “Or did it begin when Avice left him?”
“When Avice left,” he answered after a moment of thinking about it. “Everyone here cares fer the lad, Miss. We might give in to him too much but he isna afraid of us. Of his faither and me, mayhap, but ’tis only because he doesna know us.”
Julianna folded her arms across her chest. “Where has this child’s father been that his son does not know him?”
Scarface gave a good effort at trying to scowl and snarl at her for her question and the accusatory tone in which she asked it. But he couldn’t contend with the truth of guilt for staying away and causing the condition of the boy. His shoulders sagged and he looked away. “France, Spain, to the south where forests are as dark as some souls.” He murmured something under his breath that sounded like, “To the past.”
Julianna hadn’t really wanted their exact route. In truth, she didn’t care where they’d been. There was a question of much more importance to be asked. “How long has his father been gone?”
“Two years,” Scarface told her with a defensive undertone. Julianna realized how loyal he was to the earl.
“He had—”
“No. I do not care,” she said and held up her palms. All she could think of was the poor babe under the bed. The hysterical child with no one to be confident in, his instinct for safety telling him his safety was gone.
She’d felt it as a child, as had William. She knew William had been taken from his family in Scotland—while she still had her mother and father. But her father, as governor of one of King Edward’s mightiest strongholds, was, for the most part, not around, and if he was around then not easily available. She saw her mother even less. She would have had no one if not for Berengaria and William.
She understood how Elias felt.
“Where is the boy’s mother?”
“Dead. Mattie died givin’ us Elias.”
Dead. What a pi—Mattie? Where had she heard that name before? There was no time to think of it now. Elias was still crying. He needed Avice, but he would have to settle for Julianna.
She swept her mantle off and her hood with it and dropped the pile of wool onto the floor beside her. “You may leave,” she told the two men.
“I willna leave him with a stranger,” Scarface insisted. The other man left as if he’d just been pardoned from hanging.
“I’m the new governess,” she told Scarface.
“Ye would like to be—”
“I am,” she whispered with determination staining its softness. “Unless you go find Avice, I am!”
“Nicky didna choose ye,” he insisted.
She narrowed her eyes on him and gave herself a little shake as if she just kicked aside her doubts and fears and let confidence and determination fill her. “His son will choose me.”
He blinked at her. Elias cried out pitifully for Avice.
Julianna forgot the man and bent to look under the bed again. “Elias, come here, sweet babe,” she cooed. His crying grew louder. She repeated her invitation again, softer this time, holding out her arms. “I know you are frightened, dear heart. I am here now. There is no more reason to be afraid.”
She continued to speak to him slowly, softly, until finally he stopped crying. By the time he exited from under the bed, he was so exhausted; he crawled into her arms, stuck his thumb into his mouth and fell asleep.
“’Tis a miracle,” Scarface rejoiced under his breath and smiled at Julianna when she looked at him.
“Berengaria taught me how to comfort a babe,” she said softly.
“Who is Berengaria?” Scarface asked.
“She was my nursemaid. She taught me how to put one to sleep, feed one, bathe one, and much more. You must speak softly but not be utterly quiet so that your babe can grow used to sounds—because they are sure to come,” she said the last in her
Berengaria voice. “Mostly I learned by watching when she showed new mothers how to care for their precious bundles.”
She hoped one day to have a child. Now, she was getting old. Twenty-three in a fortnight.
“So, you see?” she said, slanting her gaze and her smile on him. “I am competent.”
“Aye, I see,” he said, smiling back.
A sound came from the door. They both looked up to see someone filling the doorway. It was the hairy beast from outside. He had to be Lord Rothbury. Up close, he was even more frightening. His long dark hair was almost as untamable as hers. It looked like it might be knotted into his beard. It made sense that Avice would leave when he returned. She was terrified of him, poor girl. And Julianna also realized that not only had little Elias begun this behavior after Avice left, but also when his father, the monster, returned.
With the babe in her arms, she rose up from the floor. Whoever this man-beast was, he was going to have to do something about how he looked—for his son’s sake. He was terrifying.
She smiled and opened her mouth to introduce herself, but he turned from the doorway and disappeared down the hall.
Chapter Three
Nicholas almost ran Rauf down in his urgency to get away from what and whom he’d just seen—Julianna Feathers holding his son.
No! It was the lighting! The shadows in the room! It was not her!
“Rauf! Dammit, what is that woman doing in Elias’ chamber?”
“She’s the new governess.”
Nicholas gripped Rauf’s jacket and pulled him close. “You will send her away this instant!”
“Why, Nicky?” he asked, pulling his ax free. “D’ye know her? Is she dangerous?”
Nicholas brought his hands to his head. He wanted to yank out every strand of his hair. What the hell was she doing here? What did she want? Had she changed her mind about him now that he was an earl? “No. She is not dangerous.” She was deadly! His gaze fell to Rauf’s weapon. “Do not put a hand to her, but get her out of Lismoor.”