At the moment, Jonathan was eating a sort of rabbit stew as a product of one of Fergus’ hunts. “Excellent fare, Mrs. O’Boyle. I thank you for your efforts on my behalf.”
“Not at all. I will have the remainder of your supper done in a trice.”
Jonathan stood. “There is no rush. Take your time. I will retire to my rooms to change. I thank you for your company, madam.” He bowed ever so slightly in gratitude, then left the room. As he turned the corner, he caught the gape-mouthed looks of the other servants staring at him before he disappeared from their sight. It would appear that I have thoroughly shocked them. Had he not been so exhausted he would have chuckled with amusement.
He climbed the stairs to his room where he was met by his valet, Summers. “My Lord,” Summers greeted taking his jacket.
“Summers,” Jonathan replied sitting down on the settee at the end of his bed. He leaned back and allowed the valet to assist him with the removal of his boots.
“I have taken the liberty of drawing you a bath, My Lord.”
“Thank you, Summers. It has been a long day and I am sure to be most foul.”
The valet smiled in amusement, but hid it by turning away. Jonathan smiled slightly and began to remove the rest of his clothing. He walked over to the tub that had been set by the fireplace and eased into the water. The tub had been especially made so that a man taller than he could sit with his legs fully extended out in front of him. Jonathan laid his head back against the side of the tub and sighed. He closed his eyes and let the tension in his muscles relax.
He thought of Grace and what circumstance she might have found herself in. He doubted that bathing had been something afforded to her and for a moment felt guilty for his moment of pleasure. His thoughts turned back to Amelia and he hoped that both of his sisters were safe. He missed them both greatly. Since the death of their mother they had been all each other had had. Jonathan, as the eldest and his father’s heir, had made certain every day of their lives that they were safe and cared for.
“Is the water to your satisfaction, My Lord?”
“Yes, Summers. Thank you.”
The valet left the bedchamber entering the adjacent dressing room. Jonathan watched him go observing his behaviors. From the moment he had learned of Grace’s abduction he had watched every member of the household with suspicion. He knew that someone had betrayed them, but he had been unable to ascertain who it had been. Living with such suspicions had been an extremely unpleasant experience causing him to distrust everyone. He hated it.
Taking the soap and a cloth, he scrubbed himself from head to toe, doing so with such vigor as if he could somehow wash away all of the pain, anger, and fear beneath. When he had finished, he stepped out of the tub wrapping a sheet around his waist. He walked over to the window and stared down at the grounds below.
A memory of their mother chasing them around the grounds flashed through his mind. She had been a beautiful woman of lively spirit. Unique among her class and sex, just as her daughters were now. Grace was nearly the image of the Viscountess in looks including her beautiful hazel green eyes, while Amelia had her indominable spirit. They all had their mother’s lovely dark curls, but Jonathan and Amelia had inherited their father’s dark eyes.
Jonathan’s gaze fell on his reflection in the windowpane. His masculine features were a bit more drawn than usual. Dark circles plagued the underside of his eyes. I need to get more sleep, or I will not be fit to help anyone.
Shaking his head, he turned away from the window and moved to dress for the evening meal. He had not eaten all day but for the small bit of rabbit stew he had been given in the kitchen. He had been skipping meals in an attempt to cover as much ground as he could each day and it was beginning to take its toll on his energy. When he descended the stairs to the dining room, he found that the cook had managed an entire venison roast for him.
“Mrs. O’ Boyle has outdone herself,” he commented to the butler who was standing by with a decanter of wine waiting to serve him.
“Yes, My Lord.” Applegate was a quiet man of few words. Jonathan supposed that he had to be considering the master whom he served. The Viscount was not one for frivolous speech.
“’Tis a great deal of food for just one person, but I suppose I do not have much of a choice at the moment,” Jonathan remarked feeling ridiculous every night as he came home and sat by himself in the large dining room to eat meals meant for an entire family, not one man.
Had it been Amelia left alone, he had no doubt that she would have invited the entirety of the household staff to join her. Were Jonathan to do so they would have refused in horror at the violation of the strictures of their respective classes. Sighing, he ate his meal alone in silence. He hoped that Grace was at the very least being fed properly. If he could have willed the meal before him through magic to his sister, he would have in an instant.
When he was finished, Jonathan retired to the library for a brandy and a cigar. Sitting down behind his father’s desk, he looked over the affairs of the estate and dealt with everything that needed immediate attention. When he was finished, he arose to retire for the night and spotted a piece of paper laying on the floor beside him. Hmm, it must have dropped when I was going through the accounts. He bent down to pick it up, flipping it over in his hands to see what was written.
The moment he saw the handwriting he tensed. It was the same as that of the ransom note. He looked all about him to see if anyone was watching. Turning back to the page he read the letter. Stop asking questions. Tell no one or the girl dies.
Jonathan frowned. Someone knew that he was making inquiries and was warning him off. He went back over the many people he had spoken with in his mind second guessing everything that had been said. Someone had warned the kidnappers that he was asking around about them. But whom?
Jonathan called everyone within the household to the library and asked them about the letter. They all denied it. Taking out a pen he asked each and every one of them for a writing sample. Not all of them could write, so he had several X’s, but out of those that could write he did not find a match. Angry and disheartened, he dismissed them all to their duties. Sitting back down at the desk, he pulled a sheet of paper and began to write a letter to Amelia and Henry.
He explained what had happened keeping it short and simple. He ended the letter with a heartfelt warning wishing he could be there with them to protect his sister. ‘They are in our houses. Trust no one. I remain your ever loving and devoted brother, J.’
Chapter 9
Tristan sat in the darkness looking out over the starlit landscape. The night was peaceful but for Fergus’ snoring. He hoped that the men he had killed would not have avenging fellow clansmen for him to deal with in the future. Such a thing would slow them down significantly placing them all in danger. He did not like to take human life, but the brigands had given him little choice. He had absolutely no tolerance at all for men of such ilk who would stoop to harming anyone in such a fashion.
Amelia had scared him out of his mind by running off that way. When he had found her being attacked, he had gone mad with rage. If I had lost her… He shook his head attempting to remove the image from his mind. We arrived in time. That is all that matters.
He shifted his stance stretching his back and legs. It had been a long day. He was a man used to spending his days in the saddle riding and hunting in his family estate, but even with all of his experience his body still ached from the strain. Amelia stirred restlessly a few paces away. His heart went out to her. She had suffered more than anyone at the loss of Grace. Amelia had been as a mother to her even though they had all been children when the Viscountess had died. He knew her heart was shattered.
Tristan studied her dark form for a moment. The outline of her curves against the horizon made him long to join her. To sleep with her in my arms, there would be no greater heaven. He knew his thoughts were blasphemous, but he did not care. She was and always would be the love of his life, whether she ever f
elt the same for him or not.
He had hoped that once Grace was married and running a house of her own that Amelia would reconsider their fathers’ proposal for uniting the Dowding and Knight families through marriage. It had been his father’s dying wish to see them wed knowing how his son had felt about her, but Amelia had refused. It had broken Tristan’s heart, and she had acted as though she hadn’t the faintest idea of his affections. Unwilling to force himself upon any woman, Tristan had not pressed the issue.
I tried to overcome my love for you, he silently informed her shadowy figure, but it was all for nothing.
Turning away from her, he did his best to turn his thoughts to other things. He thought of Grace and her kidnappers but found it to be even more disconcerting than his unrequited love for Amelia. For as long as he lived, he would never understand how anyone could harm such an innocent young girl. Grace had never done harm to a single soul in her entire life. He knew that she blamed herself for her mother’s death in childbirth, but no one else did. Not even the Viscount.
God give her the strength to get through this. He prayed fervently that it would not all end in tragedy and heartbreak. He turned his gaze to the stars and thought of all the nights as children that they had snuck out of their beds and met each other at the boundary between their adjoining estates. They had all lain out under the stars counting them and giving them names. They each had a star named after them and Tristan attempted to find them now as he stared up into the night sky.
Now that he was older, he knew that the stars already had names long before they had given them their own as children, but he still thought of them as their stars. They had all agreed that the brightest star in the firmament must be God as the North Star guided travelers on their way. He smiled at the thought of their youthful innocence. What I would not give to return to such carefree days.
Tristan found Orion’s Belt and his heart surged at the memory of the night when he and Amelia had lain in the grass, she taking the red one and he taking the blue one as their own. Little Grace had innocently suggested that the three stars in the middle were their future children when they got married someday. Amelia had scoffed at the idea, but Tristan had secretly agreed with Grace and had refused to name them until the day that their children would be born. Thinking of it now he chuckled in amusement.
If only I had known what lie ahead. Perhaps if he had known then what he knew now he could have saved himself the heartbreak, but somehow, he doubted that he could have. The damage had been done, he had loved her from the first moment that she had sung to him as he lay in her arms. No man, young or old, could have withstood such beauty of spirit, no one.
Today she had pointed a gun at him and threatened to kill him. If there was ever a sign that she did not and would not ever love him, he could not think of a better more permanent refusal of a person’s affections than that. Amelia was a woman of determined heart and independent mind. She was passionate and fiery, glowing as red hot as her star in the sky. She had proclaimed that she would wed no man unless she wished to do so, and she had kept her promise much to the Viscount’s consternation.
At least she did not shoot me. He would not have put it past her to have done so if she had truly thought he would come between her and finding her sister. He had only wished to keep her safe from harm, but she would not have cared about that. All she could think about right now was Grace’s safety and he believed that she was capable of committing any number of crimes to see it through, even murder. He found that instead of resenting her, or judging her daft, he found that he admired her all the more for it.
A rarer woman I have not found, either in heaven or here on earth bound. He chuckled at his attempts at poetry. I am certainly not the bard.
His thoughts turned to one of his favorite passages from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.
‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.’
Tristan shook his head. How often had he thought of those very words over the years of longing for a love that never came? How often had he lain abed and gazed out of his window at their stars and ached for her touch upon his skin. He turned his head back to gaze upon her outline and thought of another of his favorite lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
“Doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt that the sun doth move; doubt truth to be a liar; but never doubt I love… thee,” he whispered into the night. Amelia stirred but continued to sleep. “I love thee more than life, Amelia Dowding, and if that is what you ask of me then I give it freely, but I will never willingly allow you to throw yours away no matter how precious the reason. If there is a price to pay along this hunt, then please God, let it be me that pays it and not her.” He willed his words to the heavens. “Let it be me.”
* * *
When morning dawned, their little party arose and continued on their journey. Amelia had slept fitfully through the night. She had dreamt an endless stream of nightmares that had left her feeling more bereft upon waking than she had upon lying down. She had not known such a thing to be possible, and yet it was. Sighing she had arisen and gone about her day.
As she rode along, she was reminded of an odd moment in the night. Somewhere in her slumbering, the terror had been broken up by a dream wherein Tristan had declared his undying love in the most romantic terms that she could ever have hoped for. It had been perfect, and she had awakened feeling strangely sorrowed by the fact that his declaration had not been real. She had also awakened with an unexplained urge to read the works of William Shakespeare.
How odd…brushing her frivolous thoughts aside, she set her mind once again to the task of finding her sister.
* * *
“The sea,” Grace breathed as she came in sight of the large expanse of water.
They had ridden the length of Scotland and had come to its northern-most shores. She had lost count of the number of days that they had traveled. A boat lay in the water in front of them and the men dismounted walking toward it. The man who held Grace picked her up and carried her over his shoulder placing her into the bow of the boat. “Where are you taking me?” she protested fighting back as best she could with her hands being bound. She was terrified that she would never see her beloved land or family again.
Only two of the men climbed into the boat. The others remained behind with the horses. The two men shoved off from shore ignoring her every protest, rowing for a time, then let loose the small sail. The boat was a smaller fishing vessel that barely fit the three of them with any comfort. It was a calm day, but even so the little boat was tossed about by the rough lapping of the water. The rocking of the boat caused Grace to be ill and she retched over the side. She contemplated jumping overboard.
I could not swim to shore with my hands being bound, but perhaps death would be better than what lies ahead. Such a death would not be a kindness to my family, nor would it serve me well in the hereafter.
Deciding suicide was not the answer she continued to suffer from sea sickness the entire journey. By the time that they reached land once more she was wishing that she had killed herself. The men beached the boat and pulled her from the bow, carrying her further up the shoreline. “Where are you taking me?” she managed to croak out through her acid-raw throat.
“You will see soon enough.”
When Grace first la
id eyes on her prison she gasped in a mixture of awe and fear. The dry stacked stone tower rose above them in ominous gray beauty. “Welcome to Mousa Broch,” the man who carried her jeered, then tossed her inside onto the cold hard gray stone floor.
“Mousa?” she murmured in confusion trying to remember where she had heard the name before. “Shetland!” The scoundrels had brought her to one of the Shetland Islands. There was no possible way that anyone was ever going to find here. All remaining hope that she had been clinging to fell away, her only hope was to be ransomed, rescue would now be impossible.
She screamed in despair and pounded the ground with her fists. “Let me out of here! Let me return to my family! Please!” she sobbed her protests to deaf ears. The sound echoed up around her coming back to settle in her own ears adding to her despair. She continued to cry for some time, but eventually settled down, having exhausted what little energy she possessed. After she had quieted, she began to look around her for a way out.
The Haunted Knight 0f Lady Canterley Page 8