A Slip In Time (18 page)

Approaching the end of the corridor where it
opened onto the entrance hall, Julia spied a blemish on her dress
and brushed at it, her eyes cast down. As she lifted her gaze, a
form melted from the shadows and stepped into her path.

Julia halted abruptly, pitching onto
her toes. Hands caught her shoulders, arresting her forward plunge,
and steadied her. Julia next found herself staring at a man’s
chest, clothed with a woolly tweed jacket that smelled faintly of
mosses but also of whiskey.

The hands continued to grip her, and she cut
her gaze upward, only to discover the smiling face of Lord
Eaton.

“Julia, my dear. I hope I didn’t
afright you.”

“L-lord Ea—”

“Roger. You really must call me
Roger.”

A spark kindled in his eyes and Julia
realized for the first time there were red flecks in their amber
depths.

“There is no need for formality
between us, when we’ve known one another for so long,” he
persisted, his sugared words ringing falsely sweet.

“Two and a half months is hardly
long.” She attempted to shrug his hands away, but the pressure of
his fingers increased.

“Long enough.”

His liquid gaze flowed over her. Julia
recoiled, feeling somehow contaminated.

“I must say, sweet Julia, the bloom is
back in your cheeks, though you still appear a trifle fatigued. Are
you not sleeping well in the tower?” One side of his mustache
pulled upward, over a knowing smile. “Or could you just be keeping
late hours?”

Julia took a sharp step backward, freeing
herself of his grasp and putting space between them. What was the
man about?

“I am quite comfortable in the tower
and am sleeping satisfactorily,” she allowed, her tone
crisp.

Lord Eaton’s smile remained. “Then
might I presume your stay at Dunraven is agreeable to you in every
way?”

“Yes. Very much so.” Whatever did he
want?” Again, I must thank you for inviting me here. My time in
Scotland has been very . . . diverting.”

Julia started to step around him, but he
matched her movements, blocking her path.

“Diverting?
Diverting.”
He rolled
the word on his tongue as if a delectable morsel. “A most
interesting choice of words.”

The gleam intensified in his eyes and Julia
felt her nerves knot straight down to her toes.

“Lord Ea—”

“Roger,” he insisted.

“Sir, I really must—”

“Roger.” Lilith’s voice sliced the air
as she called out from the hall.

Lord Eaton quickly turned and stepped aside,
allowing Julia a full view of her cousin, where she stood on the
grand staircase.

Attired in a forest green riding habit
and high-crowned hat, a riding crop caught firmly beneath her arm,
Lilith tugged on long yellow kid gloves. Seeing Julia, she stilled,
her gaze flicking to Lord Eaton then back again to Julia. Her eyes
flared then narrowed to jade slits.

Lilith grasped hold of her riding crop and
descended to the bottom of the steps, switching the crop against
her skirt. As she approached the two, she grasped the crop before
her in both hands.

Lord Eaton strode forward and met her
partway. “Ah, Lilith, I was just telling your dear cousin how
recovered she is looking. I do believe the Scottish air agrees
with her.”

Lilith tapped the crop against her
gloved palm as she regarded him, then Julia, with a studied look.
“Roger, she’s scarcely poked her head out of the castle since she
arrived. And now I understand she is helping your uncle set rights
to his dusty books.”

“Something like that.” He stole a
glance to Julia.

“Poor Julia.” Lilith bestowed a
condescending smile. “She suffers such a weak constitution.” She
rolled her eyes up to Lord Eaton. “But then it is a challenge to
keep up with you vigorous men.”

He began to open his mouth in response
but Lilith tucked her hand through the crook of his arm and drew
him with her toward the front door, her hips swaying, the crop
switching her skirts anew. “Where did you say we are riding
today?”

Roger turned to her, stilling her
crop, and covering her hands with his own. “There is a splendid
lake, black as a mirror, about a half hour’s ride from
here.”

As Lord Eaton opened the massive door,
Lilith twisted around and shot a glance back to Julia.

“Good-bye, cousin.” She smiled thinly.
“Do try to get outside on the grounds today. You are wretchedly
pale. Positively cadaverous.”

Julia clenched her hands at her sides
as the door swung closed. Perhaps during their outing, the two
could sort out whether she possessed a “bloom” to her cheeks or was
bloodless, she mused darkly, irked with Lilith but disturbed by
Lord Eaton.

Her mood fermenting, Julia turned past
the great staircase and headed for the corridor at the back wall.
She gave a shudder, physically and mentally sloughing off the
whole grotesque encounter and continued on to her room.

She would need to take caution not to
find herself alone with Lord Eaton in the future, she decided. As
to Lilith, if she could not see the obvious — that she entertained
not a whit of interest in Roger Dunnington — well, Lilith could
just stew in her petty jealousy.

As Julia climbed the aged stairways to the
upper levels, she let her thoughts run ahead. She and Lord Muir
risked discovery, meeting like this, during the day, when the
servants would be busy about the castle with their chores. Yet, she
knew she could depend on him to divert them to the other wings and
away from the tower. She herself would need to deal with an
ever-attentive Betty.

Passing down the Long Hall, Julia
swept a glance over the portraits. Lord Muir assured her none
dated to before the sixteenth century, still she found herself
searching their faces for a likeness of Rae Mackinnon. Either owing
to the subjects’ qualities or the artists’ level of skill, she
could find no resemblances there.

Entering the chamber, she checked her pocket
watch and deemed she still had time before Lord Muir agreed to
arrive and set up his devices.

She paced the room, biting the end of
her thumbnail, concerned about the corset she presently wore and
whether to risk the Scotsman’s relieving her of it. She owned but
one more.

Betty chose that moment to appear,
obviously having come by way of the servants’ passage which Julia
had discovered herself but yesterday.

“Is there anything you are needin’,
miss?”

“Yes, Betty. I’m glad you are here.
I’ve decided to spend the rest of the morning writing out a few
letters and then I should like to lie down for a time.”

“Very well, miss. Shall I lay out your
nightgown?”

“No!” Julia declared hastily, visions
of Rae Mackinnon stripping the garment from her with ease. “If you
could just help me from my corset, I’ll put on my dressing sacque
for now.”

“As you wish, miss.”

With Betty’s assistance, Julia stepped
from her morning gown and gained freedom from her corset. As she
slipped into the billowy sacque she dismissed the maid.

“Thank you, Betty, I’ll not need you
until later, when it is time to dress for tea.”

Giving a nod and smile, Betty departed.

Julia immediately removed the sacque
and moved to the armoire. She donned a pretty but simple silk
shirtwaist, softly shirred and trimmed with camellia pink ribbon
and lace. This she coupled with a brocade skirt of slate blue.
Without her corset, the skirt’s waistband proved more than a little
snug. She sucked in her breath to fasten it, accepting the
discomfort which, in truth, wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as the
corset itself.

Pulling at the wide upper sleeves of her
shirtwaist, she puffed their fullness.

Such an incredible adventure she was
part to, and such scandalous deception, she reflected, twisting
the ring on her finger out of habit. She glanced down at its rosy
stone. Last night’s events so stunned her, she’d forgotten to tell
Lord Muir of her suspicions about hers and Rae’s matching
stones.

Of her ring’s history, she knew it to
be an heirloom, passed down to her mother from the Gordon ties of
long ago. Its blushing quartz reputedly came from the Cairngorms
here in the Grampian region, yet it was wholly unlike the peaty
stones typically found there. Could the stone Rae wore about his
neck also have originated from the Cairngorms as well?

Julia consulted her watch once more and saw
she still had a quarter of an hour to spare before Lord Muir would
arrive. She rested in one of the velvet chairs at the table,
fidgeting with its fringed arms and tapping her foot. She rose,
filled with restive energy, and began to pace. She contemplated the
homely engraving on the fireplace hood, then paused before the
little octagonal mirror hanging to its left.

She considered her hair, coiled into a
high chignon. She was tempted to release the pins and let it spill
down, knowing Rae preferred it that way. She resisted, reprimanding
herself for being tempted to such vanities as primping. Her sole
objective was to gather information on the Scotsman’s past, not to
entice him, to allure or seduce him. As if she knew how, she
laughed at the ludicrousness of the thought.

With that acknowledged, she peered
back into the mirror, examined the fringe of curls framing her
face, bit her lips to heighten their color, and pinched her cheeks,
assuring they held some “bloom.”

As she started to adjust a wayward curl at
her temple, the mirror evaporated before her eyes, the air charging
with its familiar weightiness. She straightened and looked past
her shoulder to the left. The studded, arched door awaited
her.

Julia worried the ring on her finger
and chewed her lip. Each moment was precious. She couldn’t afford
to wait for the marquis.

Her decision made, she checked her pocket
watch and noted the precise time. Then, bracing herself, Julia
crossed the chamber and passed through the door.

Light filtered through the tower’s
narrow, slitted windows, softly lighting the steps. Torches,
guttered in their brackets, had yet to be replaced. As she neared
the bottom of the steps and the alcove, voices reached her, mostly
feminine, speaking rapidly in their airy Gaelic tongue.

Julia paused, the mingled scents of venison
and smoke enwrapping her as she gazed on the ancient hall. There
the women, girls, and children of both sexes bustled about, all
barefooted, the young girls wearing their hair flowing free.

A knot of men stood across the hall by
the door, arguing, she believed. One, with reddish brown hair and a
scar severing one brow, turned on another and gave him a rash of
his mind. The second man was younger and taller than the first,
dark-haired and smooth-faced. In truth, both favored Rae in looks —
his brothers, she guessed, Iain and Donald.

As the older man, Iain, continued to
berate the younger Donald, a prickly feeling spread through Julia.
Iain seemed argumentative to the extreme, bullish and pugnacious.
How she wished to know what they were saying.

After a moment longer, Donald quit the
hall, his look black but his emotions held in check. Iain snorted a
laugh and turned back to the other men, hard-looking even for
Highlanders, she thought. But what did she really know of the wild
men of these parts? Except of Rae Mackinnon.

She must find him, before time ran dry.

Ignoring the tremors passing through her,
she stepped into the open hall and began to traverse its length. If
what Rae told her was true, and her previous experience of the hall
was any indication, none could see her.

Julia continued on, holding her breath
and gratified no one took note of her as she crossed the expanse,
stepping around several servants and passing near the men, who
proved much more fearsome close up. She stepped outside the hall
and into the open.

Julia squinted, the sunlight cutting her
eyes. She glimpsed people at various tasks, but did not see Rae.
There were more trees, she noted, scanning the grounds, and less
castle. A lot less.

Julia’s ears pricked at the sound of
Rae’s rich voice. She spied him at a distance, mounted on a stout
Highland horse, speaking with several other riders. He clasped
hands with them one by one, bidding each farewell. At that, the
brawny-looking men departed Dunraven, riding southward without road
or path to guide them.

Rae turned his mount toward the castle,
exchanging words here and there with his people, busy at varied
tasks. Looking toward the keep, his eyes discovered Julia and he
reined his horse.

He stared at her a long moment as if
debating something inwardly, then pressed his heels to the flank
of his garron and rode forward. His gaze remained fixed on Julia as
he brought the beast to a halt beside her.

“Come ride wi’ me, lass,” he invited,
his eyes devouring her, his voice holding a sharp need.

Julia saw that he drew looks from others in
the castle yard as he awaited her answer, leaning from his mount,
his hand outstretched.

Quickly, she stepped forward and
reached up, allowing him to take her up before him. His arm
encircled her waist at once. Holding her fast, he urged the horse
away and rode out a distance, to where none could disturb
them.