Indiscretion (13 page)

Patrick put his feet up on the empty chair. He felt very hopeful and in high spirits after his time alone with Anne. "Yes," he said, unable to hide a mischievous s
mile. "Your suspicions are well-
founded. I am irrevocably in love with Lady Whitehaven."

Sandy stared at him. "You poor helpless sod."

Patrick laid his head back against the chair and listened to the steady thrum of rain on the roof. "I have loved that woman from the day I first met her," he said musingly. "Only I didn't have the sense to realize it."

"You dinna have any sense now, lad," Sandy said in a stem voice. "You might as well chase after the Queen for all the chance you have of a happy outcome in this affair."

"This will be the end of your career, Mr. Sutherland," Mrs. Forbes predicted.

"Wouldn't that be a tragedy?" he murmured. Then as he lowered his head to examine the trio of morbid faces that watched him, he realized Anne would throttle him for what he had just admitted. He had hardly proved himself to be discreet.

Mrs. Forbes squeezed his hand. "We have come to care for you, Mr. Sutherland."

He swallowed. "Have you indeed?"

"Aye, lad." Sandy pushed his leathery hand across the table. "Love you like the son I never had, I do."

Gracie frowned. "I thought your son was building the railroad in Aberdeen."

"So he is," Sandy said, "but I only hear from the rascal when he needs a loan, and so he may as well be lost to me."

"We do not want to see you get into trouble," Gracie said shyly. "You're part of our family now. We watch out for one another."

"Do we?" he said softly as he stared down at the small mound of work-worn fingers which claimed his in a stranglehold. He had deceived them. He had used them, and they meant to protect him from sorrow. He was unwillingly touched by their misplaced humanity. Still, he had a job to do, and he wouldn't leave Uncle Edgar's death an unsolved mystery, if there was any mystery to solve.

"Have you done the act of darkness with her ladyship?" Sandy asked him unexpectedly.

"Mr. Guthrie," Mrs. Forbes exclaimed. "Shame on
you. Of course he hasn't—have you, Sutherland?" she asked in horror.

"Do you suppose I would tell you if I had?" Patrick retorted.

"Lad," Sandy said, "life is like a garden. All the wee creatures have
their place. Some of us are born
to be butterflies and some of us are destined to remain worms."

Patrick took another sip of brandy, reflecting again that discretion might have served him better than blathering like a blasted fool. Such folly, however, was a symptom of a man falling in love, for clearly his long-lived infatuation with Anne had covered a more serious emotion. "What is your point, Sandy?"

Mrs. Forbes looked upon him with motherly reproach." 'The rich man in his castle. The poor man at the gate.' We all have our place, don't we? Despite your quite convincing air of pretension, Mr. Sutherland, it is quite clear you were bo
rn
belowstairs."

"It is?" Patrick said, mildly insulted.

She gave a tiny sniff of emotion. "I think this would be a nice moment for some Biblical wisdom. Gracie."

Gracie opened the well-worn book and read in a halting voice. " 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.'
"

Mrs. Forbes released a long-suffering sigh. "Mr. Guthrie, if you would."

Sandy
thumbed through the Good Book. " 'All
flesh is as
grass, and all the glory of man as the
flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth away.'
"

Which as a Biblical quote did not make much sense to anyone at the table, but at least Sandy had managed to bring the focus back to his allegorical garden where Anne fl
itted about as elusive as a but
terfly and Patrick, at least for the moment, seemed fated to remain a worm.

21

H
e
had just settled by the fire the following morning to read the newspaper when the butler's bell began to ring. He glanced up darkly at the tarnished bronze apparatus hooked above the kitchen press, an instrument of torture. Anne apparently intended to wield her power. She meant to prove her authority to summon him at will.

He threw down the paper and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. Hadn't he agreed to play her game? Her heart, after all, was the prize, and a week or so of small humiliations seemed a fair price to pay for the lady's affection.

At that first bell, which came exactly at six o'clock, he trudged all the way up the steep staircase to her room; leaning against the door, he stood in tautfaced silence as she demanded he warm her room by lighting a fire before she touched one tender white toe to the carpet.

Clenching his jaw, he knelt like an obedient fellow
and took his own revenge by lighting a bonfire big enough to roast a rhinoceros. Anne dove under the covers to escape the smoke. Smiling wickedly, he waved a bilious black-brown cloud between the bed curtains.

At the second ring, which sounded precisely one minute after he had returned to the butler's pantry, he marched back upstairs and found her propped up in bed like some sort of evil empress.

"The floor is still too chilly," she explained at his exasperated look. "Warm my slippers by the fire, won't you?"

By bell three, which tinkled just as he reached the foot of the stairs, he was ready to wring her lovely little neck. "I merely wished to know what the weather was like today so I may dress accordingly." She grinned from the shadows of the bed. "Is it fair or foul? If it's still raining, we shall be forced to stay at home."

He stormed over to the window to wrench the curtains apart. "See for yourself."

"Oh, my," Anne said. "Isn't the butler in a black toad's temper today?"

Bell four rang as he reached the first landing; Anne requested tea, toast, and a three-minute egg. Bell five was a change-of-mind to hard-boiled. Patrick hadn't even made it into the hall when bell six rang madly—her ladyship wanted a pen and crested paper to write invitations to the shooting party as they could not go to the market in the rain.

There was a suspicious lull before bell seven. In fact, Patrick waited outside Anne's room for almost
twenty minutes, ready to spring into action at the first malicious ding.

Finally, heaving a sigh, he returned to his pantry and newspaper.

His behind had just hit the chair when bell eight began to peal with a vengeance, and even the uncomplaining Mrs. Forbes could be heard muttering, "Lord Almighty. Sounds like Christmas Eve in this house."

Patrick didn't budge. It was a matter of principle.

Still, that bell kept ringing until all the servants, upper and lower, crowded outside the pantry to see what the butler would do.

"Aren't you going to answer her ladyship?" Gracie shouted, hands clapped over her ears.

"For pity's sake, Mr. Sutherland," Mrs. Forbes said in misery. "We'll all go mad if you don't."

Sandy slapped his hand onto the table. " 'Never send
to know for whom the bell tolls,
'
" he quoted, cackling like a crone. " 'It tolls for thee,' Sutherland."

" 'Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,'
" Gracie added, grinning at Sandy. " 'She shall have Sutherland wherever he goes.' "

"Let her ring," Patrick said, burying his face in the paper.

Then silence. Sudden and profound. The golden peace that poets extol and men climb mountains to find. Gracie lowered her hands. Patrick lowered the paper. Mrs. Forbes scolded him.

"With all due respect, Mr. Sutherland, it would
serve
you right if her ladyship had experienced a
dire emergency, and you had failed her in her hour of need."

Sandy nodded ominously. "Aye. What if that Sir Wallace were forcing his attentions on the helpless lady, and her ringing her wee heart out, and you sitting here reading that paper as if you havena care in the world?"

The bell rang again.

Patrick sprang out of his chair.

B
ell nine found Anne sipping tea in bed with one bare foot dangling o
ver the side. "I dropped one of
those slippers you warmed for me, Sutherland. Fetch it like a good butler. I think it might be under the bed."

His heart was beating like a war drum. On the way to her room he had envisioned plucking Sir Wallace off her body, and the twenty or so ways he could throw the man. Such as against the wall. On the floor. Down the stairs.

His nostrils flared as he drew a breath, realizing he had been duped not only by the vicious little bellringer, but by his own imagination.

He approached the bed, staring her down in frigid silence. Anne took one look at his face and pulled her foot back under the covers, her teacup clattering to the tray.

"Am I a jack-in-the-box, madam? Am I a lady's maid?"

She blinked innocently. "If you don't hurry, you shall have to warm that slipper all over again."

He leaned down, his freshly shaven face pressed
close to hers. He smelled of juniper shaving soap and starch, and a muscle jumped in his chiseled jaw. "I do not think you want a slipper."

"Of course I do."

He smiled infuriatingly. "I think you want me."

She bit out each word with razorlike precision. "I want my slipper."

"There are easier methods to bring me to your bed, Anne."

"Says the butler from Bedlam."

"I know a better way to warm you up in the morning." He swept her with a heavy-lidded look. "Interested?"

"I'd rather turn on a spit naked."

"Wouldn't that be a sight?" He slid his big hand down her side to massage her knee through the covers. "If you want my personal attention, you do not need to ring that damned bell. And if you want to be naked, we certainly don't have to roast you live as an excuse."

His skilled fingertips were summoning voluptuous sensations inside Anne. She decided the time had come to take firm hold of herself. "Where is my slipper, Sutherland? My foot is freezing."

He gave her a devilish grin. "I'd be happy to share the heat of my body with you."

A fire ignited in the pit of Anne's belly—a very bad sign. She lifted her foot into the air. "Foot. Slipper. Fetch."

He caught her toes in his hand. "Are you sure you want to carry through with this shooting party?"

"Why not?" she asked, suppressing a shiver as he
pressed his thumb into the tender instep of her foot.

"I don't know." He pushed the tray aside and sat down casually on the bed. "People sometimes drown when they drink, or there's an accidental shooting—and think of all the local men who'll hope to court the lovely widow."

"As if anyone has the chance with my butler at my heels like a bloodhound."

"And don't ever forget it." He leaned forward and kissed her gently, drawing her lower lip between his teeth. Anne went still, immobilized by a shiver of sheer lust. "I take my duty to protect you verra seriously," he whispered against her mouth.

For a confusing moment, nothing else existed but him, his virile male scent, his muscular body. "You are crowding the bed," she said, but in truth her complaint went beyond that minor offense. She could not even escape into her private thoughts these days without his presence intruding. He was like the dark horseman on the hill of destiny who waited for the right moment to descend.

He moved his hand up her arm and deepened the kiss while Anne, who knew she should be fighting, sank deeper and deeper into a trance of pleasure.

"I need you so, Anne," he said roughly.

"You don't," she whispered.

"Aye, I do." He lifted his head and gazed at her. "I do."

She glanced away "You never did find my slipper."

Swearing under his breath, he got down on his knees and began a futile search for the lost slipper.

He hunted under the bed and was on an archeological dig behind the dressing screen when Nellwyn entered the room.

"Don't you ever put anything away after you wear it, Anne?" he muttered. "This place is a disgrace."

"Disgrace is exactly the word for it," Nellwyn said, closing the door behind her. "I see you, Patrick. It's no use hiding. I have eyes like a hawk."

He emerged from behind the screen with a silk stocking over his arm. "I wasn't hiding," he said in annoyance. "I was looking for Anne's slipper in that mess."

Anne sat down at the dressing table. "Come to think of it, that slipper might have fallen out the window."

Patrick frowned. "It
fell?"

"Really, Anne," Nellwyn said, seating herself on the couch. "Playing fetch with Patrick is hardly helpful to our investigation."

Investigation. Anne sat up straighter, a guilty look on her face. Poor Uncle Edgar's demise had been the last thing on her
mind. She gave Patrick a self-
righteous scowl.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"I ought to?" he said. "Listen to Quasimodo of Notre Dame and her bells."

Nellwyn looked
at Patrick. "What exactly did you
do last night after you
left the house?"

"I rode to the lo
ch
and
met the local physician,"
he said.

"Doctor MacDonald?" Anne rose from her chair and disappeared behind the screen.

"Aye, and in case you haven't guessed, I was the ghost Gracie saw in the rowboat," he said. "I wanted to get a sense of how Edgar might have died. So I put myself literally in his place."

"Why did the girl claim you had glowing eyes and a fang?" Nellwyn asked.

He grinned. "I was smoking one of David's cigars, which would explain the red eye.
I had almost for
gotten what it was like to have a minute to myself. The fang was a figment of her imagination."

Anne sighed. "May
I
have some privacy to dress now?"

He leaned against the wardrobe, completely ignoring her. "According to the report of autopsy, Uncle Edgar died of natural causes," he explained to Nellwyn. "Except for the fact his shirt appears to have been missing a button, it seems he expired while rowing his boat."

"A button?" Anne stretched her bare foot out from the screen to feel around the floor. "My stocking is missing."

"Perhaps it jumped out the window to join your slipper," Patrick said.

Her head popped out from behind the screen. "You took it, didn't you—I can see it on your arm
.
How were you going to explain
that
to the staff?"

He tossed the stocking over the screen. "The same way you were going to explain your slipper in the courtyard."

"Perhaps you could explain them both to the Queen in light of the fact you will have nothing to tell her about Lord Kingaim," Nellwyn said crossly.

"Now my pantalettes of French percale are missing
,"
Anne announced.

Patrick shrugged. "Don't look at me."

Nellwyn rose spryly from the couch. "Instead of intruding on Anne, I suggest that you spend more time belowstairs, Sutherland. I have taken the liberty of advertising for temporary help for our party, and it will be your duty to conduct the interviews."

Anne bumped into something behind the screen. "A most excellent suggestion."

"As for you, Anne," Nellwyn continued, "I do not see how breaking your neck on that horse will do much good either. My suggestion to you is to stay close to Sutherland at all times until the murderer is apprehended."

"Now
that
is excellent advice," Patrick said from the door. "Auntie Nellwyn, I would be obliged if you would make her follow it."